What mindfulness is not
On the sense and nonsense of a hype
It started with passion. It started with "Full Catastrophe Living”, with "Living in the Maelstrom”. It started with people who in their meditation practice had found a way to deal with pain, with sorrow, with illness, with all those things that life brings us unasked for.
It began with a desire to share this and make it accessible to people who might need it even more. It began with the feeling that we would otherwise keep the best we had for ourselves.
It was given the name mindfulness. For the first few years, we had to struggle to explain what mindfulness is. Then came the hype. A hype inevitably leads to misunderstandings and false expectations. Therefore, we had to clarify more and more often what it is not.
In 2017, I wrote a series of short texts about common misunderstandings regarding mindfulness. At that time, I was still working as a psychiatrist in a general hospital where I taught eight week mindfulness programs. These were the misunderstandings that I had to correct almost daily.
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Mindfulness is not: “mindfulness”
Mindfulness is not: “here and now”
Mindfulness is not: “floating in the cosmos”
Mindfulness is not: "not judging"
Mindfulness is not: “Buddhism”
Mindfulness is not: "value-free”
Mindfulness is not: “take a moment to relax”
Mindfulness is not: “in the mind”
Mindfulness is not: “stop thinking”
Mindfulness is not: “meditating away emotions”
Mindfulness is not: "breathing calmly"
Mindfulness is not: “letting go”
Mindfulness is not: “a state to attain”
Mindfulness is not: “self-improvement”
Mindfulness is not: “looking inside”
Mindfulness is not: “believing”
Mindfulness is not: “sitting on a cushion”
Mindfulness is not: “changing something in your brain”
Mindfulness is not: “group therapy”
Mindfulness is not: “good for everyone”
What mindfulness is: “a way of relating”
