July 7th, 2016
A while back, I learned about a new app called Headspace. It was free. I had committed to practising mindfulness and this app was a great tool to get me started. Headspace provides 10 sessions lasting 10 minutes each. You are introduced to breathing, noticing sensations, accepting and releasing thoughts and, connecting to your inner stillness-the space between the thoughts.
I have struggled to meditate for years. I have these great intentions but it's hard to be undisturbed for ten minutes and I'm never sure if I am doing it right. I don't feel comfortable sitting with my spine straight (like someone is pulling a string from the top of my head). I decided to meditate lying down but I always fell asleep.
Headspace allowed me to devote a small amount of time every day to calming my mind. I wondered if ten minutes would be long enough to make any difference. I started noticing changes from day to day. My mind was more focused and my breath was getting deeper. I could also see a crossover between the acceptance of whatever thoughts and emotions came up during meditation and my general acceptance of things as they were in my regular life.
When the ten day trial was over, I had the option to purchase more sessions. I didn't. What I did was continue to listen to the first ten trial sessions over and over again. You still have access to them and there is no limit to how many times you play them. I don't feel the need to graduate to a more advanced level. Repeating the basics: breathe, notice sounds around you, feel your connection to the chair and the floor, focus on sensations in your body, see the thoughts ebb and flow, let them go, keep breathing are good enough for me.
My eldest daughter has been experiencing more anxiety at bed time. I used to play a hypnosis cd at night with messages of empowerment and self-esteem. She loved listening to the hypnotist and always drifted off within five minutes. We played the cd every night, it got well used and I needed to replace it every year. The last time I contacted the hypnotist for a replacement cd, she didn't respond. My daughter said it was ok. She had outgrown it. She was fine for over a year. Lately, however, she has not been able to drift to sleep on her own. Sometimes I have massage her back or read her inspirational stories. She also just likes to talk about her life. She asks; "Can we talk mama?". I generally say yes unless she has stayed up too late.
A few nights ago, I suggested she listen to Headspace. I have it on my iPhone and I listen to it with headphones before bed. She resisted the idea at first, she said it sounded lame. When I offered to listen to it with her, she decided to give it a try. By the time the ten minutes were up, she had drifted to sleep. I plucked the ear bud out of her ear (I was wearing one and she was wearing the other) and she didn't even wake up. Now she asks for it. She likes how relaxed she feels after only ten minutes. I suspect that she will eventually fall asleep before the ten minutes are up after a week or so. The Headspace man's voice will become a cue for sleep and relaxation.
If you have always wanted to try meditation, give this app a try. It has worked for me and is now helping my ten year old daughter get some rest.
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org
Showing posts with label mindfulness. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mindfulness. Show all posts
Thursday, 7 July 2016
Tuesday, 8 March 2016
Book of the Week-Happiness The Mindful Way: a practical guide by Ken A. Verni
March 5th, 2016
My husband gave me a gift card for Indigo books on Valentine's Day. I really want to be a more focused, grounded, mindful person so when I visited the Indigo store in Barrhaven, I was searching for a book on mindfulness. Some of you may be thinking, you don't need a book about mindfulness, just sit down, be quiet and listen to your breath. This is true but my brain is more receptive to information presented in books. I absorb the information and then I am able to apply it. So, I got a book.
Happiness the Mindful Way is a very thorough book. I chose it because, when I looked at the Table of Contents, I knew I would learn something new.
The book teaches the basics of mindfulness. You learn to switch from doing (which we do most of the time in our race to get everything crossed off our "to-do" lists) to being (as in present in this moment). Ken Verni talks about the importance of acknowledging our thoughts then learning to sweep them away with an imaginary broom. For children, he suggests imagining that they are cats watching a mouse hole, each thought that pops up is a mouse and must be swatted. I like that metaphor.
Next, he turns to emotions and explains that we can notice the emotion and allow it to pass through us without identifying with it. We accept it with compassion. He provides a variety of ways to deal with stress, recognizing triggers and patterns. He also examines our concept of happiness and warns us that we often define our happiness as achieving some fantasy that we project into the future. This prevents us from recognizing happiness in our current life.
Then we learned a variety of mindfulness meditation techniques from focusing on the breath, concentrating on an object, noticing sensations with our five senses, scanning our body, walking meditation, becoming a sturdy mountain and, my new favorite, loving kindness meditation.
I just had a very busy week, preparing for a workshop with 25 teenagers while translation a newsletter for the Canadian Art Therapy Association. I was having issues with technology. You may notice typos as I have been unable to switch my computer back to English. I was very stressed. I tried getting five minutes of mindful breathing into the start of my day and focusing on gratitude through my Gratitude Jar which I started in January. However, the most helpful thing I did was try Loving Kindness meditation.
