Mindfullness is it dangerous?

[Thelittlepineapple]

I've been looking for a place to post this to get some answers as what is going on. So I'm relieved I've found a place that I hope can help me.

So here it goes.
So I've been going to this mindfulness group for maybe 2 months now or 3. At this public mental place I go too. In my country unlike America it seems sadly. Our goverment provides money to the public mental healthcare. So there is individual therapist you see and group therapy. It's for free if your a citizen in the country of course.
So now you understand the background. I've been like I said going to this mindfulness group.
But whenever they do this 20 mins + mindfulness. I get these intense vidi imagery in my mind. I don't know if it's my imagination or spiritual or both.
But it's really intense. I mean vidi as I see colour light and shadow. Etc.
So pretty much I see in my mind what you see when your eyes are open and looking around.

I use to do mindfulness when I was seeing this other therapist. But wasn't given any guidance and was just told to focus breathing from my nose. And was expected to do mindfulness in a hour straight even though it was my frist time.!

Anyway I experience even there intense imagery.

So for example I notice this arm feeling down my right arm as if someone was touching my arm. Next it felt like someone was behind me and giving me warmth. I had a image in my mind of an angel.
Next it gets spooky, I experience like as if someone is walking around me. Then an intense imagery of this alien like creature that was grey and thin with big black eyes crawling on top of me looking at me. I saw this in my mind, I wasn't seeing things with my eyes open. Let me be clear on that one.
I kept experiencing this angel appearing to me. Then one day Inwas in pinterest and I was just scrolling as usual as you so. I saw this image of this angel it was traditional painted it seemed. It looked excatly as this angel I saw in my mindfullness. I've never seen that picture before! It said it was angel of death! But it had golden hair, gold robe, fair skin. Golden like transparent wings. Blue eyes.
It kinda scared me because I wasnt sure if what I experienced was real or just in my head. If it was real was it angel from God or just an demon pretending to be an angel. Which I got those ideas from my mom. Cause she once went to a crazy Christian church many years ago. So she put those beliefs on me. I mean she thought neopets that website was evil. How Sabrine teenager witch 90's TV series was evil. How Pokemon the creatures names were devil names. Yeah thar crazy stuff!


Other things be like cause I'm Christian I asked God why is it this kindergarten I live next to never experience a kid being hit by a car, even though it's a busy road? In my mind I saw a massive angel coming from the ground with big massive arms out length around the kindergarten building.

Or how I saw my therapist angel it was very massive like up to the ceiling in a room and was blue but soft shapes. Had an owl on its shoulder or when Jesus comes and gives me advice when I'm upset about some thing.

I've had other experiences such as me picking up things about me. Like my pervious therapist who introduced me mindfulness I kept having images in my mind of this massive orange tree. He eventually told me how his grandparents owned a orange orchard yard. I told him how other times he keep giving me a peach and he said to me how his parents owned a peach orchard yard too. There was no knowledge of me knowing that.

Like what am I experiencing?
All it does is that and I become more sensitive to my emotional dsyfuntional at home by my mother and sister. Help.

 

[zippy2006]

Like what am I experiencing?
All it does is that and I become more sensitive to my emotional dsyfuntional at home by my mother and sister. Help.

Either don't do as much mindfulness or stop altogether.

Most people who teach mindfulness these days do not understand the dangers. You seem to be especially susceptible to the dangers. You should either stop or find a more experienced teacher (such as a Buddhist, Catholic, or Orthodox monk -- someone who has more experience and understanding).

 

[Michie]

My sister is into this new age stuff. I'm having a hard time dealing with it as she is living with me right now. I'll be honest. I think these practices are taking an already fragile and traumatized mind and making things worse. The things she implies suggest false memories, etc. This is her magic and supposedly will fix everything. But right now she is going through what she calls a spiritual cleansing and does not allow people to touch her and is throwing everything away that she considers bad energy. Mindfulness, smudging, meditation, the constant cleansing of things, etc. there is more, but I think these practices feed off people's traumas, weaknesses, whatever it is should stay away from this sort of thing. I believe it is evil disguised as an angel of light and it disseminates people on all levels. I've never used so much Holy Water in my life.

I've been looking for a place to post this to get some answers as what is going on. So I'm relieved I've found a place that I hope can help me.

So here it goes.
So I've been going to this mindfulness group for maybe 2 months now or 3. At this public mental place I go too. In my country unlike America it seems sadly. Our goverment provides money to the public mental healthcare. So there is individual therapist you see and group therapy. It's for free if your a citizen in the country of course.
So now you understand the background. I've been like I said going to this mindfulness group.
But whenever they do this 20 mins + mindfulness. I get these intense vidi imagery in my mind. I don't know if it's my imagination or spiritual or both.
But it's really intense. I mean vidi as I see colour light and shadow. Etc.
So pretty much I see in my mind what you see when your eyes are open and looking around.

I use to do mindfulness when I was seeing this other therapist. But wasn't given any guidance and was just told to focus breathing from my nose. And was expected to do mindfulness in a hour straight even though it was my frist time.!

Anyway I experience even there intense imagery.

