Reddit reviews Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World
We found 21 Reddit comments about Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World. Here are the top ones, ranked by their Reddit score.
Most anxious people brood over thoughts that take them out of the present moment. They worry about future events that might never come to pass, or they fret about past events that are never coming back. In both cases, they aren't living in the present. And life — which is only, ever, lived in the present — passes them by.
Those thoughts are the problem, and the way to deal with it is to live more in the present. This requires that you change your relationship with your thoughts. You have to realize that, by and large, they're useless. That might be surprising, but think about it for a minute. All those chains of thoughts that go through your mind throughout the day. Many of which, as an anxious person, make you feel bad. How many are truly useful? If you reflect on this for a while, you might come to roughly the same conclusion I did: there are some useful, important thoughts out there from time to time, but the overwhelming majority are useless. Worrying about the same things, over and over, going through the same thought patterns, start to finish. Perhaps 90 to 95% of thoughts fall into this category. But they're not just useless. They're also counterproductive, as they manage to make us feel like shit, and they prevent us from enjoying the present.
I highly, highly recommend this book as a guide to tuning into your thoughts and changing how you interact with them.
http://www.amazon.ca/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic-ebook/dp/B005NJ2T1G
Get it as an ebook, iOS or kindle.
Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World. I've just started it but, so far, it seems like a good resource if "mindfulness" is something you are interested in learning more about.
The book is available here
Also take some advice from /u/Fat_Uncle:
"Most anxious people brood over thoughts that take them out of the present moment. They worry about future events that might never come to pass, or they fret about past events that are never coming back. In both cases, they aren't living in the present. And life — which is only, ever, lived in the present — passes them by.
Those thoughts are the problem, and the way to deal with it is to live more in the present. This requires that you change your relationship with your thoughts. You have to realize that, by and large, they're useless.
That might be surprising, but think about it for a minute. All those chains of thoughts that go through your mind throughout the day. Many of which, as an anxious person, make you feel bad. How many are truly useful? If you reflect on this for a while, you might come to roughly the same conclusion I did: there are some useful, important thoughts out there from time to time, but the overwhelming majority are useless.
Worrying about the same things, over and over, going through the same thought patterns, start to finish. Perhaps 90 to 95% of thoughts fall into this category. But they're not just useless. They're also counterproductive, as they manage to make us feel like shit, and they prevent us from enjoying the present.
I highly, highly recommend this book as a guide to tuning into your thoughts and changing how you interact with them.
http://www.amazon.ca/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic-ebook/dp/B005NJ2T1G[1]
Get it as an ebook, iOS or kindle."
usually on the one to ten scale i only register emotions that are like, at a 1, and then at a 7, and everything in between is just like ???? but now even after just a few weeks i am much more aware of them. i can feel my anger the second it begins and feel it rise inch by inch when i start getting really frustrated by something. the other day i pushed myself a little too far with it but i wanted to see how long i could stay with it and i did, and that was a pretty eye opening experience. that was a week or two ago, and now myself even more patient before the anger begins to develop
another one after just a few weeks is a significant decrease in anxieties. i'm usually always at like a 5 by default whenever i leave the house, even on simple shopping trips, but that has all dissipated now. i remember when i used to go into the grocery store, and over to the left immediately after going inside you see all the checkout lanes and 9382 people checking out. this used to frazzle me SO badly, i would freeze up and use all my willpower to not so much as glance in that direction, and i'd keep my eyes down and grab my little basket and scurry off into the store as quickly as i could. and now? i feel nothing. it's very liberating. i could stand there for ages and no one would look in my general direction. what was i so afraid of before? most of my anxiety before wasn't even conscious, i wasn't actively thinking about what ~other ppl~ would think; i just felt primally, viscerally anxious... and that's gone. anyway, this is just one example, i'm sure there are others but this is a big one that stands out.
another positive that is coming into my life: i can listen to music again. like, LISTEN (not just hearing music that is there). i've been so clouded for so long that i forgot what it was like. i've always loved music and would always play some regardless, and some things would get through my anxiety and connect to me, but when i can actually concentrate on it it is a different world. i havent been able to Listen in so long. sometimes it feels as if i'm just now truly hearing something for the first time even though i've had it for months/years, and suddenly there's just a connection that wasn't there before
i feel like i'm a lot more present in general and have an easier time letting go of things. i almost got in a car accident a few weeks ago when my brain was sleepy and foggy and the roads were rainy and slick, and i feel like that kind of thing would have really f'd me up for the rest of the day in the past, but after it happened i was just a little shaky for a minute or two and then the event melted away, i was back to normal, perfectly fine.
