MINDFULNESS CREATES HAPPINESS - BODY, RELATIONSHIPS, & WORK
BODY
This area deals with your physical health. Since your body is the means through which you experience everything in the physical plane, it is important to keep our body healthy. Our health is largely determined by our mental health and the way we feel because our thoughts create our beliefs, our beliefs create our story or the internal narrative we make up about ourselves, others, and every experience we’re having, and that story creates ALL of our feelings, again, about ourselves, others, and every experience we’re having.
The relationship between our thoughts, feelings, and physical health is a complex interweaving of the three. What the mind represses, the body expresses. Emotional “dis-ease” always leads to “disease.” We can eat all organic foods, avoid excessive alcohol consumption, not smoke, avoid soft drinks and juices, and workout every day. If we’re not emotionally well, our health will always suffer.
In addition to working out, I’m a huge advocate of Yoga. By yoga, I’m not referring to the American commercialization of the asanas (the body postures of yoga) involved in yoga. Though there are some benefits to performing just the asanas; the body, mind, spirit connection made by practicing the authentic, sacred practice of yoga developed in India, is a practice I encourage everyone to incorporate into their lives. Daily practice of this type of yoga will have you well on your way to boosting your physical integrity and grounding yourself emotionally, psychologically, and spiritually.
RELATIONSHIP
Notice I didn't write "Relationships."
"All Knowledge begins with Self-Knowledge" - Buddhist Proverb
We cannot know anything outside of our self . . . every experience is only happening within us. Since consciousness is always outbound [from within], we are both the center and the circumference - the subject and the object - of every experience we are having.
No one else is responsible for the way we feel – blame does not exist in an awakened individual. An awakened individual doesn’t seek love and understanding from another person; they radiate it unconditionally to others. They love with NO CONDITIONS placed upon another individual, in friendships or relationship that are romantic in nature. In the series, “HOW TO MINDFULLY APPROACH ROMANTIC RELATIONSHIPS,” I really do a deep dive into this subject.
At the level of our ego, everyone we meet is a reflection of what we love or hate about ourselves . . . and with society only appealing to the egoic mind, it keeps us trapped at the level of comparison and competition. That is very dangerous in a world where our unattended minds are like a garbage heap; in that, every one that passes by throws something into it.
The cumulative sum of the all the impressions made upon over the course of our life, has created our biases, beliefs, and opinions about everything. These predispositions create an internal dialogue within us, and the stories we come up with about others are always narratives that are commensurate with the beliefs that we have about ourselves. The content of these stories is woven together so as to validate or invalidate both the affirming or negating beliefs we cling to about ourselves. That internal dialogue, validating us or attacking us, is a poorly designed coping mechanism developed in childhood that no longer serves us as adults, but has become so compulsive we can't seem to stop or just turn our minds off. Now our minds are working against us by keeping us trapped in duality.
"When pain, misery, or anger happen, it is time to look within you, not around you."
~ Sadhguru
The stories we make up about others, their choices, and their actions, is just our mind's way of deflecting our own internal bully’s attacks (our intellect attacking our vulnerable inner emotional child), and gives ourselves permission to feel sorry for ourselves as victims . . . because as long as we judge the other person we don’t have to face our own self-deprecating internal dialogue who is really condemning us, not the other person.
As a result, we fail to acknowledge and understand others feelings, wants, desires, ambitions, and choices when we are only looking at what’s wrong with us . . . we see everything the other person is doing as uncaring, neglectful, and as rejecting and/or abandoning us, never realizing they are operating out of their own fear, just like us, and simply trying to protect themselves as well.
Relationships with our family, friends, and colleagues, are only a by-product of the only relationship we’re ever having, and that’s the relationship we’re having with ourselves.
In other words, the only relationship we are ever having, from the day we arrive, until the day we depart this world, is the one we are having with ourselves in any given moment, and that relationship is always and only taking place in our head. How we see ourselves isn’t based on what others think of us. It’s based on what “we think others think of us.” So, all external relationships essentially serve as a mirror reflecting back to us the beliefs we hold about ourselves because it is our interactions with others that evoke innate feelings within us that we use to weave together stories in our heads to explain everything that is going on around us, when in fact, it’s all going on within us.
An accurate depiction of ourselves is elusive because that depiction is completely imaginary (and by imaginary, I mean, only in our heads) and always filtered through the complexion of a whole myriad of different emotions that unfortunately, are always changing. In other words, we see ourselves through a different lens every time we choose to look at ourselves and contemplate the essence of who and what we are.
For the most part, our perception of self in any given moment is reactionary and myopic in nature, usually in response to an external trigger, or some circumstance we find ourselves in. It’s illusory, and making an accurate appraisal of ourselves, as a whole, in an isolated moment of feeling something is virtually impossible because we are not what happens to us, nor are we the wellspring of feelings that bubble up to the surface in response to the events that transpire within a given day.
Developing self-awareness allows us to live consciously, in the eternal “NOW” and become the observer of both our thoughts and the messages we are constantly sending to ourselves, that can either build us up or tear us down.
WORK
Here’s all I’m going to say about work. If it’s not in line with your passions and you’re seeking a job out of fear disguised as pragmatism, get out of it. And believe me, I know all too well that this is easier said than done. I too, have struggled for years in making the decision to pursue my passion. I've done so by working on what I'm passionate about in my spare time away from the pragmatism of my current job. I'm soon going to be making the leap!
People lose jobs every day. They hate “playing it safe” and taking a job just to make money. Doing so is ultimately unsatisfying and only erodes at our sense of happiness. Our career and all of our achievements along the way only provide us with a very transient sense of satisfaction if we are only working to make a living. If we aren’t truly passionate about what we are doing, no number of accolades will make work more meaningful.
I know that being pragmatic is the default judgment that most of us make in pursuing careers. But, if you have the means and the opportunity to pursue your dreams, do it in increments and then take the leap! Life is short! Take chances and go for it!
I would love to hear from you and hear your own personal thoughts on how you practice mindfulness or would like to in the comment section below. Let me know if the content of this article resonates with you, provides perspective, or helps you see things in a different way that empowers you to make different choices or see life and relationships through a different lens. I value your thoughts and feedback and look forward to hearing from you.
Love & Light to You in your continued Journey of Self-Discovery!
David
