I’ve recently decided to implement the modern phenomenon of mindfulness into my life. I’m so wrapped up in the millions of different tasks, apps and errands that fill my days that even when I sit down to relax, I’m non-stop flowing energy and conversation and have forgotten how to shut down. I’ve been on break for less than a week and I already feel bored, aimless and find myself searching for a purpose or project, like the ones I usually complain about and try to escape.
So, the new task I’ve assigned myself…mindfulness. Through daily yoga and meditation, I’m re-teaching myself how to relax. I already feel a deep sense of clarity when I ground myself and take time to feel at peace with my environment, my time and ultimately with myself. I think it’s something we could all benefit from in this day and age. Our lives are moving at an incredibly rapid pace and the world is forcing us to constantly be in touch. We can text all day, delve ourselves in gossip (whether it be around us or in the distant realm of celebrities) and refresh our social media for a constant flow of the most new and exciting. But because we can exert so much focus outward, we often forget to look inwards, or more accurately: avoid doing it. It’s a way to cope; despite the expressiveness of our generation, we have developed the most advanced mechanism for suppression.
While being in touch with myself and forcing myself to break this habit and look inwards has been refreshing it’s also been admittedly uncomfortable. I know part of the practice of yoga and meditation is clearing your head of all your thoughts and dilemmas, but as a newbie, I can’t help but constantly find myself directly in the face of them. The confrontation with my best-suppressed situations has refocused my goal: to find true clarity. I have to try to get them out of my system just like any average stomach bug, ex or 2004 trend.
The reason this goal is especially hard: there’s a reason these things have gone on hold for so long. They’re really hard to fix. Those ones where don’t necessarily feel like we were in the wrong, we just never made that step to make things right. Personally, I’m facing the impossible oxymoron of evoking sympathy from a clinical narcissist. How do I explain my perspective to somebody who is diagnosed as unable to comprehend it? In the simplest of terms, this sucks. It feels like I’m trying to drive right through a dead end and it’s easy to tell myself clarity is literally impossible. But when it comes down to it, in an ironically selfish sense, this is for me, not him. So, after much contemplation with myself, and some other wise and trusted individuals, the ultimate verdict is to write a letter to him. A letter I don’t know if I’ll send and I’m resting that decision solely on what I feel like is enough to get this off my chest. As aimless as it may seem to let a letter sit on the back of a bookshelf and gather dust, I think in the end it will be worth it.
Full disclosure: I’m not recommending this confusing and emotional journey I will be evoking on to you or telling you it’s a great tool because I don’t know if it will be yet. But who’s to say it’s not at least worth a shot. I figure it’s better to at least try to liberate myself, rather than complacently deciding it’s impossible.
I’ll keep you in the loop.
XOXO,
Issi
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