 
as far as my practice goes, i only started about a month ago. i started with 15mins/day mantra meditation, then after a couple of weeks i started doing it a couple times of day, at least one 15-20min session if i can get it, and the other is 10 or 15 later at night. i've been using the 1giantmind app and am currently on day 13 or 14 of their "30 day challenge" and will stick to mantra meditation for the duration of that, but i have recently become interested in in zen so i might start dipping into those practices afterwards. i've always been interested in meditation and tried it on and off but this is the first time i've been this consistent in all my life.
i also do a very basic yoga noob routine here and there, and i'm also trying to practice every day mindfulness and going along with this eight week program book, currently on week two, and i think it's helping as well (i'm enjoying it, anyway).
 
this post did not look that long in the text box, whoops
My life has changed dramatically over the past several months. Big upheavals in relationship, family, job-- everything, really. It's been very uneven, but I feel like I'm finally in a good place mentally.
Strangely, thanks to some desperation and marijuana, I started doing several things that I'd later find are very much part of meditation/mindfulness. I'm reading this book right now, and I've never read a "self help" book before in my life, because frankly they're nauseating to me.
This one still makes me roll my eyes, and I feel like it's talking to me like I'm a 5 year old, but I guess that's kind of the point. I'm only on "week 1" right now, but I already see how some of the things I've been doing are part of this.
For example, I decided I wanted to eat my food "mindfully" before I read the book, as well as make physical fitness part of my daily routine no matter what. I've lost 30 lbs in the last few months, and last night I did a ropes course that I never thought I'd be able to do, both because of the exercise and frankly the ability to "be in the moment" and not freak out.
Also, yesterday, I was doing a job that was low paying, but one of the perks was getting to drive a convertible BMW around town, and it was GORGEOUS weather. Normally, I'd be all bummed that I had to go back to driving my PT cruiser, but I was able to actually enjoy the moment, shut out all the racing thoughts, and I just started giggling.
Now excuse me while I go meditate. That's actually what I was planning on doing after having my coffee and browsing reddit.. Weird timing.
Try this: Mindfulness: an eight week plan...
The book presents a series of meditations that you can practice and then combine as needed. I promised that I would follow the plan in the book regardless of my reactions and now I have developed the habit and the ability to really go deeper as I explore on my own. In particular, it's given me several methods and visualizations I can use for the situation I'm in, which helps if you're distracted by pain, discomfort, emotions, noise or general stress. I'm much more able to roll with my situation instead of fighting it, and due to consistent practice I'm also much, much more cognizant of what's going on in my mind and body. It's also helped me by introducing shorter quick meditation sessions for when you don't have much time or the luxury of closing your eyes and doing your normal full session. This has been very helpful to in order to quickly notice tensions and relax while flying (I'm a student pilot) and prior to jumping (I'm a mediocre skydiver).
I was also surprised to learn some things about myself. I'm well past two months (I've extended some weeks as I find necessary) and found myself completely resisting the kindness / self-kindness meditations. I just can't bring myself to do them. I committed to the program, so it shouldn't matter what my feelings are on that particular brand of meditation. Yet I simply don't do it. Maybe it says something.
These may not seem like the sort of meditations Harris is championing, and I haven't looked deeply into the advanced disciplines, but I think of these as tools to reliably get into the mindset necessary to explore your mind as described in Waking Up. Sometimes I'll start a 15 minute body scan and end up observing my automatic thought patterns for more than an hour.
Be careful not to confuse it with a book of the same name by Ellen Langer. It took me too long to realize that she had simply commandeered the word mindfulness to apply to her own research - which is noteworthy, but neither rigorous nor relevant.
MEDITATING CHANGED MY LIFE. Seriously. Read this book: https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic-ebook/dp/B005NJ2T1G
I was depressed and completely stuck in my head for the first ~26 years of my life. My earliest memories involve depression. I grew up believing it was my natural state and you can probably imagine how a belief like that would negatively impact everything in your life. I had moments without depression (that lasted a couple of months at the longest) before I slipped back down to that baseline of depression. No matter what I did I always came back to that baseline. I honestly thought there was a limit to how happy I could physically be, and a limit to how long that happiness could be sustained. Then I read that book. I realized there was actually a way to change that baseline, and my mind exploded. And in 8 weeks (or less- I actually started feeling differently immediately) I changed that baseline and am yet to return to my former chronically depressed self. That was 2 years ago. I cannot emphasize how much a regular meditation practice changed my outlook on life. It's so grounding. I think it can be especially beneficial for those of us who live in our heads and tend to neglect our external world, especially when we REALLY get caught up and start having trouble determining what is reality and what is all internal.
