Mindfulness in everyday life.
Last weekend I participated in a silent meditation retreat. I returned home with my heart wide open—wide open to joy and gratitude; wide open to grief and suffering. I wasn’t sure how to navigate daily life with such an open heart. It felt both strange and fully alive. Then I heard about the mass shooting in Orlando, and I wept. I wept for humanity.
Here's an interesting paradox: until we accept ourselves just as we are, we can't make the beneficial changes we seek. We might recognize important ways we can change, but growth springs from acceptance not punishment. Once we're comfortable in our own skin, in the deepest parts of our being, we can move forward in positive ways.
Uneasiness appears in different ways. There’s an uneasy feeling of “being on our way” while we’re doing the thing right in front of us. There’s a steady, low-level fear that something’s wrong. There’s an uneasiness about time: a perception that we never have enough time. And there’s a nagging dis-ease that we’re not living life true to ourselves. I think the latter is our deepest discomfort.
Human nature is interesting: we receive both praise and blame for the same action. If an idea becomes popular, there's often a backlash. Last fall, Adam Grant wrote an opinion piece for the New York Times: "Can We End the Meditation Madness?" [It's an interesting read, even for this mindfulness teacher.] Grant notes the lack of rigorous studies on meditation, quoting Richie Davidson—a leading neuroscientist and meditation researcher.
