The Easy Way to Mindfulness by Allen Carr

Author:Allen Carr
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcturus Publishing Limited
Published: 2017-08-29T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 11: Burning questions

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Does mindfulness mean suppressing my emotions? • Surely meditating is thinking? • Do i have to lead a pure life? • Who will tackle with my anxieties if i don’t? • If i am not my thoughts, who am I? • My eureka moment

I have looked at a lot of aspects of the human body and mind and how they work together and separately. I have examined the way we get stuck in thought and how our attempts to think away difficulties and negative feelings leads to a downward spiral as we pile pressure and frustration on top of our anxieties.

There has been a lot to take in and inevitably questions arise. For most people, the principles of mindfulness involve a whole new way of using your mind. Perhaps you feel that statement alone makes mindfulness sound like something superhuman or mystical, an alien phenomenon that’s a bit intimidating.

Rest assured, there is nothing intimidating about practising mindfulness. On the contrary, life is full of intimidating circumstances, which can become overwhelming, leaving us in a tangle of stress and mixed-up emotions. Mindfulness is a method for releasing yourself from that tangle and learning to absorb the impact of life’s more intimidating moments.

It requires no special powers. In fact, it unlocks powers you already hold, powers that lie dormant for most of us when we rely on conscious thought as our overriding power.

DOES MINDFULNESS MEAN SUPPRESSING MY EMOTIONS?

I have talked about the need to detach ourselves from our thoughts and learn to observe them in a gentle, non-judgmental way. To some people, this sounds like the sort of instruction a Buddhist master issues to his disciple and the assumption is that it requires you to suppress your emotions so as not to be a slave to them.

Happiness is an emotion and it is formed by a combination of other emotions: love, hope, satisfaction, excitement, pride, gratitude, amusement… If you’re feeling any of these positive emotions at any given time, you would probably describe yourself as happy. On the flip side are negative emotions, such as anger, vengeance, envy, malice, hate, and regret. These are all human emotions too and it is generally agreed that both positive and negative emotions play a part in living life “from the heart”.

To err is human, as the saying goes, and we tend to regard emotional people as more appealing than those who are ice cool. We like people who show their feelings, especially entertainers, even though they can be high-maintenance. We are drawn to the excitement of passion, which can be both positive and negative.

So the idea of controlling your emotions can be off-putting. You don’t want to become unfeeling, cold, and dispassionate.

The good news is in fact, you’re learning to do the opposite, to free your feelings, both positive and negative, so that they are neither. With mindfulness, you’re not suppressing anything. In fact, you’re learning to do the opposite, to free your feelings, both positive and negative, so that they are neither suppressed nor exaggerated.

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