And for those of you who have trouble making meditation a habit, first I say how very INFP of you! Second, don't try to be a perfectionist about it. Don't try to start a 20 minute daily meditation practice out of nowhere. It's hard to find 20 minutes every single day if it isn't already a habit. I started with 1 minute, as soon as I woke up. Do that daily for a week, then increase it to 3 minutes. Then 5 minutes. Eventually you can work up to 20 minutes if you want but on those days that you really only have 3 minutes you won't feel like a total failure and drop the habit completely. Mindfulness meditation is less about the total number of hours you spend doing it, and more about how frequently you do it.
tl/dr: If there was any habit an INFP should make a serious effort to stick to, it's mindfulness meditation.
I think you are too hard on yourself. Emotions aren't as simple as that - someone fancies me, so I should be confident and happy.? Nope. And I think it is pretty normal to be emotionally very invested particularly at the start of a relaitonship; it's a delicate thing, a new relationship. You do seem to have very negative self talk.
The one thing that helped me a bit in that regard was to take up mindfulness meditation. ( not associated to the university of Oxford people who made this, but it was good: https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic-ebook/dp/B005NJ2T1G ) It sounds new-agey, but the point is that you can practise noticing a negative thought spiral before it becomes so big it blocks out the sun. This is also a factor in depression.
That said, I think you do expect more emotional resilience of yourself than most people in their early 20s have.
I also wonder about my life and frequently get caught into the web of past and where I am going into the future. I can relate to some of your problems and its really difficult to beat the mind going through such a thought process especially when one feel he is all alone in this world. Slowly I have come to realize that doing nothing is the greatest problem because our mind want to give ourself and identity, and for that it does by reflecting on the past bad events and regrets.
The most important thing in the process is to identify any one person with whom you can share your feelings. Believe me you will feel better. Find out one person who will listen to you about what you think. Sometimes we hide things from even ourselves which comes out right infront of us when we find someone you is considerate and ready to listen to us.
If there is no such person then you need to find out one thing you are really passionate about, it can be teaching, may be fishing, photography and just go do it. As you have said you don't care about anyone and nobody cares about you, then that there is a great opportunity to redefine yourself. Restart your life the way you want it without anyone judging and anybody suggesting something. May be go to Dharmshala and live there for few months or something. Some of the seniors in my college has tried that and they have spent even a full year there.
You have to start believing that there are people who care about you. Sitting around and wondering the about past friends would not do it. Go out to tourist places, find out how people get along on their day to day life to provide their family, to just be able to support them for one more day. It will definitely change your thought process. If you are not able to meet the people you already know, go out and talk to strangers. Keep learning keep trying.
Start meditation. I will not be able comprehend the full benefits it provide. Try one of these books http://www.amazon.in/Mindfulness-Plain-English-Anniversary-Edition/dp/0861719069, http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic-ebook/dp/B005NJ2T1G.
Go out get lost and rediscover yourself.
Sure.
Just the process of being able to sit still and let your mind take a step back from the day-to-day can help put it into perspective.
I got into it by reading Mindfulness: An Eight Week Guide to Finding Peace in a Frantic World. In it, the authors talk about how we have two modes of thinking - thinking (planning, deciding, analyzing, acting) and thinking ABOUT thinking (stepping back and realizing that you are more than the thoughts you have at the moment.) The first mode leads to what is happening to OP. We experience some relatively minor negative emotion (I don't have enough, my peers have more, etc). The thinking brain, trying to solve the problem, first observes the gap between where we are and where we want to be. This highlights the gap even more. Then, the thinking brain, just trying to be helpful, looks back to similar situations searching for a solution...but the result is that we relive every moment we've felt like we didn't have enough, or that our peers had more, or that we failed in some way. This only widens the gap. Then the thinking brain searches for reasons why we are unhappy, and observing others in a similar situation who are happy leads our brain to believe the problem is with ourselves.
