So what's all this talk about meditation and mindfulness? What's it all good for?
Well, one problem some of us have is anxiety. What causes anxiety? A lifetime of stress can make us anxious. And also, in most of our cases, our Nmothers didn't teach us any skills on how NOT to be anxious! In fact, usually our Nmothers made darn sure we were a heap of nerves. All that brainwashing for all those years did a real number on us! Some of us are so used to our adrenal glands being in overdrive 24/7 that we feel that is "our" normal!
So how do we get to normal levels of day-to-day life? We have to calm ourselves down... Somehow...
Here is an example of how mindfulness and meditation can help us...
When we become anxious (or more anxious than normal), our heart rates elevate and we start to breathe more shallowly. In some cases we might freeze like a rabbit and even forget to breathe. Fight or flight syndrome, right? In this state, our minds don't work very well: the "primitive" side kicks in. If we try to talk or say something our mouth, tongue and lips seem to flap like a sheet in the breeze, but nothing very coherent comes out. Our eyes are wide. We become stiff and tense because we are about to get the hell out of here, duck to avoid a swinging fist, or shrink trying not to be seen (wishing we were a camouflaged fawn). Makes us look crazy, doesn't it?
If that weren't bad enough, then after the anxiety passes, we're letting our thoughts ramble. Why the heck didn't I do this, or why didn't I say that, and we ruminate on what could have been, and we berate ourselves and make ourselves feel even worse for not doing something clever or astonishing or brave.
Ok, so not only is your body just acting the way it's supposed to in a tense situation (and more often than not, if you live in an N dynamic, you're almost ALWAYS gonna be tense), but your inner voice is giving you a hard time about it. THAT can lead to depression! Believe it or not you can begin to believe negative things about yourself if you say them often enough. Here is a related link: http://depression.about.com/cs/psychotherapy/a/cognitive.htm
Here is why meditation is useful: it helps you calm down your mind and body. Relaxation breathing and gentle stretching (or even some good cardio that releases endorphins and expends your energy and relaxes you) will slow your heart rate. Controlled breathing is the key because if you are breathing from your diagphram, you are actually breathing like a baby does, how you are supposed to breathe... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp-gCvW8PRY
And here is where mindfulness comes in: you will start to have awareness. Awareness of those negative inner voices. That's just you, but you learned all that negativity from your Nmom hammering lies and shame into your brain all those years. She's the one that made you think you couldn't do it without her, you're useless, you'll never be successful, and all that other B.S. Mindfulness helps you catch your negative internal voice and keep it in check. You are re-parenting yourself. You are disciplining your inner child in a calm and loving manner. You aay to yourself, "Oh crap, I screwed up, I'm never going to get anywhere!" And your new inner Mother pipes up and says, "Now just a minute! Everyone makes mistakes, it's part of being human. Of course you're going to get ahead some day. You've come this far because you are a resourceful and clever person. You cut yourself some slack!" Previous to mindfulness and meditation, you might not have caught this voice as it was all sort of "background" noise as you were going about your busy day. You bring this out to the light of day and possibly into a journal, blog or into someone else's ear (friend/family/therapist) then it's going to help you.
Why? Because you aren't internalizing it anymore. If, during the day, you try to write down some of the things that race through your mind at night when you are trying to sleep, you might find that you are going to sleep better. If you lack self-esteem, this will build you up, and you will appear more confident. Being mindful of jobs you select, and people you choose to have relationships would be an asset for you. You might start to see the world a little more brightly and in full 3D instead of a blur, and instead of feeling intense emotion all the time. You might actually feel like you should say "No" now and again, so you can take care of yourself sometimes.
If you've never done meditation or mindfulness exercises before, a therapist or someone who is experienced in such things (Daire Shaw comes to mind) can teach you. It can also be self-taught, but it's nice to have someone who could answer questions for you.
