Mindfulness
I was orphaned at age 2, only my bare physical needs for survival were attended to by my widowed narcissist Mom for the welfare cheque.
I have spent my life recovering from her abuse of neglect and its still ongoing. I’m 71. Doing things like marrying people similar to my Mom to win her approval will make you a slave. To approval. Addicted to love one psychologist called it.
Along the way I have spoken to psychologists belonging to several schools and even trans-personal psychologists in a cult at a time when I was in transition and especially vulnerable.
Most, with the exception of evidence based psychologists, implied covertly that I had something to do with the abuse.
The latest was a member of the mindfulness school, based in the Buddhist/Hindu meditation, system of beliefs. “Mindfulness derives from sati, a significant element of Hindu and Buddhist traditions,[7][8] and is based on Chan, Guān, and Tibetan meditation techniques” — Wiki. Yes, the Dali Lama is my abuser, based on evidence.
The pop ‘be here now’ psychology of my hippie past psychological explorations (aka mindfulness) sold a lot of books for Richard Alpert and I suspect that is the real basis for its (and yoga’s) current popularity. I was in a rehab hospital with a patient colleague with a doctorate of psychology recovering from her brain tumours who was making 300 grand a year selling mindfulness to disturbed patients.
As part of my rehab I was referred to a psychologist for possible PTSD after an attack on the street that left me with severe injuries.
I told the shrink that I had experienced mindfulness training as part of yoga cult recruitment at an ashram and found it abusive. Why? Because it criticized me. All criticism is abuse, all cults are abusive.
She soon declared I had no symptoms of PTSD (I did) and discharged me after arguing in favour of her beliefs in order to prove me wrong, like any word salad devotee zealot. She reminded me of the religious psychiatrist I was sent to to deal with grief and loss of my wife to Huntington’s disease. It seems I had no purpose in life and found no purpose in the death of loved ones. More criticism.
Thankfully, I fired him when I found Albert Ellis, ”When you lose an arm, do everything you can to deal with it, then ignore it and focus on satisfactions. You may not have as many choices but you still have some.” The purpose of life, as it turns out, is satisfaction.
I recently had an AI on X described this as self indulgent. I was using REBT techniques because they address thoughts causing my feelings on the events of the past and fears of the future. AI’s only generate what they have been programmed with. So I cancelled X. Ignored it and found more satisfying social media. I was also called self indulgent by the Ashram when I left to attend art school, so I fired the ashram as well. If the purpose of life is my satisfaction, being used by my mother, my wife and my ashram is not very satisfying.
