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!

Gega,

I feel that detachment is never healthy no matter how much one tries to justify it. You said:

“Detachment doesn’t mean “I don’t care about you”. The “I don’t care about you” attitude is actually an ‘Attached’ attitude.”

and

“when we are ‘attached’ we only care when we are rewarded and don’t care when we want to hurt another.”

This is a twisting of definitions similar to Orwellian Newspeak such as, “War is Peace” and “Freedom is Slavery.” Just because you believe the words you’re saying, doesn’t make them true.

Also, life is not comparable to a movie. Or tennis. Or martial arts. Life is all these things and much much more. In a relationship, it’s not the greatest idea to think of it like a competition or a piece of entertainment. This the worst of the worst detachment and apathy that we are currently experiencing as a culture.

My philosophy: Care about everything you possibly can. Remain attached to pain, pleasure, and every emotion.

No one can live their philosophy perfectly, but we can’t fall into the trap of mislabeling things as they are. Things are confusing enough as is.

If I thought what Gega wrote was valid, I wouldn’t have responded. And yes his belief system does hurt me. Why? Because ideas spread. I am personally affected by detached people on a daily basis, and it bothers me.

I am well aware of the existence of paradox. Some paradoxes are true, and some are false. You can’t stretch everything into a paradox or a double-meaning. Right is not wrong and wrong is not right.

You have to stand for something or else you’ll fall for anything. And detachment, no matter how you wanna brand it, is not something I will ever subscribe to. It’s nihilism.

This is the first ‘negative’ comment I’ve read about mindfulness. I’ve always had provisos in my head but for other reasons. If being in the ‘present’ frees us from ‘harmful’ thoughts (whatever) why do we have a cerebrum? Why as Jesus suggested we must have the minds of little children to enter the kingdom etc (which I always assumed meant something like living in the present anyway) do we differ from kids and animals who know how to be happy? Isn’t that what set cro-magnon man (and woman) on the path to where we are today? There’s a paradox here that needs exploring. That said what little ‘mindfulness’ I’ve practised has done me big favours – although you need to keep on top of it. You get nowt for nowt (as they say in Yorkshire). Also and on another rather oblique point, I suddenly (like a revelation) became aware that there is no past or future, just the continuum of ‘now’. Yeah I know the zen bods have been banging on about that for years but I never listened. Anyway now I ‘know’ what they mean.

I saw your other posts on the right hand side of this post and you seem to have the wrong attitude towards a lot of things and you come across as quite negative. Maybe if you had the right attitude and you were more positive, meditation would work for you. So far, you are the only person on the web who has these kind of articles while everyone else who meditates has discussed only upbeat and inspirational articles and posted them online. Several mental health experts have done research on Holistic Health and anything that has to do with it and the only talk about how rejuvenating and motivational meditation is. Nothing personal, but I am just telling you my perspective about your outlook on this and on life in general.

lol vipassana…lol its late…no glasses and no speel check

quite the opposite…like all practices…nothing is without potential criticisms….certainly there are great benefits to practice…i for one do not believe in enlightenment….and negation, this does not mean I dont practice well or properly. Ive certainly seen many missuse the methods to advantage or deney important relationships and emotions. I would say that the blind support of any practice or ideal is always a good indicator that their are inhearant flaws as self criticism becomes impossible with the moral voracity and cannon with which practice is applied. I am sure there are many very serious practioners and teachers that would be the first to line up and say that the practice is often used for denial, moral or emotional indifference etc….just because you can watch yourself watching does not necessarily mean you are no longer subject to the human factor so to speak

hi

i browsed the article. it certainly has many valid points. the word ‘mindfulness’ (sati), in the Buddhist senses, actually means ‘to remember’ or ‘recollection’. the role of mindfulness is to ‘recollect’ or bring WISDOM & UNDERSTANDING to an experience. thus, in Buddhism, sati is always co-joined with the term ‘sampajanna’, to mean ‘mindfulness-&-clear comprehension’ or ‘mindfulness-&-ready wisdom’.

if we study the original Buddhist texts, in relation to freeing the mind of disturbing emotions, it was generally taught, to UNDERSTAND WITH WISDOM, the respective skilfulness & unskilfulness of various thoughts.

so yes, the Buddhist way is not merely trying to observe emotions & thought devoid of understanding. my personal view is your article, Melissa Karnaze, is very good

regards

I remember something about Abraham-Hicks teachings & somehow misunderstood it & thus ends up with a lot problem due to suppressing negative thoughts & not facing them. After a few studies from different mentors, I began to realize what it means to go with the flow. Negative feelings are not bad. They are action signals. Still learning to do something about these signals tho. :-)

Hello. I have read this entire thread and was fascinated with it.

And, yes. I would highly recommend a teacher/master from the very get-go, because it’s all very subtle and they have seen many mindfulness practicioners and many meditators and are generally able to hear what’s happening for you-in your observations of yourself and the world around you and to integrate it and alter practices when practical.

For all…and for you Melissa, I would highly recommend “Mindfulness in Plain English” (exact title..forgot author). It explains mindfulness in a way that is so logical that it blew the doors off ALL of my ideas about psychology. Even the CBT approach assumed that thoughts or beliefs leading to feelings could be identified and experienced. Well they can…but ONLY if we’re mindful. Since I know that you wouldn’t disagree with a shadow, or unconscious processes ongoing, it is quite likely that CBT has added mindfulness (MCBT) because it has become obvious that the ability to observe one’s thoughts and experiences require attention that a 5-minute meditation clarifies is largely unavailable for something as benign as the act of breathing. Clearly, shadow characters and the real thoughts that underly emotions and behavior are going to be very difficult to attend to- and they are. We must learn. To learn we must be present. In mindfulness, just the awareness of non-presence is itself awareness. We either, it seems to me, open to the “more of us”, or shrink ourselves into narrow conceptions of ourselves. Mindfulness, along with meditation is about creating a strong witness that doesn’t preclude experience, or repress or dissociate (which we all do), but shows us that the “I”, that is witnessing is not the thought, the emotion, nor sensations. This non-identification is even important in the language. “There is a tightness in “the stomach””. “Thoughts about how boring this is”, etc. If we can keep watching…the watcher changes.

These are my thoughts along with my experiences and I hope that they represent a helpful finger….

Namaste

Abraham is confused. Zen is a very weak school of Buddhism. Mindfulness in Plain English is a confused work of literature. Mindfulness in the Buddhist sense means to ‘remember’; ‘to recollect’. it does not mean to ‘witness’.

Abraham. “Mindfulness” in Buddhism means “to remember”; “to recollect”. It does not mean “awareness”. In means to remember to practise the principles of Buddhism.

Okay Nick.
Namaste!

It seems to me that Nick/Abraham et al although making many valid points – some of which warrant consideration – they are missing the major – and revolutionary – aspect of ‘mindfulness’ , the aspect that appears to have had such empirical success with treatment of depression in particular and that is the aspect of the emphasis on ‘present time’ awareness. When I practised ‘mindfulness of breathing’ in London in the 80s it was very Buddhist orientated – which I considered then a weakness for reasons not relevant here – and the ‘present time’ effect of the practise was left unsaid. In fact I don’t remember it being mentioned at all. And it is this aspect more than any other that seems to get results. Why? That needs further investigation of a scientific kind i.e. not your methods at all which aren’t necessarily invalid but science they ain’t. We measure, we count, we predict and we measure again. Tedious often but essential. My advice? Stay in the present time. It’s your best chance of ‘happiness’ (whatever that means) and I’m not sure why that should be so. Lots of paradoxes here. Fascinating stuff. Makes you feel glad to be alive!

Melissa – either you haven’t read my post or you’ve chosen to ignore it. Which of course is your privilege. My main point – and one I suspect is something like anathema to people like yourself – is that ‘mindfulness’, all objections notwithstanding, WORKS!!!! Or at least the emphasis on living in the present seems to. And this is measureable. Not opinion. Still plenty to argue with agreed, but time you took a different tack I feel. Try putting your ego on the back burner. That sounds didactic but it applies to all of us myself (perhaps especially) included.
Oh and Nick – your contribution – the last point borne in mind – sounds like a rant. As though you’re shouting. This weakens your argument.
One is left with the suspicion that you both have a ‘hidden agenda’ of some sort in the form of a vested interest in arguments counter to mindfulness. And if true that is what Bertrand Russell called the worst of philosophic sins. Searching for conculsions that are agreeable. Mind you he was talking about Socrated when he said that. So what do I know.

Dear Melissa
I guess, the picture potrayed about mindfulness needs to be seen from a different angle. The reason being, meditation was never created in the first place to calm emotions or fight day-to-day life stresses. Mindfullness is just a first step towards the vast goal of englightment. Seeing mindful meditation in an isloated way is truly sad as one misses the big picture. Also compared to other meditation systems, mindfulness neither makes us numb or invites us escape from world. It actually arouses more awareness which even leads to gentle awakening of creative parts of mind and thus empowers meditator to handle difficult situations and worrying emotions more powerfully. I also believe one essentially has not to experience negative emotions to feel the positive emotions as many of the psychiatric problems arise after traumatic conditions or consistently unfavourable environment. If this idea of essentially experiencing bad emotions to experience good emotions is accepted then i believe our world would be free of PTSD, Anxiety disorder, grief, lonliness, bipolar problems, which obviously does not happen. Over the number of years i have seen many people falling into various psychiatric problems because of stress but not even a single person falling to these problems who regularly does mindful meditations. Infact mindfulness creates tremondous strength in us that helps become more resourceful and counter off problems which not only have the power to impact us but also our loved ones as well. If someone is drowning then we can help them better if we are grounded on shore but if we ourselves are drowning then we offcourse cannot prevent others from drowning in water. So i would suggest that one should first get training from a qualified teacher n then embark upon the path of mindful meditation, and trust me, the results would be astounding! blessings and light

Dear Ms. Dobson
I would suggest you take an expert help from a qualified meditation teacher or any energy healer / reiki healer as your problem seems to be less connected to meditation and more connected to energy imbalance that originated not from meditation but from some external source. Evil eye possibility cannot be ruled out and so does premature awakening of your own dormant energies! I also suggest that one should start meditation under expert guidance and should always be in touch with the teacher just like patient has to be in touch with the doctor to counter off any side effects and change of medication whenever needed.

