Just Be There Blog

Feels Good Again

Since 2006 I have practiced what I refer to as alternate mindfulness. Unfortunately, I've practiced this AM sporadically. Here is what I have observed in regards to actively and inactively practicing my methods of alternate mindfulness.

When I first discovered the tools of AM, I received the gift of a DVD titled The Secret. Then I received from another friend a DVD titled Down the Rabbit Hole. I watched these videos with interest and for a short period of time adjusted my patterns of thinking around the concepts depicted within these two DVDs. During this period of active interest I purchased cassettes titled; The Four Agreements and The Secret. I also purchased the DVD titled What the Bleep: Down the Rabbit Hole. Of all these video and audio tools for self growth and finding my alternate mindfulness, I've given away the cassettes and the DVDs of The Secret, and Down the Rabbit Hole; keeping only the DVD What the Bleep:....

During this phase of personal mindful growth the obstacles in my life were manageable if not always pleasant. My physical health, although marginal, was not out of control. I accepted the concepts and practiced the exercises of changing my mindfulness regarding my realities in an attempt to get my out of control anger under control.

There was some progress made regarding the control of temper, but as I felt less anger in situations, I faced the challenge of feeling more hurt within the same situations. I found myself crying more and feeling emotionally weak. I felt stronger when I reacted angrily, but in my anger I was hurting others unnecessarily. By allowing myself to drop the protection from hurt that the anger allowed, I was actually stronger within myself and I wasn't hurting those around me. Unfortunately, a couple of people who were not in tune with their own personal growth, took advantage of my seeming weakness to provoke vengeance upon past hurts I enacted through my anger toward them.

Also, during this time of attempting to make those AM changes in my life, I lost my job because "I couldn't get along with my fellow employees". I find it interesting, that it was after I was making the changes within myself to get along better with others, that is when I got fired.

For the next four years, I worked through a temp service. I barely survived financially, but I did survive. During this struggle, I lost the habit of practicing alternate mindfulness. I allowed the events of my life to overwhelm me and I became lost.

The common sense view would say, "Well you stopped practicing AM when you most needed the benefits." In reality, because I stopped practicing AM, is why my experiences turned the way they did.

Somewhere during this time, however, another change took place within me. The anger response left me. The original reason for practicing AM vanished. I succeeded in changing and I dropped the tools along the roadside to become a tumbleweed. During the four years of being nothing more than a temp employee, I let go of everything except the grief of losing a long term relationship and the grief of losing my oldest son. I let the wind of events blow me around. I lived in a "I don't care about myself" anymore reality.

Then I became employed at a job that I enjoyed but the owners treated their employees dishonestly. During that year with that company I found myself feeling more agreeable within myself. I felt the growth of personal respect and the "want to" required to return to AM practices.

However, before I acted upon this resurgence of personal growth, the company folded and I found myself unemployed, again. I was plunged into a well of hopelessness which has taken until now, nearly a year later, to climb out of.

My recent discovery regarding the alternate mindfulness I had practiced years earlier is that, I never fully stopped practicing. I merely stopped consciously practicing. You see, I had internalized much of the basic truths of "The Secret" and established an internal belief of the power of the "Zero Field" of Quantum Physics, that my personal "slump" didn't manifest as bad as it could have. For instance, it was my gall bladder that needed removing, I didn't have cancer. And I went from a good job which folded to a better job where I am employed at now.

This last week, I started watching "What the Bleep:..., again. Why? Because it is now that I find myself ready for the next phase of my personal AM growth. I am ready to improve upon the foundation I've built within myself. I have a job I truly love and I know won't disappear because of poor management; and, I have received gifts from unexpected sources calling me back to attentive work upon my self. I have discovered that I still like the person I have hidden from others for my own protection, and now I am willing to share myself with the outside world once again.

Does this mean that I will return to writing again? Absolutely! I am ready to achieve my dreams and more importantly, I am ready to use the tools within me to meet those goals required to achieve my dreams.