“Mindfulness Was A Waste Of Time!”

​In 2010 I had tried a healing technique that didn’t really have much of an effect on me, and this made me look for something else. Towards the end of this year, I got in touch with someone who I had met around a year before.
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The reason for this was that I heard that they had created their own technique, which was based around observing the mind and whatever came up in the body. In many ways, it was a form of mindfulness.

A New Ability

So, this was a time when I would observe my thoughts, feelings, sensations and anything else that would arise. At first, it was a challenge for me to not get attached to what came up within me.

But over time, I gradually developed the ability to simply observe what came up within me. This didn’t happen in a few months, though, as I was doing this for around a year and half.

It Was Starting To Come Up

Looking back, what was clear was that this was a time when the pain in my body was starting to come up to the surface. In a way, it was as if this part of me didn’t want to be ignored anymore and it wanted to let go of all the pain that it was carrying.

Yet, even though this was the case, this was not something that would happen all the time I was using this technique. This was probably a time when I wasn’t ready to face what was coming up within me.

On The Plus Side

When I first started to do this, I was pleased that I was developing the ability to observe what was taking place within me as opposed to getting caught up in it. I thought that I was going in the right direction.

However, as times passed, I was getting to the stage where it seemed as though nothing was happening; if anything, it was getting worse. I had to do it more and more, and even that wasn’t enough.

One Way of Looking At it

One the one hand, I was developing the ability to observe my mind, but on the other, it could be said that I was developing the ability to dissociate from myself. I now understand that the key is to be able to observe and to embrace what is taking place within me.

I came to believe that if I did this enough, what was taking place within me wouldn’t have an effect on me any longer. But simply observing my inner world was not enough, and at the start of 2012 I moved on.

The Journey Continued

Shortly after I stopped using this technique, I ended up leaving where I worked. I didn’t know what would deal with the pain that was within me at this time, but I continued to look for answers.

I wasn’t until the beginning of 2013 that I started to face the emotional pain in my body, and this was because the relationship I was in came to an end, which brought all the pain to the surface. I was ready to face how I felt, and this meant that I had to retrain myself to feel my feelings.

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Oliver JR Cooper
http://www.oliverjrcooper.co.uk