Well, everything is relative, right? Take one person, raised by athletic parents, who learns a healthy diet and regular exercise from birth. Take another person, raised by misinformed parents, who have a poor diet and when they engage in exercise, encourage poor ergonomics. Both can seek coaches and both can become more functional. The first might be looking to become a professional athlete, while the second might just want to be more in shape for day to day challenges. And yes, in some ways, having a coach or therapist addresses different things than regular exercises that build up various capacities.
I feel that i have a number of factors in my life that call for a bit more day to day compassion than average. I went to therapy after we moved here because i felt my patience wearing thin and i needed to increase that capacity. I stopped that therapy after getting my patience back and titrating off an antidepressant. I haven't practiced hour long meditation since moving five years ago. Would i have turned to therapy if i had had that weekly exercise? (The med change i would have needed someone to monitor, but the patience and compassion need might have been met with meditation.)
I restarted with the pandemic out of caution: I know i learned bad mental habits from my parents and experienced emotional abuse, while also inheriting genes for depression. (I also learned some other excellent habits and missed being saddled with some of the appearance oriented dysfunction that many women i know got saddled with, so it's not all bleak.)
I'm not sure meditation would have helped me with the skill i have been learning this year, which is how to leave relationships that are not helping me (but not actively harming me). I've cut ties with only one person in my life, and it took their constant repeats of behaviors that i asked them to stop before i finally took that step. I'm realizing how often i engage in something that isn't rewarding for me because i perceive other people in some way depending on me. I do it because i "should" and not because there's some other value than that "should." Would i have asked myself the right questions? Or would i have persisted in the mental rut. I'm not sure. Sometimes i've had an insight in meditation that bumped me out of ruts, such a surprising thought it's hard to believe it's mine.
no subject
I feel that i have a number of factors in my life that call for a bit more day to day compassion than average. I went to therapy after we moved here because i felt my patience wearing thin and i needed to increase that capacity. I stopped that therapy after getting my patience back and titrating off an antidepressant. I haven't practiced hour long meditation since moving five years ago. Would i have turned to therapy if i had had that weekly exercise? (The med change i would have needed someone to monitor, but the patience and compassion need might have been met with meditation.)
I restarted with the pandemic out of caution: I know i learned bad mental habits from my parents and experienced emotional abuse, while also inheriting genes for depression. (I also learned some other excellent habits and missed being saddled with some of the appearance oriented dysfunction that many women i know got saddled with, so it's not all bleak.)
I'm not sure meditation would have helped me with the skill i have been learning this year, which is how to leave relationships that are not helping me (but not actively harming me). I've cut ties with only one person in my life, and it took their constant repeats of behaviors that i asked them to stop before i finally took that step. I'm realizing how often i engage in something that isn't rewarding for me because i perceive other people in some way depending on me. I do it because i "should" and not because there's some other value than that "should." Would i have asked myself the right questions? Or would i have persisted in the mental rut. I'm not sure. Sometimes i've had an insight in meditation that bumped me out of ruts, such a surprising thought it's hard to believe it's mine.