Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course

Radii · 04-20-2015, 11:21 PM

How Have I changed as a result of learning about mindfulness

So, this is how we close out the dynasty.

I want to point out up front that I'm not some hugely changed person. Instead, I see a bunch of small things here and there, many of which may overlap, or I see ways that I am applying concepts I've learned here to analytical things. Maybe some of these turn into big things with more practice. Who knows where meditation will take me if I stick with it over the long term, which I really hope to do. I know just enough to be confidant that it will take me somewhere very positive.

I beat myself up less/fuss at myself less

So this is the big one for me. I'm not sure why this clicked for me so immediately, but it did. Both with big and little things. Big things being things where I feel like I'm failing, or not living up to my own standards, on some larger scale thing. Cheating on my diet, eating too much, knowing I could drop the final 25 pounds I have with ease if I were a bit more disciplined, but I haven't made it a priority. Going to the gym, sometimes I go 6 times a week, sometimes just once or twice. This had gotten really consistent, then faded off a bit. Working towards a deadline or goal at work. On smaller things, working on my mechanics in a video game, not being able to execute things I know I'm capable of. I have some bad habits I'm working on, the posture stuff in all kinds of settings. The nervous tic that won't seem to completely go away even though I can control it pretty darn well in front of other people. With all of these things any time I noticed them... and with the small habits that might be 10-20 times in a day, I would at best get annoyed at myself. Sometimes downright mad. So not only am I not doing what I want in a given moment, now I'm adding stress by fussing or yelling at myself. There's just no point in doing that. I still want to do everything well/right/perfect, so i still pay attention to these things, and I still try to do better, correct bad habits in the moment when I notice them, etc. But I don't give myself the additional stress that comes with an internal monologue of "WHY DO YOU KEEP FUCKING THIS UP".

This one just stopped... pretty much entirely, cold turkey. As I said, I don't really know what we did that got the idea across to me to stop this behavior, but I just don't do this anymore, at all. I can remember times where I'd get annoyed enough at myself that it would effect my mood.

On to the smaller things:

Overthinking/Analysis Craziness

One of the first things I talked about when I described myself in this dynasty is that I anaylze everything, I'm super logical and super analytical, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I still don't think its a bad thing in general, and I'll always be driven by logic over all. But now, I can use a lot of concepts I've learned in this class to anaylze better. Or to let something go instead of seriously overthinking.

-- A phrase that has come up throughout the class is viewing your "thoughts as thoughts". The idea being that so much of what races through your head is unconscious. That its a natural thing to do to fill in the gaps and create a story about what a conversation meant, what the other person was thinking. The other important piece of knowledge that I have comes from the section in the 2nd or 3rd week that I titled "the physiology of stress." Small stress created from small things because our unconscious mind is trying to protect us from danger is happening frequently throughout the day.

How does that stuff help me here? Its actually hard to point out detailed, specific examples. What I can say is that I have caught myself countless times in the last month saying to myself "huh, is this really worth the time I'm giving it in my head? This thing that's on my mind is actually pretty pointless, lets focus somewhere else".

Is that really mindfulness? Eh, I dunno. But its applying new understandings I have to take away the need to get stuck on things quite as much in my head, and that's a positive change.

Slowing Down

To put it simply, I am more aware of what's going on in my head. I may notice if I am thinking about 4 things at once, or just planning out the next day, or the next week, instead of paying any attention at all to what's happening right now. My mind still races around most of the time, I see hints that a long term meditation practice can give one some small control over that, but I'm not going out looking for it or anything. I have breathing space as an attempt at a "break". Sometimes after I do that my mind is immediately racing again. But still the momentary break is helpful. We learned a number of different ways in class that slowing down physically can help. Walk just a little slower, take a break racing from one distraction to another. Stop and do a little slow stretching.

A concrete example of a time when this worked, and worked perfectly: On a walk last week I had music playing and was thinking about something for work, what I was going to have for dinner, what I wanted to do after dinner later that night, and thinking about an e-mail I'd sent that hadn't been answered yet that was bothering me. Four things at once, none of which I could do anything about on my walk. Not unusual, and not really a huge problem on occasion. But in that moment I decided to see if I could do something different. I turned off my music, started walking at a slower pace, and decided I was going to make note of every tree I passed. Apply a little of that present awareness stuff. For whatever reason, in this moment, it worked completely. I stopped thinking about all of the stuff that was on my mind. I didn't have some transcendental experience or some "oh nature is amazing!" thing. It was still just a walk in an area I've walked 1000 times before. But my mind stopped wandering, I felt really, really calm. What is usually a 45 minute walk took 1 hour 15 minutes. I felt great the whole time.

That doesn't always happen. It doesn't always "work". And a walk on a nice evening is one of the easier things to bring mindfulness to. But it feels like the beginning of something.

