17 Ways Mindfulness Meditation
Can Cause You Emotional Harm

Melissa,

Personally, no one I know who practices medidation to “meditate” their problems away nor have I read any books or come across any articles that in even hint at practiving mindful medidation for that purpose. So I am a bit confused as to where all this is coming from?

I do realize that this sort of thing happens when people turn to and expect a higher power to save them from problems they are experiencing or simply chalk it all up as something like “this is the will of God” and disassociating themselves from being response albe. I this akin to what to what you saying about how the practive of mindful meditation can and perhaps is sometimes misused?

Willy

I always like reading your blog posts – and I understand where you’re coming from with this one. For example, I can remember someone I knew of many years ago who did use meditation to keep some traumatic experiences at bay.

However, I think your assertion that mindfulness meditation is an attempts to ignore and suppress negative feelings is a generalization that isn’t entirely backed up by the facts.

Take the following from ‘The Mindful Way Through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness’ by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal and Jon Kabat-Zinn, which must be one of the best-selling books about mindfulness.

Firstly, two of the chapters are entitled ‘Reconnecting with Our Feelings’ and ‘Befriending Our Feelings’, which doesn’t suggest any attempt to ignore feelings.

And here are two relevant quotes:

‘If, paradoxically, we can turn and face whatever it is that we are finding scary, difficult, or depressing rather than perpetually distracting ourselves to no avail, we are actually still doing what the brain wants us to do: giving high priority attention to the matter at hand. It’s just that we are no longer giving it attention in the old “doing” way. We are approaching the moment – whatever it is, however it is – not by reacting but rather by responding, by bringing an open, spacious and affectionate attention to the feeling in the moment as it expresses itself in the body. Now are are in a relationship to the alarm in a new way, one that provides us with a viable alternative to endlessly thinking about it.” (pp142-143)

‘So it’s usually helpful, once we acknowledge the presence of thoughts as mental events, to go underneath the thought level and work through directly sensed body experience – the feelings we get from an unpleasant experience (such as a sense of anger) as well as physical sensations (such as tightening in the shoulders). To do this, we bring an affectionate and discerning awareness to each aspect of our felt emotions, as best we can, using the meditation practices from Chapter 7. We may notice changes from moment to moment – for example, the transformation of a sense of anger to a sense of hurt, then to a softer sense of sadness.’ (pp173-174)

What I was really impressed by when I first read the book a few years ago was the foundational place that the authors gave to dealing with feelings. I wish that I had been able to use that approach when I first started meditating.

Hi Mellisa,

I was introduced to the Jon Kabat-Zinn method (ie. Mindfulness) a couple of years ago. This 8-week course is pretty straightforward and originally proposed as a last resort when all other medical interventions can bring no further relieve for people with chronic pain. His program became very popular in the US and later also in Europe. It may be a bit “hyped” lately, but at it”s core I believe it’s a very useful practise. I’d like to note that JKZ – in his books – explicitly talks at length about everyone’s dark side, and the difficulties of opening up to those emotions you’d rather not want to experience.

We are all unique …..what will work for one person may not work for another. Mindfulness is a Buddist practice or originates from Buddism(As far as I know) and at the centre of Buddist practice is compassion towards self and others. Practicing mindfulness with compassion helps me to stop the cycle of abuse and create positive new responses to the circumstances of my life. Mindfulness as a tool has helped me recognise and change the destructive patterns that have kept me captive in fear and depression. It helps me to become more aware of my experience of being alive and gives me the opportunity to understand my motivations and where they come from.I look inward with compassion to find the answers to my questions.

I feel that the practice of mindfulness helps me to become more aware of the emotions I am feeling. The idea of disassociating from them does not allow for compassion which is something I feel.I am a survivor of childhood abuse and I have never found therapy helpful( I have tried many that didnt work for me and often set me back).That is why I started the practice of mindfulness so that I could take control of my own healing process through observing my patterns and gradually changing my emotional responses. The best help I have ever got has come from the love and support I have recieved from others.My interpretation is based on Buddist practice.But it is a tool and it all depends on how you use it. I feel that mindfulness the way I view it is grossly misinterpreted in the mainstream. For me its about finding peace in myself not by disassociating but by observing as well as feeling.I also understand that there is a dark side to mindfulness when it becomes selfishness.But I would not regard that as truly mindful. I found that because of my childhood experience I based all my decisions on how I was feeling and often felt overwhelmed with emotion I couldent control so I avoided other people or even going out my front door because the fear would overwhelm me to the point that I would have to retreat and hide. I often felt overwhelmed with all the emotion I was feeling. Becoming mindful has helped me to overcome this exaggerated emotional response. Perhaps the idea of being in control is something that appeals to me as it was something I wasnt allowed as a child.

So far I am finding the “mindfulness” ideas helpful for working with my issues. I like a lot of the ideas but I do think there’s an over-emphasis on the meditating and “ego” stuff, and I can DEFINITELY see the apprehension you have about how some of the ideas can be interpreted (I see the same danger in CBT. In fact I think I’ve been doing CBT on myself, poorly, all these years as a defence mechanism, and that’s become compulsive and has got me where I am now.)
Thankfully my therapist was very kind and understanding so if I said something wasn’t working for me for whatever reason that was fine, and that I didn’t have to do anything I didn’t want to. He didn’t always understand what I was trying to tell him, but he also didn’t push the issue and we moved on to other things. I have a lot of issues with not being able to express myself and my emotions. But with both my therapist’s help and the ideas in the book I’ve discovered that my “headaches” and whatnot are actually really strong emotions I have about things (trivial little things, big intense things, whatever) that are blocked up, like a stuffed up nose. The ideas in the book help me to lean into the headaches instead of hide, and when I do, I get a sense of the emotion, and lean into it even more despite the pain and thoughts start to snowball and emotions come out. It is very painful and very lonely but they do and having compassion for myself in those moments helps get it out. But I couldn’t do that if I was just saying “la-la-la thinking! la-la-la” to myself.

