Good morning, folks! I am Jin with Morning Mindfulness Podcast. I hope you are doing fabulous! As usual, we start with a breath and a smile!

My thoughts about escaping Vicious Circle

I began practicing meditation in 1982. My perception at that time was that meditator has to stay cool all the time, like un-emotional or un-disturbable, so to speak. And if I couldn’t keep my mind still, I was taking a guilt trip. In my mind, all my meditation training was useless. This would actually pull me down emotionally. A little bit, but still every time it happened it was affirming my own faults.

Fortunately for me, I was a nerd. And I got enough common sense to keep practicing knowing that it takes time. However, I met enough people within the past 30 years who actually talked themselves out of practice because of this self-imposed self-affirming circle of inferiority. And not just in meditation, in other training, activities, professions, you name it.

It comes to the simple mantra: “I am not good at it”. And when it happens again, here’s another mantra: “You see, another mistake. I knew I was not good at that”. Finally, people get what they expect: they simply don’t progress, lose passion, interest, and then quit.

This circle can be broken. Here’re several points for today:
1. We are all humans, we make mistakes and we have emotions. This is normal. Accept yourself.
2. Expect a learning curve. In case of meditation, it is a lifetime journey.
3. Avoid at all cost words “always” and “never”. Like, “I always make this mistake” or “I will never get this”.
4. Concentrate on today only. If I make mistake, I may say to myself: “Why did I do it today? That’s totally not me.”

We will get what we expect, and our words program our brain. Be careful what you say.

Hope this will help somebody.

Thanks for tuning in! You can subscribe to my podcast on my site HPLN.org.
Now let’s breathe and smile. I will talk to you next time.

PEACE!
Jin

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