I wish you very best of health

blessings and light!

Completely inaccurate take on how mindfulness meditation is done. Also confuses results with process. If you do mindfulness meditation as described in this article you certainly will end up emotional problems quite possibly worse than the ones you’ve already got.
Correct mindfulness meditation does bring with it issues which are discussed by many meditation teachers, a but they are not the problems described here by the article because the article describes problems which arise from not doing mindfulness meditation correctly.
It’s also worth noting that a decent mindfulness meditation teacher can help avoid many of the incorrect techniques and problems presented in the article.
In short if you do mindfulness meditation correctly, there are known issues which you can work your way through provided your doing the meditation part correctly in the first place.
If any of the problems with mindfulness meditation pop up as described here then the best thing to do is probably get yourself a teacher who can teach you the correct method of meditation. That way you can deal with the actual issues that correct mindfulness meditation tends to dig up. Problems that are not addressed in this article.

Just to reiterate my point about minfulness not being about avoiding ones interior emotional life, here’s a quote taken directly from mindfulness based cognitve therapy web site..

.”Mindfulness takes a different approach. It helps develop your willingness to experience emotions, your capacity to be open to even painful emotions. “……

I have a dissociative disorder called depersonalization disorder. I tried for the past two years to meditate and calm my mind. I tried guided meditation and mindful meditation. Neither of them had any significant positive effect on me, other than making me more agitated and anxious. Apparently, emotional upheaval during meditation is normal, which is why I continue practicing it. From what I’ve read, this has to do with deeper brain wave states which activate the release of unconscious/subconscious memories and trauma.

I would often think about this very issue, Melissa. That meditation seemed to be a form of detaching from your emotions. The red flag for me was “observing your thoughts.” This didn’t seem to make sense to me, as I felt the same as you. I’m already observing myself (through my disorder), wouldn’t it make sense to really feel and take emotional note of how I was feeling rather than watching myself?

I do therapy on my own, related to recognizing and coming to terms with my past trauma. This has helped me out much more than meditation has. I’m not discrediting meditation yet, as I feel there is a miscommunication in my understanding of the practice. I do feel there is some value in not being so extremely attached to any emotion and feeling that you have. Especially with anxiety, you get a lot of downright irrational, dangerous thoughts/impulses. I just look at them as the natural variance of the human mind and a result of the heightened stress response. In this regard, I can see credence in mindfulness meditation. Still unsure, still discovering. Will be sure to check out more of your posts, though, before coming to a decision. Appreciate the article!

Nick,
excellent letter. I came to this post trying to understand why so many people I met through mindfulness meditation were so oddly narcissistic and blissfully avoiding…I experienced some very difficult relations with “mindful” persons ….through research I came to understand concepts of “emotional bypass” and that the common misunderstanding of mindfulness and liberation fantasy’s is the notion that trauma will just fall away….disassociation (the minds protection mechanism) can be increased and exacerbated by mindfulness meditation. I agree meditation gives one space to watch…and learn and apply wisdom. …heal the self first then let go of the self to reveal the space……so many damaged people are looking for the panacea of spirituality to cover over the pain of trauma…it just leads to more hurt for themselves and others.

Another observation is that the nature of your blog is SUPREMELY negative.

Lets look at the top 7 articles on the side bar….

75 Nice Things People Say to Shut Up Your Feelings
The Dark Side of Mindfulness Meditation
17 Ways Mindfulness Meditation Can Cause You Emotional Harm
Dysfunctional Beliefs of a Jehovah’s Witness Apostate
6 Reasons Why You Never Need to Win an Argument
4 Reasons to Kill Your Ego that Aren’t Very Good
The Dark Side of Personal Development

Everything is negative. This follows a familiar path when “teachers” attempt to discredit others in order to promote their own “teachings”.

I’d suggest that those of you using this blog for any kinda spiritual development would be very careful. Look for where you can find Positive Teachers. By attempting to attack everyone else, Melissa is attempting to disguise her own fears and push the attention elsewhere.

Think about it….. would you seek to improve, say, your culinary/cooking skills by reading a blog with titles like this:

Salt is terrible
Why you should never cook with butter
7 ways in which rice can be harmful
The awful truth about bread
The dark side of vegetables

?

Of course you wouldn’t. Be wise, people. Do you really think that addressing anxiety and depression with endless negativity is helpful?

Well researched comment…regardless there are also many courses and studies that show some people are not good candidates for mindfulness practice…especially those that already have dissociative issues…other clinicians have also researched “emotional bypass” where the pleasant effects of M. can be used to circumvent hard psychological work. Mindfulness gets grouped in with non duality and other Buddhist spiritual practice as well. While meditation after much practice can improve recognizing behavioral and emotional reactions…knowing what to do with them, tracking the source of them, slowing down negative reactions and responses are not usually taught as standard to the practice. There seems to be a vast array of meditation teachers and little structure to modern western standards of safety and core requirements…unlike many “pharma” options. Narcissistic reactions to deep meditation are common place and anecdotally many many hurt, damaged and otherwise are often attracted to the “feel good” nature of meditation. I support the benefits of good meditation practice…but unsupervised and without a good course in ethics it can create harm as well.

Correct, however the article is very unhelpful as it just criticises and provides no solutions.

It is true that in many meditation centres people are trying to escape. In fact Buddhism by focussing on “The End of Suffering” rather than “What is the Totality of What We Can We Know ?” … is ignoring parts of experience.

However the difference between a person who practices mindfulness in order to be more real, and one who is looking to escape … is a sense of aliveness that is difficult to induce in others. That’s why a person like Osho or Gurdjieff used many many techniques to break through.

Doing nothing is not a good option.

Wow, what a can of worms.. But challenging something that “everyone knows” is a positive and harmless practice is a not a popular thing todo, thank you Melissa.

Below are a couple of interesting articles that I came across and which I agree with after I decided that my own personal negative experiences with meditating ranging from spacey ness, co-ordination\spacial issues, tension headache that lasted 3 weeks (this happened during a meditation) general dullness of mind, needed an answer.. However it took quite while to overcome my preconceptions that the practice is harmless and without issues (in other words it is not the practice that can be at fault because it is the “way” and therefore is perfect).
So, was I doing something wrong? Apparently you can’t meditate wrong… (By the way I learnt meditation in the beginning on my own and then from Buddhist monks.) And I kept going through all these issues because “everyone knows” its harmless and it’s a path to self improvement and enlightenment and I was at a loss.. I was told things get worse before they get better, well that last time I took antibiotics it got better not worse.

So in finishing I’d just like to say I think it’s better to have faith in yourself and those around you and to learn to engage with the world and the people in it. There isn’t any magic bullet and there’s no getting out, no matter what anyone thinks, and besides what are you getting out of and where would you go? It takes more courage to live in the world then out of it. Truth, honesty, humbleness and humility are all learned through life’s lessons, not from closing your eyes…

http://www.thehumanist.org/humanist/MaryGarden.html
http://stats.org/stories/2003/why_meditat_bad_feb18_03.htm
http://www.slate.com/articles/arts/culturebox/2003/02/buddhist_retreat.html

I read this blog – it’s very interesting! I just wanted to say that I have done the MBSR course and found it EXTREMELY helpful!!
I have suffered depression since losing a child 30 years ago. I went into the course after hearing all the new information about brain plasticity, and the physical proof they now have that meditation helps to heal a brain that has been traumatised through prolonged stress.
Yes, some of my painful feelings that I was spending a great deal of energy on suppressing did raise up their heads, but it was good to be able to allow that to happen even if painful. I feel alive again!
I have been meditating for almost a year now and I think I am living proof that it does heal your brain. I am no longer on antidepressants, I can think clearly, I am not depressed day in and day out.
I feel like I’ve gotten my life back! I would encourage anyone who’s interested to try it!
Just saying…..

I disagree with this entire article, and frankly it appears you’re either uneducated or misinformed in therapeutic models using Mindful-Based Stress Reduction. I agree that Mindfulness-Based therapy may be damaging to a client in the way you’ve described; however, your description of Mindfulness is incorrect. Mindfulness teaches you to EXPERIENCE your thoughts emotions as they occur in the moment, but allowing you to depersonalize these thoughts and emotions by observing them with a rational mind. You are not avoiding, suppressing, or judging anything when in a true mindful state of awareness. Hit the books Melissa, because everything you describe is Passive Communication, not Mindfulness Meditation

The mindfulness you describe doesn’t fit the mindfulness I’ve been learning and practicing for the last 10 or so years. I’ve learnt from books, teachers, practitioners, podcasts, videos – and have never heard any recommendation to practise it in the way you describe. Since there have been so many different sources to my learning, and the only element I have found to be left wanting was me, I’d offer the same insight the Buddha did – ‘do it yourself and make your own judgement’.

The practise itself is very basic in essence and is not designed to suppress whatever is the object of meditation, be it thought, physical feeling or emotion. That’s not to say it’s not challenging, but for me at least it offers an insight into the reality of the mind. It doesn’t negate the value of emotion, or thought, but it puts them in context, which can give more depth to understanding the origins of these emotions and thoughts than unconsciously reacting to them. As another poster pointed out, to have compassion for oneself, one’s feelings, is a necessary part of developing spiritually and I’ve found a true awareness of how my mind gives rise to thought and feeling brings a natural compassion and understanding.

In short, my findings have been the opposite of the escapist practise you describe. It’s an immersive experience.

Would you agree that mindfulness practise in the Buddhist tradition, where it originated, is not what you describe?