Caroline, for example, says she “based all my decisions on how I was feeling and often felt overwhelmed with emotion” which sounds like she needs more space to think and be ok with whatever ideas are giving her such strong emotions.

Anon sounds like the opposite. She says “[Am I] supposed to ‘observe’ (dissociate) the sadness I feel because I can only ‘observe’ my children’s birthday party instead of being IN it?”, which sounds like she needs more space to feel, and be ok with whatever feelings are giving her such strong thinkings.

I think many of the “mindfulness” ideas are adaptable, but it definitely seems to be geared towards someone like Caroline.

I love the article. Scientific research and the media have been so fully supportive of mindfulness meditation, that it is interesting and refreshing to see a different perspective. This also helped clarify my concepts. So I really appreciate it Melissa.
As a student of mindfulness, I do share very similar doubts- even as I just read your article. But please allow me to use my limited experience and express my opinions.Hopefully we can have a constructive dialogue on the topic, for the sake of the topic =). And do let me know about what you think- I see this as a process of clarifying my/our ideas/ beliefs.
One of the biggest lesson I learned from my teacher at UCLA is, as you said- mindfulness is just a tool.
It does NOT fix your problems. What it does is it shifts your “relationship” with the problems. And instead of being helplessly caught up in them, with
mindfulness, you see clearly how your mind is conditioned to conjure up dramas and entangle yourself in it. This does NOT mean that emotions are unreal and inaccurate as you mentioned. It simply means mindfulness accepts the fact that ours minds have a natural tendency to further enlarge and dramatize the existing, REAL, yet negative emotions to an unwanted and unnecessarily unsustainable extent- thus causing us tremendous harm and suffering, mentally and physically.
Therefore, it is highly inaccurate to say that mindfulness abandons/rejects/judges emotions. This is the last statement that I would make about mindfulness because Mindfulness promotes the exact opposite of that. From my limited knowledge (at least the secular mindfulness that I learned at UCLA), mindfulness acknowledges emotions, even difficult ones (eg.fear) In every single class, the instructors always encourages us to tune in and IMMERSE to our emotions (good and bad), thoughts, and bodily sensations and thoroughly observe whatever comes up. It is very typical of the mindfulness tradition to RECOGNIZE emotion and even the underlying purpose of emotions. I believe a kind, gentle, open, curious ACCEPTANCE of all emotions is the most major foundation of mindfulness practice. Also, an INSIGHT to the root/cause of the difficult emotion is also very important- the CLARITY OF MIND. If after your observation, you find that the root of your sadness is your laziness, you have the liberty to find ways to make changes for the better, however you define better (but only after you recognize clearly what it IS) But if the root of the sadness is uncontrollable and irrational, which is often the case (eg. conditioned aversion/ hostility towards your brother) you can choose to let it go.
This is how I benefit from mindfulness personally. All changes or acceptance are possible after acceptance. It is ONLY AFTER fully recognizing the emotion/sensation. that we CHOOSE to place our attention to a more neutral sensation eg. breath. and “let go” of whatever UNPLEASANT sensations. The idea of ATTENTION, ATTUNEMENT, ACCEPTANCE, CHOICE TO LET GO, are very important in thinking about RECOGNITION of emotion and the subsequent LETTING GO of unpleasant emotions. Mindfulness teachers that I met never taught me what are the GOOD/SUPERIOR and BAD/NEGATIVE emotions. And the never taught us to REJECT anything. deep inside, we intuitively, personally know what is good for us. Nothing is coercive. They are all personal choices. Preference does not equate to judgement
“The curious paradox is that when I accept myself just as I am, then I can change.”–This quote of Carl Rogers’s resonate deeply with me. To me, mindfulness is action in inaction, subjective in objective, mind in body– and vice versa. Traditional dualism sometimes cannot contain mindfulness.
Scientifically, mindfulness recognize even the underlying purpose of emotion– “fight or flight” mechanism- that we get anxious and agitated in face of threatening events because we need the adrenaline and alertness to take proper, quick action in order to survive in hostile, life-threatening situations.
More importantly, science shows us that our minds does not always make accurate predictions (eg. eyes see optical illusions/mind fails to predict future.)
Similarly, the fight-flight system can be over-activated or falsely activated, and cause emotions (eg. felt in the body as increased heartbeat) Our physical body gets over-agitated to thoughts/objects/events that are non-threatening in reality. Or rather- our minds irrationally perceive non-threatening objects/events as threatening (false positive alarm) eg. nervous breakdown for planning a family reunion- over-worrying perhaps about the awkward silence on the dinner table, which is a valid concern to many. But our minds tend to dramatize the negativity and get so ATTACHED to the emotion of fear to an extent- that we reactively EVADE from acknowledging the “fearful” problem, forget the positive side of things and thus render ourselves INCAPABLE to effectively dealing with it.
Eventually, instead of being open-minded and comfortable on the dinner table and enjoying spontaneous topics of conversations, we involuntarily preoccupy ourselves with negative thought patterns and deliver awkward bodily/speech/behavioral cues. The family quickly cathces on this, and in the end all these negative thoughts intensifies the awkwardness, not to mention the rippling effects. ie. in a sense, we, (OR RATHER- our negative mind/thoughts) are who/what make sure that our worst nightmares/imaginations become reality. One unclear, entangled thought can be disastrous. Let alone trains of uncontrollable thought patterns.
So if it is established that mindfulness recognizes and accepts emotions. I want to talk about the important but missing elements of your characterization/definition of mindfulness in your article.
Among other key concepts of mindfulness that wasn’t mentioned in your article (balance, compassion, locus of control) ATTENTION – Where and how one skillfully places his/her ATTENTION- is a central teaching/practice in mindfulness that was neglected. Attention is neutral, open, curious, non-judgmental. For any given event, one can CHOOSE to TUNE IN to the positive side of an event, and/or the negative side- both of which are equally possible/probable. And for many of those who are conditioned to tune in ONLY to the negative side, mindfulness is a good practice to recognize the equally important good, positive side of things. Sometimes, GOODNESS and BADNESS can be two sides of the same coin.
IF and only if anyone is interested, this attitude can be CHANGED in any moment- if we have enough mindfulness to sense when and how to S.T.O.P.- Stop the infinite vortex of negative thought, Take a breath, Observe our thoughts/emotions/minds/bodily sensations, and Proceed with more clarity, ease, and effectiveness. And this does NOT involve judging anything as inferior/unreal or bad as you mentioned. if anything, mindfulness teaches us that we all have a CHOICE, that we have an option to feel happy. it is NOT a happiness doctrine or dogma. No one should/will force you to be happy if you want to be unhappy. It is a choice, a very personal choice, also way of life. It is not impersonal. In fact, experienced mindfulness practioners ususally feel a sense of interconnectedness between humans- a sense of shared humanity (another important concept not mentioned in your article). Once we realize that we are all one big family, loving-kindness and compassion for your fellow man becomes natural. Afterall, Why would you hurt another part of yourself? The idea/belief of an inherent/INNER GOODNESS is also key to mindfulness. I like the idea of my mind as a wide open sky, a permanent, innate sense of equanimity, calm, ease. Emotions/feelings always appear as clouds and cover the sky. They change, fluctuate, come, and go. Paradoxically, we must realize the law of impermanence to realize the law of permanence. I say this almost with certainty. One can say that there is no scientific grounding to the assertion that humans possess “eternal” “innate” sense of “equanimity” “ease” “calm” “compassion” and “inter-conntedness” and it is just conditioned, unclear, murky emotions/thoughts that inhibit us from attaining those qualities. Long time meditators often talk about INTUITION, that when you are truly clear-minded and mindful, you intuitively KNOW goodness. U do not have proof to substantiate the claim, but when one of the greatest scientist said this: “the intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.” I know there has to be some truth to it.

