Luxury’s Disassociation

How Mindfulness mirrors a bourgeoisie recontextualization of disenfranchised coping

mechanisms
One of the most integral components of mindfulness’ makeup is how greatly it is able
to shift one’s perception and reaction to surrounding stimuli which allows for oneself
to access a plane of consciousness liberated from the stressors of everyday life, but it
may be compelling to examine how this mindset, and the systems that diffuse this
mindset, overlap with other internal and external agents which serve to alter one’s
awareness, and see how mindfulness compares and contrasts to them positively and
negatively, and potently, with agents commonly used by or afflicted upon young
adults such as college students, to fully determine how mindfulness differentiates
itself as a viably revolutionary lifestyle.

Discoveries on how mindfulness practices proved to be more detrimental on subjects

who faced mental health concerns shows overlaps in how those with mental health
complications, especially youths such as college students who have been raised to
compartmentalize and project outwardly through digital social communication
forums exhaustive inward examination and recontextualization in order to find
legitimacy and community, which may lead to trauma inflicted by miseducation
surrounding social conduct

This social conduct mirrors how masking occurs with autistic youths, the act of
masking encompasses loss of identity and through chasing a neurotypical ideal of
social behavior informed by socialization in a neurotypical society, forms of social
control such as media and interpersonal transgressions may find overlap with how
teachings of mindfulness can cause stress in having to apply one’s mental function to
a (neurotypical) lens of focus and reaction. A potent example of this is the
phenomenon of masking, common with Autistic women, many young and college
aged, and can submerge these women into intense self examination, which has the
high capacity to mangle their mental health, leaving them with a vulnerability to lose
a sense of identity amongst their disassociation, this self rumination, shared by an
autistic women in this relevant quote: ‘Ade told me, “I learned to mask early on. My
mother reminded me daily how weird I was and I learned to hide myself. The biggest
impact of that for me was the constant worry that I’d done something wrong—that I’d
revealed too much of myself by mistake. I’d ruminate for hours about whether I’d let the
mask slip.”’ [1] shares some correlations with the self reflections promoted by
mindfulness, which holds the capacity for intriguing discussion. Dissections of self
obsession which lead to further tweaking of mindfulness curriculum to divest from
negative self examinations can contribute to better treatments, along with a general shift
in pop psychology which facilitates potential for exploitation of victim complexes with
more constructive community based manifestations of mindfulness [4]

While community can arise out of mindfulness education, its focus upon liberation
amongst an abrasive and unjust environment has parallels to the hyper individualistic
empowerment movements which overtook more community based activism and
theory in the 1990s (see: 3rd wave feminism’s mantra [3] ) while this small scale
liberation movement has positive effects for those who have access to it, groups who
rely on a ‘scribe’ of sorts to publicize communal issues and group consciousness
raising falter when which serve to elevate the consciousness of those in secure enough
standings to afford luxuries of free time uninterrupted by labor demands or abusive
situations, which many college students, particularly community college students,
face. Though argumentation expressing how mindfulness can be practiced in any
situation and in turn allowing comfort to be acquired in situations of unjust treatment
should be highlighted.

Another argument could be made about the feminization of the mindfulness

movement, with many prominent contemporary influences and practitioners being
women. A trend amongst women, due to patriarchal oppression, can essen in how
movements of escapism find particular popularity amongst women in order to usurp
power and control in subordinated social positions, with some notable examples being
female participation in foundational literary genres. and in a more negative approach,
the prevalence of eating disorders. The ritualism present in practice of mindfulness
and eating disorders regarding self examination and restriction (a very poignant
overlap between these groups being fasting, intermediate or not.) and how external,
and of particular focus in situations of abuse, male, mentorship,in the forms of ‘gurus’
and ‘an[orexia] coaches’ hold the power to prey upon women who frequently come
from intensely vulnerable positions of overwhelming stress grappling with the
rigorous requirements of the capitalist female ideal of women holding labor positions
both in employment,receiving inconsequential consideration and benefits in
comparison to the male sector, and the unpaid labor of mothers and housewives, and
the social assimilation of young women in a society unkind to them, which (female)
college students regularly encounter.
Another parallel can be made with how mindfulness and eating disorder can be seen
as an avenue to ascend to a state which permits reconciliation with stages of life
which were either liberated from or first encountering traumatic experience, seen by
the prevalence of inner child healing in new age groups and the ideal for many who
suffer with eating disorders to reach a body and external perception free from social
requirements and expectations placed upon adults and objectification [2]. In this
sense, mindfulness serves as a more constructively healing process which should be
given legitimacy and consideration in treatment.

The reflection upon how mindsets which serve to promote ambitiously extraordinary
ideals, such as ‘Mindfulness has the potential of making us healthier, more
compassionate and altruistic, ‘going beyond the limitations of…who we are as human
beings and individual citizens, as communities and societies, as nations, and as a
species’ [mindfulness nation UK, 2015] and mindsets which degrade human
connections and empathy for oneself and others overlap constructs a compelling
narrative about how augmentations of consciousness commonly engender despair due
to their overlapping utilization of excessive self examination; how our relationship to the
self and community lead to positive and negative outcomes, which holds an interesting
weight when addressing the usage of these mindsets in communal youth settings like
college.

Citations :
Jack, Claire “Masking and Mental Health in Women with Autism | Psychology

Today.” Www.psychologytoday.com,

www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/women-with-autism-spectrum-disorder/202104/m

asking-and-mental-health-in-women-with-autism.

White, Emily. “Revolution Girl-Style Now!” Chicago Reader, 24 Sept. 1992,

chicagoreader.com/news-politics/revolution-girl-style-now/.

‌(specific literary inspiration - During the 80s, feminism diverged along two major courses: either
into the academy, where it became increasingly mired in jargon, or into the pop-psychology industry,
where every conflict could be resolved from within, every wound healed through therapy. The story of
political oppression became the story of internal repression–a narrative that culminated in Gloria
Steinem’s incredible cop-out Revolution From Within: A Book of Self-Esteem. )

Stosny, Steven “Escaping from the Prison of Self-Obsession | Psychology

Today.” Www.psychologytoday.com,
www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/anger-in-the-age-of-entitlement/202310
/escaping-from-the-prison-of-self-obsession.