You start by sitting comfortably and focusing on your breath then you think to yourself: "May I experience loving kindness for myself. May I enjoy happiness, health and peace". That's it, you just sit with these two sentences in your mind and breathe. I felt so much more positive and at peace. The goal is to then entend this wish to others starting with people you love the most, then acquaintances and finally, people you do not like. I used it when my husband was behaving in a way I did not understand. I sent him love and my feelings eased up. Can you imagine how much better our world would be (or, on a smaller scale, our community) if everyone practised this meditation on a daily basis?
Here are the most helpful tips I learned from this book:
You can be mindful anywhere (sitting in a chair, taking your shower, driving somewhere)
Intruding thoughts and strong emotions should not be repressed, embrace them and let them go
Send love to yourself as often as you can, it makes you a better person, more compassionate
Send love to others, including people you don't like, it releases you from the energy that bonds you to them.
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul@ripnet.com
My husband gave me a gift card for Indigo books on Valentine's Day. I really want to be a more focused, grounded, mindful person so when I visited the Indigo store in Barrhaven, I was searching for a book on mindfulness. Some of you may be thinking, you don't need a book about mindfulness, just sit down, be quiet and listen to your breath. This is true but my brain is more receptive to information presented in books. I absorb the information and then I am able to apply it. So, I got a book.
Happiness the Mindful Way is a very thorough book. I chose it because, when I looked at the Table of Contents, I knew I would learn something new.
The book teaches the basics of mindfulness. You learn to switch from doing (which we do most of the time in our race to get everything crossed off our "to-do" lists) to being (as in present in this moment). Ken Verni talks about the importance of acknowledging our thoughts then learning to sweep them away with an imaginary broom. For children, he suggests imagining that they are cats watching a mouse hole, each thought that pops up is a mouse and must be swatted. I like that metaphor.
Next, he turns to emotions and explains that we can notice the emotion and allow it to pass through us without identifying with it. We accept it with compassion. He provides a variety of ways to deal with stress, recognizing triggers and patterns. He also examines our concept of happiness and warns us that we often define our happiness as achieving some fantasy that we project into the future. This prevents us from recognizing happiness in our current life.
Then we learned a variety of mindfulness meditation techniques from focusing on the breath, concentrating on an object, noticing sensations with our five senses, scanning our body, walking meditation, becoming a sturdy mountain and, my new favorite, loving kindness meditation.
I just had a very busy week, preparing for a workshop with 25 teenagers while translation a newsletter for the Canadian Art Therapy Association. I was having issues with technology. You may notice typos as I have been unable to switch my computer back to English. I was very stressed. I tried getting five minutes of mindful breathing into the start of my day and focusing on gratitude through my Gratitude Jar which I started in January. However, the most helpful thing I did was try Loving Kindness meditation.
You start by sitting comfortably and focusing on your breath then you think to yourself: "May I experience loving kindness for myself. May I enjoy happiness, health and peace". That's it, you just sit with these two sentences in your mind and breathe. I felt so much more positive and at peace. The goal is to then entend this wish to others starting with people you love the most, then acquaintances and finally, people you do not like. I used it when my husband was behaving in a way I did not understand. I sent him love and my feelings eased up. Can you imagine how much better our world would be (or, on a smaller scale, our community) if everyone practised this meditation on a daily basis?
Here are the most helpful tips I learned from this book:
You can be mindful anywhere (sitting in a chair, taking your shower, driving somewhere)
Intruding thoughts and strong emotions should not be repressed, embrace them and let them go
Send love to yourself as often as you can, it makes you a better person, more compassionate
Send love to others, including people you don't like, it releases you from the energy that bonds you to them.
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul@ripnet.com
Monday, 29 February 2016
Hope for Depression
February 28th, 2016
Lately, I have been working on bringing more mindfulness into my life. I was never good at meditation. You have to sit there, focus on your breathing, maybe repeat a mantra, spine straight, legs crossed etc. I am not sitting or breathing normally, my back aches and my mind wanders. It's not a pleasant experience and I generally give up within four days. What I like about mindfulness is that I am not trying to empty my mind. As a matter of fact, my mind is engaged: noticing the smells, sights and sounds around me, tuning into the sensations in my body, my feelings and thoughts. I can practise mindfulness while I drive, walk, cook or shower. This approach works for me. The goal of mindfulness is to connect with the present moment instead of ruminating about the past or anticipating the future.
Lately, a client was asking me about cognitive behavioural therapy. When I was completing my BA in Psychology, many of the courses were based on behavioural therapy. We learned to use reinforcement and punishment to increase or extinguish behaviours through techniques like "shaping". It was my least favourite approach to psychology because it was all very clinical with research conducted on animals (think Pavlov's dog) and applied to humans. I preferred humanistic and cognitive approaches because they treated the client as an active participant in therapy.