A short response to a few things you have mentioned…

1. You start to judge uncomfortable thoughts and feelings as inferior, unreal, or bad. Which gets in your way of actually learning from them, experiencing and healing them, growing from them, and integrating them.

My take: Mindfulness always invites us to hold an open, curious, accepting attitude in objectively observing all thoughts/intention/feelings/emotions/bodily sensations. To discern what/how to label/perceive sensations and whether or not to “let go” of certain sensations or take a certain course of action is an individual’s choice.

6.You detach yourself from conflicts in your life, expecting that meditation will get rid of the negative emotions — and fix the problem altogether. The
emotions just signal the problem. Even if you ignore the emotions, the problem is still there.

My take: Mindfulness encourages us to see with clarity and objectivity the roots and nature of conflicts/aversion. If a person feel sadness about having broken up with his girlfriend, meditation will not help him get her back. It will only help him see the nature and the root of the sadness- for him to take action, if desired. It should be apparent to all student that meditation willl NOT get rid of the negative emotions- unless actions are taken.

8. You find it difficult to connect to your feelings when you want to be emotionally honest with yourself and others. Because you’ve trained yourself to avoid them. This impairs your ability to be emotionally intimate with anyone.

My take: Avoidance is the last thing that mindfulness meditation teaches. Full acceptance of everything is what mindfulness teaches. The first step is ALWAYS full recognition and acceptance of emotinos/thoughts. There is no conceivable reason, especially in mindfulness, to coercively deny the existence of a thought/emotion in the first place when you can already sense it. Mindfulness cultivates a sense of inter-connectedness that actually helps me relate to people better.

11. You lose your ability to naturally feel upset, sad, or concerned when there’s an issue in your life that you need to address. This puts a damper on healthy discernment.

My take: Again, i experience the opposite. with mindfulness practice, I feel hyper-alert. at times, I even worried if I will become over-sensitive to my thoughts/emotion processes. I get a feeling that you think mindfulness is mind-numbing activity– it is really more about mind-opening.

I see the western adaption of eastern philosophy into clinical health practice as a necessary and timely response to the increasingly competitive, quick-paced, multi-tasking, stress-producing material culture. And with countless scientific studies supporting the efficacy of the application of mindfulness in such wide areas as chronic pain treatment, ADHD, HIV virus control, cancer recovery, stress reduction, depression treatment; and in improvement in human functions such as emotional resilience, executive control, I am confident and excited that mindfulness has something to offer. Although I believe the pros overweigh the cons, mindfulness also has its limits and potential dangers (eg. it’s not the best treatment for social anxiety disorder) therefore i think it is very important that we continue to refine and review the theory and practice mindfulness. Sorry about the long, unorganized free writing… There are just so much more to say about mindfulness. Please know that these are not personal attacks, but rather a sincere, open discussion. I have a lot to learn and I am really excited to hear what you and others think/feel..Thanks!

Thanks for the response. I just want to be very clear(as stated earlier) that my focus is entirely on the ARGUMENT/ TOPIC, not YOU. So I am sorry if you get the false impression that I’m saying ” You are wrong” and expecting You to “defend Yourself.” This is not about you. This is about mindfulness. If I ever wanted one thing from this- it is your opinion on our disagreements. (not your “come back attack”)
Any criticism was solely for the sake of intellectual discussion- for the clarification/improvement of the theory/practice of mindfulness- something that personally intrigues me.
So I think my MAIN POINT is- mindfulness is multi-faceted. there is not one way to teach mindfulness. And there is not one experience. Depending on your teacher, the school, the tradition, the duration of your practice, personality, social/geographical background, experience- experience with mindfulness can vary drastically and can be very different from the almost dogmatic characterization you suggested in the article. Especially concerning the point- Do you agree? Because this is true for myself and my classmates/friends- as I shared all the doubts and thoughts about the harm of mindfulness initially. But as I practiced longer, new realizations about the practice, and later, life, come through.
I think one of the biggest struggle I have is with your point #8.
“You find it difficult to connect to your feelings when you want to be emotionally honest with yourself and others. Because you’ve trained yourself to avoid them. This impairs your ability to be emotionally intimate with anyone.”
I personally feel much more connected, grounded. My take on mindfulness is that after you learn to “let go” of emotions, there is something deeper to CONNECT to. eg. like the everlasting breath and present moment- and this is what helps me. What are your thoughts on this?
And if it wasn’t clear- what I love about this article/website is the convergence of such differing opinions. My voice speak for my experience, and your voice speak for yours. I believe it is only through these passionate discussions where important insights arise. So please kindly, feel free to respond =)

Maybe you don’t have to approve this comment to make it publicized, but here’s my small suggestions on the grammatic correctness of your articles. You tend to divide a complete sentence into separate ones, thus making them grammatically wrong.