Here are a few links that hopefully will get you started!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/emotionally-sensitive/2012/09/wait-being-mindful-of-emotions/
WAIT: Being Mindful of Emotions
The Emotionally Sensitive Person
By Karyn Hall, PhD
http://innerself.com/content/spirituality/general/5618-make-the-mind-your-ally-by-joan-borysenko-phd.html
Spirituality, Meditation, Religions & Beliefs
by Joan Borysenko, Phd
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879966/
Experiencing mindfulness meditation—a client narrative perspective
Reinhard Stelter, PhD
Mindfulness has its origin in different philosophical traditions, but is mainly associated with Buddhist philosophy and psychology, especially the Abhidhamma Pitaka—canonical writings based on content of the Buddha's treatises compiled by his disciples and scholars (see: Bikkhu Bodhi, 2000; Nyanaponika, 1998). Mindfulness can be described as a specific embodied intentional orientation of “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4) where the focus is on the cultivation of conscious awareness and attention from one moment to the next in an open, curious and accepting way (e.g. Bishop et al., 2004; Germer, 2005).
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/2012/02/
Psych Central: Rewire Your Brain for Love
An Interview with Marsha Lucas, PhD
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/2012/01/
Mindfulness Over Mood: The Now Effect and Your Mental Health
By Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/2011/10/can-mindfulness-really-rewire-the-brain/
Can Mindfulness Really Rewire the Brain?
By Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
http://www.anxietypanic.com/breathing.html
Diaphragmatic breathing technique
contributed by Sarah Meek: By Anxietypanic.com
http://www.wisdom-books.com/ProductDetail.asp?PID=17383
CDs, Books, etc on various types of Meditation/Mindfulness to help you through depression, anxiety,low self-esteem, etc...
Western, Tibetan, Theravada, Zen, Mahayana, Buddhism, Psychology/Psychotherapy and other types of meditation and mindfulness.
http://www.behavioraltech.org/resources/
Mindfulness of Current Emotions:
by Dr. Marsha Linehan, 2012 Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Resources on Mindfulness from Elisha Goldstein
http://drsgoldstein.com/default.aspx
Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D & Stefanie Goldstein, Ph.D. Los Angeles Psychologists
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/
Lessons from the Last Round of Life By Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
Well, one problem some of us have is anxiety. What causes anxiety? A lifetime of stress can make us anxious. And also, in most of our cases, our Nmothers didn't teach us any skills on how NOT to be anxious! In fact, usually our Nmothers made darn sure we were a heap of nerves. All that brainwashing for all those years did a real number on us! Some of us are so used to our adrenal glands being in overdrive 24/7 that we feel that is "our" normal!
So how do we get to normal levels of day-to-day life? We have to calm ourselves down... Somehow...
Here is an example of how mindfulness and meditation can help us...
When we become anxious (or more anxious than normal), our heart rates elevate and we start to breathe more shallowly. In some cases we might freeze like a rabbit and even forget to breathe. Fight or flight syndrome, right? In this state, our minds don't work very well: the "primitive" side kicks in. If we try to talk or say something our mouth, tongue and lips seem to flap like a sheet in the breeze, but nothing very coherent comes out. Our eyes are wide. We become stiff and tense because we are about to get the hell out of here, duck to avoid a swinging fist, or shrink trying not to be seen (wishing we were a camouflaged fawn). Makes us look crazy, doesn't it?
If that weren't bad enough, then after the anxiety passes, we're letting our thoughts ramble. Why the heck didn't I do this, or why didn't I say that, and we ruminate on what could have been, and we berate ourselves and make ourselves feel even worse for not doing something clever or astonishing or brave.
