Mindfulness
Mindfulness is all the rage these days. I too was swept up in the early fervor for this practice starting in 2008. Most people are aware at this point of the many research studies that have been done proving this practice's mental, emotional, and physical benefits. It's true that mindfulness can have many beneficial impacts, but that's not what I will focus on here, because physical and emotional well-being, while often a nice side effect, is not what the practice is meant to offer us.
I am more interested in speaking to the esoteric nature of this practice, its primordial power, and the mysterious unfolding of using this practice as a vehicle to better understand ourselves and the world. There is an ancient magic that we open up to when we employ these practices. The practice begins to practice US instead of the other way around. We are drawn into harmony with the laws of nature, the natural intelligence of life, and our lives can be transformed in ways we would never have anticipated. We begin to live our life with a deep sense of trust and surrender to the intelligence within ourselves and within our universe. All of this is possible if we are open to it.
Despite the way mindfulness has been co-opted by the culture, it is not a self-improvement strategy. Neither is it a life management strategy. You can use it that way, and I teach it that way at times when that feels appropriate. It can help people, especially if taught wisely, (*see below), but it will only take you so far if you use it in this way.
Its purpose is to fully free you from the limitations of your mind, and as long as you are using it to serve the very limitations it is trying to rid you of, in the end you will keep finding yourself stuck in the same cycle, never truly finding the peace it is trying to wake you up to, thinking if you simply tried harder or did it better it would finally work.
It won’t, and that’s a good thing. It’s not supposed to work that way. It’s supposed to show you how playing that game leads to unhappiness over and over and over again, so that you have to truly face that. So that you have no choice but to wake up. It’s a fierce grace. This is a bit different from how mainstream culture views this practice, to say the least! But truth and freedom are what call to me.
*In addition, I really want to stress that employing mindfulness as a technique to heal the heart/mind/body/spirit is incredibly complex. Many therapists are creating harm for their clients through employing these techniques without a deep understanding of trauma and stress physiology, without understanding or engaging with the context these methods were born out of, and without understanding how mindfulness and other spiritual methods can be used to avoid addressing our deepest fears and needs - what John Welwood refers to as spiritual bypassing. This particular learning has been a passion of mine and I am incredibly careful with how I use mindfulness to support my clients - and myself!
I have practiced mindfulness meditation since 2008 intensively, studying and practicing primarily in the Insight Meditation (Vipassana) tradition and the tradition of non-dual teachers like Adyashanti. I studied the integration of mindfulness and psychotherapy in graduate school, and have devoted a great deal of my personal life to the practice - indeed, I've been on partial retreat since late 2018 so that I can devote more time to my own practice.
I am more interested in speaking to the esoteric nature of this practice, its primordial power, and the mysterious unfolding of using this practice as a vehicle to better understand ourselves and the world. There is an ancient magic that we open up to when we employ these practices. The practice begins to practice US instead of the other way around. We are drawn into harmony with the laws of nature, the natural intelligence of life, and our lives can be transformed in ways we would never have anticipated. We begin to live our life with a deep sense of trust and surrender to the intelligence within ourselves and within our universe. All of this is possible if we are open to it.
Despite the way mindfulness has been co-opted by the culture, it is not a self-improvement strategy. Neither is it a life management strategy. You can use it that way, and I teach it that way at times when that feels appropriate. It can help people, especially if taught wisely, (*see below), but it will only take you so far if you use it in this way.
Its purpose is to fully free you from the limitations of your mind, and as long as you are using it to serve the very limitations it is trying to rid you of, in the end you will keep finding yourself stuck in the same cycle, never truly finding the peace it is trying to wake you up to, thinking if you simply tried harder or did it better it would finally work.
It won’t, and that’s a good thing. It’s not supposed to work that way. It’s supposed to show you how playing that game leads to unhappiness over and over and over again, so that you have to truly face that. So that you have no choice but to wake up. It’s a fierce grace. This is a bit different from how mainstream culture views this practice, to say the least! But truth and freedom are what call to me.
*In addition, I really want to stress that employing mindfulness as a technique to heal the heart/mind/body/spirit is incredibly complex. Many therapists are creating harm for their clients through employing these techniques without a deep understanding of trauma and stress physiology, without understanding or engaging with the context these methods were born out of, and without understanding how mindfulness and other spiritual methods can be used to avoid addressing our deepest fears and needs - what John Welwood refers to as spiritual bypassing. This particular learning has been a passion of mine and I am incredibly careful with how I use mindfulness to support my clients - and myself!
I have practiced mindfulness meditation since 2008 intensively, studying and practicing primarily in the Insight Meditation (Vipassana) tradition and the tradition of non-dual teachers like Adyashanti. I studied the integration of mindfulness and psychotherapy in graduate school, and have devoted a great deal of my personal life to the practice - indeed, I've been on partial retreat since late 2018 so that I can devote more time to my own practice.
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Book Recommendations:
Spiritual Bypassing, Emotional Intimacy, Robert Augustus Masters Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness, David Treleaven Mindfulness, Joseph Goldstein True Refuge, Tara Brach A Wise Heart, Jack Kornfield Self-Compassion, Kristin Neff The Path is Everywhere: Uncovering the Jewels Hidden Within You, Matt Licata A Healing Space: Befriending Ourselves in Difficult Times, Matt Licata Falling in Love with Where You Are, Jeff Foster You Were Never Broken: Poems to Save Your Life, Jeff Foster Grounded Spirituality, Jeff Brown |
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Photo by Katherine Savage
"In the Dzogchen tradition, it is said that the nature of all experience is to "self-liberate" in open, compassionate awareness. It does not require our efforts to transform it, including “letting it go” in order to experience the freedom and aliveness that is the birthright of all beings. We do not need to get rid, of shift, or even heal these difficult states, or convert them into their opposites. But to hold these parts and provide them with space, as we begin to discover that they are not enemies to do battle with, but as allies come to remind us of how vast we truly are."
~ Matt Licata
~ Matt Licata
