{"id":4364,"date":"2015-07-08T06:00:30","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T11:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/?p=4364"},"modified":"2015-07-08T19:08:57","modified_gmt":"2015-07-09T00:08:57","slug":"a-collection-of-mindfulness-ness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/crywoof\/2015\/07\/a-collection-of-mindfulness-ness\/","title":{"rendered":"A Collection of Mindfulness-ness (Updated!)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

\"Brain<\/a> Recently I\u2019ve been hearing quite a bit about mindfulness<\/i>, most recently at Weight Watchers where we are encouraged to be mindful about the food we are eating. \u00a0A couple of weeks ago they gave us a \u201cmindfulness exercise\u201d, to wit, spending two minutes counting our breaths.\u00a0 From what I\u2019ve gathered, mindfulness involves quieting your thoughts and being aware and alert to your body and your environment.\u00a0 As such, it\u2019s a way of being present, of living in the moment; and apparently the goal is to start small and increase this mindfulness in all parts of life.<\/p>\n

A caveat: I gather that mindfulness is a part of Eastern spirituality, and I\u2019m sure that there\u2019s more to it in that context than I\u2019ve given above.\u00a0 In this post I\u2019m speaking of the layman\u2019s view of mindfulness as it has percolated through the culture and into the life of yours truly.<\/p>\n

I try to make sense of notions like this by seeing how they fit into my context; and in my context mindfulness would be opposed to being scattered<\/i>, flitting from one thought to another, not focussing on any one thing in particular,and \u00a0completely unable to be still.\u00a0 Being scattered is often part of life; if your work requires you to respond to random requests from hither, thither, and yon (as is the work of every stay-at-home mom I know) then it\u2019s no wonder if you are scattered a good bit of the time.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s possible to survive for long periods of time while scattered, but it\u2019s not pleasant (at least, not to me).<\/p>\n

But in Catholic spirituality the usual opposite to being scattered isn\u2019t mindfulness, an intense focus on the moment with the aim of quieting the mind, but collection<\/i>, mind and body working together to focus on God.\u00a0 And ideally one would perform all one\u2019s tasks, both physical and intellectual, while remaining collected<\/i>.<\/p>\n

In my day job, I\u2019m a software engineer.\u00a0 I spend large intervals of time sitting at a computer, focussed on a single task.\u00a0 If I am scattered, I can\u2019t do my job well; it requires focus.\u00a0 If I were to attempt mindfulness while programming I\u2019d be focussing on the colors of the pixels on the screen and the feel of the keys under my fingers and the sounds of my co-workers, and again I\u2019d have trouble doing my job.\u00a0 When I\u2019m at my most productive, I can have hours vanish.\u00a0 To do this work I must<\/i> be collected, in a general sense, though not necessarily collected to God.<\/p>\n

But not necessarily not<\/i> collected to God either.\u00a0 I can bring God along as I sit down to work; I can offer up the work I do for my employer to God, and do it to His glory.<\/p>\n

In short, mindfulness seems like a nice place to visit on my way from being scattered to being collected, but I wouldn\u2019t want to live there.<\/p>\n

Update:<\/b> Dr. Greg Popcak has taken the ball and run with it, giving a psychologist\u2019s view of mindfulness<\/a>. There\u2019s clearly more to it than the layman\u2019s grapevine trickle-down view of mindfulness I describe above, though I\u2019m not at all sure that most people I\u2019ve heard use the term mean everything by it that Dr. Greg does.<\/p>\n

Also, I\u2019d quibble a bit with his words, \u201c\u2026he has some concerns that mindfulness may not be completely consistent with Catholic spirituality\u2026\u201d. My point was that mindfulness, as I\u2019d seen it discussed, seemed to me to be the first step toward collection: a place to start, not a place to finish.<\/p>\n

____<\/p>\n

photo credit: Brain Anatomy Hoop Art. Hand Embroidered Wall Decor<\/a> via photopin<\/a> (license)<\/a><\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Recently I\u2019ve been hearing quite a bit about mindfulness, most recently at Weight Watchers where we are encouraged to be mindful about the food we are eating. \u00a0A couple of weeks ago they gave us a \u201cmindfulness exercise\u201d, to wit, spending two minutes counting our breaths.\u00a0 From what I\u2019ve gathered, mindfulness involves quieting your thoughts […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1131,"featured_media":4366,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[793,792],"class_list":["post-4364","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-christian-living","tag-collection","tag-mindfulness"],"yoast_head":"\nA Collection of Mindfulness-ness (Updated!)<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Recently I\u2019ve been hearing quite a bit about mindfulness, most recently at Weight Watchers where we are encouraged to 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