How corporates co-opted the art of mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable

“If you understand, things are just as they are; if you do not understand, things are just as they are.” Hsin Hsin Ming

Zoë Krupka (PhD Student Faculty of Health Sciences, La Trobe University), The Conversation: Almost every person who walks through my practice doorway is anxious in some way. And so they should be. While their anxiety might be blasting messages at an overly high volume, the messages themselves are worth paying attention to: abusive relationships, significant losses and workplaces that have squeezed their personal, physical and spiritual lives into a corner too small for a hamster to burrow in.

Most come in hoping that the volume of their anxiety will be turned down, but many also hope that the messages themselves will go away. Like all of us, they want to find a way around having to take difficult action to change their lives. And for some of them, their hopes are pinned on our current corporatised misinterpretation of mindfulness. They’ve been sold on meditation as a simple way to bear the unbearable.

Pasteurised versions of the ancient practice of mindfulness are now big business …

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See also:

• “Fearless at Work” by Michael Carroll
• Mindfulness at work can reduce retaliation after unfair treatment
• How corporates co-opted the art of mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable
• Google seeks out wisdom of Zen master Thich Nhat Hanh
• Search Inside Yourself, by Chade-Meng Tan