how do you talk about mindfulness?

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by Maisy

The more we are aware of the better I think!

sometimes like today i start regressing and any more I'm like whoa! slow down! where are you going off to? I kinda know what it is like to go back more fully on autopilot and I don't really want to you see... and I'm barely awake enough to catch myself!

other days I see where I am and wonder at how relatively unaware I used to be... while knowing at the same time that I'm really not very aware at all now either... lol....

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

sometimes like today i start regressing and any more I'm loike whoa! slow down! where are you going off to? .. lol....

How do you see yourself being aware falling leaves? Just as an example of your day to day?

I was curious as to what you see in you, when regressing? If your aware your regressing then your aware of yourself.. lol

I used to be a daydreamer, imagining all kinds of stuff to escape reality. As a child especially. Mainly to cope with the difficulties of life around me. When I had to face that, as a coping mechanism, I then had to face the reality of what I was running from in myself. What transpired was a lot of unresolved spiritual experiences I had as a child, without anyone supporting me through those times, plus a big fat host of fear that I feared to feel. That altered state was a bit of a doozy time, I have to say. I didn’t need drugs to get altered lol..

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by JustBe

How do you see yourself being aware falling leaves? Just as an example of your day to day?

I was curious as to what you see in you, when regressing? If your aware your regressing then your aware of yourself.. lol

interesting question lol... If I'm paying attention I'm kinda aware I'm aware... and that happened in both cases... I guess again it is a matter of those pesky feelings though... the rule is you are supposed to respond to them in a certain way? When I'm not regressing I'm not as willing to follow that rule but when I am regressing I just kinda respond automatically, i guess much like other people do only I am now sort of aware of the situation as it is happening whereas before I just kinda got lost and forgot...

[sky]

To be mindful we are in the 'present' moment, to be self aware we recognize oneself in that 'present' moment....

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

When I'm not regressing I'm not as willing to follow that rule but when I am regressing I just kinda respond automatically, i guess much like other people do only I am now sort of aware of the situation as it is happening whereas before I just kinda got lost and forgot...

You’re not a patterned people pleaser are you? Eeek lol

It’s all about feelings whatever you’re choosing to be. I think most sensitive types play the chameleon until they don’t. When you go into old patterns, I think it’s pretty normal to do it and catch yourself until you no longer have too. It’s kind of more difficult being more open and aware because often that internal chatter about what you’d bring and doing can be constant until you break through. I notice more so there will be certain issues that I’m still presented with like you’re saying, I’ll not notice myself in feeling later on and it’s that feeling level that I can’t-ignore anyway. So I’ll often enter it fully and just let those emotional threads go.

My grandson is great at nearly two years old, because my engagements with him support things I might not have noticed with my son. Like yesterday he presented to me a fear, I would never have connected in myself still holding in. So he he helped me address it emotionally, so now I’ll be aware of myself in this next time.

Children are great to reconnect you to your inner child, parental patterns installed in you creating that same patterns.

Our first five years of life ( foundational) often forming, the whole package of conditioning, even though other experiences arise after that. Most often it’s a reinforcement of those earlier years.

[FallingLeaves]

Originally Posted by JustBe

You’re not a patterned people pleaser are you? Eeek lol

well there is always that (shivers)

but meanwhile what I was talking about it is like a causal thing, every feeling I have from the most gross to the most subtle comes with an array of things I'm supposed to do in response... they aren't all related to other people...

used to be i didn't even know about that I would just respond however I could... any more though i sorta know when I'm getting caught in the web of automatic reactions and when I'm not...

[JustBe]

Originally Posted by FallingLeaves

well there is always that (shivers)
could... any more though i sorta know when I'm getting caught in the web of automatic reactions and when I'm not...

Yes, it’s quite the change to not respond in the midst of unprocessed feelings. How different things appear when your clear and act from that place. Often times the reaction sees things very differently.