It has to get worse before it gets better

Melissa,

I have not heard such suggestions when reading any kind of literature on mindfulness. I have read a great deal of these types of articles, and I see no connection to “removing” your emotions. The goal (a very counterintuitive way of pointing to the practice) of mindfulness is to be aware of whatever the present moment contains, regardless of any content (examples: thoughts, physical sensations, emotions). This process does not entail altering your perception consciously, but rather accepting whatever comes without exception, including any doubts about the practice or repressed fears that may arise as a result of truly observing not only your physical surroundings but also your inner perceptions as well. It is so simple and yet very difficult as most humans have a great deal of mental conditioning that serves as a barrier from not only bringing more mindfulness, or prescence, or awareness, or whatever term you prefer to use into your life (as you may feel anger or an aversion to attempting to practice mindfulness), but also from participating in many activities that could bring added dimensions into the life of a said human being. I also would like to add that meditation, while helpful, is not necessesarily a requirement in order to practice mindfulness. With mindfulness, your whole life becomes part of the practice, and setting a time aside to simply monitor your mind, and utilize whichever meditation method suits you, eventually becomes relatively unecessesary for many experienced practicioners.

Hi Melissa and all the others,
Thanks for the original post and all the contributions; it was exactly the discussion I was looking for. There is just one thing that is missing, though I studied the whole thing here for two hours: the right understanding of ’emotion’. As I see it, we have troubles caused by the primary instincts of the brain – the FFF-response – causing anger, fear and freezing/powerlessness (in turn giving feelings of guilt, shame, depression). And we have troubles by attitudes of the mind, being the ’emotions’ in Buddhistic context: pride, jealousy, desire, greed, arrogance, ignorance. So, as I understand the Buddha’s teachings, it is about recognizing those mental attitudes and transforming them into something worthy. As to the impulses from the brains, that is something completely different. A person not troubled by trauma or other mental disorders will have a healthy working system, that is when we are in real danger, those feelings are activated (which is healthy) and when we (plan to) do something wrong, these feelings are also activated. Which is also healthy.
Therefore, I agree wholeheartedly where you see the danger of dissociation where is comes to the warnings from the brain: It can make people into obedient, complying, numb sheep, with whom no healthy exchange of ideas is possible. Besides, they loose their ethics. But I do see a point in working on the destructive mental attitudes as mentioned above. Western interpretation of mindfullness is not suitable for that though. In my opinion, it is being self-occupied and a lack of imagination – being able to put ourselves in the others position – that causes a lack of ethical principles and destructive minds; and so, western interpretation of mindfullness can make things worse. It stimulates individualism while the only way out of suffering is genuine friendship: ‘It is through this line of reasoning that one may know how admirable friendship, admirable companionship, admirable camaraderie is actually the whole of the holy life’ Upaddha Sutta, the Buddha.
Like some here said, and I myself have experienced too, what is truly healing is compassionate empathy, acceptance and respect.

Hi Melissa. I read your thoughts on mindfulness. I also shared this point of view for many years. It wasn’t until I took another peek at Dialectical Behavioural Therapy, with a view to studying it that I noticed things I missed. Try listening to Tara Brach. What she says is to pay attention to our feelings, to our body. She doesn’t tell people to ignore feelings. I used to think that by learning to notice feelings and stay with them, I would be somehow diminishing them or ridding myself of them, but it doesn’t mean that, it means pay attention, use that attention to experience fully any emotion and from a centred place, decide what needs to happen. You could check out Dan Seigal and Stephen Porges also. I’m amazed by their grasp on emotions, health + their ability to use science , emotional wisdom + spiritual wisdom together. I’m relieved that I noticed my errors in judgment, because I get benefits from paying attention to feelings, body, moods and being able to respond to them. Cheers Sharron

I stumbled upon this thread/blog and read 75% of it. There are a lot of interesting comments; however, after a point it becomes rather evident that people are comparing apples to oranges. I can see the point of each post whether it is agreeing or disagreeing with the original post of 17 Ways… Each person has a different interpretation of what “mindfulness meditation” is and of the definitions of the words/phrases used by the method. It’s kind of like buying an exercise video/dvd, doing it every day, but getting no results or at worse, injuring yourself. Is it then fair to say the exercises/program is no good if in fact you got poor results or injuries because you didn’t use proper form when doing the exercises? The comments clearly are coming from people with a variety of experiences and interpretations of mindfulness and how to use it. People who use it properly get good results, people who don’t understand it and use it improperly find themselves in a state of denial.

This can be the only explanation for the opposing views, all of which make sense in their own way given each person’s different interpretation of the “directions”, so to speak, for the practice. One person says its an exercise in denial and another says it is the exact opposite that allows them to delve further into things.

Obviously, people are using it in different ways so I don’t see why everyone doesn’t just acknowledge that rather than arguing about it. It’s rather silly to dispute one’s ability and claim to gain enlightenment from the way they practice “mindful meditation”. Or does someone here have the “power” to declare another a liar?

… and Laproch, ‘enlightenment’ is not something individual, like the christian heaven. It is not some personal reward you get from meditating. If you think so, you misunderstood those masters you talked about. They have had a teacher, and years and years of study and analyzing. Enlightenment comes from the sincere wish to relieve the suffering of all sentient beings; this wish is so strong, it makes it possible to transform jealousy, pride, greed etc, and to overcome ignorance. While Western interpretation of mindfulness meditation is for personal wellbeing only, completely disregards the role of the teacher and involves no study.

Jon, I said ‘western interpretation of mindfulness meditation’. If only it were like you describe it.

“Jon, I said ‘western interpretation of mindfulness meditation’. If only it were like you describe it.”

I know what you said. It is like I describe, for myself and for everyone I know who practices mindfulness meditation. Try reading Kabat-Zinn or any of the other masters in their field rather than basing your conclusions on rumour and conjecture.

Hello there,

I found this blog today and I must say I simply feel good reading it. It helps in a way. Almost three months ago I ended an dependent relationship in a not healthy way according to an article out here. The reason was that my best friend, who later turned to be my lover also, gave me the biggest scare in my life so far by saying basically that because I am not only focusing on her she did not want to live anymore…or had been going through a phase of that. I was devastated and so very scared for myself and also of myself because suddenly I realized that our relationship that had seemed so “perfect” was not perfect at all and was bearing inherently a great potential of destruction. My sudden need to protect myself resulted in me cutting myself out of her life in a very abrupt way that left us both hurting. I am not blaming myself anymore for this because that second, that night, I could not react differently. It was the only reaction I had left.

She did not kill herself. She is alive. But for me the situation is still tough. During that horrid time I thought about trying meditation to find a way to find my real self, to find a way to calm myself, to be happy. But boy…..I can say meditation was not good for me at that time. I read books by yongey mingur rinpoche and while I like the guy per se and can understand the philosophy it was probably simply too much for somebody in a crisis like I was. It did not help me to forget about my ego (although yongey does not say you should), it did not help me to think too much about that the mind is separate from the body in a way because that triggered a panicky fear of death for me. That might not make sense for many people but for me it was horrid and still is sometimes. I do think meditation can work and I do not think that it does want to make us to not feel but rather to be more aware of our feelings and also take responsibilty but man…it was just too much information for me to handle at a point where I already thought I am “losing my mind”.

Mia

Like many others, I stumbled onto this post and have found it interesting. The comments are fascinating, and the discussion, like the article seems to raise a whole bunch of stuff, including the world of either/or… the barefaced cultural biases and realities of East and West and varieties of belief systems at play in our world.

As some commenters have suggested, a tool can be used for good and it can be used for less than good, and sometimes, it isn’t needed at all. There are also times that the wrong tool gets used. To our Western mind and consciousness, mindfulness meditation, and in that context, as a tool it can be helpful, but perhaps only sometimes and only for some people. But more than a tool, mindfulness mediation is a practice that implies a process and a discipline and a worldview of middle way and equanimity — all of which takes time. Our culture is not so good with that, and our culture is not steeped in equanimity so much as it is eye for an eye and justice. (We have forgotten about turn the other cheek and forgiveness as healing modalities, particularly in light of Freud et al). Bringing Mindfulness Mediation down from the mountains, disconnecting it from its warrior history, disconnecting it from the culture in which it was formed and throwing it into package that says it cures everything from trauma to obesity is a huge leap. Sadly, there IS a lot of hype around what is now being called a Mindfulness Movement. There’s a magazine dedicated to it and if you want, you can even plaster a sticker on your website that say’s “I’m Mindful”. None of these reflect the values of Mindfulness Meditation. None of these reflect the discipline of being ready to face yourself, of coming to know the truth of your mind and your experience and your response moment by moment — which is not about dissociating (a Western psychological construct). The movement of mindfulness that’s suddenly exploded is more about Western Culture, capitalism and marketing and competitiveness — albeit seeded by people who truly wanted to offer something good.

The points in the post regarding the notion that this practice involves denial, or avoiding feelings and dissociating from them has no root in any form of Buddhist or Yoga mindful meditation practice that I’m aware of, unless a uniquely American version has cropped up. Being with all of your feelings as they arise, not pushing them away is crucial to being authentic in a meditation practice. The trick is seeing the emotions for what they are, and like many other psychological processes, to move through them, and with them to the point where their influence is diminished if not dissolved. My understanding is that Mindful Meditation is a practice that helps us exercise what Viktor Frankl (Holocaust survivor) says is our greatest freedom: “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” Mindfulness mediation helps to train the brain (and mind) and create that space. That’s not dissociation.

We haven’t quite figured out how and when or why to use mindfulness meditation in our culture, but our language seems to suggest that some people use it as a way to set up a modern cave in order to retreat from the stresses of life rather than dealing with them: toxic work situation? Mindful Meditation on compassion. Tough relationship? Mindful Meditation. Addictions? Mindful meditation.

There is value in what Mindfulness Meditation can do for people, but I am not convinced it’s easily transferrable to our culture or for every one. However, the techniques of the practice have pointed to some findings that bear more study, and perhaps the only meangingful finding will be that when people feel cared for and able to self-regulate, that they start to feel better and in more control of how they function in their lives.

