Mindfulness, Over-attachment, And Intrinsic Motivation

[Vladz0r]

I've been noticing this peculiar "issue" as I've discovered mindfulness lately.

Intro:
Most of my life I went through almost completely unconscious. (Anyone else like this? Haha.)
Extrinsic Motivation has been running my life, and all I did was play video games growing up.
I started meditating for a while on and off towards the end of last year, and only towards the end of the summer, the
presence sort of "clicked in" and I felt like I had a mini Enlightenment experience.
I had that sort of laughter and realized like "OH, the NOW is the only thing that matters, and despite all my problems, I can
sit here meditating and enjoying the present!" There's also the "Meditation as Escape" dilemma that I haven't quite solved. Sometimes I use meditation to get away from work I have to do, and there's always that inertia following meditation where I have to be careful not to do distracting activities.

I now have a strong morning meditation habit, and do other mindfulness exercises throughout the day when I can.

So, for the past few months, I've been struggling with the paradox of letting go of the past and future, while enjoying the
present, without getting too attached to the "just" past from a moment ago in the present. College is ending soon for me, and I only got into self-actualization in my semi-final semester (which has just ended). I didn't take advantage of my situation here, and it's still hard to get over this and start living in the Now in a productive way. Eckart Tolle's "The Power of Now" has been pretty helpful recently, though, and he has a great audiobook for it.

So, I'm looking for some advice on these topics. I've been kind of confused about it recently.

Examples of my Mindfulness:
It's pretty easy to be mindful when I'm going for a walk, hanging out with friends, watching an episode of a TV show,
exercising, shaving, etc. This used to not be the case, as I would walk to school and get completely lost in unconscious toxic
thinking. Whenever these states of mindfulness and flow are over, and it's time to start being productive, I form a strong
attachment to the previous activity. When I'm with friends, I start to miss them as soon as I leave, and I feel like I won't
see them again. I've recently learned that neediness and attachment are unconscious behaviors, when we forget about
things like the universally collected consciousness, and the illusion of being separate from one another. I learned from Leo though (on a forum post I just read) that when watching TV, you actually lose consciousness by becoming lost in the show. Maybe, in this same way, during the moments where I'm hanging out with people, I'm actually becoming deeply unconscious and becoming more attached, through the buildup of inflated and biased positive emotions and my dissonance with reality. Until figuring out what I thought was mindfulness, I had never been so able to enjoy the little conversations with people before, so it's kind of depressing to see how attached this can make me. In this regard, I think that I'm doing mindfulness well, but there are some deeper attachment issues to be worked on.

I'd just spend my time thinking about my problems and other things I had to do, or spend time people's looks and social behavior, looking at how deep their voice is. I guess awareness is still deeply confusing in an external sense.

So, I think the caveat with mindfulness is that it has to be done ALL the time, especially during work.
If you're mindful while having fun, and then just drop back into excessive thinking and anxiety while doing work, it can cause a huge amount of suffering. It's easy for my mind to be still while I go for a walk, away from all my problems, but when I come back, everything comes at an even fuller force.
I feel like the time of year and the situations in my life and habits have been leading to this overattachment, but it's hard to
keep moving forward. Friends I've known for years have such a strong influence on me, and I notice these feelings of deep
attachment when they come and go. There's an insane of baggage I want to get through, accept, and overcome, but the methods and approaches have been confusing me, and sometimes feel contradictory. I feel like by feeling into my emotions and negative thoughts and accepting them, it can make them stronger and give them more control. Sometimes I bring myself back to awareness without getting caught up in the emotions, and sometimes I bring them out through one of Leo's exercises. 

I might also be mixing up consciousness and unconsciousness. Maybe I "think" I'm conscious when I'm having fun with people, but because feelings of attachment and loneliness are building up, I'm actually losing consciousness during these situations, or after them. I recently had a fun gathering with people of similar interests at the end of the semester, and I barely got to know them, but I felt extremely attached and lonely once the gathering ended, and I scrambled to add people on Facebook, so I can keep them around forever. On a rational level, I barely know any of these people, but they share a similar hobby and it's going to be difficult to keep in touch and build up a friendship next semester and once I graduate, so I have this one-sided attachment to them, because of the hobby. I also find myself getting attached to people in my classes that I also don't know much about.

 

 I did some emotional release exercises to better accept the reality of things, but it's still a tough concept. 

 

I know that I'm not living for myself much at all. I announce my goals to friends and parents and feel like I'm living for
them. I feel the urge to do this, and the urge to get attention from other people.

So, I'm working on keeping my goals hidden and transitioning into intrinsic motivation.

 

Now, here's something I've been debating. Unhooking from Facebook/Skype. I feel like when taking a break  from this is great, so long as I keep up avoiding social media. I lose the urge to announce everything and I can focus on myself more. The problem is that when I go back, it feels like I get even more attached than before. The core issue is the overattachment to people and what they care about, so logically I think I should be able to engage with others, while being aware of my motivations and how I put too much care in what others say. Long-term friends don't have their shit together, yet I find myself sometimes grabbing onto their advice that contradicts the useful self-actualization advice that has helped me. My attachment is likely due to college ending, and the attachment I have to my hobby, so I guess it's natural.

I feel like removing myself from people is avoiding the problem altogether, but this could also just be a trap where I keep myself preoccupied with my friends, so I'm probably going to unhook from social media for the next 3 weeks anyway.

 

tldr; Looking for some advice on Attachment and Awareness. Some information from practical spiritual teacher might help me out. I'm all over the place with my post, and maybe I'm overthinking this and I actually understand myself really well already, but on a fundamental level, it'd be great to break through the grand illusion of "being separate."

[Neo]

6 hours ago, Vladz0r said:

Most of my life I went through almost completely unconscious. (Anyone else like this? Haha.)

 

 

Yes, I agree. But how much of this is real, and how much is just "foggy memory", I mean were you REALLY foggy at the time.

Well for me yes, probably was a bit foggy, - all those drunken nights out that got a bit messy. There are also many times I'd like to go back in time and shake myself, but let's just stay in the present eh?