Meditation
Meditation is an exercise that trains the brain to be engaged with the present moment. Your natural state is to be engaged with the present. In this state you self-generate positive emotions rather than draw emotions from your surroundings, making you emotionally stable. You are more effective at performing tasks and are a better communicator. The opposite of being present is being absent, which is the state most people are in. Absence is a state of retreating into your head. In there, you may think about the past or the future, which may make you depressed or anxious. Sometimes, you may think about the past or the present because of good memories or exciting things ahead. The happiness you get from thinking about the past or the future is a dirty high because misery comes from the judgement and denial of the present moment based on past experiences or future expectations. While thinking about the past or future may make you happy briefly, it reinforces an deeper sense of misery and dissatisfaction with your current state in life.
Commonly, practitioners of meditation will sit with their eyes closed and clear their mind of thoughts for set periods of time or until a particular state of presence is achieved. This can be done in silence, accompanied by white noise or by a narrative voice that guides you. It can be done lying down or sitting, as long as the back is straight. If you find thoughts entering your head, merely observe them and let them fall away into the past as you stay grounded in the Present. Observe any tension in your body and let it fall away. Performing meditation regularly will strengthen the neural pathways linked with being present, allowing you to be more present in your daily life.
Instagram, Social Media and the Culture of Reactivity
Originally a Foursquare knockoff, Instagram has long since pivoted and established its position as one of the most popular social media platforms of today. The key to a social media platform's success lies in society's addiction to reactivity and reactive emotions and how well the platform can cater to that addiction. People are addicted to a passive state of mind where they emotionally react to external stimuli. The faster the cycle of external stimuli and reaction can spin, the more engaging users find the app. Snapchat has the fastest cycle time with time restrictions set on how long a user can view content, providing an urgency for users to react more instinctively. Instagram has a fast cycle time as well, with users being presented with pictures, videos and captions, being able to quickly react to a post but slowing down users' cycle times with occasionally longer captions. Facebook on the other hand has content that can easily elicit emotional reaction, but is mixed with content that needs to be opened in new tabs, read, and of the three, requires the most active participation from the user. As such, it is unsurprising that Snapchat, Instagram and Facebook rank 1, 2, 3 respectively with teenagers.
Subverting Reactivity, Integrating Presence
Because we're so accustomed to being in passive reactivity, when we wake up with our minds clear we may proceed to start our days off with scrolling through Instagram to get our brain back in reactive mode. We do this because we believe that it is beneficial to our productivity to be able to react speedily, when in reality it is more beneficial to our productivity to be clear in our mission for the day and not get caught up reacting to insignificant things. While Instagram can cause reactivity, it can also provide an opportunity for you to maintain your present centeredness in the midst of a barrage of external stimuli. It's much easier to stay centered and present with your eyes closed and your white noise track of choice playing in the background than it is in the face of demands, responsibilities and interactions. You should perform traditional meditation to find your center for the day ahead before challenging that center with external stimuli. However, integration exercises are key for you to maintain that presence outside of the span of time you meditate daily. Instagram Meditation is an exercise that will enable you to better integrate presence into your daily life.
Instagram Meditation
Start off by establishing an internet connection and opening Instagram. Then,
Scroll through Instagram slowly and deliberately, being aware of any emotional reaction to the posts. Observe these emotions but do not identify with them. If you feel bored and want to scroll faster, recognize the emotion of anxiousness and the sensation of you getting knocked off your present center and reclaim it. If it any point, you get caught up in a reactive state or you can't stop thinking about the past or future, close your eyes and regain your center by meditating for 30 seconds.
Be aware of any tension in your body. Parts of your body will tense up when you experience reactive emotions. These reactive emotions can include anger, sadness or even happiness. Train yourself not to be physiologically affected by external stimuli. Question your motives for liking, commenting or forwarding a post. How do you feel in your body as you take these actions? Are you coming from a place of reactivity or are you taking action deliberately?
Be mindful of the aesthetics and functionality of Instagram's design and how it makes you feel. Think about the colors, fonts, text to picture/video ratio, the different tabs and your emotional experience using the app. Being aware of your emotional experience using Instagram requires you to be detached from your emotions. In your spare time, you can think about why Instagram has been designed the way it is and how it can be optimized towards certain goals.
Speed read. As you glance at the captions and understand them, be aware of the voice in your head vocalizing and pronouncing these words. Recognize and ignore this voice. Practice reading chunks of words at a time rather than reading word by word. Be aware of any tension in your body as you speed read and work on letting go of any tension.
As you scroll through posts and pictures, notice the words used, the facial expressions of the people in the photos and their body language. Where are they holding tension? Are the emotions they are experiencing situational and reactive, or do they come from feeling good in their own bodies? Are the emotions forced? What do the choice of words or the framing of the picture with a caption reveal about the person? What can you tell about the social dynamics of the group (if a group photo)? How do all these elements come together and what do they reveal about the person?
If you notice, the first 4 are related to being mindful of yourself and the 5th is about being mindful of others. You have to be mindful of yourself and your own emotions before you can clearly see people for who they are.
Integrated Mindfulness
Integrating mindfulness is a very far reaching and amazingly beneficial topic to write and discuss. In the future, I may write further standalone articles on the topic, or you might see the theme of being mindful in other areas of life in the Alpha Wolf Series. My goal with this topic is to give you the outer techniques to complement your inner present state. Try it out and share your experience down in the comment section below! Your perspective might be of valuable assistance to someone else.
In light of the recent passing of Chester Bennington, Linkin Park frontman, and his struggle with depression, I thought it would be appropriate to dedicate this post to the man. Thank you Chester for holding on as long as you could. The world was better for it. Rock on