I am all for the scientific method, particularly since own science is showing there’s no such thing as objective anything when it comes to a human being. MBSR and MBCT are proving to be useful modalities for some people in some situations, but I am uneasy at the bandwagon and some of the hucksterism around Mindfulness Meditation. From my perspective, it is not the tool per se but the promoters and users and short-cut hawkers selling it as a miracle cure. Perhaps for the Western world, we need to reframe mindfulness meditation and come up with a fancy name for quietly witnessing our thoughts, our metacognitions, the ebb and flow of emotions, stuff that gets stuck, our urges and cravings and the ability to sit with what arises to see what’s true and what we have warped to feed our own internal view of the world and us in it, while at the same time acknowledge our somatic and sensory responses, all a contemplative, calm and accepting manner (not judging). Despite primitive brain’s impulse to judge and categorize, we can learn to delay judging, and over time, not judge at all… (let he who has not sinned throw the first stone…)

Like all ‘isms’ Buddhism continues to evolve. I have read that the Dalai Lama has now further refined the position on anger. Anger and hatred have been separated and made distinct. Tibetan Buddhism (the Dalai Lama’s lineage at least) now holds that anger when used in a non harmful way can be a positive motivation for good, for change. while hatred is the poison and has no positive contribution.

Thank you for the post. There needs to be more thoughtful discussion such issues.

Your article should be retitled to 17 Ways How Not Meditating in the Correct Way Can be Harmful

Melissa,

I’m doing a research around mindfulness and i had the same thought sometimes. People use mindfulness differently though. I think that mindfulness ain’t always the right way for everyone. But i do believe that there is a right kind of meditation for everyone. The core of mindfulness is NOT distancing from your feelings BUT accepting them and fully experiencing them in stead of distracting yourself with all kinds of stuff. Truly feeling it makes you embrace the moment better and visa versa.

Greetings, Karsten

Dave, those that invented this western interpretation of mindfulness do not have theoretical understanding of the topic; therefore, they do not benefit from any of the results. They show no ethics in selling their product; they are not willing to discuss; it is all about expanding the market for their product, using the pain and suffering of veterans with PTSD for advertisement, experimenting on them without the slightest idea about the risks. Trying to have schools force children to meditate….all to sell, sell, sell. They are their own evidence, western interpretation of mindfulness meditation creates greedy, ignorant, arrogant heads. Under cover of what they call ‘science’ (meaning trial and error without any logic in advance) they try to force their product down peoples throats. It’s disgusting.

Sally:
IF you really have spent the time you say meditating, then you have made a very dedicated effort. But, I think that if you have difficulty in achieving what you want with your life and have a lot of unhappiness, then maybe the current approach you have been employing is not best for you. If you have difficulties after 6 months of employing a certain practice, then you should re-evaluate. After 42 years, this type of a mindset is usually what one needs to be able to really get results.

So take a break. If you feel life is bad, then step away from it and return later if you feel better or more ready for it. Trying too hard is generally not helpful: if you get frustrated when doing anything, then you are probably trying too hard.

All of that said, know that any emotion you feel other than happiness and joy is a manifestation of a deeper level of discomfort. You have a tough situation right now, but be strong. This is simply a test for you, that you can learn and grow from. These rough situations have caused you to uncover a lot of distress within yourself. Just know that you are not alone in this, and most everyone trying to better themselves in life on a “spiritual” path usually goes through a tough spot in their lives that is meant to help them grow. I can relate to your pain.

Anyway, know that all of these stories are as valuable to you as you make them. Was Siddartha a deadbeat dad? Could be. It could also be that he had a bigger mission to give a teaching of love to all of humanity and abandoning his family was a painful step in his life that he had to experience in order for him to grow. We cannot objectively know the truth: Siddartha died thousands of years ago. Even if we had known him personally, we probably would have difficulty in discerning his deeper motivation in life.

In Buddhism, some teachers talk of negative (feel-bad) emotions as mud, or soil. They say that the mud is necessary to make a beautiful flower grow. Another analogy is of a diamond: in order to craft a diamond, a great amount of stress and pressure is needed. Just know that life is like that: first pressure is needed, and then a diamond will be born. If you can find it in your heart to face your fears and truly pursue your life with abandon, you will find a greater peace than that that will arise from filling up emotional, sexual, or other “needs”.

There are many celebrities who have committed suicide or experienced great depression; they all thought that they would one day be content because of material objects, but after reaching the goals they had, they realized that they were not happy and never could be happy based on material objects, and committed suicide or experienced severe depression.

Know that you are but one human of billions. Your life is but one sentence in the history of the universe. Know that consciousness does exist. You exist.

Any negative emotion you have, any sadness, any regret, anything other than joy or happiness is a product of your fear.

This website is good in several respects. It shows how turning away from emotions is not growing and dealing with your fears, but running from them.

This does not mean that mindfulness is bad.

Mindfulness means to let go of your fears, beliefs, and ego motivations, and simply and contentedly watch anything that passes into your awareness like a calm, steady observer: not judging or labeling, but accepting each emotion, each thought, each sensation, as an expression of yourself.

Mindfulness is only one of billions of approaches to growing up; that is, to become love. To accept and deal with everything that arises in your life with an abandon that is really love, and running towards life with a greater drive and motivation that will break old paradigms and will enrich your life in limitless ways.

However, I do not intend to claim that the creator of the site intends to bash mindfulness. I understand that the focus is on the attitude of doing rather than being, of trying to aggrandize yourself through meditation, which is a contradiction that will inevitably lead to distress and unhappiness.

So live your life. Be happy. Be strong. It is not easy. But you are not alone. Just be strong and press on, and the solution will come in time. Be brave. Know that love will approach you when you least expect it. When you let go of your life and trying to make it the way you want it to be, you will experience a great deal of synchronicity in your life.

For a great source that I have learned much from, you could check out some great works by Tom Campbell. He has a TOE, a Theory of Everything, that you may find as helpful to you as it was to me.

His youtube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/twcjr44

A forum online all about his books:
http://www.my-big-toe.com/forums/

You do not have to buy the books, the videos on youtube are a great starting point.

On evolution: Yes, we are an evolved system. But modern science is incomplete, and is based upon a mystical assumption: the big bang. Where did it come from? What is the placebo effect (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Placebo)? Why does the research at PEAR (Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research)(http://www.princeton.edu/~pear/) labs work? These questions, and pretty much any mystery of the modern world can be answered by Tom Cambell’s Theory.

You may be asking yourself; why isn’t it taking off yet as a mainstream topic then?

Reason 1: Science does not like new ideas that break old paradigms. Albert Einstein had the difficulties when he tried to shift the paradigms towards relativity.

Reason 2: Scientists are busy. Tom Campbell has a lot of material, but most scientists do not have the patience nor time to review such a comprehensive theory because they think that it is too unlikely that such a theory exists or even could exist.

Reason 3: The theory has only been around for a decade or so. It takes time for old scientific paradigms to change; especially when new paradigms are considered to include information only researched by the fringe of accepted science.

And the benefit of this theory is that this will clear up any contradictions, mysteries, and uncertainties in your life if you truly understand it. If you have any questions about it you can leave a comment asking for my email and I will give it to you.

I wish you luck.

this article has put into words what i trully felt… after meditation of mindfullness for about 4 years i was totally out of touch with my feelings. infact i had forgot how to cry even at the most difficult situation. i had started going agitated with everyone around me.but now after i stoped practicing that type of meditation and started socializing and understanding my feelings again , have improved but not recovered completely. The part i miss the most is the drive i had before in my life.any adea how i can get that drive back?

good advice. if a person is doing too much mindfulness meditation, and not enough other practices that engage with anger and these other realistic things, it can be harmful. but also, if a person is using mindfulness meditation to ‘make bad emotions go away’, this is not the correct practice. this seems to be some sort of feel-goodery added on top of a practice which is supposed to be difficult and not neccesarily make you feel ‘good’, at least for a long time.

I studied meditation at the Shambhala Center and we were warned about all of this stuff… detachment is not refusing to feel but permitting one’s self to feel; emotions are not to be stuffed away but worked with.

There are some bad “New Age” gurus who butcher Buddhist concepts into oblivion, but I think you over-exaggerate the problem here. There are also a lot of people teaching genuine mindfulness, both in psychiatry and various kinds of meditation centers. You have to go to a teacher you feel you can trust, with the right credentials, etc. Just like anything else.

Nina, I’d agree with your post.

Sally, I apologize for my misconduct, and inability to be empathetic to your life situation in this tough time. I am sorry for responding mechanically and not considering how you would feel based on my word choice. I only meant to give you information that I feel helped me, and I am sorry if I conveyed my thoughts in a way that was too harsh.

Nina, one modification I would make is that the assumptions of a theory need to be concise, based on Occam’s razor. The theory has 2 assumptions; Consciousness exists, and evolution exists. The entire theory is derived from these two assumptions. Now, as for the effects, there are a great deal of implications and results that can be supported/derived by/from the theory. So I don’t think that the effects can be explained very concisely.

And I agree that Einstein could explain it perfectly well, but according to historical record as I know it, he had difficulty in shifting the paradigms to relativity. Quantum mechanics and relativity were a great jump from Newtonian physics and so there was resistance from the scientific community.

This theory is an even greater jump and so it has come up against more resistance, not to mention that the creator (of the theory) does not work in academia, so that is an added factor that will slow down its spread as a widely supported theory.

I personally think that it answers physics and metaphysics better, as it explains the double slit, placebo effect, and any other hard problem in modern physics from those two assumptions, which lead to the notion that our reality is virtual and probabilistic, making it similar to virtual physics, but it explains why our reality should be statistical and probabilistic. At the same time, I understand that it will take some time for it to gain some exposure, and I understand that a lot of people might be very skeptical to the notion that a theory of everything that solves basically all modern problems exists.

And on belief systems: I do not ascribe to any belief system in particular, in the sense that I think you are using it. If some information contradicts the theory, or set of ideas that I customarily try to interpret my life through, I accept and reevaluate the ideas I use. But I use ideas as tools. I don’t identify with them, and I don’t try to criticize people who don’t share the same beliefs as I do. So in that sense, I don’t necessarily believe anything in the sense that I am always open to new information or knowledge. This doesn’t mean that I never try to make a standardized set of laws or ideas that I use customarily, it just means that I don’t get too attached to any particular set of ideas.

