21. The unexpected challenges of Mindfulness

Ian Dowling | Thinking out loud

I think Its so exciting for the world how spiritual practices such as Yoga and Meditation are after becoming completely mainstream and I think its awesome that its now normal to have a pro active spiritual ritual in daily life like Meditation or Yoga or whatever it is for you.

As we work on our own self awareness or we suddenly encounter increased self awareness through a spontaneous awakening after a certain life event the highs can be followed by anxiety and unknown negative feelings as we become the observer of our thoughts like never before and at first ( maybe for years even ) we think we are going in the opposite direction and going backwards as we were not even aware of most of our thoughts in the past and now our own monkey mind is in full view every hour of every day as it seem like we cant stop the constant stream of useless thoughts.

In today's podcast I talk about observing these thoughts and instead of being angry or frustrated at our selves we can use it as an opportunity to learn greater compassion for others as it becomes more clear then we all experience the monkey mind that is always going going going.