Meditation and Waking Up

I finished up the introductory course from Waking Up by Sam Harris this past week. I've made a few attempts at establishing a meditation practice over the pas few years, but this was by far my most extensive. I kept it up for all of two days when the course ended, and I think I'm stopping now. I was already doubting the practice while I was going through the course, so I'm not too surprised that it didn't last long.

What I hoped for was that practicing mindfulness would promote thoughtfulness during my day, but that didn't play out. What I struggle with is avoiding the things I need to do in favor of something like YouTube, then getting so absorbed that I waste a whole day to it. After a month plus of practice, I still wasn't paying attention when I avoided things.

My therapist, in our last session, mentioned Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to me. I hadn't heard of it before, but from what he described, it sounds like it puts a focus on being mindful in the moments it's necessary. After googling for a bit, I picked up a book called the Happiness Trap that I'm working through currently (and I mean working through: I'm actually pulling out pencil and paper and doing the recommended exercises).

Within the first 10% of the book, the author put some focus on exactly what I was talking about above: avoidance and getting "hooked" into things you don't actually want to be doing. So, I was encouraged to actually do the work on paper, rather than just think a bit about things as they come up in the book. We'll see how it goes, I'll probably be done in a week or so.