Since I dared about a month ago to start sharing what little theoretical and practical knowledge I have accumulated about mindfulness with a few friends of mine here in Jerusalem and hearing what they have to say about their new experience with it, I can reappreciate much better know benefits of mindfulness in my daily life, especially in my interpersonal relationships.
When I was still deeply trapped in my mind-made prison and my drinking habit, I identified my thoughts as myself and tried to numb my very mind, which in turn lead to my mindless reactions to what other people who were unlucky enough to come into contact with me said and/or did to me. This way I have harmed and often destroyed my relationships with many of them, including those who have decided to sever their connection with me.
Since then I seem to have come a long way. The most important turning point my way to mindful living occurred when I stopped drinking completely about a year and a half after drinking 37 years and trying many time in vain before to stop drinking.
Now I can see clearly that when I tried to numb my mind by drinking heavily, I not only became mindless but even went down below the level of an animal, saying and doing what my Animal Soul thought and felt. Since I stopped drinking, I've also started to feel stronger effects of my daily practice of mindfulness in two areas of my daily life.
First, I don't equate my thoughts with my true self and can leave space between them, observing and even accepting not only my thoughts but also my emotions and physical sensations more non-judgementally. I feel I need less and less effort to prevent my mind-controlled false self from reacting to internal and external stimuli. This way I have been able to save many interpersonal relationships which I might have destroyed otherwise.
Second, I have become far more compassinate toward mindless behaviors of other people, whether verbal and nonverbal, seeing in them what I used to be. Now I seldom get angry with them as before.
As this feeling of compassion grows stronger, I also feel like sharing my knowledge-shmowlege of mindfulness with as many people as possible so that they may not have to pay the same heavy price I had to pay due to my mindless speech and action. So I have decided to take an online course in teaching mindfulness soon so that I may be able to teach it more professionally as part of my future practice of Jewish life coaching.