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Balancing mindfulness with the need to worry.
buddhistok
Veteran
How do you balance the need to live in the moment (mindfulness) with the need to worry? For example, many people who have weight concerns may need to worry about eating too much so they can avoid it. If a person is taking a medication that causes them to gain weight, and they never worry about eating, they can easily gain a lot of weight.
So how does a person balance this? Or is this a bad idea altogether? Should it be approached a different way?
So how does a person balance this? Or is this a bad idea altogether? Should it be approached a different way?
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My opinion is that instead of using the word 'worry', you should think of it as being mindful in itself. If you feel that you need to lessen your food consumption for example, or take medication, you simply need to be mindful about it.
Living in the moment does not mean that we never plan for things because if that were the case you would never go on holiday, you may never arrange meetings with friends, you would never decide what to buy at the supermarket and so forth. Living in the moment mainly refers to not attaching to the past or future, understanding things are impermanent and we should abide in the now. Sure, plan a holiday for next month, but do not put so much faith that it will go exactly how you want it to, or even happen at all for that matter.
I hope this helps :-/
tom
"If you have a problem, and there's something you can do about it, then why worry? If you have a problem and there's nothing you can do about it, then why worry?"
As for the example with the weight problem, you don't have to 'worry about it' to prevent yourself from over eating. Another way to tackle this problem would be to look for the causes of the over eating. Does the person over eat because they suffer with anxiety, and eating is a way of getting a quick 'hit' of comfort?
If so, lowering the internal emotional barometer would be the cure here, and that could be done by following the precepts (ethical life), and a meditation practise. If you google, you will find that meditation is recommended to help with 'relapse prevention' for a list of addictions, including over eating.
There is no point or reason to worry about anything, I know this intellectually, but still I can find myself worrying about stuff, so it's easier said than done.
One of my favorite HHDL quotes is:
"If it's something you can't do anything about, why worry about it? If it's something you *can* do something about, why worry about it?"
Very, very true. Worry is nothing but attachment to an expected or hoped-for outcome. Attachments cause dukkha. Let go of the attachment and the suffering goes away on its own.
Peace...
hope this chart works for you.
I guess it is a good may to start to be mindful on some special phenomena one has observed already if they come up like a kind of anger or greed that we already had realized as unwholesome. If one sees them already easy he could go deeper and look for new strange things one never had realized before.
When ever we have a problem we can remember that we are not mindful and not in the present. So its good to have problems to train to stay more mindful. *smile* For the beginning its helpful to laugh about if such movies are discovered.
There is usually no such thing as perfect decision, so just make a quick choice and never look back.
But if you want to be mindful, you can be mindful of your worry. You will then notice:
- Worry is like a loop, your thoughts just continue in circle.
- Worry is unproductive, you can dwell on it for hours and nothing is done.
- Worry arises from anxiety and fear, instead of mindful of the thoughts, you should be mindful of the what and why of your fear. It can help to break the loop and make the better decision. The reason of fear is often exaggerated or associated.
- Many more... see it yourself.
If your worry is habitual as in Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder, visit a psychotherapist.
For me living the middle way of Buddhism means living with some pain and some worry, and the "imperfections" of life. I think that is realistic, and 99% of the people i have met are in the same condition, the other 1% are not telling the truth. Suffering is a part of life. We have nerve endings to warn us about harmful physical encounters. I think we have nerve endings to warn us about potential harmful encounters on a mental level. I have learned to live with a little bit of physical pain and psychological suffering ( worry, jealousy, hatred, imperfection/stupidity
Yeah, I was thinking about the "no path, no wisdom, no gain" in Heart Sutra today. I am much younger than you, but neither do I think a "perfect" life of no suffering is possible. In a sense, suffering might never end, you just get bored of it
However, I do not TOTALLY equate worry with suffering. Worry has its uses, when you are dealing with important decision, worry helps to fix your focus on the issue on hand. Sometimes pondering does produce better decision, the key is how to do it mindfully and then when the time is right you just do it.
know and realize the difference.
Thanks for pointing that out. Pain is indeed a more accurate word, I was using suffering in a overly loose way. So to rephrase "In a sense, pain might never end, you just get bored of it."
it's like throwing our hands into the fire. we keep doing it over and over again until we realize, oh shit why am i doing this?
now what happens is that we find the cause of the pain, which is the hand in the fire...but we still suffer.
we tell ourselves why did you do that? you are so stupid. no one else puts their hand in the fire. on and on and on and on.
so all suffering is our baby.
Actually mindfulness normally means noticing what things are. And exercise and diet are influential on health, that is their nature. In the context of the 8fold path mindfulness is noticing what is conducive to awakening.