And personally speaking I think these sentences look funny:

But what writers, researchers, clinicians, teachers, and practitioners won’t tell you.
Is that there are seventeen hidden dangers of practicing mindfulness meditation.
When you’re not being mindful of how you’re treating your negative emotions.

Your articles are otherwise great.

Just my two cents.

Dear Melissa,
I couldn’t help but notice how aggressive and dismisive you are in your replies towards people with an opposite opinion on mindfulness. You seem to be unwilling to see the topic in any other light than the one you chose to see and get very defensive and “catty” towards people who aren’t agreeing with you….

no1 is truly ever happy this meditation gets u outside Ur box and helps u to see the world for what it really is.the bad and the bad and to show compassion in ever aspect of Ur life. so if u say meditation ruins Ur dreams and clogs Ur emotions. then u should do more studying because last time i check i’m happy almost everyday and i found out meditation doesn’t stop Ur dreams, it lets u realize that u didn’t really want that at all. and that my friends is called insight, get ur shizz streight.

Melissa – although I decided in February that I would refrain from further comment – I have felt the need to comment again because, although I respect your right to have different views, your views need to be accurate and supported by fact. If your blog and subsequent comments are not related to mindfulness then that is fine. However, if your views are that mindfulness, taught correctly, is harmful you have a worrying lack of understanding of the fundamental practice of mindfulness and your comments suggest that this is the case. In posting this comment I am only motivated by hoping that you will open your mind to investigating mindfulness more deeply for the benefit of yourself and others. I appreciate and respect your knowledge of the cognitive sciences but we cannot directly learn about emotions only from cognitive sciences, as ultimately they cannot tell us what emotions are, what consciousness is or more fundamentally what the mind is –the mind, consciousness and thought cannot be the physical brain without unwarranted assumptions being made that would simply not be accepted in any other branch of science. I thought as scientists we had moved on from this archaic viewpoint some time ago. With regard to comments you have made:

“…the nature of the brain is dynamic and adaptive. Through the course of 24hrs, the brain switches from various states of consciousness (e.g., from sleep to wake state). Even if you’re talking about nonphysical mind, the brain is still the anchor for physical consciousness.”
The nature of most of our physical organs are dynamic and adaptive (not just our brain) – e.g. I do not consciously have to breathe – I do it automatically when I’m awake and when I’m asleep. Moreover, although beyond the scope of this discussion – it is possible to maintain mindfulness in sleep and in fact this is when most benefit can be attained as our conscious mind can then gain direct access to our dreamsate. With regard to your scientific background, the fact that part of a person’s brain “lights up” upon experiencing a particular emotion tells us nothing whatsoever about the emotion nor the individual experiencing the emotion. What would we see if we were able to physically look (under more and more magnification) into the brain of a person experiencing thought – would you ever see that thought or the emotion? No – because the thought is not part of the brain and therefore is not physical – mind is beyond the physical body – if you consider it to be physical then explain to me exactly where I can find my mind.

“This is what I mean by seeing emotions as not “real.” Being “caught up in them” (the extent of that may vary) validates that they are real and true in the moment. Because they reflect how you construe your experience. How you construe your experience is real, because it directly influences your notion of reality.”

The practice of mindfulness does involve seeing emotions as real – very real, for exactly the reasons you mention – because we are “caught up in them” and “they reflect how we construe our experience”. However, your thoughts are not necessarily “you” –they are (as you inadvertently say) your construction of your experience. You are not destined for the rest of your life to think the way that you do and to experience the emotions that you do – there is a “you” beyond the thought you are “caught up in” and through mindfulness practice (in the present moment) you can let go and free yourself from the repetitive thought patterns in which you are caught. After all – who is it that is observing the thoughts you think you are caught up in?

“My perspective probably doesn’t seem sensible to you though because from your perspective the “true” nature of the mind is “settled.””

Your blog is about mindfulness and therefore you have to refer to terminology which is relevant to mindfulness. In coming from the viewpoint that the true nature of the mind is unsettled, which you seem to be suggesting, you are showing a complete lack of understanding of mindfulness . The true nature of the mind being settled is at the very heart of mindfulness and essential to understanding the psychological processes which a person undertakes when practicing mindfulness. The true nature of everything known is to settle to a steady state – like water will settle to its lowest state and then, when all energy is taken away, it will become clear. The motivation behind practicing mindfulness is to settle the mind into its true nature – i.e. from an unsettled state in which we find ourselves into a settled state. To say that the true nature of our mind is an unsettled state , as you are suggesting, would mean that our motivation in mindfulness is to move into an unsettled mind state – this is very wrong and potentially harmful.

“Put simply, this won’t make sense unless you’ve done it, integrated an undesirable emotional experience mindfully — totally embracing it in the moment and finding out what happens next. :)”

I have done it – I have been practicing mindfulness for more than 25 years. The very essence of mindfulness is to live mindfully – each and every moment. It is not a quick fix – not a therapy to “fix” a person’s mind in a western-style pathological way. It is the opposite – in practicing mindfulness there is nothing to fix in a person – the person does not need fixing as we understand from a western scientific viewpoint – but simply needs to change their view to how they perceive their experience. I say simply – it is simply returning to the present moment and observing – however, being able to maintain the mind in the present moment for extended periods of time requires practice.

“Anon, thank you for sharing your story here. It hits on several of the pitfalls of mainstream mindfulness that deeply, deeply concern me. And it provides a side of the story that few can grasp (because they’ve gotten really good at dissociating), and even fewer would acknowledge.”