I'm less rushed

This goes hand in hand with "slowing down", but its slightly different. I'm less interested in clinging to my distractions. I'm more willing to just hang out. To walk to the CVS near my house instead of driving, even if I've already gotten exercise that day. To take a little more time cooking even if it means a little less free time in the evenings. I used to find myself leaving the house for appointments at the last possible second, having to speed to be on time, or maybe even being late if there was any traffic problem. The idea of spending a single second more than necessary doing nothing, waiting on others, sounded terrible. Now I realize how much I hate that rushed feeling when I might be late, and if I get somewhere 10 minutes early, I can just close my eyes and focus on my breathing. Something akin to sitting meditation, though I'm not sure it "counts" in those settings. But it is calming, and I like doing it.

Body Awareness

I've mentioned this a ton, and it wasn't something I expected to even begin to get out of this class, but here it is. Its still a struggle for me. I still mostly notice pain, no pain, and nothing in between. But I can tell that I'm slowly... very, very slowly... becoming more aware of what parts of my body may be tense at any given time, even if they aren't hurting. I'm a little more aware of "pretty good" vs "perfect" posture, without having to get up and go stand against a wall to double-check myself. I'm a little more aware if I'm leaning forward or back, left or right when standing, if I'm putting more pressure/reliance on one area of my body to do a task than maybe I should. Again, I can't stress how small this is. Lets say from 0% awareness to 10%. But progressing up from 0% is nice! Months and months of physical therapy and massage therapy gets a lot of credit for this, but so do mindfulness practices where the focus is entirely to notice sensations in the body, the body scan and walking meditation.

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally - 2 months ago I could really only explain that definition by repeating what our instructor said about it. It didn't mean much of anything to me. Now, even though I may not choose to try to do it non-stop or anything, I do actually understand how much of my time is spent thinking about the past, or planning for the future, instead of just letting go and giving myself a moment here and there to be fully aware of what's happening right now. Sometimes, letting go of all of that stuff and really experiencing whatever is happening right now can be extremely rewarding.

That about wraps this up. In closing, I'll re-iterate that I haven't done anything magic in the last two months. 90% of my day is still exactly the same as it was before. But, Meditation feels like a pretty awesome thing to do on a regular basis. And, I have the ability to have a different perspective on many things that happen in life that I didn't have available to me before. I have a little more active choice to decide whether to stress about all kinds of things, big and small, and it feels like that has real potential to develop over time, if I keep doing this stuff, into something that I could potentially look back on as life changing. Maybe. Maybe not. I'll keep doing some of this stuff, and we'll see what happens!

