This is my take on mindfulness. Maybe I'm off, but I see mindfulness activities to be in conflict with the ultimate goal of becoming more aware of our environment (internal/external).
I'm a quite hypervigilant person and I'm very aware of my external environment.
You are confusing hypervigilance with Mindfulness - when you are hypervigilant your frontal lobes have shut down and you are not aware of your inner world, and in fact can't think rationally. You may notice things that other people don't notice but that is not an increased awareness of everything around you - it is an increased awareness of looking and perceiving danger in your environment.
Mindfulness activities are oftentimes introduced to us by first telling us to close our eyes, right? (At least this has been my experience with my multiple forays into mindfulness with a number of different instructors.)
This is where Mindfulness taught without the skill to address the actual person learning Mindfulness is problematic. Some Mindfulness teaching is actually not that Mindful. Mindfulness for those suffering from trauma is different from those who are not suffering from trauma.
"Close your eyes and notice all of the things you feel..." "Close your eyes and let thoughts float in and out of your mind..." But, what does that do?
Body scans are traditionally the first step into Mindfulness so you actually feel your body rather than scan the environment in an hypervigilant way.
In the 8 week MBSR course designed by Jon Kabat-Zinn they actually have exercises to manage intrusive, repetitive thoughts - so it is not the free for all that you are describing. The actual research and the scientific researched forms of Mindfulness are the important ones to do - if Mindfulness is right for you.
Well, for me it makes me less visually aware, less visually mindful of my environment. I am a visual person. I learn things better when I see them. If you cut off my visual link to the world, I'm actually taking in less information, not more.
You might start to get more awareness of your internal world - so you don't understand the levels of being that Mindfulness can unpack. The thing is that being hypervigilant and prioritising scanning for danger is very different from actual Mindfulness. That is a trauma response - not a meditation. This is flight/fright/freeze/fawn responses - very different from Mindfulness.
Cutting off my #1 stabilizing sense doesn't heighten my other senses. I don't suddenly taste, feel, hear, smell more efficiently. It doesn't allow me to become more mindful because when you cut off a big source of stabilization, warning signals go off in my body and mind.
So Mindfulness that actually gives you a visual scene to focus on would perhaps be better for you.
To me, mindfulness has a sweet spot. I don't have to over-analyze every single thing I'm experiencing in order to be mindful. I don't have to identify every single sensation at any given moment in order to live a mindful life. I believe it's good to be aware on your internal and external environments, but hyper-awareness isn't necessarily a superior type of mindfulness.
Mindfulness is not about over analysing every single thing that you are experiencing. You don't have to identify every single sensation that you are feeling. Hyper-awareness has nothing to do with Mindfulness.
I also feel that mindfulness is in opposition to CBT when it comes to thoughts.
See I experience the opposite Mindfulness lets me see that my thoughts, feelings, ideas and perceptions are distorted cognitions, using that awareness I have gone from Extreme Depression on the Burns' Scale to Mild Depression.
Mindfulness wants us to let thoughts pass on through, judgment free. I don't know about anyone else, but this feels like passive acceptance. (I realize that's not exactly mindfulness with non judgment.)
It is more nuanced than that - it really depends on the person teaching the Mindfulness - and the teacher is very important because that person grounds the person learning Mindfulness and helps them manage the many different things that arise. There is no passive acceptance - it is different from this. But you may go through this at times - it depends on what your life experience is and what your expectations and what your understandings of Mindfulness are at the time.
My thoughts quite often need to be counteracted and corrected because they're so skewed.
That is really clever to work that out. Many people don't and they get stuck. But within Mindfulness the teacher will assist the student within this. That is why having a good, experienced, knowledgeable teacher is so important.
I think that mindfulness is a great tool for many, but not so great for others.
It can be dangerous for certain types of people with certain histories.
I think that mindfulness activities are a bit narrow in scope and that's why they don't work for everyone.
There is actually a great deal of depth within Mindfulness practices but it does depend on a person's history of trauma, and if they had good enough parenting.
That is, awareness is good, but the paths to mindfulness that are mostly offered up aren't the right paths for certain people for a variety of reasons. That is, there's more than one way to skin a cat but most are only being showed one way to get the job done, so to speak.
Awareness is not necessarily good - it depends on the types of awareness. Mindfulness needs to be taught in a way that doesn't destabilise and retraumatise a person. So a deep knowledge of Mindfulness is required and a deep knowledge of trauma is also required - and not a general understanding of trauma a specific understanding of trauma of the person sitting there in front of you. It is highly nuanced and highly skilled set of practices. Mindful walking is a thing and feeling the feet pressing down can be very grounding for some people. Mindfulness is not a simple, able to be reduced down thing - it is multifaceted.