I wanted to help my client find a cognitive behavioural resource near here so I began a search online. I found an interesting combination: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. The research is very impressive, especially for individuals suffering from chronic depression. The research indicates that MBCT helps clients identify the negative thoughts that lead to a relapse. There are associations between thought patterns, moods and relapsing into a depressive episode. By acknowledging that these are only fleeting thoughts, challenging these thoughts and replacing them with facts, clients interrupt the sequence and are able to avoid triggering a relapse. In a study comparing the outcome of participants on medication with participants undergoing MBCT, they found that people on the medication needed to stay on the medication whereas, individuals who had participated in MBCT were less likely to experience a relapse. The medication may be successful in increasing the amount of serotonin in a client's brain but MBCT creates new neural pathways through the hippocampus.
People experiencing depressive episodes lasting months at a time, are living in fear of the next onset, holding their breath. When they feel the darkness looming, they experience helplessness and anxiety. They don't know how deep they will go or how long it will last. For loved ones, watching someone suffer and not being able to help is devastating. When someone is sick with the flu, you know it will pass, you can make some soup, buy soft tissues with lotion in them so their nose isn't as irritated, you can check on them, refill their water, you feel useful. There isn't much you can do when your loved one is depressed. You can be there and love them but trying to "cheer them up" only makes it worst. If taking a walk and getting some fresh air helped, they would be doing it. You can feel sad and helpless while getting frustrated as well. Then you feel guilty for getting frustrated.
That is why I wanted to share this approach. I have just started reading about it, I forwarded it to my client and, I will be looking into the requirements of training in this approach as well. One more tool in my therapeutic toolbox. To find out more for yourself, visit www.mbct.com.
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org
Lately, I have been working on bringing more mindfulness into my life. I was never good at meditation. You have to sit there, focus on your breathing, maybe repeat a mantra, spine straight, legs crossed etc. I am not sitting or breathing normally, my back aches and my mind wanders. It's not a pleasant experience and I generally give up within four days. What I like about mindfulness is that I am not trying to empty my mind. As a matter of fact, my mind is engaged: noticing the smells, sights and sounds around me, tuning into the sensations in my body, my feelings and thoughts. I can practise mindfulness while I drive, walk, cook or shower. This approach works for me. The goal of mindfulness is to connect with the present moment instead of ruminating about the past or anticipating the future.
Lately, a client was asking me about cognitive behavioural therapy. When I was completing my BA in Psychology, many of the courses were based on behavioural therapy. We learned to use reinforcement and punishment to increase or extinguish behaviours through techniques like "shaping". It was my least favourite approach to psychology because it was all very clinical with research conducted on animals (think Pavlov's dog) and applied to humans. I preferred humanistic and cognitive approaches because they treated the client as an active participant in therapy.
I wanted to help my client find a cognitive behavioural resource near here so I began a search online. I found an interesting combination: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. The research is very impressive, especially for individuals suffering from chronic depression. The research indicates that MBCT helps clients identify the negative thoughts that lead to a relapse. There are associations between thought patterns, moods and relapsing into a depressive episode. By acknowledging that these are only fleeting thoughts, challenging these thoughts and replacing them with facts, clients interrupt the sequence and are able to avoid triggering a relapse. In a study comparing the outcome of participants on medication with participants undergoing MBCT, they found that people on the medication needed to stay on the medication whereas, individuals who had participated in MBCT were less likely to experience a relapse. The medication may be successful in increasing the amount of serotonin in a client's brain but MBCT creates new neural pathways through the hippocampus.
People experiencing depressive episodes lasting months at a time, are living in fear of the next onset, holding their breath. When they feel the darkness looming, they experience helplessness and anxiety. They don't know how deep they will go or how long it will last. For loved ones, watching someone suffer and not being able to help is devastating. When someone is sick with the flu, you know it will pass, you can make some soup, buy soft tissues with lotion in them so their nose isn't as irritated, you can check on them, refill their water, you feel useful. There isn't much you can do when your loved one is depressed. You can be there and love them but trying to "cheer them up" only makes it worst. If taking a walk and getting some fresh air helped, they would be doing it. You can feel sad and helpless while getting frustrated as well. Then you feel guilty for getting frustrated.
That is why I wanted to share this approach. I have just started reading about it, I forwarded it to my client and, I will be looking into the requirements of training in this approach as well. One more tool in my therapeutic toolbox. To find out more for yourself, visit www.mbct.com.
Anne Walsh
www.artnsoul.org
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