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How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

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Re: How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

#21

Post by Boothroid »

maxxxxx wrote: post #9
Boothroid wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One thing I've never quite understood - if you are teaching yourself to become more equanimous how do you avoid becoming less concerned about the things that really matter also?!

Equanimity doesn't have to be numbness. You can be very passionate about something and still being calm.

I'm not being picky but here's a definition for passion I found quickly: 'strong and barely controllable emotion'

Surely this is at least somewhat at odds with being calm?!

Re: How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

#22

Post by lazerpants »

nxsynonym wrote: post #15

> "If we truly become mindful of our existence then our recurrent anxieties become not just a wave we watch pass through our minds, not something to be mastered in order to be a better servant, but a call to take action in order to be more fully alive." Agreed. The whole point behind meditation and mindfulness is to create a more well rounded spiritual life/existence. Not to ignore the things that cause you distress…

I think your feelings on this will depend mostly on your relationship with your employer. Running programs during lunch makes sense as people have engagements before and after work that would be harder to break than changing lunch plans.

Some employers really do want to do things to help employees, and some of them cannot pay more just by waiving a magic wand. Of course, since the employee is usually the one with less power, the employer's motivations can feel perverse, even if they aren't.

Regarding mindfulness meditation classes at work, I think it is mostly a good thing, as it's something that can be used outside of the office just as well as in the office. However, I don't think it's okay to require employees to take such classes.

Re: How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

#23

Post by Chardok »

voidhorse wrote: post #10

If it can be sold and used as a tool for subjugation humans will quickly determine and optimize the ways in which to do so. That's the beauty of capitalism--or possibly even economics in general--it acknowledges and respects nothing that falls outside of its own scope. No matter how ancient, sophisticated, sacred, or meaningful a practice may have been--no matter what reverence our ancestral betters may have applied…

Well said. Its hard to quantify it in an objective context, but there is something just viscerally disgusting about taking something so old and spiritually significant to humans and perverting it into a tool for efficiency.

Re: How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

#24

Post by PaulHoule »

pc86 wrote: post #12
frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source for that? Or something I can read further?

Of course not

Of course:

https://innermammalinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/...

http://www.ulm.edu/~palmer/TheBiochemistryofStatusandtheFunc...

I thought everybody knew this.

Re: How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

#25

Post by lazerpants »

frgtpsswrdlame wrote: post #7
PaulHoule wrote: post #2

Yep, just how antidepressant manufactures co-opted research on social dominance to reverse some of the biochemical changes that happen when you are "ground down like a minion".

Do you have a source for that? Or something I can read further?

Funny enough, despite the deep sense of resentment in the original comment, it's actually kind of accurate.

Lower social standing is often associated with changes in cytokine expression mediated by cortisol signalling, and changes in cytokine expression and cortisol signalling are closely linked to depression (it looks more and more like at least some cases of depression are immunological in nature). There's a possible evolutionary advantage to inhibiting cortisol downregulation through glucocorticoid resistance (this is linked to depression) in situations where individuals would be in "defeated social positions." However, the theory goes that those situations and the related glucocorticoid resistance are not meant to be long term systemic changes, merely short term ones, and long term use of this feedback mechanism results in depression. I am hungover and running purely on modafinil at the moment, so I am unable to eloquently explain and I'll link a paper.

So, to the extent that anti-depressant drugs are based on observed changes to molecular signals in the brain (that's how SSRIs came about), and that those changes in the molecular signals are due to essentially a miswired social cue, the original comment is correct.

Here are some papers:

glucocorticoid resistance, depression, cytokines (this is a great paper): http://www.europeanneuropsychopharmacology.com/article/S0924...

evolutionary perspective on cytokines and depression: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1471490605...

Re: How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

#26

Post by Interfacelabs »

voidhorse wrote: post #10

If it can be sold and used as a tool for subjugation humans will quickly determine and optimize the ways in which to do so. That's the beauty of capitalism--or possibly even economics in general--it acknowledges and respects nothing that falls outside of its own scope. No matter how ancient, sophisticated, sacred, or meaningful a practice may have been--no matter what reverence our ancestral betters may have applied…

Very well said indeed.

Re: How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

#27

Post by monster_group »

nxsynonym wrote: post #15

> "If we truly become mindful of our existence then our recurrent anxieties become not just a wave we watch pass through our minds, not something to be mastered in order to be a better servant, but a call to take action in order to be more fully alive." Agreed. The whole point behind meditation and mindfulness is to create a more well rounded spiritual life/existence. Not to ignore the things that cause you distress…

Most wellness programs at work have to do with lowering medical insurance costs. Health insurance companies give discounts to the employer if they run these programs and enroll employees into them.

Re: How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

#28

Post by lazerpants »

maxxxxx wrote: post #18
nxsynonym wrote: post #15

> "If we truly become mindful of our existence then our recurrent anxieties become not just a wave we watch pass through our minds, not something to be mastered in order to be a better servant, but a call to take action in order to be more fully alive." Agreed. The whole point behind meditation and mindfulness is to create a more well rounded spiritual life/existence. Not to ignore the things that cause you distress…

Yep. That why I wouldn't teach meditation in a corporate setting. It's just window dressing without any real intent of making people's lives better.

As the teacher, couldn't you have taught it in a way to make people's lives better?

Re: How corporates co-opted mindfulness to make us bear the unbearable (2015)

#29

Post by mparr4 »

maxxxxx wrote: post #3

I used to teach meditation and yoga for a while. One of my teachers said that meditation should make you less resilient to stress and make you realize that need to change your life. So if someone credits their material success to meditation it's best to view this as an abuse or misunderstanding of the practice. It took me a while to accept but now I agree with this viewpoint.

Much like the effect of psychedelics at sufficient doses: a useful tool for shining a spotlight on the things we keep hidden from ourselves.

On the flip side (and more commonly), we consume things and have practices that numb us to reality and make it easier to carry on in spite of internal dissonance.

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