This was today’s daily mindfulness lesson in Headspace and I thought it was worth sharing as it’s something I’m contemplating today. My mindset so far has been one of ‘addition by subtraction’. Where I feel it’s necessary to eliminate bad habits and replace them with more productive and fruitful habits.
But the lesson here implies that self improvement is possible without the act of elimination. Simply letting go and divesting ourselves of said behaviors can reap the same rewards. I love how certain language can limit or equally expand our thinking based on select words: elimination vs letting go. Two fairly simple concepts that are put into practice almost identically. But ‘elimination’ elicits a feeling of working towards something. We need to actively plan to eradicate bad behavior/habits. Where as letting go is simply no longer entertaining a subject at all.
One of the hardest concepts for me in meditation was changing the mindset from trying to eliminate thoughts as they enter my head to simply acknowledging they are there and simply not concentrating on them. Treat them as clouds passing in the sky rather than tennis balls you need to bat away.