Today we consider the other side of the ‘mindfulness will fix everything narrative’. Willoughby Britton is a fairly unique voice in this type of research. Her original project was called ‘The dark night project’ yet she now has had to change the name as she was having difficulty getting funding for her original work. Go figure. She says,
“I understand the resistance,” says Britton, in response to critics who have attempted to silence or dismiss her work. “There are parts of me that just want meditation to be all good. I find myself in denial sometimes, where I just want to forget all that I’ve learned and go back to being happy about mindfulness and promoting it, but then I get another phone call and meet someone who’s in distress, and I see the devastation in their eyes, and I can’t deny that this is happening. As much as I want to investigate and promote contemplative practices and contribute to the well-being of humanity through that, I feel a deeper commitment to what’s actually true.”
If you have longer than 8:39 minutes to spare today, after the video you can take time to close read the article in The Atlantic, it is a good overview of this little understood or supported area of research. Mindfulness has limitations and will not lead to a quiet mind in every case all of the time.
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This Daily Stillness has been recycled from previously published ones:
• #tds120 Meditation is not just a warm joy bath (Oct 28, 2015)
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