So for example I notice this arm feeling down my right arm as if someone was touching my arm. Next it felt like someone was behind me and giving me warmth. I had a image in my mind of an angel.
Next it gets spooky, I experience like as if someone is walking around me. Then an intense imagery of this alien like creature that was grey and thin with big black eyes crawling on top of me looking at me. I saw this in my mind, I wasn't seeing things with my eyes open. Let me be clear on that one.
I kept experiencing this angel appearing to me. Then one day Inwas in pinterest and I was just scrolling as usual as you so. I saw this image of this angel it was traditional painted it seemed. It looked excatly as this angel I saw in my mindfullness. I've never seen that picture before! It said it was angel of death! But it had golden hair, gold robe, fair skin. Golden like transparent wings. Blue eyes.
It kinda scared me because I wasnt sure if what I experienced was real or just in my head. If it was real was it angel from God or just an demon pretending to be an angel. Which I got those ideas from my mom. Cause she once went to a crazy Christian church many years ago. So she put those beliefs on me. I mean she thought neopets that website was evil. How Sabrine teenager witch 90's TV series was evil. How Pokemon the creatures names were devil names. Yeah thar crazy stuff!


Other things be like cause I'm Christian I asked God why is it this kindergarten I live next to never experience a kid being hit by a car, even though it's a busy road? In my mind I saw a massive angel coming from the ground with big massive arms out length around the kindergarten building.

Or how I saw my therapist angel it was very massive like up to the ceiling in a room and was blue but soft shapes. Had an owl on its shoulder or when Jesus comes and gives me advice when I'm upset about some thing.

I've had other experiences such as me picking up things about me. Like my pervious therapist who introduced me mindfulness I kept having images in my mind of this massive orange tree. He eventually told me how his grandparents owned a orange orchard yard. I told him how other times he keep giving me a peach and he said to me how his parents owned a peach orchard yard too. There was no knowledge of me knowing that.

Like what am I experiencing?
All it does is that and I become more sensitive to my emotional dsyfuntional at home by my mother and sister. Help.

 

[mothcorrupteth]

There have been scientific papers on replacing the mindfulness part of Acceptance and Commitment Therapy with Catholic centering prayer. Nothing yet on the Orthodox Jesus Prayer, sad to say.

You know, I honestly can't tell you what you're experiencing. (Even as a professional--I'm only a licensed behavior analyst, not a licensed counseling psychologist.) But when I've struggled with delusions as a bipolar patient recently, what my priest told me was the story of St. Simeon the Stylite (Chapter VI), who is also a saint in your Church. Simeon once had a vision up on his stylite of a flaming chariot, and the driver told him he was there to take him up to heaven just like Elias (Elijah). Well, Simeon was about to step in, but he had a habit of crossing himself before anything, and as soon as he did the chariot disappeared in a gale of sparks and demonic shrieks. In the Orthodox church, when an Icon streams myrrh or some such thing, our first instinct is to exorcise it, and if it keeps a-streamin' despite all the exorcisms, we start to wonder if it's miraculous. Point being, you test the spirits, to see if they are of God. I make the habit now, every time I have a thought I think is brilliant or profound, to cross myself, lest it be a demon putting a manic or depressive thought in my head.

That said, I did the mindfulness thing before I was chrismated, and I stopped doing it when I experienced that Orthodox chants and prayers were doing more for me. But I found it helpful and completely faith-neutral. You have to be really careful, because when you get deep in it you have the temptation to see certain aspects of Zen philosophy as correct. But when done properly, it need not have anything to do with visions and visualizations. All it is is paying attention to stuff intently.

 

[Sam91]

The mindfulness course I did wasn't harmful. It was only one hour session a week for 8 weeks run by one of my college lecturers. It was more about getting into the present and noticing how your body felt. It was about noticing how our thoughts are produced and come and go. Not to encourage images. Rather just a check in with yourself.

I don't know what your doing and whether it comes from all this new age stuff or other religions. The book I read about it was completely secular too and based on psychology and realising that thoughts are just thoughts and how we are always rushed and living in the past or future.

I found it energizing and de-stressful. I don't know if you can't cope with not thinking and conjure up images, sensations to keep yourself busy or if you are involved with something weird.

I do find prayer or reading the Bible much more useful though in the long run so I completely forgot about mindfulness

 

[bekkilyn]

Mindfulness practice can be very positive for *most* people, but I have heard that in some cases, particularly when a person is suffering from certain psychological issues, that it can have minor to major detrimental effects. If you are one of those people, then mindfulness practice is not going to help you, but may actually do the opposite.

Mindfulness and Christianity can be very compatible in the sense that Christians are not just to live for the future, but to also live in the now, and be thankful for what God has given us now, and remember the blessings that we already have in the now and be happy with what we have in the now because the Kingdom of God is not just in the future, but it is already here in the now. When we worry and are anxious, we are living in an imaginary future that may never actually occur, while Jesus instructs us to never worry about anything...he pulls us back for being thankful to God in the now for the special care that God gives to us. Even prayer and reading the bible, that's also in the now, where our focus is on what we are currently reading and our current and present conversations with God in prayer.

 

[Amittai]

I never do it the way we often get told. I do it the mind FULL way and not the mind EMPTY way. I think of the haze I see in the sky, the food (did you realise how multi dimensional cheese is?). I recollect astonishing experiences I've been through. My providential survival. My tentative plans for today's and tomorrow's survival. The best meanings in Scripture (this takes serendipity). My familiarity with whatever sciences & knowledge I've ever been interested in. Specific kindness around me.

No-one flies, even if they think they do. Everything is step by little step.