Being Mindful

Dear readers,

today I would like to discuss the mindfulness-trend,

But firstly, if you wouldn’t mind, I need to get this off my chest:

Dear BBC,

I was shocked to turn on my wireless only to become victim to wrongful information in your show, The Rest is History. I’m sorry to say a claim was made that cannot go un-commented. Your resident historian claimed that Lamarck’s theory of evolution was closer to the modern-day view than that of Darwin. I would like to remind the BBC that Lamarck’s idea, in essence, is that we inherit traits that our parents before us have acquired, but obviously the children of a mummy-mouse without a tail will still have one, and every new generation of Chinese girls had to go through torture to have their feet made smaller, they didn’t inherit the un-genetic trait. Although Darwin himself slightly believe in this notion, it has been made perfectly clear after his death that Lamarck was wrong when it comes to biology. Though, if you look at language then we do indeed learn from our ancestors (take the development for words on the internet springing into life as new skills are required), so his system isn’t invalid, it just isn’t biological “Evolution” as we think about it today. I’m sorry to be so blunt, for the show is actually one of my favourite, and I adore anything that makes learning more fun and accessible. 

Thank you very much for your time.

Sincerely,

Miss Julie Smythington-Smythe

(Referencing Susan Calman Is Convitected in the opening and signature there, if you didn’t notice)

Ah, that felt great! Even if I was half joking in my formatting of the letter (as, well, BBCr4 joke a lot about themselves) my feeling on the matter were perfectly serious.

Oh god… oh dear. I’m becoming a middle class pensioner aren’t I? It’s just… I can’t help but care. I’d just like to pass everyone who thought that was a bit much from me to this link here: Catherine Tate’s Posh Mum Series.

Moving on to today’s topic:

BBC radio 4 has recently had several discussions about Mindfulness, and it has even been suggested to me by a friend, when I said I was struggling with the pressure of writing my Dissertation. It has become a super trend.

One of the worries, however, is that it is only sticking a nice little sticky plaster over a burning mental health and concentration issues in modern society. Your job might be offering you mindfulness courses at work, and maybe you do calm down more, make better decisions, and focus on living in the “now”. But why is all this necessary in the first place? Debates are coming out discussing how we live and what impact this amount of stress will have on us mentally and physically. Should we change the system, or should we make people do ten minutes of mindfulness each day instead? That latter solution, as is so often the case, pushes the responsibility and solution over on the normal people, while nobody on top needs to get the blame.

Today, in Norway, people are striking to protect current worker’s laws, because the government has proposed to change them. One of the issues is whether shops can be open on Sundays. Obviously some are already, but most of Norway is closed for business on Sundays, just like France is. The issue for me is this: in a world where basically everyone is always stressed and under pressure, having one day that is essentially more quiet than the other is important. Reserve a day for a picnic or skiing trip with you kids. It’s not a religious issue, it’s not God resting, it’s us resting. And now that we live in a modern, secular world that might be more important than ever.

But anyway, if we can’t change the system and create calm that way, I guess we need to find coping mechanisms. So what is mindfulness?

There are countless sources, webpages, agencies, apps, courses that etc etc. I know most people have a sense of what it is by now, but if you don’t let this video sum it up:

Cultivating attention. Paying attention on purpose, in the present.”Connect with your life”. Attention is key. To what? Well, it doesn’t matter really, as long as you got conscious of things and calm your mind (which make me sound like Charles Xavier from X-Men First Class).

It’s about caring about and observing the present, while we’re obsessed with, say ‘cringe attacks’ (Dan is not on Fire will fill you in), or being worried about the future.

Many Buddhists, which is where this idea comes from, worry that it’s becoming Westernised, commercial and that we have taken the spirituality. That mindfulness without the sort of teaching of goodness isn’t enough to improve your mind, and it becomes, well, cheap.

Be Kind to Your Mind! is probably their slogan.

It all sounds so fancy.

 

 

 

Right. That was a meandering stream of unconsciousness and clutter. I guess I needed to use this blog post as a Pensive, like Dumbledore has, and order things in my head a bit.

I’d like to finish with a joke because laughter is the best medicine:

“Doctor, doctor. I think I’m a pair of curtains.”
“Pull yourself together, man.”

Kind regards,

Julie