The goal of meditation is to deliberately think ABOUT thinking. To realize that not every negative feeling or emotion is a problem to be solved. To parse each of these thoughts individually, without letting them snowball. By interrupting the thinking brain's spiral of searching for a root cause, then searching for a solution, we can prevent ourselves from reliving every similar bad experience and recognize the single down moment for what it is - a single moment in time.
Here are some starters
There are guided meditation videos on YouTube. This is one I tried recently. Did the first 15-20 mins.
Although I started with this book. It comes with guided meditation audio files.
I know it sounds so new agey, but seriously, mindfulness meditation. I have severe anxiety that seems like it presents in a similar way to yours and it really does help. I like this book. The meditations are short audio tracks that focus on breathing and if you stick with it, it will reduce your overall daily anxiety levels.
It's really important to see your shrink not as a friend, but as a wall you bounce ideas off of in order to discover things about yourself. There's no need to feel guilty about anything said in your conversations because the focus shouldn't really be 'badmouthing' but helping you understand the way you felt in the situation. If you feel like your psychiatrist isn't keeping a strong enough boundary with you to avoid these feelings of 'competition', then I really encourage you to seek out a different psychiatrist. I've had shrinks with poor boundaries before and it's important to recognize that early on.
I started with the book "Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World".
I think you need help with not wrestling your negative feelings. You are right in saying that mindfulness theories say that you shouldn't push away your feelings but you do not have to accept them either. Mindfullness is not about accepting or rejecting anything, it's about being aware of what is going on in your head and "stepping outside of it". I know that doesn't make a whole lot of sense and I am new to this too so I probably am not articulating this right. I really found the book in the link below helpful with explaining what mindfulness is and how to mediate (10 minutes probably is not enough time for a beginner). The book is a 8 week program for mindfulness, I was feeling like a new person by the second week. Give it a try. http://www.amazon.ca/gp/aw/d/B005NJ2T1G
I personally enjoy mindfulness. A nice, simple book for beginning it can be found here: https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic-ebook/dp/B005NJ2T1G
I would agree with another of the comments (SoldierOnce). You don't necessarily need to learn to relax (Although that can be good too, especially during breaks and after work!). Mindfulness is about tolerating the stress you have. You're starting a new job, likely new to the work-force in that setting, and so on - that's a lot of legitimate stress! Accepting that, and being okay with that, is the most important thing. Then it becomes less daunting and scary. To my perception, mindfulness is about saying to yourself "Oh, yep, I'm stressed right now, aren't I? I feel all sorts of ways about that meeting in an hour. And that's okay." Once you can make that shift to acceptance, it takes so much of the pressure off.
At first I thought, maybe he’s in shock & hasn’t snapped out of it yet, but the more I read he just sounds like an asshole.
You need to put together a support system & stay organized. Reach out to anyone & everyone for help. Do not be shy about it, now isn’t the time to tip-toe or hesitate.
Some cancer planners I got:
Where in North Carolina are you? I'm around Raleigh. I'm not going to try to convince you to stay alive or avoid suicide.
What I want to do is [1] share perspectives and [2] help you realize that your emotions cloud your perceptions and judgment of reality. [3] Trying to find the reasons for your emotions, makes you sadder.
I'm 18. I started balded a few months before my 18 birthday; a few weeks before my high school graduation actually.
Have you ever experienced brief moments of exquisite joy? You're driving in the car and suddenly you start smiling. Positive thoughts consistently go through your mind, the whole day goes well, social interactions are easy, etc.
What happens in those situations or days? None of your "problems" (ie. the things preventing you from being happy) go away. You're still bald, your job sucks, etc. Regardless of that you are able to feel happy or at ease. Yet your mind brushes this problems aside. "Lots of bald dudes get laid." "A shitty job is better than working my ass off in a 3rd world country"
What are the lessons?
1.) Your emotional state is separate from your real world circumstances. What does this mean? There is no direct reason or cause for your unhappiness. You are simply unhappy right now.
It's important that you understand this:
2.) Whatever emotional state you are present in; your mind will find reasons to support those feelings.
You are depressed and your mind is finding reasons to support this state. Baldness and a shitty job have little to do with your unhappiness.
Any solutions?
There should be a copy on TPB. If not, pm me and i'll upload an epub to mediafire for you.
2.) Are there any meditation centers near you? If possible go to them and start to come regularly. 30 mins a day 5-7 days a week. Meditation won't make you happy. What meditation will do is help you separate your emotions from your judgments of those emotions ("i'm unhappy because i'm bald").