04-20-2015, 11:21 PM	#113
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	How Have I changed as a result of learning about mindfulness So, this is how we close out the dynasty. I want to point out up front that I'm not some hugely changed person. Instead, I see a bunch of small things here and there, many of which may overlap, or I see ways that I am applying concepts I've learned here to analytical things. Maybe some of these turn into big things with more practice. Who knows where meditation will take me if I stick with it over the long term, which I really hope to do. I know just enough to be confidant that it will take me somewhere very positive. I beat myself up less/fuss at myself less So this is the big one for me. I'm not sure why this clicked for me so immediately, but it did. Both with big and little things. Big things being things where I feel like I'm failing, or not living up to my own standards, on some larger scale thing. Cheating on my diet, eating too much, knowing I could drop the final 25 pounds I have with ease if I were a bit more disciplined, but I haven't made it a priority. Going to the gym, sometimes I go 6 times a week, sometimes just once or twice. This had gotten really consistent, then faded off a bit. Working towards a deadline or goal at work. On smaller things, working on my mechanics in a video game, not being able to execute things I know I'm capable of. I have some bad habits I'm working on, the posture stuff in all kinds of settings. The nervous tic that won't seem to completely go away even though I can control it pretty darn well in front of other people. With all of these things any time I noticed them... and with the small habits that might be 10-20 times in a day, I would at best get annoyed at myself. Sometimes downright mad. So not only am I not doing what I want in a given moment, now I'm adding stress by fussing or yelling at myself. There's just no point in doing that. I still want to do everything well/right/perfect, so i still pay attention to these things, and I still try to do better, correct bad habits in the moment when I notice them, etc. But I don't give myself the additional stress that comes with an internal monologue of "WHY DO YOU KEEP FUCKING THIS UP". This one just stopped... pretty much entirely, cold turkey. As I said, I don't really know what we did that got the idea across to me to stop this behavior, but I just don't do this anymore, at all. I can remember times where I'd get annoyed enough at myself that it would effect my mood. On to the smaller things: Overthinking/Analysis Craziness One of the first things I talked about when I described myself in this dynasty is that I anaylze everything, I'm super logical and super analytical, and I don't think that's a bad thing. I still don't think its a bad thing in general, and I'll always be driven by logic over all. But now, I can use a lot of concepts I've learned in this class to anaylze better. Or to let something go instead of seriously overthinking. -- A phrase that has come up throughout the class is viewing your "thoughts as thoughts". The idea being that so much of what races through your head is unconscious. That its a natural thing to do to fill in the gaps and create a story about what a conversation meant, what the other person was thinking. The other important piece of knowledge that I have comes from the section in the 2nd or 3rd week that I titled "the physiology of stress." Small stress created from small things because our unconscious mind is trying to protect us from danger is happening frequently throughout the day. How does that stuff help me here? Its actually hard to point out detailed, specific examples. What I can say is that I have caught myself countless times in the last month saying to myself "huh, is this really worth the time I'm giving it in my head? This thing that's on my mind is actually pretty pointless, lets focus somewhere else". Is that really mindfulness? Eh, I dunno. But its applying new understandings I have to take away the need to get stuck on things quite as much in my head, and that's a positive change. Slowing Down To put it simply, I am more aware of what's going on in my head. I may notice if I am thinking about 4 things at once, or just planning out the next day, or the next week, instead of paying any attention at all to what's happening right now. My mind still races around most of the time, I see hints that a long term meditation practice can give one some small control over that, but I'm not going out looking for it or anything. I have breathing space as an attempt at a "break". Sometimes after I do that my mind is immediately racing again. But still the momentary break is helpful. We learned a number of different ways in class that slowing down physically can help. Walk just a little slower, take a break racing from one distraction to another. Stop and do a little slow stretching. A concrete example of a time when this worked, and worked perfectly: On a walk last week I had music playing and was thinking about something for work, what I was going to have for dinner, what I wanted to do after dinner later that night, and thinking about an e-mail I'd sent that hadn't been answered yet that was bothering me. Four things at once, none of which I could do anything about on my walk. Not unusual, and not really a huge problem on occasion. But in that moment I decided to see if I could do something different. I turned off my music, started walking at a slower pace, and decided I was going to make note of every tree I passed. Apply a little of that present awareness stuff. For whatever reason, in this moment, it worked completely. I stopped thinking about all of the stuff that was on my mind. I didn't have some transcendental experience or some "oh nature is amazing!" thing. It was still just a walk in an area I've walked 1000 times before. But my mind stopped wandering, I felt really, really calm. What is usually a 45 minute walk took 1 hour 15 minutes. I felt great the whole time. That doesn't always happen. It doesn't always "work". And a walk on a nice evening is one of the easier things to bring mindfulness to. But it feels like the beginning of something. I'm less rushed This goes hand in hand with "slowing down", but its slightly different. I'm less interested in clinging to my distractions. I'm more willing to just hang out. To walk to the CVS near my house instead of driving, even if I've already gotten exercise that day. To take a little more time cooking even if it means a little less free time in the evenings. I used to find myself leaving the house for appointments at the last possible second, having to speed to be on time, or maybe even being late if there was any traffic problem. The idea of spending a single second more than necessary doing nothing, waiting on others, sounded terrible. Now I realize how much I hate that rushed feeling when I might be late, and if I get somewhere 10 minutes early, I can just close my eyes and focus on my breathing. Something akin to sitting meditation, though I'm not sure it "counts" in those settings. But it is calming, and I like doing it. Body Awareness I've mentioned this a ton, and it wasn't something I expected to even begin to get out of this class, but here it is. Its still a struggle for me. I still mostly notice pain, no pain, and nothing in between. But I can tell that I'm slowly... very, very slowly... becoming more aware of what parts of my body may be tense at any given time, even if they aren't hurting. I'm a little more aware of "pretty good" vs "perfect" posture, without having to get up and go stand against a wall to double-check myself. I'm a little more aware if I'm leaning forward or back, left or right when standing, if I'm putting more pressure/reliance on one area of my body to do a task than maybe I should. Again, I can't stress how small this is. Lets say from 0% awareness to 10%. But progressing up from 0% is nice! Months and months of physical therapy and massage therapy gets a lot of credit for this, but so do mindfulness practices where the focus is entirely to notice sensations in the body, the body scan and walking meditation. Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgementally - 2 months ago I could really only explain that definition by repeating what our instructor said about it. It didn't mean much of anything to me. Now, even though I may not choose to try to do it non-stop or anything, I do actually understand how much of my time is spent thinking about the past, or planning for the future, instead of just letting go and giving myself a moment here and there to be fully aware of what's happening right now. Sometimes, letting go of all of that stuff and really experiencing whatever is happening right now can be extremely rewarding. That about wraps this up. In closing, I'll re-iterate that I haven't done anything magic in the last two months. 90% of my day is still exactly the same as it was before. But, Meditation feels like a pretty awesome thing to do on a regular basis. And, I have the ability to have a different perspective on many things that happen in life that I didn't have available to me before. I have a little more active choice to decide whether to stress about all kinds of things, big and small, and it feels like that has real potential to develop over time, if I keep doing this stuff, into something that I could potentially look back on as life changing. Maybe. Maybe not. I'll keep doing some of this stuff, and we'll see what happens!