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I believed the hype and did mindfulness meditation for dumb reasons-- now I'm trying to reverse the damage

  • Article
  • Jul 23, 2021
  • #Meditation
Holly Elmore
@ilex_ulmus
(Author)
hollyelmore.substack.com
Read on Substack
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1 Mention
[This post is a draft that went up too early. It still needs a lot of links and may contain typos.] I overdid it with mindfulness and meditation. I probably never needed to practice... Show More

[This post is a draft that went up too early. It still needs a lot of links and may contain typos.] I overdid it with mindfulness and meditation. I probably never needed to practice them in the first place. Like yoga, I was drawn to meditation because I was already good at it— I quickly saw the benefits because for me they were easy to reach. I was really flexible, so I quickly got into serious yoga practice. I was very observant, introspective, disciplined, and my senses were very sensitive, so I quickly “made progress” in mindfulness and meditation. I probably started at a level of mindfulness (or at least those aspects of mindfulness) which is a desirable endpoint for others. I dislocated my knee doing yoga, because I am excessively flexible, and because I was excessively sensitive and trained myself to be vigilant, I kind of broke my mind with mindfulness.

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Sasha Chapin @sashachapin · Feb 23, 2022
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This article is excellent, also sad, and goes in my “hardcore vipassana can be really awful especially combined with renunciative views on contemplation” file
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