Thanks for the reply anyways, I always find my posts to be too long, so I’m impressed that you read it all :D

I wonder if a lot of this is due to the time Monks have to put into it. They then become very good at it, and don’t need to bother about the circumstances of their life. Their unnecessary emotions really do disolve (as per brain scans). Problem is that most people do not realise that to reach the level of the monks as talked about in the press and psychology magazines – is that they need to meditate 8 hours a day! Most people do 20 minutes!!

Master Thích Nh?t H?nh writes in The Miracle of Mindfulness:
“Meditation is not evasion, it is a serene encounter with reality.”

I think that what you are saying makes sense only if meditation is being used as a means of escape from one’s reality. But to use the term “mindful” in this context does a disservice to it’s true meaning and misses the point entirely. Being truly mindful means being in complete touch with your existence, especially with the most difficult of emotions. This is the basis of Buddhism… acknowledging and looking deeply into suffering through mindfulness in order to extinguish it.

Maybe “pop” New-Age culture has given a different spin to what mindfulness actually means… I will agree that I hear the term often enough in Yoga classes in a way that is completely out of context with this most basic Buddhist teaching. So yes, if one is being “mindful” simply as a tool for denial then this is not a good thing at all. But in this situation the word “mindful” shouldn’t even apply… if anything “un-mindful” would be the more appropriate term.

Please be careful that you do not distort the meaning of a very powerful and constructive concept that will confuse your readers.

I do understand why you have written this article. I have approached this issue from both angles, and agree that in some scenarios ‘mindfulness’ can be misused. A while ago, when I first started out, I tried to use mindfulness to make myself feel more connected to my environment, and to ‘observe’ my anxiety disorder out of existence.

However, what I was practising, and what you have also alluded to, isn’t actually what mindfulness is. You don’t put emotion in a perspex box outside of yourself in the hope that it will ultimately dissipate. Rather you simply extend to your emotions care and attention, and acknowledge that it is a significant part of your experience in that moment.

In doing this, you also acknowledge that you are not your emotions. Whilst they are part of your experience, they do not define you. It’s the same with sensation. Only in the English language do we say ‘I am hungry’ – no, you have hunger, you’re experiencing hunger, but you are not hunger itself. The sensation does not define you. Your emotions are a part of you in that moment, but they are not intrinsically you. Moreover, the mindful still respond to hunger in kind: we acknowledge its part of us and go get dinner!

In addition to this, you also see the falsehood in some mental states. Anxiety, for instance, is very frequently born of absolute delusion. Just because my mind tells me that I am about to contract a fatal and incurable disease does not mean that I will. People around you will try to persuade you of that: your doctor will tell you it’s ‘just anxiety’, your CBT practitioner will help to guide you using rationality that the thought is false, your psychiatrist will prescribe you SSRIs to prevent the obsessive reoccurrence of fearful thought, and your psychologist will examine what traits you might have that lead you to this conclusion.

All of this is with eradication of the destructive thoughts and tendencies in mind. Whilst some of these methods do help, the only thing that ever really helped me was when I took a step back and observed myself going through this process – only then did I really see how ridiculous and unhelpful my thoughts were. Now when anxious thoughts arise (because I acknowledge that anxiety is a recurring factor in my life) I can happily reject them or decide to do something about them from a secure and stable place. Here, I do use mindfulness to, in a way, reject something. I do not stop it coming along, but nor do I decide to get on board when it gets here.

I surf along on my experience: riding its crest and knowing it intimately – I do not dissociate from the wave, rejecting its existence, but nor do I drown. Obviously I am human with the same wants and desires as everyone else: sometimes I slip up and get carried away with the wave, other times I just want to float above it or sink down deep into the water where it can’t affect me. But in all, mindfulness has helped me find a better place to be in relation to my experiences.

Again, I do appreciate what you are saying, because I have used mindfulness meditation incorrectly in the past to try to push experience away. However, what I was doing wasn’t really mindfulness meditation. Perhaps your article should be titled ’17 Ways Improper Mindfulness Meditation Can Cause You Emotional Harm’. I think from the way you noted that it is a tool to be used properly you do know this, however I wish you had presented it in a more balanced light.

I started practising mindfulness 5 weeks and my experience has been nothing like you have stated. Instead of avoidance we are encourage to full feel the feelings, embrace them like family instead of the normal methods of trying to get rid. For the first time I am not afraid of the anxiety I have been experiencing a lot of my life.

Not entirely sure what mindfulness material you have been reading and whether you have been practising mindfulness daily but most I have read are the complete opposite. Its a daily practice brought into every part of life (walking, washing dishes, meditation etc).

I am following the teachings of Thich Nhat Han and Jon Kabat-Zinn

I think this article is partially accurate but you have to admit that if everyone in the whole world would practice meditation everything would become more peaceful. I personally prefer peace that happiness or positive thinking because like you said before negative and positive cannot live without each other.

Here is my take on mindfulness.

Pure awareness, or mindfulness without thought, is an utterly soothing mental state.

Mindfulness practiced with equanimity is wholehearted acceptance, and is profoundly healing.

Mindfulness cleanses the mind at the finest level…

Hi,

I just want to say that “ego”, is you, it is a part of yourself that gets angry, sad, whatever, but it’s part of you, and it’s crucial to accept it. What we do when we get angry is at times “argue” with it, get angry ourselves…the many selves that live within us. When I feel angry and I observe why, I actually let it happen, let myself get angry and ask myself, my ego, why is it upset. I stop myself not from feeling angry but to escalate to something I no longer understand and controls my whole being, and all the selves. And ego is not an enemy, anger is protection. We don’t do anything to us on purpose, we do it unconsciously to sooth ourselves and keep it in check. Not sure yet if meditation is the answer, I have to say I don’t particularly agree anymore with thinking “nice things” every time I feel upset, that’s definitely not feeling it, but mindfulness is different, is like listening I think, seeing what the hell is that bother me, frightens me, etc.
But I change constantly in my views because my own experience, my reality is my own and very personal, so I am not sure if this is quite right…what I know is that it’s crucial to know yourself and question what you do, whatever way you do. Always double check and try to prove yourself wrong instead of accepting any theory. That’s not how you discover, you discover by disproving theories, even your own. Quite painful really.

So often it seems that those who defend mindfulness talk about what is the “real” practice and philosophy behind the mindfulness movement. I’m reminded of Clifford Geertz’s description of religion as being about the “really real”, something that usually requires translation services care of shamans, wise men (rarely women) and/or sacred writings for just regular folk to have an inkling of what it’s about. This is not the language of science or reason (evolutionary psychologists don’t search the sacred texts of Darwin to interpret some new research finding). And then there’s this idea that anything critical or which reflects a range of emotions is, well, “negative”. And “negative” like other labels is often used to dismiss or minimize.

Hi Melissa,
Thanks for you article. I wanted to ask, what do you think about how Kabat Zinn and the like try to teach it. Because from what I have read, and seen him say is that you have to accept what is at the moment, and then you can do something about it. But the first step is to accept what is. So for instance, if you are feeling angry or sad, the key is to see that you are feeling this way, not to try and shut it out, and when when you realize that you feel this way, one the things that start happening is that it does not consume you as much, and then you can do something about it eventually. Do you see what I mean? I think that’s along the lines of how you say it should be practiced. Right? (Please correct me if I’ve misunderstood you.)
Thanks.

Hello

What is the basis of this article? Some scientific data, related to the negative meditation effect? Or it is author’s own bad experience? Or it is just theoretical reasoning?

Regarding to my experience and experience of people who meditate, meditation works quite well. It makes people happier, more self-confident, more able to cope with stress, more able to make acuurate desicions, more intelligent, self-disciplined and calm.

It is hard to deny this effect, because it takes place in reality.

This article may be convinsing for the person who never meditated himself or did it in a wrong way, because it is good, well-written, logical but to my mind it is too theorethical.

Today read an interesting descussion related to negative meditation effect.

dharmaoverground.org/web/guest/discussion/-/message_boards/message/4048734

I belive that we don’t supress or ignore our emotions when we just observe them. A good quote from discussion:

“Maybe instead of the Freudian repression model, we should consider a modern neurological model. Concentration on the breath, or anything else, is rewiring the brain, weakening the neural pathways associated with your unskillful thinking patterns, and strengthening neural pathways associated with concentration on whatever you want to focus on.”

I’m a bit surprised by the number of supporters for mindfulness meditation.

I have been meditating off/on over the past 2 years or so…and it is not difficult for me to do fairly well at focusing and observing. I stop doing it because I become numb and depressed. I begin to feel no emotions at all. Initially, there is no anxiety, no depression, no happiness…THEN, I get depressed from that realization. The two main meditations I perform are Mindfulness of breathing or body sensations, and mindfulness of feelings. The method I follow is that outlined by B. Alan Wallace in Genuine Happiness, which is primarily Buddhist in orientation.

I become very relaxed and indifferent. I believe this may be especially so because I attempt to carry these meditations over into my regular life. When I feel anger or nervousness, I quickly observe the feeling by focusing on it inwardly, and try to observe it…when I observe my feelings, they fade within 5-10 seconds [I am not trying to stuff them, they just fade away on their own even when I try to pay close attention to them]. Then I am left being able to simply rationally think about the situation. Sounds great right? : D Well it isn’t. Because I don’t really care about the outcome of the situation because I feel alright, relaxed and at peace. When I am in these states especially the first few hours after meditating, I could do many things without getting upset about it, without feeling guilty. Almost like there is some off switch for my conscience. I just rationalize everything away.

So it’s this constant self monitoring– oh, I am getting nervous, observe it. It’s gone. I’m angry, observe it, it’s gone. Great. Move on. Another tool is the following the breath or diaphragm breathing, which keeps the relaxing parasympathetic nervous system in dominance. Makes it easier to feel less interested in others problems or issues when the sympathetic nervous system is off. Self monitoring and controlling my reaction to everything is completely unnatural. So within a week or two I begin to feel abnormal and unalive. I have contemplated suicide.

