Navigating Through Distressed Situations
Trauma — “ a deeply distressing or disturbing experience “
It indeed takes a shock to recalibrate oneself. Living in a world in which practising meditation has become the buzzword for the solution of all problems through mindfulness. However, what does mindfulness even mean? And how is emptying your brain able to guide you to enlightenment?
Having tried meditation multiple times — guided, unguided, in classes and by myself -, I to my frustration was always unsuccessful. Maybe it works for some or even many, but I cannot grasp how this would lead to mindfulness. For me, mindfulness is to understand our wishes, hopes, desires and needs from deep down of our own psychology…simply to understand ourselves better.
As a child, we dreamt big as our opportunities seemed limitless, not knowing the frameworks of responsibility, risks, norms and everything that adulthood brought with it. We dared to speak up, to take a leap forward and when we fell, we cried but always stood up and moved on. Failing and falling was never a reason for us to stop exploring, stop playing and stop taking another risk. But along the way of growing up, we lost focus and started caring more and more how we fit into society and how others perceive us.
Maybe falling into comfort resulted ultimately in us losing focus on what our true passions and our true interests are. In order to cover up the emptiness, we seek validation via social media, in an urge to proclaim to everyone that our life is full of passion, adventures and ultimately to showcase to others or maybe to ourselves that we managed to live the life everyone aspires at seemingly no effort. And maybe even worse, looking at the lives of others and start doubting our own actual contempt one and falling into sadness because it does not seem as exciting and picturesque as others. Will this though truly make us happy? And what are we sacrificing and what are we taken for granted while trying to model a life that seems desirable for society? Do I even evolve as a human while striving for that Instagram perfect life?
Ultimately, what do we get from validation? While stating the obvious — nothing really -, it required a trigger event for me to come to realization. I spend a great amount of time thinking in order to get to know myself better. Only after, I was able to identify how I can truly be happy instead of living what others might perceive as desirable.
While there is nothing wrong to share snip-its of our lives with our friends, acquittances and strangers, it is building that self-confidence to pursue a life that is fulfilling for ourselves and not for others. I believe mindfulness is the process to see the world with the eyes of a child again, free from judgement, free from societal norms and dare to take a leap outside of our comfort zone in order to keep what is precious to us and grow into a stronger person tomorrow.
Despite sounding sooooo enlightened, the reality is, I have not figured it out. Just before writing the post, I spent more than 10min trying to take that “seductive while effortless selfie” in the hope to get the validation to soothe my broken ego… I gave up because I felt slightly silly. Yet, after all, it is a process and I’m grateful that I now know that I need to invest time in myself and not only in others in order to get to know me better.
