A Mason's Work

[00:00] As someone who is trying to develop themselves, one of the things that is often recommended to people is something like journaling or mindfulness meditation.
[00:13] And those kinds of practices are profoundly useful if you are capable of doing them.
[00:19] But if you find yourself incapable of doing those things for various reasons, how should we proceed?
[00:26] Um, this is a profound question because a lot of people, um, will just kind of write that behavior set off.
[00:35] They'll say, well, you know, this meditation jazz isn't for me or, uh, you know, I'm, I've got about 10 different journals and I can speak to this myself.
[00:43] I've got 10 different journals that are sitting around that are unfilled.
[00:47] They have nothing in them that, uh, I I've maybe done one or two pages in each one of them, uh, but not been able to kind of turn it into a habit.
[00:55] Uh, don't fight this.
[01:00] You want to make sure as you start to develop a protocol or cultivating mindfulness for yourself, that you develop one that you can easily step into.
[01:10] A lot of the places you're going to go to get insight here are essentially going to say it's my way or the highway.
[01:18] Um, and I would like to encourage you as the architect of your own development to consider developing or building your own practice, uh, at least to start.
[01:29] Some of these practices you might be able to step into later on.
[01:34] And that's great.
[01:35] Other practices, um, you might find that, uh, you're never going to be capable of them for various reasons.
[01:43] So what does it mean to sort of develop or design your own practice?
[01:47] Um, it means understanding your own structures and limitations, uh, and what you are capable of doing.
[01:54] So it may start as simply as, um, I have a, uh, about 20 foot walk between where I am right now in my, my refrigerator.
[02:05] It may be that I build a pattern in my life where every time I take that walk to the refrigerator, for whatever reason, I take each step, make each step take twice as long.
[02:16] I, I slow walk to the fridge.
[02:19] And in that slow walk, I take each step with this.
[02:23] I'm thinking about what's going on, or I'm reflecting on my day, or I'm considering, uh, X or Y or Z.
[02:29] That kind of process to develop and cultivate mindfulness is really, uh, quite useful.
[02:37] You can try and cultivate it in other ways.
[02:40] Um, I've heard of, there's a local group that will, uh, a mindfulness, uh, meditation group.
[02:46] And what they'll do is they will spend, um, like a 15 minute sort of exercise.
[02:53] And in that 15 minutes, they will just eat an apple and they will take their time, uh, noticing its smells, noticing its textures, appreciating its color, all of the kinds of sort of bringing the, the mind into the present moment to reflect.
[03:12] These practices may or may not work for you.
[03:14] Uh, this is not about trying to give you an answer to a question.
[03:18] It's about an understanding that the problem that you're facing with any of these things should be designed by you as a solution.
[03:26] Uh, you go to any one of the major traditions and they're going to, you know, again, wag their finger and be like, Oh, you got to do it this way.
[03:32] Um, and, and that's not true, right at all.
[03:36] So as you build your practice, uh, start as small as possible.
[03:41] Uh, so some guidance here, um, your practice, your mindfulness practice, your, uh, contemplation,
[03:48] whatever it might be, uh, doesn't need to be like, uh, you know, an hour and a half of execution.
[03:55] And in fact, the more difficult it is for you to start, the more ceremony, the more, you know, I've got to light the candles and close the drapes and all this.
[04:05] The more of that, that you set up, the less likely you are to, to continue doing it long-term.
[04:11] So what you want to make sure is you have a daily habit that you can integrate.
[04:16] Um, if you can attach it to a habit, you already have even better.
[04:20] So if you, for example, um, I have, uh, you know, uh, when I'm brushing my teeth, I tend to walk while I brush my teeth.
[04:28] I walk around the house.
[04:29] Uh, I know it sounds crazy and, uh, maybe, but the idea here is that you, um, can tie anchor behaviors together.
[04:37] So that you can do more than one thing at a time, or at very least do them in a way that is non-competitive, but also starts to bring in another behavior you want to develop.
[04:48] So if you say, okay, every time I brush my teeth immediately after that, I'm going to walk two laps of my living room as part of a mindfulness practice.
[04:56] That's an easy ad.
[04:57] Like nobody's going to have a hard time.
[05:00] I think, uh, saying, well, no, I need to, I need to really prepare for this.
[05:04] So when, when you start in that way, when you add these behaviors and tack them on an easy way, as, as the architect of your mindfulness practice, uh, you're going to find that your results are much more effective with, uh, this kind of approach.
[05:20] So, uh, the question isn't, should you do any of these things?
[05:24] You can do anything that's right for you cognitively, emotionally, um, but you should cultivate as much as you can, uh, some level of reflective process.
[05:34] So you can evaluate what's going on.
[05:36] You can understand the, you know, the things going on inside your mind, the, the emotional content, et cetera, et cetera.
[05:42] And then from there, um, you know, work on self-development, identify the areas you need to improve and grow, leverage some of the other things we've talked about in the podcast in the previous week.