Ok, so not only is your body just acting the way it's supposed to in a tense situation (and more often than not, if you live in an N dynamic, you're almost ALWAYS gonna be tense), but your inner voice is giving you a hard time about it. THAT can lead to depression! Believe it or not you can begin to believe negative things about yourself if you say them often enough. Here is a related link: http://depression.about.com/cs/psychotherapy/a/cognitive.htm
Here is why meditation is useful: it helps you calm down your mind and body. Relaxation breathing and gentle stretching (or even some good cardio that releases endorphins and expends your energy and relaxes you) will slow your heart rate. Controlled breathing is the key because if you are breathing from your diagphram, you are actually breathing like a baby does, how you are supposed to breathe... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hp-gCvW8PRY
And here is where mindfulness comes in: you will start to have awareness. Awareness of those negative inner voices. That's just you, but you learned all that negativity from your Nmom hammering lies and shame into your brain all those years. She's the one that made you think you couldn't do it without her, you're useless, you'll never be successful, and all that other B.S. Mindfulness helps you catch your negative internal voice and keep it in check. You are re-parenting yourself. You are disciplining your inner child in a calm and loving manner. You aay to yourself, "Oh crap, I screwed up, I'm never going to get anywhere!" And your new inner Mother pipes up and says, "Now just a minute! Everyone makes mistakes, it's part of being human. Of course you're going to get ahead some day. You've come this far because you are a resourceful and clever person. You cut yourself some slack!" Previous to mindfulness and meditation, you might not have caught this voice as it was all sort of "background" noise as you were going about your busy day. You bring this out to the light of day and possibly into a journal, blog or into someone else's ear (friend/family/therapist) then it's going to help you.
Why? Because you aren't internalizing it anymore. If, during the day, you try to write down some of the things that race through your mind at night when you are trying to sleep, you might find that you are going to sleep better. If you lack self-esteem, this will build you up, and you will appear more confident. Being mindful of jobs you select, and people you choose to have relationships would be an asset for you. You might start to see the world a little more brightly and in full 3D instead of a blur, and instead of feeling intense emotion all the time. You might actually feel like you should say "No" now and again, so you can take care of yourself sometimes.
If you've never done meditation or mindfulness exercises before, a therapist or someone who is experienced in such things (Daire Shaw comes to mind) can teach you. It can also be self-taught, but it's nice to have someone who could answer questions for you.
Here are a few links that hopefully will get you started!
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/emotionally-sensitive/2012/09/wait-being-mindful-of-emotions/
WAIT: Being Mindful of Emotions
The Emotionally Sensitive Person
By Karyn Hall, PhD
http://innerself.com/content/spirituality/general/5618-make-the-mind-your-ally-by-joan-borysenko-phd.html
Spirituality, Meditation, Religions & Beliefs
by Joan Borysenko, Phd
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2879966/
Experiencing mindfulness meditation—a client narrative perspective
Reinhard Stelter, PhD
Mindfulness has its origin in different philosophical traditions, but is mainly associated with Buddhist philosophy and psychology, especially the Abhidhamma Pitaka—canonical writings based on content of the Buddha's treatises compiled by his disciples and scholars (see: Bikkhu Bodhi, 2000; Nyanaponika, 1998). Mindfulness can be described as a specific embodied intentional orientation of “paying attention in a particular way, on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (Kabat-Zinn, 1994, p. 4) where the focus is on the cultivation of conscious awareness and attention from one moment to the next in an open, curious and accepting way (e.g. Bishop et al., 2004; Germer, 2005).
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/2012/02/
Psych Central: Rewire Your Brain for Love
An Interview with Marsha Lucas, PhD
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/2012/01/
Mindfulness Over Mood: The Now Effect and Your Mental Health
By Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/2011/10/can-mindfulness-really-rewire-the-brain/
Can Mindfulness Really Rewire the Brain?
By Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
http://www.anxietypanic.com/breathing.html
Diaphragmatic breathing technique
contributed by Sarah Meek: By Anxietypanic.com
http://www.wisdom-books.com/ProductDetail.asp?PID=17383
CDs, Books, etc on various types of Meditation/Mindfulness to help you through depression, anxiety,low self-esteem, etc...
Western, Tibetan, Theravada, Zen, Mahayana, Buddhism, Psychology/Psychotherapy and other types of meditation and mindfulness.
http://www.behavioraltech.org/resources/
Mindfulness of Current Emotions:
by Dr. Marsha Linehan, 2012 Dialectical Behavior Therapy
Resources on Mindfulness from Elisha Goldstein
http://drsgoldstein.com/default.aspx
Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D & Stefanie Goldstein, Ph.D. Los Angeles Psychologists
http://blogs.psychcentral.com/mindfulness/
Lessons from the Last Round of Life By Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D.
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