I was grabbing a coffee and hot chocolate for my sons partner and myself yesterday. As I was standing in the doorway, I got to observe two males yelling at one another from one end of the carpark to the other. I saw the first guy walk past with his slab of coke and chips, he was walking relatively calm but yelling, the second older man was back some distance, but his frustration was so aggressive, guttural and so forceful, I thought he was going to blow his brains out. Lol. Turns out he was a store owner and the younger guy stole his goods. The store owner was in complete blinded rage in reaction and he was oblivious to customers and others (children and animals included) around him, at the coffee shop.

It’s in these moments where you see two men behaving and acting in ways where their feelings ( probably the same ones) in both are playing out together, just one feeds his, in unhealthy and illegal ways, the other reacts so blindly to his, he is completely oblivious to the impact of those around him and to his own health and well-being.

I was more shocked by him than the stolen goods.

[Gem]

I'm liking the self awareness angle this thread is taking.

The main place I learn my negative tendencies is at the gym. Just because training is hard and uncomfortable, my mind fabricates all sorts of opinions about it, and I experience the misery that comes from reactivity, impatience to end the discomfort, stress about the time that's being used up and anxiety about all the other stuff I have to do that day. However, I have learned mindfulness skillz, and I can maintain body awareness in the present and discern the reality of the experience from the fabrications of my mind, so it is quite rare that I am overruled and persuaded by such negative states of mind.

It happens in waves, as sometimes I'm just happy and really absorb the moment, in which case, discomfort feels good, whereas other times I'm less centred, and due to my adverse reactivity, discomfort creates misery.

Everything is an opportunity to overcome negative mindstates and access the equanimity inherent to pure conscious awareness.

[Maisy]

Originally Posted by Gem

my mind fabricates all sorts of opinions about it,

I wonder what is aware the mind is doing that? Is it the mind that is aware of the mind? I would say no. By definition if you can be aware of something, you, the one aware, is not what you are aware of or observing.

I call what we are "conscious awareness" and "I" can be aware of mind and so that to me means I am not mind. I have a mind, one I may identify with at times or unconsciously accept, but I am not that as I can be aware of it and what it is doing.

An interesting thing to me is "I" or the one aware of mind is a type of mind as well. But I am not the brain mind I am observing. But then I have memory, thought, beliefs based on experience and so on. "I" or conscious awareness has all the traits of the bodies mind. So my understanding is the "self" put together by the body and brain is a "mirror image" of the true self or conscious awareness. To me that's why few reach "enlightenment." If the true self and the false self have similar traits and aspects and functions, the creator of such a system made a "perfect hiding place" for truth and reality. Made it a harder thing to find. Made it require more awareness and insights to find.

Memory also makes sense as a thing that exists in two places, the real self and body self. If it only existed in the brain, which we know it does from science, then when we left the body we would have no memory of anything even our identity. Some remember past lives which means memory exists somewhere other than the brain as well. This too points to a mirror image of the body's functions and processes and components. In the energy based true self and the physical bodies brain. Both have memory.

If the human body's brain "thinks" and our "soul" can "think" as well it shows why we can get so confused and lost on a spiritual path. I think mindfulness like everything else can be something "ego" does or what conscious awareness does or our true self. And I think the body self is intentionally designed to try to keep us centered in it. Designed to keep what we really are, pure unconditioned consciousness awareness, identified with the self put together by brain produced thought.

That reminds me one of Krishnamurti's books was named "Think On These Things." There too one is looking at thinking with thinking? See confusing! But realizing thought has two sources, the real self or the brain makes it easier to understand or conceptualize.

The fact we can be aware of the mind producing all kinds of opinions and think about that to me means thought has two sources or points of origin. It is being "used as a tool" by two different things. One us and one not really us (our body and brain)

[sky]

Originally Posted by Maisy

I wonder what is aware the mind is doing that? Is it the mind that is aware of the mind? I would say no. By definition if you can be aware of something, you, the one aware, is not what you are aware of or observing.

The mind has the ability to turn inward and think about its own thoughts, you can notice this in Meditation or deep Contemplation.....