Mindfulness Is Not About Feeling Relentlessly Positive All The Time
What “The Secret” And Mindfulness Revolution Got All Wrong
I am a meditation instructor and the founder of a yoga studio- Doon Yoga, situated in Dehradun, 46 kms away from Rishikesh, the yoga capital of the world. We don’t promise our meditation participants a quick fix solution to their life problems like “The Secret”. What Yoga is to body, meditation is to mind. We teach people mindfulness and meditation the boring yet the only right way. The other day, one of the participants of my morning meditation session asked me why I don’t believe in books like “The Secret”, the magic of positive thinking and law of attraction. This kickstarted a conversation that I have made into an article- this article to be precise.
The books like “The Secret”- have misunderstood mindfulness a great deal- only to make money off people. People who fell for “The Secret” eventually understood that the book was a sham. Let me tell you why.
Forced Positive Thinking Is Counterintuitive
Forceful positive thinking begins with the belief that you need to force yourself to think positive while ignoring your “negative” feelings. When we talk about Zen buddhism and living in the present, we are talking about acceptance of the present situation and not getting lost in positive thinking about future. We, for sure, should have a positive outlook of the future, but being lost in fascination of a bright future results in us trying to push away our “negative” feelings for the time being, only to face them later in the much worse form. For instance, if you are feeling sad about something, cut yourself some slack and face it, till that feeling goes away. If you keep ignoring it, forcing yourself to feel happy, you would snap out of it in a pretty bad way later on.
Living In A Make- Believe Scenario Of The Present Doesn’t Manifest It Into Reality
“The Secret” tells you to feel rich if you want to be rich. It tells you to live in a make-believe scenario or an artificial bubble of fake present instead of living in the real present. But the question is till when can you hold on to the burden of this bubble? It is only a matter of time before you snap out of this artificial bubble. At this point, “The Secret” would blame you with “You have to keep the bubble alive till it manifests into reality. So, try again and good luck.” It is not mindfulness. It is sheer manipulation.
Affirmations Can Give You Anxiety
Affirmations start with a feeling of lack and you end up more anxious than you were before. A rich person won’t be using affirmations like “I am rich”. It is only someone who wants to get rich. Ergo- the lack! By using affirmations, you get a rush of positivity that soon turns into negativity.
Living In The Present Is The Key
It’s been said that if you are depressed then you are living in the past, and that those who are anxious are living in the future.- Lao Tzu
The idea is to live in the present. If you are washing the dishes, you are in that moment, not thinking about anything else- not even thinking about the moment when you would be done washing the dishes. That is what we call “being in the present”. If you go by what “The Secret” tells you, you would probably be washing the dishes and imagining about a fake present where you are probably doing something interesting. This is not called “living in the present”. However, if you pay your attention to whatever you do, be it as simple as washing the dishes or cleaning the house, you can say that you are in the present. It is acceptance of the present wholeheartedly that makes you peaceful and happy.
Living In The Present Doesn’t Mean Letting Go Of Your Desires
I am neither asking you to let go of your desires, nor to become a monk. Your desires are not something that you choose. Neither are your feelings. Both come to you. You can’t even consciously change your desires.
There are two kind of desires- one are those deep desires that always come true. Have you experienced a deep desire that never left you and it ended up being manifested even after a long time, even without you trying? The one that makes you feel that the universe conspires to make certain things happen? Thats what I am talking about!
Second ones are those superficial desires that go away as you evolve into a better and more mature person. We, as a matter of fact, are evolving constantly. For instance, 10 years back, there must have been things that you wanted badly but today, you don’t want them anymore. Those were superficial desires, some of them might even be very intense at some point in time.
The understanding of how desires work takes the pressure of positive thinking and forceful manifestation off you. At the end of the day, you won’t be punished for not being able to think positive like “The Secret” preaches. You can afford to be in the present, not worrying about the future. You can focus on your work you need to do in the present without the need to constantly think about the desired result in the future.
Life Becomes Satisfying When Your Focus Is In The Present
Most of us pay utmost attention when we are doing something that we love, like gardening, painting, watching a movie. We get carried away by random thoughts while doing monotonous chores like washing utensils, cleaning the house or folding the clothes. This is what you need to change.
If you get carried away by thoughts by doing regular chores, you are living in either past or present. No matter how recent the past is, or how immediate the future is, you need to avoid this. Let me explain this- if you are washing utensils and thinking about the task you did just before washing utensils, it is still thinking in the past. If you are thinking about how great you would feel when once you finish washing the utensils, you are thinking about the future. My parting thought is-
Live In The Present By Accepting It Wholeheartedly
You can check out my summary of “Peace is Every Step” to delve deeper into the concept of Mindfulness-
