Practising Mindfulness

How are we to recognise what we’ve never experienced? How are we to love the stranger we do not know

Are we all searching or waiting for something? Some inspiration, reward, or experience? During this search, is it possible to experience a feeling or state of mind that is so unfamiliar to us that we pass it off as alien and so reject it?

We might mistake calm, for example, as sleepiness and then drink copious amounts of coffee to wake us up. We might mistake contentedness as lacklustre and world weariness. We might mistake contentedness as having given up.

Most of us are constantly seeking to change how we feel

It’s fascinating when we think of it. What an earth is going on that we should feel the need to be in a different state to the one we naturally find ourselves? How is it we can’t simply be as we find? And it runs into so many aspects of our lives, doesn’t it?

My mind instantly jumps into thinking about young girls and how they feel the need to change or enhance their physical appearance. Obviously, on some level, they believe their natural-selves to be lacking, or they feel the need to compete and establish stronger identities than their peers; to be larger than life; to be more than what they appear to be. To deceive the observer.

Just as an ignorant child wants to put his finger in the flame, our fascination with our emotional selves drives unnecessary provocation

It’s certain that if more time were spent explaining emotions, their purpose, and how to manage them, they’d be less need to put fingers to flame. Just as the moth is drawn to the flame, we also lose our way through ignorance and confusion.

When we experience the unfamiliar, we must pause and immerse ourselves instead of instantly rejecting it and seeking to change

When the young girl, who lacks self-awareness, looks in the mirror, she imagines herself with bigger lips and different eyebrows.

When those who’re unfamiliar with calm and contentment feel this alien emotion, they instantly imagine themselves stimulated doing or being somewhere else. Instead, when we finally meet our alien-selves, it’s useful to pause and give them a chance to explain. When we see them in the mirror, pause and see the beauty that’s already there.