Lies My Teacher Told Me -
Everything Your American History Textbook Got Wrong
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Friday, 12 July 2019
quote [ Mindfulness practices do not permit critique or debate of what might be unjust, culturally toxic or environmentally destructive. Rather, the mindful imperative to “accept things as they are” while practising “nonjudgmental, present moment awareness” acts as a social anesthesia, preserving the status quo. ]
A long read for stating the obvious. See also The Faux Revolution of Mindfulness (thumb source) and Is mindfulness making us ill?
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Dienes said @ 12:16pm GMT on 13th July
That's not really what mindfulness and acceptance is, at least in the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy approach.
Mindfulness is literally being aware of your own thoughts and feelings, actually noticing what's going on around you. You'd be shocked how many people don't pay attention to their own internal behaviors and sensations. When you are asked not to judge, it isn't saying "Pretend the wrongs in the world aren't wrongs" but rather withholding judgement of yourself for feeling feelings so you don't interrupt your own mindfulness with a tangent.
The whole point of mindfulness and acceptance isn't to tolerate the intolerable. The issue is people tend to shut down when they encounter toxic stimuli, or devote massive swaths of their lives to avoiding toxic stimuli, neither of which allow you to effectively DEAL WITH the toxic stimuli.
Acceptance is about accepting that a shitty situation will make you feel shitty, but that doesn't make you a shitty person. This allows you to stop fighting feeling shitty and start working towards your values of making the world a less shitty place.
Dienes said @ 12:17pm GMT on 13th July
That's not really what mindfulness and acceptance is, at least in the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy approach.
Mindfulness is literally being aware of your own thoughts and feelings, actually noticing what's going on around you. You'd be shocked how many people don't pay attention to their own internal behaviors and sensations. When you are asked not to judge, it isn't saying "Pretend the wrongs in the world aren't wrongs" but rather withholding judgement of yourself for feeling feelings so you don't interrupt your own mindfulness with a tangent.
The whole point of mindfulness and acceptance isn't to tolerate the intolerable. The issue is people tend to shut down when they encounter toxic stimuli, or devote massive swaths of their lives to avoiding toxic stimuli, neither of which allow you to effectively DEAL WITH the toxic stimuli.
Acceptance is about accepting that a shitty situation will make you feel shitty, but that doesn't make you a shitty person. This allows you to stop fighting feeling shitty and start working towards your values of making the world a less shitty place. In other words, mindfulness and acceptance is about doing something despite the presence of shit. Which is exactly what one needs to do to buck the status quo.
<-- Entry / Current Comment
Dienes said @ 12:16pm GMT on 13th July [Score:5 Underrated]
That's not really what mindfulness and acceptance is, at least in the Acceptance and Commitment Therapy approach.
Mindfulness is literally being aware of your own thoughts and feelings, actually noticing what's going on around you. You'd be shocked how many people don't pay attention to their own internal behaviors and sensations. When you are asked not to judge, it isn't saying "Pretend the wrongs in the world aren't wrongs" but rather withholding judgement of yourself for feeling feelings so you don't interrupt your own mindfulness with a tangent.
The whole point of mindfulness and acceptance isn't to tolerate the intolerable. The issue is people tend to shut down when they encounter toxic stimuli, or devote massive swaths of their lives to avoiding toxic stimuli, neither of which allow you to effectively DEAL WITH the toxic stimuli.
Acceptance is about accepting that a shitty situation will make you feel shitty, but that doesn't make you a shitty person. This allows you to stop fighting feeling shitty and start working towards your values of making the world a less shitty place. In other words, mindfulness and acceptance is about doing something despite the presence of shit. Which is exactly what one needs to do to buck the status quo.
