Posted by Jost on July 11, 2006, at 21:24:35
In reply to Re: Mindfulness lesson 1 » Dinah, posted by fallsfall on July 11, 2006, at 19:12:57
I had an instance of thinking of something that seemed closer to a "wise mind" this afternoon.
A doctor had given me an inappropriate medication (which I had questioned), and I had checked with my pdoc, who said it was a bad mistake. I had sent her an email (an agreed-upon way of communicating) last Wednesday, and had still not heard back. At some point, I was thinking that another day had gone by, and got very agitated about the whole thing. I had asked for a different prescription, also, and was hoping to get a substitute. So I suddenly started going through a litany of accusations and spiralling bad thoughts about her and the whole situation that I went to her for..
I realized at one point that her not having responded wasn't necessarily a sign of her irrresponsiblity and indifference. It could easily have happened that she didn't recognize who was the sender of an email, and just deleted it--or even had a spam blocker, which filtered it out-- So it wasn't anything that malign or intentional.
This was a calming thought, which would have put me in a more accepting frame of mind. Yet it felt threatening and inimical, even though I was also in a way attracted to it. So I mostly just put it out of my mind, although it did calm me somewhat.
The less upsetting, sort of nonjudgmental version of why I hadn't gotten a response felt really dangerous-- and I didn't want to be in that position-- of trusting someone untrustworthy, who would do possible disastrous things if I wasn't constantly suspicious, and second-guessing and double and triple checking.
At the same time, I blame myself for these emotional helpless-angry spirals, for using blame to protect myself from people, to ward off their probably-bad decisions.
So I think the problem with "wise mind" is that if you don't have it consistently, but only intermittantly, it can put you into a vulnerable position-- because you aren't so quick to disconnect.
Jost
PS is this what we're doing, or are we being more abstract?
poster:Jost
thread:624046
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/psycho/20060703/msgs/666202.html