I think mindfulness and meditation are useful for some people. It's important to remember it doesn't work for everyone, and there's a small risk of harm for a few people.
Mindfulness just means being aware and non-reactive. All humans experiences mindfulness. Any time we choose to go against our initial impulses is a moment of expressing mindfulness. Mindfulness meditation simply strengthens and expands on that so it holds up under greater pressure and for greater periods of time. It's nothing mystical or psychedelic.
Recent years has also seen an increase in studies surrounding the sociological concept of `Mobbing'. This has taught us that the tiger only goes away if there is outside help, often in the form of fellow students, teachers, and so on.
As a meditator myself I think it would be helpful if this were more well-known.
If you search for her name, you'll find more information and studies. Here's an interview and article:
https://tricycle.org/trikedaily/trauma-meditation/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/06/the-dark-...
Perhaps if $historical_bad_actor meditated / exercised / ate better we wouldn’t be here having this conversation.
I’m not trying to be flippant here.
Mindfulness in schools is applied to the entire school population.
Mindfulness in schools is usually delivered by teachers, and not trained therapists or psychologists.
The combination of taking the entire population, including children at higher risk of harm, and not understanding how that harm can be caused, and using people with minimal training to provide the programme, means that some people get harmed.
https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/01410768166441...
https://www.brown.edu/research/labs/britton/sites/britton-la...
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S027273581...
> Mindfulness just means being aware and non-reactive
Mary is a 10 year old girl. She is raped once a week by her step-father. You can see how being "aware" and "non-reactive" might cause extra harm.
I think schools should treat meditation like prayer, because it's essentially the same function, and we should just avoid it in the classroom.
Perhaps the real tragedy here is that many students will learn about mindfulness in schools and dismiss it as useless nonsense, when there actually may be something of value in there somewhere.
https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2018/04/harvard-resea...
If meditation causes Mary to freak out and the rapes to by discovered, that's a pretty huge win for Mary.
When that happens, it’ll often spark a thread that then fills in the gaps.
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Have curious conversation; don't cross-examine. Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
"‘Mindfulness doesn’t help me,’ says Tyler, a 13-year-old student in a deprived area of southwest England. ‘Some people it helps, some it can make ’em feel worse.’ Gathered around a table in a large, cluttered classroom, five other students nod. Kayleigh cuts in: ‘Sometimes other things help me more. But they don’t listen to us, they just tell us to do mindfulness.’ "
What harm from meditation ?
I recommend the book "Altered Traits". It looks at some benefits of meditation documented using scientific methods. But it also says that it may not be good for everyone. Specifically, it may be dangerous for people struggling with depression.
The trendy idea is about "being present" in physical form and acknowledge (but not engage) with any random thoughts that might come your way. I don't want that feeling unless I'm very specifically seeking it out.
Whenever I've had to participate in the "group" versions of these things, I try to think of literally anything else to keep myself distracted until it's over, for fear of wandering into unpleasant territory and causing a mood change when I'm actually supposed to be at work.
I wish there was a word for "sitting in silence with others, frantically searching for anything to think about to avoid letting your mind wander into terrifying places". If this mindfulness thing takes off, maybe someone can come up with a clever way to sum that up. It's a very uneasy feeling.
Also, why my employer would want me to take a mid-day break to meditate is beyond me. It's like they're trying to make me rethink my life decisions and quit.
Obviously I am no expert or actually even any good at meditating, but maybe try learning from a different teacher who might be able to help you out in this.
Just to reiterate, I might be wrong here and if that's the case just ignore my comment :)
It takes a lot of practice to actually be able to do that. The distraction is the meditation - you need to learn notice it and bring your mind back. The drowsiness is the meditation - you need to learn to notice it and raise your energy.
And as you learn to calm your brain without falling asleep, deeper and deeper repressed and ignored thoughts and feeling will come to the surface, because as you're gradually calming all the parts of your mind you are also calming the parts that are repressing the other parts which are enraged and demand a seat at the table. And part of meditation is getting punched in the face by those parts that you have been repressing, until you have faced them, dealt with them, accepted them and integrated them. (Although part of it is also learning when you need to ignore them and not try to "face" or "deal" with them.)
It's impossible not to think, unless you're dead. You even think while you dream! It is possible to avoid thinking concrete thoughts, but when concrete boundaries around acceptable thoughts are protecting you from trauma that's not a useful thing to do.
Generally speaking, if you're in a bad environment, getting more in tune with your feelings and how you react to your environment can make you feel more acute pain. Conversely, becoming numb and unaware of your feelings can help avoid the pain, and possibly help you remain more functional, at least in the short term.
Of course, pain tends to signify a problem that has significance beyond the pain itself (pain for pain's sake would seem to have negative evolutionary value, but e.g. pain that encourages you to avoid sharp objects has positive value), so ignoring it seems like a bad thing in the medium and long term. However, if you have no practical options for fixing the underlying problem, then it may just be pain without gain.