Re: Reflections of a blissful hermit today. Posted by Lydia on November 06, 1999 at 18:25:04:
In Reply to: Reflections of a blissful hermit today. posted by John on November 06, 1999 at 11:35:01:
Hi, John,
I was fascinated with my experience of finding the mindfulness site
myself, although I've had such experiences before - the key is that if
you have a nagging thought in your mind, especially one that causes
discomfort, you should follow it, because it will lead you to discover
another part of the jigsaw puzzle that God tasked you with - or, in
simple words, it will help you resolve the very discomfort it was
causing. If you choose to ignore it, you will be nagged in the same way
by dreams or similar experiences - so, there is really no choice, only
procrastination.
When I ended up in your mindfulness school, I read about all the types
immediately. Although I had always enjoyed observing and analyzing
people and my experiences with them, I was quite fascinated by your
descriptions - mainly because I found it so easy to see examples of
all of them in my life. My 'con-artist' friend fits the description
very well. While it is really painful to end a friendship, I wasn't
struck by my friend's characteristics so much, as I was sensing them
for a while, and wasn't quiet about it either. What really upset me is
that in spite of it, my friend did not do (at least to the best of my
insight) any self-search, and was content to go on with the same
behavior, *counting on* getting away with it. However, I was struck by
my own words ('con-artist') and how spontaneously they came to me
(there was something about it...) - and ended up reminded that I too
had a personality(-ies !) to work on.
Actually, I find that most people have two types strongly emphasized.
Most of the time, people automatically switch from one personality to
the other when the first one does not work (its manipulation is not
successfull ). Depending on the individual frustration threshold, one
can keep doing this futile exercise for a long time. When the threshold
is reached, one starts the mindfulness journey in one way or another -
and sometimes without being mindful about it, too :).
Also, I observed that people I closely associate with have either the
opposite or the same (opposite being much more frequent) types
emphasized (relative to my own - and I found myself mostly in your
descriptions of Student/believer and Artist/rebel). What are your
thoughts on this ?
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