Once I accept that I like to have fun, like to be excited or excitable [sympathetic more than parasympathetic] and that I don’t have to be calm and just observe my life, the depression quickly fades and I feel optimistic and less fatalistic/nihlistic.

I’m surprised nobody else has had this experience…I wonder if it is because I try to perform the same concepts when I am NOT meditating, carry over into regular life when not sitting, self monitoring and control causes extreme discontent?

Keep in mind that these Buddhist monks would use meditation to kill off all their desires and feelings so they could conform to a life they may not have chosen. Suppressing sex drive, etc. Seems normal that I would respond this way when taken into every day life.

Any comments are greatly appreciated because I enjoy the mental focus/calm, but I can’t keep to it because I become so detached and depressed that I consider suicide.

And for anyone who says we aren’t supposed to do meditation/mindfulness in daily life, only on cushion…I have read in this book and many others that success only comes when you dilligently apply these principles to your daily life. Not just cushion. Thanks in advance for any insight!

Some people may not be ready for meditation yet, or are doing it incorrectly or it is just not right for them. Clearly many are doing it correctly and are pointing to where it can go wrong. I don’t think they are all telling fibs. From the comments, and my own experience, I have been encouraged to do more meditation.

Hello, Jim

I am not some kind of meditation master, but i have been meditating for 3 years and meditation did a great work for me. It helped me to get rid of depression, panic attacks, laziness, lack of self-discipline, lack of joy, shyness, nervousness, anxiety.

Because of meditation i became happy and aware. So, maybe my opinion will be interesting for you.

So you do right that you carry your meditation experience to your real life. In my opinion meditation doesn’t work in another way. You have to implement knowledge and mental skills which you received from meditation in your daily life, to get all benefits of practice. It is obvious to me.

What are you do wrong

You just trying to get rid of all negative emotions by suppressing it. Feeling bad = wrong = go away. It is not right. Bad feelings are like signals, they tell you about some problem.

Some of these problems can be fixed by sitting and relaxing, some of them need a change in your attitude towards life, some of them need changes in your real life.

Meditation is not a way to run a way from your problems, it is the way to reveal hidden problems and to fix them. When i meditate i observe my inner world, if i feel bad, i ask myself, why am i feeling bad?

Meditation helps to find out why, it shows me the problem, like: “you feel bad, because you ha?? been lazy last months and didn’t fulfill your plans”

Meditation extracts painful thoughts from subconsciousness. As opposed to statements of this article the right use of meditation helps to reveal what’s hidden, but not to suppress your feelings.

Sometimes the solution to some problem comes during meditation. Or i may think of it later like: “i have been lazy, BUT i will bring more order to my life, i will keep schedule to do more, or i will lower my demands and so on. Yes it brings some negative emotions, but i will do my best to fix this problem. From now i will implement my plans in my life. So there is no point in being sad from now.”

And only from this point i can get away from negative feeling (and not to suppress it), because i devoted attention to problem and created a plan of fixing it.

Meditation is not the way of suppressing emotions and desires. It develops love and compassion.

Try to pay attention to your feelings. Why do they arise? What are they telling you about? How can you fix the problem?

And some more tips if it doesn’t work:

1) Meditate less. (For ex. not 20 min twice a day, but 15 min twice a day)
2) Try another meditation technique (mantra meditation, i have been meditating all this time with mantra, but for the last month i have been using mindfulness. The last seems for me more “strong” and first is more easy and “light”. But it is only my opinion)
3) Try not to pay much attention to the way you feel, just live your life.

On the contrary many people ignore their reality inside and out trapped in a maze of thinking based on fears, hopes, wishes and willfullness. Mindfulness is the practice of paying attention to what is which allows one to take actions based on reality. In sitting, like in any physical discipline one has to work through the uncomfortable posture or ignore a buzzing fly or an itch not by ignoring it but in my experience by practicing paying attention to something more preferable…in this case, my breath. This gives me a discipline to learn to choose where I want my attention to go rather than it being grabbed by something irrelevant. I pay attention to a new pain in my body, emotional or physical or a new feeling, look at it, feel it, decide if it is worthy of greater attention or if it is only fleeting. My mindful meditation has strengthened my ability to pay attention to the important information in my daily life and let the rest go. My humble experience.

Its funny because ive experienced and am experiencing all of these 17 negative aspects… Im extremely uncomfortable with my Emotions and now I know what i was looking for all the time… I need to harmonize with my Feelings to be finally myself again and so i can experience the World with love instead of fear… I remember being the most confident person ever, but somehow i lost this ability and possibly through using Mindfulness the wrong way I started working against the Emotions or Source inside of me… Thank you so much for your Help, this Article is great! :)

“I’m extremely uncomfortable with my Emotions”. Yes. But they are the emotions generated by your mind rather than by meditation. That said, meditation is not for everyone. Most people need to exchange love with another person in relationship because there are not genetically designed for meditation.

i think you were taking down a strawman here. the idea of being compassionate towards the scary things that are in our mind is central to mindful meditation. “shoving away the bad” would be more baggage and less compassion. the baggage of pushing away, is hardly about being in the moment. its all about running away from it. i recommend pema chodron’s talk on “maitree” aka being compassionate and loving towards oneself.

I haven’t read this book, but I find the theory really interesting…

http://www.mindfulexposurebook.com/

Mindfulness was never mean’t to avoid , suppress or any other way ‘stuff anger “Quite the contrary it is all about embracing ALL of humanity with complete acceptance .It is a very powerful tool to feel one’s feelings – not dodge them .

In the article and some of the responses above, do I detect the sound of a number of therapists terrified that the growth and spread of mindfulness practice will impact upon their highly lucrative businesses? After all, if you can heal yourself, why spend thousands on therapy? Just thought I’d ask…

Mindfulness is a creation of humans (that is, rather interesting primates). As a product of humans, it is bound to be imperfect and full of contradictions. However, mindfulness is often presented as though it is sacred wisdom and if one finds fault with it, that’s due to insufficient understanding. An example of a contradiction: don’t judge or fight your thoughts and feelings – be with them. However, remember they are “just” thoughts and feelings, so label them and redirect your attention to the moment. The latter is judgmental and can disrupt deeper processing.

I am not sure where the author has recieved her training or information , but my personal experience is the opposite of what is written above. This practice has presicely taught me not to run away or reject my emotions or sensations. Mindfulness Meditation is a powerful and positive medicine and I hope that this article does not prevent someone from seeking its positive benifits.

Many things are said in the name of mindfulness. For instance, in Full Catastrophe Living (Kabat-Zinn), thoughts are often described as “just thoughts” to “let go” and “not be drawn into”. Elsewhere in the same book, we are advised not to try to stop thoughts but to “observe” them. Since thoughts use the same limited attentional resource as “observing”, observing thoughts essentially disrupts them, undermining their progression. This may or may not be a good thing, but it is disingenuous to contrast stopping with observing thoughts, since attempts at both have the same effect of disrupting thoughts. However, as in the case of many religious cults, in the mind of believers, mindfulness is based on higher wisdom and those who note contradictions will be dismissed as lacking in true understanding.

This will be my last comment on this particular thread. I was not accusing anyone of being in a cult, although I do believe that many people who “defend” mindfulness speak in a language that is very similar to that of cult members (e.g., see Robert Jay Lifton). Also, for the record, I have several years experience with mindfulness practice.

if you are using meditation to avoid dealing with emotions, you’re using it wrong. Myself, I think one of the greatest things a person can ever do for themselves is to raise their stress tolerance and make themselves less emotionally labile. But one of the things I find is that its a *bitch* to stay in that way of thinking. I’m manic depressive. I can manage it for a while, but its really tough to stay there. If I’m depressed or manic, my emotional lability is going to be high. if I’m even keeled, I feel and process emotions just fine with no need to “stuff” anything, but I don’t feel any need to jump out a window from agitation.

W/re meds…without my meds I would be detached from objective reality. I’ve never experienced feeling “dead” or “numb” from the meds; I experience feeling dead or numb when I’m depressed. The meds help me process emotions normally, the way a normal person does.

On the flip side, it took many, many years to get to the point where I was getting the right meds at the right time of day in the right dosages (more than 20 years). But at the moment, when I am medicated, I am largely symptom free.

This is a fascinating discussion

From what I can tell, the blog entry is in favour of experiencing emotion. I don’t know but I’m assuming that the idea being put forward is that experiencing emotion brings about a catharsis and natural progression through whatever issue the emotion represents. Anger, for example, expressed is assumed to identify, embody, empower a person’s issues, value, identity and be a trustworthy source of reference for a person looking to find happiness/enlightenment/self-actualisation, or whatever goal you want to label the purpose of this with.
Mindfulness on the other hand, from what I understand of the blog entry, is dissociative, and is not an experience, but an observation. Implicit in this suggestion is that it is dangerous and does not really take into account natural human design, like a changing mind, the importance of experiencing emotion, the healing power of that etc..

As John K acknowledged, part of mindfulness IS the experiencing of emotion – from your comments it appears that you’re talking about the expression of emotion – although there is nothing in the way of a positive alternative in the article itself.
The expression of emotion can be good or bad for the self and others, depending on the nature of it. We might be angry justifiably, or due to defensiveness – we might regret expressing our anger, or we might express our anger in a way that is supportive of ourselves without being harmful to others. None of that is mindfulness itself.
If I can express the emotion I mindfully experienced reading through the blog and comments, I felt frustrated and angry reading the bloggers replies to people who thoughtfully put together their arguments only to have a dismissive response that failed to address any of the points.
The one prevailing thought and feeling I was aware of was that it felt frustrating that someone would take a platform on the internet to put forward a case against mindfulness and then consistently demonstrate a fundamental lack of understanding of not only the subject matter but also their own ideas on the subject.
If I can discover in my own mind a tendency to be negative towards myself, and learn mindfully that that tendency becomes a choice when I observe AND experience it, then it is equally a choice to either put forward a shallow critique on a subject or put energy into suggesting an alternative that is superior.