My heart goes out to Anon and her/his horrific experiences and I can fully understand her/his anger and resentment. However, mindfulness cannot harm anyone – only therapists can harm people and, in my experience, especially western therapists who think mindfulness (or any therapy for that matter) is easy to learn and a quick fix. Anon has been a victim in her/his childhood and no doubt been a victim by a therapist who claims to understand mindfulness in order to extort money. However, Melissa, responsibility here also lies with you – as you seem to know nothing about mindfulness and yet are proactively discouraging people from considering it as a means which may lead to happiness and contentment in their lives – I urge you to be cautious when putting yourself forward as an expert of something you know very little about – that is what Anon’s so-called therapist did!

“From your comment I presume you will think that I am not one of the “few” which can grasp the pitfalls of mindfulness because over 25 years I’ve “gotten really good at dissociating” – real dissociation lies in not being able to see why we think and act and experience the emotions we do – go on retreat with a recognized meditation teacher and look into your own mind and you will see these things – they are very real – you will not be dissociating you will be seeing.

“I think dissociative mindfulness more times than not has negative effects, regardless of where you “fit” on the continuum.”

Are you saying that there is a practice of mindfulness called “dissociative mindfulness” – these two words are contradictory and diametrically opposed – unless you are referring to being mindful that you are dissociating – which has to be a good thing….doesn’t it?

“Mindfulness is a tool, probably better for some things (like enduring chronic pain) than others (like “letting go” of anger), and it’s definitely prone to becoming highly dissociative, since its at start dissociative, or attentional-shifting.”

Mindfulness is very good for “letting go” and for anger and for that matter for addressing almost any emotion. With regards to anger, it is a destructive emotion both for those who are experiencing it and for those onto which it is being projected. To be able to be mindful when angry is of great benefit because we can then see the destructive effects it has on us and others – it is only by seeing (i.e. being mindful) whilst being angry that we can address this destructive emotion. Again you are showing a fundamental misunderstanding of mindfulness in saying that “its at start dissociative” – it quite simply is not and in fact is the opposite to what you say.

“I think we need much more research on the uses and limitations of mindfulness, instead of a “one-size-fits-all” mentality.”

Research and funding into mindfulness has grown exponentially in the last 20 years – there were 80 papers published in 1990 and over 600 in 2000 and the exponential trend has continued. You need to do your research before making statements that you can’t back-up.

“Buddhism, for instance, claims that anger is a poison, which effectively pits “emotion” as the enemy and the problem, instead of the potential ally and symptom.”

It is true that Buddhism claims that anger is a poison, but it is a massive leap and assumption on your part to state that Buddhism “pits emotion as the enemy and the problem” – simply not true. In Buddhism, anger is called a poison because it is considered a mental state which temporarily clouds the mind and manifests “unskillful” acts. Accordingly, it is considered to be a source of human suffering. The Buddha taught acceptance of things as they are – if we suffer from anger – we need to accept the causes of that anger to relieve ourselves from the suffering it causes and thereby break the cycle. Of course, in order to be able to accept the causes of our anger we need to be able to see the causes and this is where mindfulness practice comes in and from where it is derived from in western psychological therapies.

These comments are not in any way aimed personally at you and I do not in any way want to discredit your excellent website, but having read your comments I have felt the need to add an alternative view in response and welcome any reply from you.

Yes, I am THE Anon being referenced in these last comments. And I agree with Melissa.

“Mindfulness is very good for “letting go” and for anger and for that matter for addressing almost any emotion.”

Baloney. THAT was the exact attitude of my old therapist which harmed me so much. He wanted to use mindfulness to teach ‘letting go’. If something has been processed enough to TRULY be let go, then no technique or teaching is necessary – it just goes on its own and is no longer front and center. When emotions are ‘addressed’ with some formula, then they are not allowed to be fully experienced and the contradiction is there no matter what semantics are applied to it. It is in this way that mindfulness is dissociative.

To heck with being Anon. I am here:

http://www.etherealhighway.blogspot.com

Check out my sidebar, Karma. Mindfulness hurts a lot of people due to its sneaky dissociative underpinnings. Some peope figure it out and some others can’t quite put their finger on what is wrong with it, but they still know that something is. I have found that most people who figure it out are those who are not beholden to some ‘teacher’ and somehow have the power to rise up and be honest even when it is unpopular and frightening to do so.

p.s. The old harmful therapist adopted a dog and named it ‘Karma’. It creeped me out when he told me that because the notion of Karma sounds quite toxic to me when I really think about the motivation for such beliefs. The construct of Karma would be a very handy instrument to forward the agenda of a caste system and I don’t think that is a coincidence. ‘Karma’ is also a form of victim blaming, which is the ULTIMATE in dissociation. No one is going to complain of an injustice if said injustice is automatically somehow their own fault. Can’t complain and have someone understand and not blame you for the actions of others? No problem. “Let go of it” instead. Don’t hold on to it. You don’t HAVE to really live and experience, you can detach and simply ‘observe’ (dissociate by depersonalization) instead. ‘Mindfulness’ at its finest. I am better off than I have been for a long time since getting away from the poison of this double-bind.

I happened to stumble upon this blog by doing a Google search on living with depression. My whole life I’ve been seeking some sort of meaning and truth to this whole experience so I’ve been through quite a few depression spells since I was really young. I’m 21 now (22 next month) and the only reason I’m alive now is because I’m absolutely terrified of death and what comes next.

There are a lot of valid points from both sides of the table here and I think that an answer has already presented itself amongst the squabbling. It’s all about finding a happy balance and knowing how to use meditation. There is no right or wrong answer to any of this really, is there? There is no guide book to life. We’re all learning how to deal with what’s happening through our own experience.

Being that I believe in living as simply and naturally as possible, I’ve always felt that being with your emotions and experiencing them as they’re happening has always been the best approach to moving through trauma or suffering. It’s like the story of the moth in the cocoon and how it struggles to make it’s way out strengthening itself in the process, but if you were to cut it free and help it it would be too weak to survive. We have to ride out the hard times if we want this to mean anything.

