Anyway, later did mindfulness, meditation, breathing and more of the same mind expanding exercises but without the chemical modifiers to assist (or detract).
I'm glad you found your way to those. The answer, it seems, has always been in our culture, in one way or another, we've just lost it along the way. These breathing/meditation techniques are nothing new, yet they're more healing than all the drugs in the psycho system (and there are many). So I really am happy for you.
it’s healthy. It’s community, it’s family, it’s service to others and joy that comes from spreading joy.
<3 100%. Healthy is what it is. Though it seems to me it also requires a shift in perspective? With the right mindset, you can derive pleasure, I've been shocked to find, in the simplest household tasks. Or you can resent and bitch about them, as you go, and make everyone (yourself included) miserable. So once again, mind.
Aw, thank you <3 I enjoyed your perspective, as ever. And I'm sure with you for a dad, they'll be just fine <3
Man, shit, I like you a lot.
To the first comment, I agree, nothing new under the sun…but also, I have to frame my experience as someone awake and sentient in the age of Aquarius…we’re just in one of the early waves I think (and hope) ;)
But yeah, breath and spiritual work I think was once far more commonplace…we’re in the age of burgeoning awareness, and I’m not double-checking to make sure I used that correctly :)
To your second comment, that’s where my YESSS!! Comes from. I forget to do it maybe as often (or more so) than I remember, but that’s part of the art of living, I guess? I try to use all the chores that come my way as an opportunity to be mindful. Still I also avoid the toxic positivity that @fenngen has been talking about; …I think the Buddhists were right to call it “walking the razor’s edge,” and most the time I’m cutting my fingers and hanging from the blade - but I wouldn’t want to change what’s right to accommodate what’s me.
Back at ya, my friend :D
Toxic positivity is definitely a thing. For me, for a while now, it was what was putting me off all this mindfulness, meditative, "be water" stuff. I'd get a good few days of being all kumbaya and chill, and then I'd just snap, get nasty, and embrace all the little "mean" things I'd been trying to keep away. And it felt good.
Now I'm seeing it's not about that at all. It's not about going around with a big dopey smile on your face all damn day. That realization makes it a lil easier.