i hate how thoroughly capitalism and "wellness" industry have poisoned the term "mindfulness meditation"
when the words come out of my mouth i feel like i'm talking about "manifesting", or embracing my "inner girlboss" or having a "growth mindset".
it fuckin sucks.
mindfulness meditation as a practice has been so important for us in so many ways, and it's infuriating that now the term is drenched in this connotation of corporate retreats and becoming a more productive manager. fuck.
Mindfulness is a huge base skill for DBT that all the other skills are based on. It's a way of slowing down the space between thoughts and action to regulate impulsiveness and feel able to think through what coping skills will help.
But when I talk about it everyone thinks about the fucking Headspace App and the ways it gets prescribed to people as a way to Fix Stress when they're overworked and underpaid.
It makes me so mad because I really do feel like it fundamentally fixed something in my brain when I learned how to be mindful and returning to my mindfulness exercises always helps me center and ground myself.
i have been trying to overcome some personal resistance to things like mindfulness exercises. it's more than the wellness industry buzzword gumbo, it's also that growing up in a mormon household involves being sold prayer and faith as alternatives to corrective action to improve material conditions. i think it's really easy to over-correct while abandoning those beliefs into rejecting mindfulness and ritual entirely as phoney solutions to real problems. and i did, for a long time. not out loud, or even intentionally, but still.
until i tried using yoga nidra to fight my insomnia... and it worked! and i tried using breathing exercises and grounding to fight anxiety... it's required repetition and it's not a silver bullet, but i know my mind better, and if nothing else i RESPOND to anxious feelings in a far more measured, healthy way now. i produce fewer consequences when i'm unwell, and i recover more quickly.
recently i've been trying words of affirmation. i really had to lower my pride for this one. writing a helpful quote on a post-it note and reading it daily could not sound like less of a real solution to a problem to me. but my post-it notes challenge my most unkind self-perceptions. reading and believing those thoughts for even just a few days is enough to make them stick in my mind. it doesn't cure all my unwellness, obviously, but i've had all these tools at my disposal for free, and they help me tame the frightened animal in my head, and i've been rejecting them for a decade because they seemed too similar to ideas sold to me by people who had a financial incentive for me to believe them.
