Mindfulness - help?

[emjay]

Say it's anger... does that mean you co-exist with it as you explore it... even while in the throes of the emotion? Cos that's always seemed like a contradiction in terms to me... that the deeper you are in such a state... such as anger where it's characterised by tunnel vision and bias... the less mindful of it you can be... ie the less objectively aware you can be of it.

That's always confused me about mindfulness... just that once you get lost in a train of thought or whatever that is almost by definition the opposite of being objectively aware of it. So I see mindfulness only operating in objective mode as it were... seeing the beginnings or ends of thoughts, but not the during (unless you snap out of it mid-train and thus become objectively aware). Do you see it differently?

I have a couple of exercises I use when I feel myself falling into an overly emotional state that I don't want to experience.

Sometimes I'll imagine the emotion as a transient object -- a log floating downstream, a jet flying high overhead -- and it gets closer and then recedes. This reminds me that, knowing it is transient, I also know that it will recede so long as I don't impede the process.

Sometimes I make a "date" with the problem: "I'm a bit worked up/busy/whatever to deal with this now, so I'll think about this at 8:30pm tonight." And by the time that rolls around, the emotion has passed through me.

Sometimes, when I'm upset about something that is beyond my control, I remind myself of that fact and simply work to reduce my emotional investment if possible.

It's not that I don't allow myself to experience the feelings. I just don't allow myself to make decisions in a state of emotional disturbance. And for me, these techniques most often accelerate that process of detachment by reminding me that emotions too have limits, and I'm best staying away from those limits.

I was just asking mainly to see if we were doing the same sort of thing... and I think we are at some level... but you have a lot more techniques than me... I don't really have/use techniques per se, it's just an approach to thinking... so with me I think it's more casual. I don't use it all the time... it comes and goes really in phases of interest (in Buddhism etc)... and thus I can get out of it for a while... then the stress etc starts building up whilst I'm not thinking like that until something reminds me to think like it (such as some futile situation) and I get back into it again... in cycles basically. I wish I did do it all the time though because I'm much happier and more peaceful when I do (and conversely depressed/stressed etc when I don't). Thankfully I'm in the mindful mode at the moment and hope to keep it there