Everything that we do in terms of spirituality in the western world is superficial and never fully understood. Everyone thinks they can derive meaning from books by “spiritual leaders”, but the last thing they ever really consider is stopping to just be with who they are right then and experience what’s happening right then. No one wants to put in the hard work to really better themselves. They want the negative emotions to cease and they want to be happy and positive all day everyday so they can feel inspired to get things done. Such is the American mentality anyway.

As I’ve said, I’m only 21 and I’m sure I can’t keep up with any of the intellect that’s rampant in this thread but sometimes things are simple. I’ve been out of high school 3.5 years now and I’ve just started college. I don’t know many things but what I have learned is solely from my first hand experience and inward thought. Funny enough a lot of my friends call me the guru. The guy who appears happy and full of truth but is actually a complete mess and hypocrite, as we all are.

Funny story. I met a guy in Hawaii a few months back while I was volunteering and he was this 60 year old guy who had just discovered spirituality. He was talking about chakras and energy psychology and he did Yoga and read books on Hinduism, but he kept preaching how we need to dissociate from the material world and ego because it was the cause of all suffering. He wouldn’t ever take my point of view into consideration because I had derived most of my meaning on my own and who’s he going to believe? Eckhart Tolle or me? Mind you this man was very bitter and had a rough upbringing. He also was all for polyamory and thought it’d be possible if we all dissociated. He also believed in this concept of evolutionary consciousness that we’d have to be reincarnated a few times before we could connect to something, yet he was constantly proselytizing and being aggressive with people who would believe. What?!

We can have our beliefs but at the end of the day be open to the fact that no one really has the answers when it comes to this experience. There are things scientists may never be able to comprehend in this life. I tried the Buddhist thing and stayed with Buddhists for a while. There is good in every religion. Take whatever meshes with you and create something honest for yourself.

Meditation calms me down. That’s how I use it. Generally I’m pretty mindful without it and I’m already a calm and collected individual. I don’t expect much. Life doesn’t owe me anything.

Shit… I think I’m off topic… I suck at collecting my thoughts. Fuck it. I’ll leave it there for anyone interested.

Either way you could always wait for the nest meditation fad. Trust me! It will appear in the future.

Melissa

As a follow up i have been reading some your other articles and i find the site very interesting. Some really good and thought provoking articles especially about emotions.

One thing i mean to mention in my last post was the whole concept of “non-judging” and i’d like to get your take on it as i am genuinely interested.

From my understanding of mindfulness non-judging does not mean not being involved and certainly does not mean telling yourself your emotions are not real. But as you pointed out in other articles a lot of adults suppress negative emotions because we have been brought up to believe it is not right to show/display these emotions.

So an example, a person gets angry, but then tells themself they shouldn’t be showing this anger and so suppress. The causes don’t go away but instead simply fester. You arguments seems to be you must let that emotion run it’s course to fully deal with it although of course, as you again say, this must be done in an intelligent way ie. you can’t simply go around punching people who annoy you !

I totally agree with that but this is exactly what non-judgemental means to me in mindfulness so i am not sure where you and mindfulness differ on this point. Non-judgement is not about denying the emotion, pretending it’s not real, it’s about dealing with it intelligently just as you advocate ie. don’t try to suppress, don’t push it away, rather look at it for what it is and try to see what thoughts/sensations go with that emotion.

If you push that emotion away, suppress it or try to detach yourself from it then you are indeed judging that emotion as something undesirable. But this isn’t what i understand mindfulness to be about. It teaches you to treat all emotions equally ie good and bad emotions, to be with them and to see below the surface of them.

How is that very different from what you yourself propose ?

I am still learning so do not purport to be an expert but here is my take. The notion of Mindfulness of emotions v. Witnessing of emotions needs to be reconceptualized. In my opionion, it’s not really an either/or proposition. Mindfulness of emotions could include many things including Witnessing of emotions if that serves a purpose. Mindfulness of emotions is about take respons ability (responding to what you are feeling). If one form of the response is distancing then fine if that is what you need to do to let what is troubling you sit (assuming it’s something you can sit on) as you mindfully construct perhaps a self-narrative of what it was that made you feel so angry. When you review that story you may find there are some distortions in it and will make appropriate revisions or take action to right-size the narrative. Given the new version, two things could happen. Maybe the anger will go away (for the right reasons) or you’ll have a better understanding of why you’re angry. In either case, a good and healthy way of being more present and constructively engaging with all sorts of stuff that is part of our daily lives from one moment to the next.

Hello,
In your text you say amongst other things ‘The common prescription of mindfulness meditation prevents you from being mindful of unwanted thoughts and feelings’.
This is bizarre and certainly not my experience, which is the opposite. Meditation makes me more aware and mindful of whatever I am feeling, be it positive or negative, and at the same time it makes me feel more balanced and better equiped to deal with the emotions, situations etc., in a healthier way. Things still affect me but they don’t throw me off balance like before. Could it be that you have meditated with people who don’t really know what they are doing? Because if yes, then that could only aggravate the way you react to things.
Just trying to help.

Wow! Way too much thinking going on here. Get yourself in a chair and breath. Seriously! Slow down and enjoy the sounds of nature as opposed to the sound of yourself typing the chatter of your restless mind.

Hi,
I have to say, Melissa has a point indeed. I don’t really know the difference between types of meditation, the one I’ve done being actually in a buddhist centre (where I find people to be pretty kind and loving in general). However, I have happened to come across people in other settings who claim to meditate and I have found them to be rather indifferent to those around them and uncompassionate, which I have found confusing too.

Forgive me if anybody’s already mentioned this. Also, I may have misunderstood you. But couldn’t it be that mindfulness is about dissolving negative emotions rather than suppressing them? Clearly the emotions don’t actually exist. So wouldn’t it be helpful to concider them an illusion? If anything, fixating on negative emotions intensifies those emotions, which itself seems unnatural.
And I hate to say this, but unless you’ve tried mindfulness yourself (and you’ve made a habit out of it, so that you’ve been able to see its effects yourself) your’re in no position to comment on the practice. Have you?

