How Can Mindfulness Help?
Daily mindfulness practices have made a massive difference in my own journey towards wellness.
Intrusive negative thoughts have been a real struggle for me in my life. I’d combat these thoughts all day distract myself, tell myself the thoughts aren’t true, but they would never go away. Over time, these intrusive thoughts would wear me down and color my whole day. I tried many different solutions, but nothing has been as effective as cultivating mindfulness. As such, incorporating mindfulness has become a cornerstone of my therapeutic approach.
Mindfulness is simply a cultivated nonjudgmental awareness and acceptance of whatever is occurring in the present moment. Instead of dwelling on the past or worrying about the future, mindfulness is about appreciating and fully experiencing what is happening right now.
What is happening right now? Take a moment to feel the sensation of the air against your skin. Feel the sensation of your chair supporting your seat. Notice any sounds around you. Thoughts tend to be about the past or the future, but sensations are always about the here and now.
“Pain is inevitable; suffering is optional”
Meditation refers to a broad set of practices that are often used to cultivate mindfulness.
There are many many different forms of meditation, all with different strategies for cultivating different sorts of mindful awareness. The breath is a common focus for attention because it is always happening and always in the present moment. This approach, however, never worked for me (it was too boring!) I, personally, am agnostic about which kind of meditation practice my clients use. I support whatever practice works for them - the best kind of meditation is the one you can do consistently.
I recognize that starting and maintaining a meditation practice can be really difficult. I started and stopped for many years before I found something that worked for me. Now, I have learned many ways to customize meditation practices to meet the needs of your specific mind. We will work together to find effective ways to incorporate mindfulness and meditation to meet your specific needs when you are ready.
The best way, as with all good habits, is to start small. Start with short periods of meditation using a strategy that feels easiest for you. Can’t sit for 20 minutes? Try sitting for 5. Can’t sit still for 5 minutes? Try a walking meditation. Can’t seem to focus on your bodily sensations? Try focusing on a mantra. There are so many ways to adapt it and they all help cultivate mindfulness.
One of the most important things to remember is that your intrusive thoughts are not an indication that you are doing meditation incorrectly. Minds wander, that’s just what they do. As you cultivate mindfulness, your intrusive thoughts may decrease, but what really changes is your ability not to take these thoughts so seriously. Over time, it becomes evident that you are not your thoughts. Your thoughts move in and out of your awareness constantly all day. Some of them need to be listened to, but most of them do not.
Another crucial aspect of Buddhism that I bring into my practice, is the idea that pain is an unavoidable part of our lives on this earth, but suffering about that pain is optional. There will always be something that is unsatisfactory about life. You’ll have things you don’t want, want things you don’t have, be around people you don’t like, lose people you love, get sick, age slowly, and eventually die. All of these things are painful and all of us will experience them.
What becomes clear as you meditate is that none of these things are as painful as our resistance to that pain.
Wishing for our situation to be different, pitying ourselves for our lot in life, holding resentments towards those who have wronged us - these are forms of suffering that we generate for ourselves. We can choose, through dedicated practice, to relate to our pain differently and, in doing so, suffer much much less.
If we deeply accept that pain cannot be entirely avoided or suppressed, we may even be able to find a certain gratitude for our pain. Not only is pain an inevitable part of our time here, but it is an essential part of our time here. Pain is what drives us towards wellness - towards integration within ourselves. If you weren’t suffering, what motivation would you have to heal? Would you have made any effort to understand yourself? To improve yourself?
Pain is an unavoidable part of being human and, moreover, it is part of what makes us human. We therefore have a choice: to resist that pain and suffer or to radically accept that pain with a deep compassion for ourselves. Paradoxically, it is only once we can find this acceptance that our suffering actually diminishes - acceptance makes pain less painful. Mindfulness requires both nonjudgmental awareness of our present moment and a radical acceptance of whatever that moment contains. It is with the addition of acceptance that the healing can really begin.
I realize that these ideas may seem very foreign to you. They certainly seemed strange when I was introduced to them. But over time, and with practice, they have become central tenets of my worldview. The way out of suffering is, paradoxically, to stay with our pain. But you do not need to take my word for it! I’ll never try to convince you. Rather, as a mindfulness-based therapist, I will gently encourage you to sit with your experience and come to your own conclusions about this.
I’ve included a guided LovingKindness Meditation here - one of my personal favorites. This meditation is designed to help cultivate compassion for yourself and for others. If you’d like, give it a try!
