Mindfulness in social settings
 

Hello :smile:

I am trying to come up with a few ideas to help me in this area:

I am quite challenged in social situations lol. This is partly down to some lingering effects of childhood trauma.
I was not met in sacred space by caregivers as a child and I find that the effects of this can be feeling un-anchored, having no sense of self and feeling very confused during interactions because I am uncertain of what the expectations of me are.
In many ways, this issue has been greatly healed through mindfulness practice but there are still some lingering effects.

For example, if I'm at a party or at work, I find it confusing to know if I am meant to be interacting with others on an emotionally connected level or performing work practical tasks or both. There is a sense of anxiety this causes me because of the confusion.

I'd like to practice some form of mindfulness in social situations. Ultimately, I'd like to be able to develop and nurture the sense of "stillness and being" I feel when I am on my own with other people as well.

I'd like to be able to form friendships again by being very present and also by allowing my true nature to simply be and express naturally.

I'm not entirely sure where to start and I'm looking for some guidance :smile:

Do you currently meditate, and if so is it a daily practice? Also have you ever heard of Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)? That might actually be better as it's specifically geared towards stress and anxiety.

Hello, I do practice conscious breathing awareness, and body awareness/scanning for half an hour each morning. In the evening I practice non judgemental observation of my day (like watching a movie of my day in fast forward).
I don't know the actual terminology, I just give them labels according to what I'm doing lol.

I also try to be generally mindful throughout my days activities (a skill I'm always interested in improving).

I had not heard of MBSR, thank you for the info.

I just did a quick Google search and this site offers 100% free MBSR training. MBSR was developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn and he's the mindfulness guru of the U.S.

https://palousemindfulness.com/

EDIT: I was just looking at the site and part of the training is the Raisin meditation. Yes, it is a real meditation using a raisin. LOL!

:biggrin:

Thank you very much.

How good is the internet age for accessibility to these resources. It may be a useful link for others too.

The course requires 30 minutes of meditation per day, which will work well as I am already investing at least half an hour a day.

I watched the intro video and browsed through the landing page and I'm impressed, truly!

There's also a support forum where current students and graduates lend support and answer questions.

So I browsed through the first three weeks of the course, mainly the videos, and WOW!

It's really high quality content and I intend on going through all eight weeks of videos. I'm also interested in both Mountain and Lake meditations as I can relate deeply being an avid lover of nature, hiker and backpacker. :D

There is a lot of good content in there by the looks of it.

I just saw that week six is all about mindfulness in communication with others.

Cool bananas :smile:
Good stuff.

The inventory of content contributors is impressive!

I consider Jon Kabat-Zinn a national treasure. He's also a very sharp guy, having received a PhD in molecular biology from MIT. They don't hand them out like candy. :biggrin:

There's a YT video I always go back to as a reminder and motivation to maintain my practice or reboot it when in the past I lapsed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TeWvf-nfpA