Hi Joanne,

This debate on here is important and interesting I think because it highlights what I think of as a misplaced faith in the idea that for a person to act out whatever comes up for them is equivalent to living a life of integrity and self respect. It’s good to have anything that triggers a debate around this!
Without an awareness of how the mind works, and how easy it can be to identify with passing experience it’s all too easy for an adversarial relationship to grow between ourselves and the rest of the world. The cultural phenomenon you mention doesn’t seem like a sustainable one as it takes the position that each person is more important than the other – which seems at best set up for social discord.
The unique gift we have as humans is self awareness, setting us apart from a slave-like obedience to our impulses. That’s not the same as dissociating ourselves from our experience – the opposite in fact. It means we have choices and an ability to shape our world collectively and individually.
I think a meditation practise is always going to have challenges, just like any kind of training, mental or physical, but there are benefits if you see it through, as you say not just for yourself but all of us.
I’m glad you’ve experienced benefits from mindfulness. Me too. I’ve also found it difficult and challenging. The theme that runs through it all is to be patient and acceptant of yourself – facing all the things the mind throws up with the knowledge that it is what it is, and in full acceptance there’s a healing and insight that comes from the practise that doesn’t necessarily require you to validate every thought and feeling but understand its significance.
There’s a continuum and holistic nature to the way our experience presents itself to us and becoming familiar with that can bring a lightness and freedom and, in my experience real sanity to our lives. I personally think the awareness brought about by meditation and mindfulness is a far greater gift than a religious drive to assert all the ego’s bias and desire – an awareness that isn’t without action or spontaneity but makes wise choices by understanding the nature of the game it’s playing in.

Thanks for your comment and all the best in your choices :-)

Aitch

What you describe in your article is what has become the practice among some practicing mindfulness meditation…..it is resistance to ones emotional pain through bypassing a state that is held in mind and body. As one that has practiced emotional release work for many years…..deriving tremendous benefit and healing through this focus….I realize that I prioritized a part of being over everything else. The thoughts and emotion in my body were held stagnant by a story I could not get beyond. Mindfulness meditation…..as I practice it…..is a waking meditation that lives in the awareness that my thoughts….and the chemistry I activate in my brain….that I then feel coarsing through my body…..are my reactions to old habits. Reactions to old pain…..an internal dialogue that replays itself on cue. This is part of my personal history….no denying this…..I have felt it…..painfully so. Apart from this….or growing from this….is the state of being that is no longer a little me…..a self id-entifying with a description based on the past. Mindfulness meditation brings me back to a place that reminds me mentally and physically and spiritually that I am part of something greater. From this place I can make choices that are more in line with a current realization
of who I am now….not choices that re-enforce my old story. Intent and depth of practice can lead to greater freedom.

I think part of what you are referring to is the tendency to separate oneself from direct, unified experience by using “detached observation”. I also disagree with conscious breath practices that actually separate us from normal breathing that is naturally regulated by the sympathetic nervous system. These breath practices kind of split us into two parts when we are (and should be) naturally “one”.
For the record, I am coming from a background in formal Japanese Zen practice, which I left because I always felt like the practice and lifestyle seemed to take people away from being normal, regular folk. After a while, I began to miss unenlightened people.
I do feel that there is some usefulness to meditation. The body and mind can be kind of noisy, and simply sitting still is useful as a way to naturally quiet this down. Additionally, people with substance abuse problems often have longstanding problems with impulse control and sitting still can be useful as an impulse control practice that generalizes to other areas of life. I don’t call this mindfulness and don’t actually try to accomplish anything other than sitting still. Sometimes I listen to music when I am sitting because I like music and my attention is drawn to it naturally- I don’t have to try and be mindful of it at all. That sort of touches on the difference (at least to me) between natural mindfulness (which everyone has) and imposed mindfulness.

Dear Kris,
In what way is mindfulness a sham?
In what way is it self-contradictory?
In what way is it ridiculous?
Thanks,
Jon

Hi Melissa,

I would like to start by saying, that I have read some of your articles and find them very interesting. You are a highly intelligent young woman with a strong educational background and you are using your blog to put that to good use.

After reading several of your entries it appears that your personal history plays a large role in your attitude toward mindfulness meditation, and meditation in general.

I would challenge you to use your own technique of the “deconstruction of criticism” to examine your critique of mindfulness meditation. Play the role of devil’s advocate.

Your grandfather’s opinions of the monks, are just that, opinions.

An opinion formed from great hardship and frustration. He deserved much more from life, and hopefully he was able to find peace and comfort in the fact that his efforts resulted in his grandchildren having more opportunities.

And although I agree with him in many respects, I think that the monks should have been completely self supporting and if anything they should have offered support to the villages not asked for money, I do not think that mindfulness mediation should be condemned because it originated with Buddhist monks. Meditation was not the problem, the way the monks handled other things were the problem.

It does not follow that mediation holds no merit. Mediation provides at least a short respite for the mind. Yes, an “escape” if you will, but a short escape, that allows the brain to generate the capabilities to deal more “constructively” with the hardships of real life. Isn’t that exactly the kind of tool that one should be using? It’s easy, it’s free, and can be performed anywhere. And the proven benefits appear to make it well worth peoples efforts. And of course it should be done “mindfully”!

Your have coined the term “mindful construct” as a means of coping with the reality of ones life, but one has to have the mental clarity to perform that task, and mindfulness meditation can assist them in developing that clarity.

I’m actually curious as to why you used the word “mindful” in your labeling of your technique if you so strongly disapprove of “mindful” meditation. Why not remove yourself entirely from the term, it’s like your hanging onto the coattails of mindfulness meditation and it’s new found popularity, to promote your own opinions.

The research that I read involved EEG’s on everyday people, with no prior meditation experience. Subjects were taught the technique and performed 20 minutes a day of meditation over a 3 month period resulting in significant changes in the brain. No one is suggesting that people spend their entire life meditating. They are suggesting that just 20 minutes of meditation a day can benefit a person both mentally and physically.

They are not suggesting that people ignore their feelings, drop compassion from their life, or ignore the state of the planet. The fact is, if people are more able to help others and become more involved in just causes if they are efficient and content in their own lives.

I hope this gives you some thoughts to ponder, I will be reading more of your blog entries in the future, this is a very interesting site.

Well I don’t know what to think now. I’ve been meditating for a few months and today I felt worse for it because I’ve felt some anxiety building for a few days which seemed to be exacerbated this mornig by my usual sitting. It has occurred to me that I can’t be certain that I know what I’m doing sufficiently to be able to observe emotions without experiencing them. I thought meditation might help because I tend not to process feelings very efficiently until they all build then decide to hold a suprise party for me once every so often, whereupon I tend to have a meltdown. I thought mindfulness would help me to engage with my feelings before they bite me in the ass. I also agree with some comments here insomuch as I do think a lot of my ‘feelings’, whilst being a legitimate sign that somethign is wrong, are often the product of my subconcious making huge shortcuts in logic (when I examine them). SO-do I continue as I am, ernestly trying to ensure I observe without seperating myself entirely from my experience, OR do I try something else? I’m not trying to rationalise or bury my feelings and I understand it’d take work to make a real difference but I dunno-stumped now I guess.

I’d just like to add, that I’ve been meditating for 10 years, and have explored various teachers.. Finally it was therapists who helped me appreciate the importance of my feelings and a handful of books like ‘The Power of Negative Thinking’. I think the steps on the path are all mushed up and the way it’s commonly taught skips important developmental steps – could this be something to do the the more intellectual approach of the male majority with the female aspect missing?

Having now worked a lot with the emotional side of myself, I enjoy the techniques of observing my life-experiences, because I am now fully engaged with my feelings it’s no longer disassociation (but I still have to be very careful of this), it certainly was for a long time before and as I say, I did not find the answer to that in the meditation teachers available to me.

I found this article interesting – but in total contradiction to my own personal experience of meditation. Your description of it didn’t resonate with me at all.

For instance, let’s speak about the aspect of disassociation. If anything, I began meditation to engage more with my thoughts – and especially my anxiety; to become more aware of my habitual thought patterns, to recognise them when they came up, to observe the physical sensations they produced in me. What else can this be but working through and integrating an emotion?

Of course, my hope is that I can catch myself when such thoughts arise in the future, and save myself the anxiety. Just like getting off a train when you realise its heading to the wrong stop. I think you would argue that I am negating myself from experiencing a valid emotion, but to me I see it as breaking down a conditioned habit, a cycle of thoughts that has built up over the years and is predictable. And predictably bad. I’d rather catch myself in the moment, and think of a different way that I can respond to a situation that leads to a more positive experience.

I guess what it boils down to for me in your critique is how you argue that mindfulness meditation is an escape, a practice where you turn away from your real emotions. It has done the opposite for me, and I am grateful for the clarity.

Wow, iv just stopped meditation for the 1st time in a year an iv only just seen how damaging it is to the human brain, iv never felt so isolated an far away from myself then when I was sucked into buddism. It’s quite scary how nnegitive an heavy headed I felt. Iv only stopped this week an feel so much lighter an happier. All I say is when ur trying to control ur brain so much, life passes away quicker then normal.u feel a numb an completely alone an separate, thank god iv seen the light. My advise to anyone practicing this false religion is to stop analysing the world, urself an other ppl,ur not incontrol an ur not ment to be. Chloe.age 25 Essex

wow, all I have to say it I am not sure what you were doing Chloe but it certainly does not sound like it was mindfulness meditation. I am sorry that you were trying to control your mind which is not what I would recommend anyone do. I am not religious at all and mindfulness meditation is not a religion. I am glad you stopped doing whatever it was you were doing and glad you are feeling better.
Jean

Hi, well Im petty new to meditation (been meditating for about a month) and dont quite understand all the concepts of it yet but so far have gotten good results like less stress and I feel more appreciative of things. I was not aware at all there was or might be a negative side to meditation as I always understood it to be nothing but a positive thing until I ran across this website. Got to say its got me a little confused and discouraged and I dont know if I should continue my practice. I was just kind of under the impression that meditation did nothing but make mental problems better and certainly not worse. I mean, I have thought and wondered about how the observing of thoughts in meditation seems similar to disassociative disorders but from what I understood in a book I read you are supposed to observe but also be and feel what comes up to the fullest extent. In that way you face and deal with problems and eventually move on I guess. Anyways I have been diagnosed with depersonalization and dont want to do anything to make it worse. Should I practice a form of mediation thats the opposite of mindfulness then maybe? What would that be? One last question: is the mediation practice of following your breath considered mindfulness meditation?

