In the Beginning

In order to understand the nature and flowing references throughout my blog, I recommend reading my initial post The End of the Beginning first.

7.20.2013

The Mindful Watcher


Mindfulness meditation is all about coming to a full knowing of one's true essence. It is understanding that you are not your thoughts, you are not your emotions, you are simply the gap in between. It's about being in the present moment and ceasing to identify with the mental chatter (the ego) who tries to tell you who you are instead of letting you experience it. Once you separate Who You Really Are from what you think or how you feel in any given moment, your true essence becomes apparent. You simply are.

Mindfulness is not something you do, it is a way of being. The beauty in this way of being is that when life's tumultuous situations arise, you can remain centered in your essence. You are not numb to the pain that is life, but are instead able to separate yourself from being identified and defined by it. You become The Watcher - able to observe what is happening inside and around your Self without being absorbed into it.

I have practiced many forms of mindfulness for over a decade without truly internalizing its true meaning. I understood it academically, but left brain's logic is altogether different from right brain's knowing. After months of working diligently on this skill with Em, I actually experienced The Watcher while in a dissociative state. Only then did I fully comprehended the power of mindfulness. I truly believe that without this experience, I would not be as far forward on my healing journey today.

I've mentioned in previous posts that my dissociative tendencies have rendered me dysfunctional in a number of adult life situations. These circumstances are not trauma related, but for the ASCA dissociation makes no distinction. It's a handy-dandy little trick that my brain learned at an early age to cope with trauma, and now it uses dissociation whenever it feels like it to zero out whenever things get difficult. I never recognized, understood, or even had a name for what was happening to me. I simply felt overwhelmed, confused, numb, and crazy. Then I would often go hide in the nearest closet or bathroom, lose time, and endure all the body stuff until it was over. (The "body stuff" will appear in later posts - Israel's Key, The Theatre - and this hiding behavior will be explained in The Terrible Awful.) This went on for 25 years until The Watcher gave language to my dissociative experience.

This happened in the airport, of all places.







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