Mindfulness

A five minute break in my duties at work - and instead of stressing about the things that have been getting me down lately I'd like to return to my first passion and kick off with a few musings on the topic of minfulness.

It's a very fashionable topic in psychology at the moment - cognitive therapy has been slowly developed over the past few decades and established itself as quite distinct from the old "lie on the couch and tell me about your mother" routine.

Where psychoanalysis had its purpose in assisting people to understand more about the nature of their problems there comes a point where it can do a lot of harm by encouraging them to really wallow in their suffering. Cognitive and behavioural therapy on the other hand has a goal of teaching the patient to really let go of the pain and suffering and learn new, positive thoughts and activities.

I have recently been suffering from a double-whammy of eating disorder. I was anorexic as a teen and into my early 20s but have not really beaten it, I've just learned to tap into that greed for candy I felt as a kid and that led me to start obsessing with weight gain in the first place. I now fight bulimia and can binge with a change of the wind - but I fight it by holding onto the anorexia I want to let go of.

Understanding those complex motivations is certainly stage one of mindfulness and illustrates where some of the techniques of analysis still have their place in modern cognitive therapy. But the big goal I'm facing with my therapist at the moment is to learn to let go of these thoughts and the negative beliefs I have about food and body image that are really holding them in close to me.

The "cognitive" part is really learning to identify and slowly replace the convoluted and slightly ridiculous belief structure responsible for the negative thoughts and the "behavioural" part is about learning new habits - mental or otherwise.

I've done this quite successfully for a period in my life when I suffered from extreme depression. By discovering Buddha and learning that "with our thoughts we create the world" of emotion and feeling I learned to find new thoughts that decreased my suffering.

But true mindfulness in Buddhism goes beyond these notions of replacing one thought with another and really focuses on just letting go of belief, thought and feeling. At the essence of Zen meditation is the letting go of thoughts and keeping the mind clear and open. Try not thinking for just 10 seconds! It's harder than it seems!

And this is why I have been unable to apply the same techniques to a more complex set of motivations and beliefs and cure myself of eating disorder.

In cognitive therapy the goal is simply to build certain thought "habits" but habits are mindless and only see us through a certain set of circumstances. With mindfulness we can respond to any situation and maintain mental health and strength.

Your thoughts are as random as the quantum mechanical fluctuation that causes a neuron to discharge an electrical signal. Your emotions are simply a chemical response to electrical stimulation. But in your wisdom and mindfulness you can decide how much value to apply to those thoughts and you can examine your beliefs to determine why some thoughts affect you more than others. You can catch negative thoughts long before they become negative habits of thought and you can dismiss them as easily as a daydream.

So with mindfulness I am controlling my food intake. I can take an antacid to quiet a grumbling tummy and I can count out an appropriate caloric intake for the day. More importantly I am controlling my thoughts - if I find myself thinking about food or body image I simply dismiss the thought and continue working on my higher priority activities.

Cognitive therapy is a powerful tool because it simply applies the outcomes of mindfulness to the problem at hand - and is the major treatment for most mental illnesses these days. In a later post I will expand on my own experiences and I will also talk about how the brain works and what it means for mindfulness

Not as daily as planned

It is fascinating how a big idea is rapidly forgotten. I haven't forgotten my blog although I haven't really known what to write next.

For example there is the development of the universe of Qan. I don't know if that is the name I want to give this heroine, it is actually a derivative of the name of my fantasy heroine, I just needed some name and used a familiar one. She already looks different to my fantasy heroine though - less proud and perfect, more real.

Everything about this story is going to be based on harsh reality. For example without faster than light travel, a galaxy as densely populated and technically advanced as Foundation would be a series of islands that are well-connected internally but social connections between islands would be few, far between and would involve long distance travel. Even the postulated "hub" would be several months' journey and expensive in fuel. I need a way for Forever to engage with the wider universe but I don't think setting it up as a trading station is necessarily the way. Certainly she could have a good understanding of physics and know that there are all sorts of other civilisations out there. Some would be happily drifting along but most would be pretty stable within a solar system, and most people would not really make the expensive journey to a different planetary body.