You'll still feel sad, but ,like the blissful moments of happiness, when the sad feelings come, they'll also go away. Attributing those sad feelings to x, y, and z is what anchors them.
Oh god yes. I confessed all the time. I went on my mission without a whole lot of conviction but during it did my best to obey so I could be worthy of the spirit and a testimony. Boy, was this a perfect recipe for psychological distress. I constantly wondered whether my thoughts were prompting from the spirit or not and I always wondered why I wasn't getting the testimony and burning conviction I'd been promised. "Well, better step it up," I'd think. Probably because I spent 45 minutes instead of 30 minutes writing email. Probably because I thought sexual thoughts. Probably because I had Josh Groban on my iPod. And later, probably because I have an iPod. I kept stepping it up. I wanted so bad to be worthy of god's prompting and dod everything I could to merit it. When I didn't measure up to these unrealistically high expectations, I would step it up. I was ALWAYS confessing and whenever I felt a huge wave of relief, I would think it was the spirit. Nope. Just OCD. I would "sin" like maybe seeing something scandalous on late-nite TV that was sexually arousing. But I wouldn't feel guilty about it, true contrition. So I took seriously D&C " 42 Behold, he who has repented of his sins, the same is forgiven, and I, the Lord, remember them no more.
43 By this ye may know if a man repenteth of his sins—behold, he will confess them and forsake them." So I would confess in order to create embarrassment, shame and guilt so that I could feel godly sorry and truly repent of my seems because after all "...our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will also condemn us; and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence." (Alma 12:14)
OCD/Scrupulosity can be a real bitch but it is possible to overcome.of this, I testify (without hesitation). : ) It will take work. Expect to do a lot of reading. In addition to these books below, I recommend finding a therapist.
Learning about mindfulness really helped. I recommend this book: https://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic-ebook/dp/B005NJ2T1G.
I also recommend this: http://www.amazon.com/Wherever-You-Go-There-Are/dp/1401307787.
This: http://www.amazon.com/You-Are-Not-Your-Brain/dp/1583334831
This: http://www.amazon.com/Leaving-Fold-Marlene-Winell/dp/1933993235
And this one:http://www.amazon.com/Healing-Shame-Binds-Recovery-Classics/dp/0757303234
That Mormon Stories podcast really helped me. I think there's a few of them. It put a name to something I'd just thought was normal. I just remember thinking "That's me!" If only someone had had the wherewithal to say "Young man, all this confessing isn't ok. Let's get you some help." I was consumed by guilt and shame all the time, never measuring up. So I'd step it up. The idea of "worthiness" was incredibly harmful to me. We are all worthy of love, of respect, and acceptance.
I also struggled with assertiveness so for what it's worth here's a discussion and some book recommendations and a discussion from last week.
Recovery is possible. I have completely gotten over all that guilt. I learned o get over that nagging guilty feeling or even that feeling like "oh shit! I left the stove on". I've had so many of those. But now I don't. I just started ignoring them. "Fuck it. Let my house burn down." What I once thought was the spirit, I now know was just my brain. Now I don't feel that. My brain has rewires so that those feelings don't come up anymore. And now I have done everything I always feared and "far worse"--I've had sex outside marriage (I was never married) and so broke my "covenants" from the temple, I've smoked weed, drank (though I don't anymore). No guilt, no shame. I'm not saying you need to do those things to get better, I'm just saying that if you'd known me a decade ago, you'd have not believed I would have ever done anything so "wicked".
My point is there's nothing objective about that guilt and shame we felt. It's only because it was instilled in us from an early age. It's a learned response and can be unlearned. We just took the Church and its truth claims and hell and punishment seriously.
Best to you. Feel free to PM me any time. Know that there's hope.
http://www.amazon.com/Mindfulness-Eight-Week-Finding-Peace-Frantic-ebook/dp/B005NJ2T1G
This book may help you train in different kinds of meditation, and the training is long enough to make a difference.
http://www.amazon.com/Five-Classic-Meditations/dp/B0000544SQ/ref=sr_1_6?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395625955&sr=1-6&keywords=shinzen+young
A great little audiobook by the excellent Shinzen Young.
http://www.amazon.com/Meditation-Dummies-Stephan-Bodian-ebook/dp/B008S2N1K8/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1395626040&sr=1-1&keywords=meditation+for+dummies
Actually a decent book, with the credentials of the Buddhist Stephan Bodian
I have all three and listed in my order of preference.
A very relevant book