Not About Mindfulness...Or Is It?

My post today was originally going to be a vehicle for me to assert my opinion that mindfulness-based approaches to mental health therapy are superior to other approaches. I was also going to discuss practicing mindfulness in day to day life, lauding its efficacy as a tool of personal development. I was going to say those things, and say them proudly. I still want to, actually, because I believe them to be true. But I'm not going to, because I had one of those head-smacking "OY" moments you have when you realize you've made a rookie mistake.

What was the mistake?

It's simple: I was mistaking my subjective, personal beliefs for objective, generalizable truth. I was projecting my experiences onto you, Dear Reader, and I was going to rubber-stamp it. My bad. I'm glad I didn't go through with it. 

What I'm left with, then, is a mixed-bag perspective, which I will now scribble out in the following paragraphs.

I'm not going to beat myself up for wanting to share my opinion with an authoritative voice. For one, this is "my" blog, you know, and I'm allowed to do that if I want to (hehe). For another, it's perfectly normal to be biased in favor of one's own experiences, perspectives, and beliefs. (Incidentally, as we proceed through life, we tend to embrace information that reinforces our beliefs, and ignore/reject information that contradicts our beliefs -- a phenomenon also known as "confirmation bias.") 

Anyway, our abilities to both communicate our subjective experiences to others, and to consider the subjective experiences of others, are pretty amazing and essential aspects of what it means to be alive. So while the word subjective sometimes carries negative connotations, it really isn't negative at all -- not in essence, anyway. 

To be sure, subjectivity can become quite negative if it isn't acknowledged and accounted for. That is, if one takes one's own perspective to be Absolute Truth, and attempts to impose it on others as such, then the potential for doing harm is very great indeed. Because let's face it: each of us is unique, such that no single perspective could ever hope to resonate with, or be of relevance or use to, ALL of us -- and certainly not in the same way, and certainly not as intended by the original perspective-bearer. 

Consider the religions of the world, for example. Within any given religion, there is a broad range of approaches, and even beliefs, among adherents and clergy: some emphasize ABC, while others emphasize XYZ, while others maybe emphasize Q and P, and a little bit of M. Ya dig what I'm getting at here? 

I'm reminded now of why I loved -- still love -- my grad school training, which culminated in a Master of Social Work (MSW) degree: in it, I was reminded to be aware and respectful of the intrinsic power I hold as a practitioner. To that end, I was reminded to never lose sight of two very important facts: 1) Each of us has the right to self-determination. That is, each of us has the right to do whatever we see fit for ourselves. 2) Each of us is the expert of our own lives. 

Those are incredibly valuable -- and crucial -- things for me to remember as I work on this blog. 

The ideas I share in this space will necessarily be of a subjective nature, you know? They're my ideas -- or, at the very least, they're other people's ideas that I've interpreted through my own life experiences. Do I think they're valuable? You bet I do. Do I think they can help people? Yes indeed. But I strive to remind myself, too, that my ideas won't resonate with everyone, and that, indeed, they aren't even applicable to everyone. 

There's a real freedom, and a real peace, in that. 

Thanks for reading. 

Views and Points, and Points of View

I was out for a walk around my neighborhood with someone the other evening, and we strolled by a small, three-or-so-story office building. Since it was getting dark outside, it was easy to see through one of the windows into an illuminated room. There was movement inside that caught our attentions, and we both stole a look as we walked by. My initial glance made me laugh, because my brain had very obviously not accurately perceived the scene inside. (I'll refrain from disclosing what I thought I saw. Suffice to say it was 'haha' worthy at the time.) At any rate, my walking companion, it turns out, had perceived something else entirely in those brief passing moments -- something, it would seem, that was closer to the reality of what was actually happening in the room. I, on the other hand, had seen the same details, but my senses and perception had conspired to compose an entirely different scenario of what we were seeing.

Aside from providing unsolicited insight into the strange little workings of my mind, the difference in our conclusions is revealing, and has broad implications regarding "reality." I am not a philosophical scholar, so I won't embarrass myself by attempting to discuss the minutiae of the nature of reality -- others have done that for centuries. For my purposes now, I'll just take it as a given that, to us humans, reality is a thing we perceive to be so. There may be an Objective Reality out there, but we haven't found it yet; so again, reality is a thing we perceive to be so.

Many of us agree on certain definitions of things as to make life, generally speaking, more synchronous. Language is one such thing, for example: we agree to use certain symbols in certain sequences as to indicate concepts, objects, people, etc., and we construct our mutually agreed-upon reality around that; i.e., you know what I mean (more or less, anyway) when I say the words "air conditioner." Usually, in a casual interaction, one person can mention an air conditioner and proceed without having to really explain what, exactly, they mean when they say "air conditioner." This is why it's so interesting to me when two people look at literally the same thing and yet see two completely different things. When the agreed-upon concept suddenly isn't agreed-upon; or when one party, fully invested in and believing their perception of a thing or event or concept or whatever, realizes that the other party sees things differently, there is confusion and mystery.

There are many paths we could take at this juncture of the discussion, of course, but this blog is about mental health. What implications, then, does all of this stuff have for mental health? Well, there are many, which is pretty much my point. We each attach meaning to the events of our lives. We endow people, objects, and even ourselves with certain characteristics, and we label them as such; moreover, we tend to attach to these definitions and deem them to be capital-t Truth. The work of psychological maintenance and upkeep, then, often requires that we re-examine these supposed Truths, and open ourselves to the possibility that there might just be other, equally valid ways of defining, or looking at, things. Just as it's unwise to tighten a screw too much for fear of stripping its head, so is it (often) problematic when we get too rigid and inflexible -- i.e., too tight -- with our Truths. A too-rigid Truth construct can lead to myriad problems. Why? Well, if one tends to view Truth in terms of all-or-nothing, black-and-white terms, indicated by statements such as, "he's a bad person!", then one neglects the gray areas -- the uncertainty -- which seems to characterize this earthly existence in actuality. How else could there be so much variation in our versions of Truth? What is life but a mystery, after all?