Instead it might be more interesting to give her a more stable environment and see how her culture reacts to intrusion by a world ship. This would be analogous to a viking or Pacific Island explorer and yet so much more - they would be looking for somewhere and yet self-sufficient to continue drifting for another generation if nothing suitable showed up. Would they even speak a similar language? Well with radio transmissions beaming far out into space there's no reason why they wouldn't have learned it but they would also have their own language.

I want to give my heroine some real human weaknesses too. Too many science fiction stories have perfect heroes going on amazing journeys and I want this to be more about an imperfect person driven from a stagnant environment and exploring the deeper structure of her social fabric but also learning and growing within herself.

It really helps to just sit, write this out and get my thoughts straight. More on the initial self-sufficiency and less on the space tourism centre. Maybe she's a secretary in a position to overhear some of the negotiations that are going on - the aliens could show up saying "look at our awesome ship, pay us tribute!" She might be excited by this power and wish to join them, only to find that her stagnant culture, while technically advanced, hasn't equipped her for useful work on the world-ship. I'd like her to think she's pretty prestigious and find she has no real skills but develop good cunning and shrewdness on the world ship. That would be a story!

Journey From Forever - Chapter One

A note from The Dreamer: I have been thinking about this story for several months and have finally gained the courage to start writing it down. The protagonist shares many of my characteristics but has fundamentally different ambitions and motivations. I am trying to get a feel for who she is and where she lives so that I can further develop her world and begin her journey.

In order to understand the story you must first understand the protagonist. Our story begins at Forever Station where Qan lives in modest accommodations well suited to her age and position.

A visitor from our time and place would recognise her as fifteen years old although she does not circle this Sun or indeed observe an exact 24 hour Earth day however her day is close to ours and she has lived over 5300 of them - her contemporaries would recognise her as 53 seasons of age.

Most people would actually not comment on her age because Qan is legally an adult. She has completed her formal education, lives independently and studies for a career in a more advanced field than her current junior occupation in entertainment coordination for visitors to Forever.

The name Forever is a historical reference to the construction of the Station in its earlier historical phase as a ferry to the world-ship Hub. In fact Forever and its sister station Tranquility have been independent for many generations and are maintained by an army of maintenance engineers that regularly transfer between stations learning new skills and methods. Forever has now become a minor trading centre on the edge of the star system known simply to locals as Alpha. Tranquility ekes out a more traditional living for its inhabitants by inventing new practical technologies to improve the functioning of the Stations in this sector. Hub remains a major population centre with a variety of industries and a major source of visitors to Forever.

Qan is aware of the history of this sector of space from school - that it was settled many generations ago and how her Station came into being. She often gives a short history of Forever to visitors from Hub who seem less focused on the past and more on the future. Qan is slim and toned from many hours after work spent perfecting her understanding of Forever's traditional dances but she can see by the shape of visitors from Hub that recreation is another tradition they lack.

Returning to her small apartment after an evening's dancing she enters and immediately her screens illuminate the room in a relaxing green. Her cheerful ornaments and awards mark her success in placing visitors in suitable entertainment where they have spent a lot of money and Qan has profited for her good judgement of character. Today most of her clients were clearly not interested in spending a lot of money but simply wanted to pass the time - Qan directed them to the nearest theatre and recommended a good place to get a drink of the sweet beverages that Hub locals prefer and tried not to judge poorly those visitors who would look at her agape as if they were not familiar with the appearance of a dancer's body.

Sitting down to her study, Qan once again considered her future career opportunities as an event coordinator for major trading fairs. This would require a refinement of her current skills to judge characteristics of a guest from a great distance, to find and sell a suitable package and to earn herself a generous commisssion of course.

This is an early draft of the scene-setting for Chapter One of Journey From Forever. Please don't judge me too early as it may be revised many times and will certainly be extended and continued. But it's half past 11 and I need my beauty sleep!