What media hype and those selling mindfulness don’t tell you is that mindfulness is a process that can radically transform you, and it’s not always safe, nor is it easy or straightforward. We make it safer by being aware of the risks and learning to listen to our own bodies about when it is or isn’t okay for us. No one else actually knows.
I see in retrospect that some core, vital part of me was always there during the drugged years, learning and remembering much that would help me in these years of coming off meds and now being med free. I no longer believe that I “lost” my life to drugs. This is, as Mary Oliver, puts it, my “one wild and precious life.”
“Ultimately the way music works for me is indicative of yet another way the mystery of our interconnectedness with all things manifests.” …
Woke up to energy that was needing expression. Fighting. I turned on youtube and searched kickboxing. OMG where have you been all my life? Anyone with stifled fight or flight energy (from PTSD) would likely benefit from this at some point. I’ve been stuck in passive attention. That is over. What a most delicious RUSH…. Continue Reading →
Ecstatic dance is awesome in the literal sense of the word and I consider it a body oriented mindfulness practice as well. I’ve also referred to it as self-directed body-work in conversations with friends. Sometimes my “dance” is about moving and stretching my body in some really odd ways to get at something that is tightly held in the body and needs release. Dancing can sometimes be me not moving at all (on the surface) while the music courses through my body and my cells and neurons DANCE. …
I always have a significant dip in how I feel in the fall and winter too. I am struggling with that as well right now. I can assure you that we do contract with the seasons and that is why it’s often more difficult in the fall. I used to think it was a huge setback but I now see it as a natural rhythm. That doesn’t mean it’s not still difficult. It is.
This site has about 5,000 posts/pages. The first thing one can do to familiarize oneself with the scope of the content is to peruse the drop-down menus at the top of page. Those menus organize and collect a lot of information by subject and categories. …
Browse by subject: Meditation Mindfulness Yoga Hearing Voices Ecstatic dance Food Anxiety/Panic/Fear Dx Depression Dx Bipolar Dx Psychosis Dx Schizophrenia Traum/PTSD
Baby steps…I started with an exercycle on which I peddled for 15 seconds until I could peddle 30 seconds. (I got it for free on free cycle). Walking to the mailbox was an exciting workout for quite a while. Yoga has been wonderful…sometimes still I only do 5 or 10 minutes at a time…it continues to unfold….I did a lot of other things in baby step ways. Never pushing beyond what felt safe and comfortable.
submitted to Beyond Meds by Oxford University Press – By Michelle Maiese — For many years, the prevailing view among both cognitive scientists and philosophers has been that the brain is sufficient for cognition, and that once we discover its secrets, we will be able to unravel the mysteries of the mind. Recently however, a growing number of thinkers have begun to challenge this prevailing view that mentality is a purely neural phenomenon. They emphasize, instead, that we are conscious in and through our living bodies. Mentality is not something that happens passively within our brains, but something that we do through dynamic bodily engagement with our surroundings. This shift in perspective has incredibly important implications for the way we treat mental health –
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