Pythagoras, I find *you* to be a little dishonest in your attempts to invalidate those who have had negative exeriences with mainstream mindfulness. The death of the ego as a good thing? I am a survivor of exteme childhood abuse. I barely had a fucking ego to start with and killing the tiny little ego I had was what got me retraumatized as an adult. And there are plenty more out in the world just like me being instructed to kill their egos and ‘transcend’. Just FYI. It’s better to deal for real — even if it sucks.

17 Ways to counter your arguments. Each number is in direct response to the number you’ve put as a reason meditation can cause emotional harm.

1.Seeing everything from an objective point of view is not the same a judging everything. Uncomfortable thoughts are included in everything

2.Anger is not stuffed away. It is observed and and seen for what it is, an illusion of the mind. (A hurt ego)

3.When something “tragic” happens the grieving process is cut dangerously short because the event is accepted as a part of life.

4.The “tragic” memory will only resurface if one thinks about it. You imply that one has no control over associative thought. Meditation is about awareness of the moment. When one’s senses are affected, one will associate that with some event from the past and begin to judge it. Meditation teaches one to observe this process and stop it from hindering focus.

5.Meditation does make one happy. It’s hard work. Constantly pulling one’s attention back to focus is quite troublesome in the beginning. Goals are pointless. One will reach that point of skill if they concentrate on something long enough so what’s the purpose of writing down what one knows is going to happen?
Ex: I have a goal of becoming more muscular. However, I enjoy exercise already, so what’s the point of setting this goal when I know that if I continue on this path that I will become more muscular anyway?
Setting goals sounds like reassuring the ego to me.

6.Conflict is a two person process. Meditation allows one to observe emotion and thought, so one can observe these ego reactions for what they are; illusions. Once one realizes these observations one can walk away and allow the other individual to stew in his/her folly. Emotions don’t signal problems, they cause them (when we can’t understand them). All wars are the result of poor human relations. Hurt ego.

7.If one has chosen a partner based off of understanding and not emotion this problem will not occur. Emotions come and go at will. Understanding someone is a solid foundation for acceptance. Picking a partner based off of how they think and not how they make you feel will result in a much more balanced relationship and not egocentric give and take. Ex: You give me a compliment that I could do without (stating the obvious) so I feel obligated to do the same to you because if I don’t your feelings(ego) will be hurt and the relationship will be in trouble. <—- This will occur if the relationship is based on emotions alone.
Ex2: You give me a compliment that I could do without and I don't not feel obligated to give you one back. You understand that I don't care for your opinion, but love you all the same. emotion. We cannot change the past. We cannot predict the future. We can only live in the moment and accept it. We cannot control anyone else’s destiny. That’s his/her life to live. Just look at nature. If we all left the planet then nature wouldn’t care. The animals would keep on living. The seasons would keep changing. The sun will continue to set and rise. We are no better or worse than anything on the planet. Just live and do the right thing. Stop trying to control the lives of others and control your own.

This explanation has holes in it and I accept that fact. I know that I have a lot to learn. Sometimes it just makes me emotional because I cannot accept the fact that other people cannot let go of what makes us different, especially when they take foolish action because of it. I get emotional when I am judged. I don’t care if it’s a compliment or not. I get emotional when I feel good from getting a compliment because I know that it will not change anything. My ego is being stroked and that’s all that’s happening. I get emotional when I realize how shallow our society is. But, it’s just my ego, which cannot accept the way things are. My emotions clearly have not died. I don’t suppress them. I have a better understanding of them. Emotions do in fact pass. They come and go like the thoughts in our minds (perhaps they are related). How else would we know that there are different emotions?

I think there’s some difference in interpretation. You see, I admit I’m very interested in mindfulness and have explored different literature on it. Some, like you said, indeed focus on the idea that negative feeling is not real, it is not what your true nature is. And therefore, you need to acknowledge their false nature for what they are, and let them go. Your true nature is that of joy and happiness. While this at first seems to be an optimistic and positive idea, I find it too anecdotal and arbitrary, and do not connect to it much. This type of teaching seems to be common in literature that have religious or spiritual connotation.

Melissa, I think this is the type of mindfulness you and some other people here are against, if I’m understanding correctly.

On the other hand, I also find many literature that focuses on that concept of being mindful of your feelings and thoughts, feel them, acknowledge them for what they are, and decide what to do about it. Their main concept is to feel your emotion fully, and not trying to get away from them. This one makes more sense to me and is also the one that I practice and find helpful. I know my emotion is very much real, and to deny it does not contribute anything to my well-being. By not pushing it away or judging it, I can fully feel and acknowledge the extend that emotion has on me, and thus become more aware of what matters to me and how I can go about working on it.

The way I see mindfulness is basically boiling down to self-awareness. And I think most of here would agree there’re benefits for being aware of your emotions and know how it affects you and your judgment. If anyone here is familiar with the concept of emotional intelligent, the first very important skill is to be self-aware. I find mindfulness the perfect tool for this.

Therefore, I think it would be more fair to advise people AGAINST being “mindful” by telling themselves their emotions are not real ( a form of denial and suppressing), rather than making claim about how harmful mindfulness in general is.

A recovering OCD sufferer here, for whom mindfulness meditation has been a critical tool in my healing process…

I can see Melissa’s point that if mindfulness is being used to *disassociate* from emotions, that is not useful.

However, my understanding of mindfulness, and how I practiced it (per the strategies outlined in The Mindful Way through Depression and Jeffry Schwartz’s 4-step process for reframing obsessive-compulsive thoughts and urges in Brain Lock), was the opposite of what Melissa is describing here.

Mindfulness allowed me, for the first time, to feel what there was to be felt in my OCD experience…to acknowledge my pain and anxiety fully (something I had never done before)…and THEN to make constructive, healthy choices about what to do with my feelings, understanding that they were not rational, once I had mindfully observed them.

The non-judgmental aspect was critical. Before, I greeted OCD thoughts with judgments such as, “you’re crazy!”, “you’re so weak to be obsessing again!”, “you’re broken and bad!”, and so on. Mindfulness taught me that I didn’t need to do that. I could love and have compassion for myself and my feelings, even the least rational and most unpleasant ones. Only AFTER I had felt what was there — had acknowledged and witnessed my feelings to myself — did I experience the ability to STOP acting on compulsive urges.

