February 2010

17/02/10 08:00
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I've recently started a mindfulness course. Mindfulness explores the concept of accepting one's feelings, thoughts and emotions rather than judging them. We are constantly so busy in our lives that we get caught up in 'doing' rather than 'being'. OK, so I've done one week and I'm far from an expert on the subject, but for someone who comes from a psychology background it's an interesting way of approaching problems which we face and have faced. Traditional CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy) style approaches will typically try and untangle where thoughts and feelings are coming from, to make sense of them and work out where problems might have started. By contrast, mindfulness does not try to make any sense of things, but teaches acceptance and a non-judgemental inner voice. I raised the point that perhaps Christians are particularly prone to having a judgemental attitude towards themselves, born of old school notions of sin, self denial and, well.. judgement. Christians are taught to challenge themselves, live a better life and put their sinful nature to death. I feel this tendency could spill over into other areas of life resulting in an unconscious bias towards believing we are the source of our problems. Granted, accepting all our faults without challenge would be a bad idea, but maybe a bit more acceptance could be a healthy thing. As I lie on my bed, fidgeting like a 2 year old child listening to my mindfulness CD, that's kind of what I'm hoping.
 After my first mindfulness class I stumbled across a music video on youtube. I think musicians can have an inherent mindfulness as they perform, living in the moment and enjoying each second. By contrast, when I performed on the drums I frequently got told by friends that I looked 'stressed'. On the other end of the spectrum we have Eric Bibb. Now this is what I call mindful:


imagesDouglas Coupland - a novel
The Bee's have gone and so has humanity's humanity and there is a link. I do not want to present spoilers but as with Generation X it deals with story and the telling of story. It tracks alongside this the story of Solon the drug which is everyones choice bar the lead characters and therein lies the plot. Where have all the stories gone and the story tellers, which used to be us, you, me, him, her, they, we etc. If you are breathing you have a story to tell and as in the book I don't mean what did you do today darling - although that is a good starting point - but to close your eyes and imagine a place and fill it with fine and friendly folk who go wrong and fall and get up and becomes heroes and monsters and, and, and...and then say it out loud as you do it.

This is am extract from the highly acclaimed blog of Bill Taylor-Beales
http://billtaylor-beales.blogspot.com