Author: erk

I love writing, computers, puns... can sometimes be spiritual, or mindful. Life is the biggest experience gift you'll ever get... enjoy the hell out of it!

Those who think they’re not communicating….

I came across a quote some years ago. I wasn’t able to find it now but it went something along the line that anyone wanting to send a message in film should go to the telegraph office instead.

My spontaneous thought is:

Those who think they can open their mouth – or even stick their head outside the door – without communicating something, are fooling no one but themselves… And the likelihood of these people communicating anything of interest is probably purely coincidental.

Mindfulness at the dentists and other “problematic” places

I had a dentists appointment this morning, and I thought it would be a nice place to try some mindfulness.

I figure you’ve basically two main strategies here. Either use mindfulness to distract yourself by focusing on some place other than your teeth (e.g. Your feet), or focus on what’s happening with your teeth here and now.

I should mention that there was no drilling involved in this visit, but I usually has a lot of tartar that needs to be scraped off, and I have very sensitive dental necks, so it’s usually not a walk in the park.

I started to focus on what the dentist (or actually hygienist) was doing with my teeth, and I very quickly noticed that it seemed to hurt more if I lost that focus. When I really experienced the things she did to the teeth with a kind of curious interest the pain became much more tolerable.

I think for two reasons: I was really there, feeling what was happening, not what I anticipated would happen, and I accepted what was happening – it was almost as if I was involved in the actual “poking around.”

I am suspecting this technique can be used in a lot more situations than at the dentists, and using mindfulness and acceptance in those situations, I think a lot of things we feel are intolerable, might actually be both tolerable and even interesting…

Random thought: Extreme situations

One of the more deadly things you can do is to act normally in an extreme situation.

This goes for extreme weather situations, being taken hostage, living on a planet that may be dying, etc.  etc.  Basically I believe panic will make you react in a predefined way, while keeping your cool will make you react according to the situation.  A few times panic might save you (running from a violent person instead of trying to talk sense to them) while in most cases not panicing will probably get the best result.

Interesting thought: aren’t we presented with “extreme” situations now and then, and once we’ve managed through them, they’re not extreme anymore.  Take for instance, first day at school, first love, first day as a parent, first day of retirement, or being a victim of a crime, being in a car accident, or other accident, being falsely accused, getting fired and being unemployed, etc. etc, there are a buss load of extreme situations out there.

So, the thing is to keep from getting pissed at  your boss for firing you, and trying to get a good letter of recommendation out of it (after all, who say’s you’re getting kicked cause your boss dislikes you?)  Or to stop being a kid yourself once your little ones are on their way, or to get out of that car wreck, and try to get everyone else in it along, before something worse than a roll and a spin happens.

So, it’s all about controlling panic then… or?  Hmmm…