I went from someone who could barely function, due to OCD anxiety, to being able to function at high levels, and having more emotional stability in my mind and relationships than ever. I attribute much of this to mindfulness.

I do not doubt that there are lazy mental health practitioners who use mindfulness in the diassociative, improper, and unhealthy ways that you are describing here. That is wrong, and deserves to be condemned.

Perhaps what concerns me is that your article seems to lack nuance. You seem to decry all mindfulness practice, when it seems to me that your argument might more accurately be phrased, “Some mental health practitioners are unequipped to teach effective mindfulness meditation, and instead use it as a crutch to numb or shove pain away.” I think all of us can agree that this is NOT going to be healthy for anyone.

If I’m understanding the comments correctly, though, it seems that those of us who have benefited from mindfulness practice simply don’t agree with your characterization that the practice itself always requires a disassociative approach, as this has not been my experience, at least. I think a bit more nuance and clarity in your post would be helpful.

Hi,
Nice article. The comments are abundant and I didn’t read them all so will apologize if I repeat what has been said. You’re observation of disassociation are spot on and are obviously not limited to Mindfulness practice, but most spiritual practice really, especially if it’s new age, where escapism is a central theme. The great challenge of all spiritual practice is the seeming duality it builds between the mundane and the profound, the earthly and the spiritual. I would say it’s an issue of maturity and evolution. Humans are limited beings and it appears that we need to move through phases most of the time in our growth, development and maturation. Many get stuck, many give up, many don’t bother.
Much of what you described from the perspective of a long-term meditative practice, are simply stages of learning, which provide ample opportunity to release beliefs, and progress to more authentic, open and richer sitting and practice off cushion.
In my experience there are key central issues to be applied to any form of spirituality to ensure that it is not leading us down dead ends. I have personally found them life-saving;
1. It must be deeply human: separating us from our humanity is a sure sign of escapism. Can you relate to others? If not, you got a problem. Does your practice exist behind closed doors only?
2. It must encompass and integrate all human experience; including the emotional, intellectual, sexual, physical, as well as work, politics, health, relationships, and so on. Don’t forget that meditation can be used to suppress feelings and emotions, but also active inquiry, intellectual engagement, questioning, skeptical doubt. This leads to naive adherence to dogma, gurus and so on. It’s usually a search for certainty, solidity and certainty in the world. Meditation as a security blanket anyone?
3. It must be practiced in conjunction with others; i.e. the world around us. If your practice is too special, there’s a problem. If you don’t relate to other practitioners, it’s likely you’ll get stuck in one of the many learning curves that flavour ongoing mindfulness practice.
4. We must have access to appropriate guidance, whether from peers, a teacher; a lot of teachers are confused too. Opening up our curiosity to wider dialogues in the Mindfulness/Buddhist community can help. A teacher should be able to go beyond spouting classic Buddhist doctrine and relate it directly to human experience, if not they are probably lost and confused too.
5. It must be carried out long-term and brought into the different arenas of our lives; some of the confusion you’ve described above is due to a very limited experience of meditating. This is an issue that can emerge in particular in the use of mindfulness for stress management and depression. It’s not all bad though. We need to be aware of our limits and for many the path to a reduction in suffering is through distancing and detachment. This may eventually lead to a healthier re-engagement with the challenging emotion/feeling, but not always. This leads to the next essential point that’s perhaps missing from your article.
6. The key is your intent and motive for practice. In reality some of the problems you described may be advantageous to certain people. As adults we can also make the decision to disassociate, right. For long-term practitioners this ceases to be an option if the person is genuinely engaging with developing insight and understanding of what it means to be fully human and awake as one.
It’s important we don’t idealize the potential results and desired results of meditation practice, but pointing out pitfalls and myths of practice is one of my own favorite blogging activities, so good for you, and keep up the good work.
You might like to check out my blog too as I am slap bang in the middle of writing about Mindfulness. I speak of dissatisfaction too in the post on Mindfulness of the body:
http://buddhatrieste.blogspot.com/2012/03/mindfulness-of-body.html

Willy and Gyatso speak the truth. This seems like a Westernized approach to meditating and mindfulness. If you take the time to search deeper inside yourself you will see that there is no mind and that you are the pure awareness behind this. You are much too focused on the stresses of the Western life which is understandable why.. living in the West myself. Although you are helping many people grow…… it would be wise to search inside yourself some more before trying to show the “way” like so many people have tried and done before. Focusing on statistics and form too much is no good =) You will learn and make better :D

I’m meditating and a bit wary of spacing out, and its hard not to be harsh on myself when noticing I’m drifting off. However, I feel there is something very healthy to be found in some type of meditation/relaxation. Maybe just taking 20 minutes without outer distractions to be with yourself and your thoughts?

hello i came to this web page hoping to accurate information! There is no such thing as practicing mindulfulness because your always present whether you practice it or not. And all the practices i have read dont involve repressing emotions or denying in fact they say to accept the emotions and being mindful of how each emotion feels within you. One practice actually says “anger is within me and i am anger” Please correct this inappropriate info =]

I agree there are distortions regarding emotional health that can be propogated through unwise mindulness practice or teachings. Simply put, instead of chasing the American dream of being happy all the time, people caught in these traps switch happiness for peacefulness as their goal. This is accentuated by other social phenomenon and beliefs too; namely, the idea that if you aren’t 100% optimistic and extroverted all the time, you are mentally unwell.

There are teachers and paths that work with all emotions, encouraging people to stay with whatever comes up without judging it. One teacher in this regard in Thorn Coyle; another set of teachings I find valuable is the Tibetan Shambhala Buddist work, because it was adapted for Westerners to alleviate the deep self-hatred we are conditioned from birth onwards with. I also really find the work of Tsultrim Allione in re-viving Chod valuable.

Mindfulness is not supposed to be exorcism – but rather, “in-presencing”, being with whatever actually is in the moment. Thanks for shedding some light on the benefits and pitfalls.

All the best to everyone on their journey!