Having observed, spoken and interacted with other students on a year long mindfulness course I can state categorically that the author is correct.

If people were genuinely ok with their present then why would they need mindfulness. Look at the people who some really content who don’t practise mindfulness. How are they being?

A lot of people learn mindfulness to deal with pain in some way or they want to become spiritually advanced which is an ego trip. Most people aren’t truly honest about their motivations for doing mindfulness.

I have heard people say how they are using mindfulness on their friends and partners when there is conflict. Unsurprisingly they say how this makes the people even more angry. The reason being that genuine connection and communication isn’t occurring. This is similar to how people early on in counselling training infuriate those around them by using counselling techniques on them.

I am not seeing enough genuine groundedness on these courses. Spiritual egos are abound. If you are practising mindfulness and you think you have not fallen for your spiritual ego then think again. Ask those around you. Reflect with raw honesty and humility on you and your practise.

Well, I think all these different viewpoints on mindfulness just reveal the reality of just about anything! Give one man a stick and he will use it as a crutch to walk with, another man will sharpen it and use it to attack his neighbour.
For me, mindfulness helped me to recover from PTSD. It helped me clamber my way back to sanity and yes, I do feel much more connected spiritually, but I don’t really see that as an ego trip! I just feel grateful that I found a way towards peace.

“I have heard people say how they are using mindfulness on their friends and partners when there is conflict. ” – Mike

I wasn’t taught to use mindfulness towards other people!
I’m not sure what this means.. the mindfulness bit is where you notice your own emotions and hopefully can stop yourself from doing things like lashing out at another for not saying what you wanted them to say, or from seeking revenge on another who has hurt your feelings. .
I would far rather be in the company of a person who knows and understands their own self, someone I could trust to be thoughtful and fair, than someone inclined to wage war and blame others for their feelings.
Mindfulness is a tool, and like any other tool I suppose it can be misused in the wrong hands, but from my own personal experience I would hate others that could really benefit from this to be put off!
I do believe, from my own experience, that meditation really can heal the brain. They’ve done countless experiments to prove this, and I know it to be true!

just a response to mike, I am not sure what course he is taking that is a year long, and not sure about the spiritual aspect however I am only speak for Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction which is tought in 8 week courses typically and there is not really a push of any spiritual aspect and does not push “Budhism” per se, has been an extremely positive thing for countless people. What I have really liked about MBSR (because I am not a hippyish speritual person) is that total lack of Ego form MBSR instructors and the lack of trying to be “Guru”ish by them. sounds like the class that mike was in was a total nightmere.

hi Jean,

Glad you found what worked for you, mindfulness is a great method.

I know from experience, that there are some fine spiritual leaders out there who have genuinely got rid of their egos almost entirely. That is the objective of buddhism. When someone calls themselves spiritual, it does not mean that have an ego, it means they are trying to get rid of it. Although there are some false teachers out there. The very mindfulness methods that worked for you, originated in buddhism, and are widely practiced by most buddhist monks, the vast majority of which are very nice genuine people because of it. I would suggest you meet one, and you will see what I mean.

Kind regards,

Andrew.

Andrew.

Marlissa, your post was just amazing! Oh and so true! I have been trying, meditation for the last nearly 4 years! Non of it in my own honest opinion, has help me with my high levels of anxiety, and many mental health problems. and many of them, tell you to “view your thoughts, as clouds passing by, they just stay a while then go” utter rubbish, I can have the same thought, for days or weeks, that scare the hell out of me! I have found, just about everything useless, I have had, cbt for 9 whole months, utterly useless, and have seen, dr after dr! To no avail! But I would, be very interested in this different, meditation, you where talking about marlissa.

Dear Melissa you must research and experiment better, almost all your 17 reasons are incorrect, if I just pick out one at random it will almost certainly contain wrong information on meditation, for example: “… because of the nature of mindfulness meditation, you compound the problem by meditating, dissociating, and numbing even more…” that is absolutely not what meditation is supposed to achieve, numbing is the exact opposite of mindfulness. I hope you seriously take into account my suggestion to learn more.

Meditation is not for people with serious mental issues. It is for people who have an ability to sit still, breathe, eventually slowly shift what they pay attention to (not be trapped by their thoughts) and make a soft open shift into simple awareness. Attention without comment. Something emerges. An energy takes over and one is simple “being”. That moment drifts away as another thought comes in, another comment, a habitual comment. But one PRACTICES and slowly comes to simple being, simple awareness, energy again and again staying longer and longer in this center where there is no right, left, up, down, future, past…only fully now aware. And when one goes back to ones hectic world and gets thrown back and forth it becomes easier/faster to come back to the center where all good and useful information is available.

I agree with the premise of your position on mindfulness meditation, but I also feel that you’re throwing the baby out with the bath water. Infact, a great deal of what you’re saying seems to be something that should be taught along with the basics of mindfulness instead of being a caveat against it. It’s also important to remember who mindfulness meditation is being used to treat.
Alot of what you’re saying seems to indicate that you believe that people (even serverely mentally ill people) need to confront things head on and there are therapy tools that are used for that (Flooding, EMDR, REBT) all of which have as many pitfalls as Mindfulness therapy. To that end, I would have to say that the psychiatric community is doing it’s clients a huge disservice by not telling them that just as Psychotropic medications have side effects (usually pretty bad ones!) and may not work for everyone, ALL therapy models will have side effects as well and do not work for everyone.

Now one huge issue that you have inadvertently pointed out by criticising mindfulness therapy that needed to be brought out was the fact that there are alot of therapists out there that plain, flat-out don’t know DICK about the tools they are using with their clients! They read a few books, attend some mandatory meetings at whatever state or federally funded counseling service they work at where mindfulness or any other therapy methods may be discussed and then they talk to patients that they really haven’t even taken the time to know about this brilliant technique and laud it over them. Whatever’s right or wrong with mindfulness techniques or however the modal contradicts itself notwithstanding, these piss-poor therapists who teach by route what they learned by route are not making anything better for anyone concerned.
Bad therapists make for bad results no matter what techniques or philosophies they are using. That, and not mindfulness necessarily, is the real caveat emptor.

Please don’t give meditation itself a bad name……with suitable type of meditation to certain personality, right way to meditate and right teacher, these 17 side effect seems should all be reversed. It sounds you had misunderstanding of nature of the meditation, when you written these articles.There nothing wrong with real meditation itself,it is a tool can benefit some, and harm happen only when people misunderstand, mislead, or misuse it.

So, the silver line of this article, it may warned many people that meditation can cause harm, if learned wrong way, with incompetent teacher, or practiced unsuitable type of meditation, or for someone who already have certain mental illness may also be dangerous .

As it a hot subject in alternative therapy and psychology today, there may be mass amount of misuse of meditation for therapy,and may cause patients even more harm, in such a manner, many therapists narrowly understand meditation and hardly a competent teacher, blind lead blind, they are not pro as guru/monk/priest , patient and general public do become scientific experiment rat in these cases.

(corrected version of comment, I was typing so fast that some of my sentences were missing words. Distraction at it’s best.)

Mindfulness on its own can cause harm when it is taught incorrectly and you appear to have been informed about the practice without proper context. When mindfulness is used in such therapies as Acceptance and commitment therapy, the therapist or the book where the person is learning ACT from, should and so far from personal experience, always informs the reader that the goal is not to get rid of emotions or thoughts. the goal is not to feel relaxed. Most of all, meditation forms of mindfulness are not to be confused with traditional meditation.

meditation can take you to another world but when mindfulness is involved, thats the last thing you are suppose to be doing. in other words, if dissociation starts, then you are technically doing it wrong.

There are plenty of ways to use mindfulness without meditation, meditation just happens to have the largest number of pleasant side effects which can confuse a patient into using it for the wrong reasons.

its often repeated that the goal is never to get rid of emotions. In order to avoid judgment of emotions, the perspective that emotions are not positive or negative is often drilled. when you practice diffusion, it always involves diffusion with all thoughts, both ones you would find pleasant and ones you would find unpleasant. Practicing this, along with the concept that emotions and feelings are just reactions, that there are no good or bad, together this helps to avoid using mindfulness to only accept bad thoughts. once more. the goal is not to avoid thoughts and feelings that you don’t like, in fact the goal is psychological flexibility.

This article is not about the dangers of mindfulness meditation. some of the dangers that are possible, are only possible if done incorrectly. There are several forms of mindfulness, it is very likely you learned about a form that revolves around the aspect of meditation, instead of the mindfulness part of meditation.

In addition, many professionals who use ACT and mindfulness in therapy will actually tell you that if you use it correctly with very intense emotions, it actual results in a lot of what untrained people would refer to as “pain and suffering” when it is first learned correctly and used daily. true awareness is hard to handle because you can no longer dissociate unless you try to unlearn what you have learned. This is why you would never use it with a trauma patient who is starting therapy or use it to accept emotions from childhood, if used correctly, you will end up with initial intense painful feelings that will take time to accept once they have been first diffused. Diffusion is also not meant to get rid of emotions, which is why the next stage after diffusion is focused on ways of healing in order to be able to make room for the feelings.

Best post here, Ben!
You’re right – that is what’s healing about mindfulness for anyone raised in the west. It’s good to get real and be able to bear what seems sometimes unbearable. But so so so much better than mindlessness and all the crime, heartache and damage that causes to yourself and others around you!