The Way We Use Mindfulness Matters

By Annabelle Parr

It seems like mindfulness is everywhere these days. In recent years, it has exploded on the scene as the seemingly catch-all cure for a whole host of problems, supposedly promising to address mental health concerns, decrease stress, improve performance at work, and make you a better parent. Its benefits are touted across the internet – from business sites like Forbes and Fast Company, to wellness sites like the Huffington Post, to inspirational sites like Upworthy.

It’s true that practicing mindfulness can benefit us in all sorts of ways, showing not only benefits to our mind and our mood, but to our overall physiological health as well. However, when something is subjected to as much hype as mindfulness has been, sometimes in all the air time, it can get watered down and potentially misrepresented. Depending on how we talk about mindfulness and how we choose to apply it to our struggles and our lives, mindfulness can be a huge help or it can become one more well-disguised attempt at avoiding and controlling discomfort.

So what actually is mindfulness?

Mindfulness has a long and rich history rooted in Eastern philosophy traditions, which have acknowledged its benefits for centuries. Jon Kabat-Zinn, professor of medicine at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, was a trail blazer in integrating an understanding of mindfulness into the Western conception of health. He defines mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally.” Meditation is an example of a mindful exercise, but mindfulness can be practiced in any moment during any activity – one of the reasons it is so appealing and accessible as a means of promoting wellbeing.

Sounds ideal, right? You can practice it anytime, anywhere! The key to a stress free life is available to you in any moment! Well…not exactly.

 As Steven C. Hayes (2019) pointed out in his new book, A Liberated Mind, “it matters what mindfulness is for.” Why are we choosing to practice mindfulness? Based on any number of headlines and articles you read online, it sounds like practicing mindfulness is about getting rid of discomfort and stress. But thinking about it this way can actually make things worse! As Carl Jung noted, what we resist persists. The more we try to escape, avoid, or control our emotions, the stronger they tend to get. What’s more, when all our energy is devoted to controlling discomfort, our lives become increasingly restricted as our choices are dictated by what we are not willing to feel. When mindfulness becomes one more tool to escape or control uncomfortable experiences, it can end up fueling the same cycle that gets us caught in suffering.

So if it’s not about getting rid of stress, why should we bother being mindful?

From an Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) perspective, mindfulness helps make our lives richer and more meaningful. It does not guarantee freedom from discomfort. But it does offer us a new way to meet our pain. When we connect to the here and now rather than getting caught in regrets about the past or worries about the future, we are freed to notice what is happening in the moment and then choose to take action toward what is important to us.

The purpose is not to get rid of stress or anxiety or grief or whatever other uncomfortable feeling shows up, but rather to help facilitate awareness so that discomfort does not control our actions and define our lives. In being more present, we are free to notice not only the tough stuff like sadness or fear or frustration, but also the stuff that fills us up, like peace, joy and triumph. When we are not responsible for changing how we feel, we are freed up to change how we behave.

If you are interested in learning more about mindfulness, it can absolutely be helpful! And it can help you with things like stress and anxiety and work performance and being a more engaged parent and partner. But the reason it is helpful matters. A lot.

When you decide to show up to the moment mindfully, remind yourself that this is not a way to escape something difficult or painful. As psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor, Victor Frankl, so poignantly noted, “between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and freedom.” Mindfulness allows us to access that space. It allows us to hold our experience willingly and gently, allows us to notice helpful information that may be present in our experience, and allows us to make a conscious, active choice about how we want to behave. We are freed to choose to act in a way that is consistent with our values, and in so doing, we are invited to experience life as full of vitality and meaning, even when we are faced with discomfort.

IF YOU FIND YOURSELF STRUGGLING, FEELING STUCK, AND/OR COULD USE SOME HELP NAVIGATING YOUR FEELINGS, YOU COULD BENEFIT FROM COGNITIVE BEHAVIORAL THERAPY, ACCEPTANCE AND COMMITMENT THERAPY, AND MINDFULNESS. DR. SHOSHANA SHEA CAN HELP. SHE CAN BE CONTACTED AT 619-269-2377.

How did I get stuck in this rabbit hole? Overcoming negative self-talk

by Shoshana Shea

Have you ever fallen down the rabbit hole of negative self-talk and found yourself thinking…

·      “I’m unworthy”

·      “I’m not good enough”

·      “I hate myself”

·      “There’s something wrong with me”

If you said yes to any of these, you are not alone. 

Where does this come from?

These negative thoughts emerge when we are in pain. We want to unfeel our feelings, but we can’t.  We want the pain to end. This is where the self-critic comes in and wants to make sense of our pain so it can stop. When it can’t find an easy fix, it starts saying things like “There must be something wrong with me.” “I hate myself for caring and my (perceived) shortcomings.” “I’m unworthy.” “I’m unlovable.” “I’m not enough.”

If we have enough hard painful events in our lives, which most of us do, we start to have narratives (aka storylines) about who we are and how things are going to go (not well!) in any situation; we stop checking scenarios out for what they are.  Sometimes we even deny that we have emotions at all. An example of this would be if you went out on a date, had a great time, felt like you connected with the other person, and then you never heard a word from your date again. You might think that you are unlovable, hate yourself, and decide that dating isn’t for you. This is not true. Yes, you are having a painful present moment, but your interpretation and the assumptions you make may not be true. In other words, thinking you are unlovable does not equate to actually being unlovable.

Cognitive Fusion: Believing our thoughts, acting on them, and getting stuck in the rabbit hole

In Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT), this is called Cognitive Fusion, which means that we take our thoughts as absolute truths. When we experience cognitive fusion, we feel we have to carry out our thoughts’ directives without question, even if they tell us to make ourselves small or that we are small. When we are completely ‘fused’ i.e., attached, to our thoughts, we get pulled down the rabbit hole.

Cognitive De-Fusion: Unhitching from our thoughts

So if cognitive fusion means unquestioningly believing our thoughts to be absolute truths, cognitive de-fusion means that we are able to notice our thoughts without automatically acting on them. This is where mindfulness comes in. Viktor Frankl has been attributed to have said, “Between stimulus and the response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose a response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom.” When we can de-fuse, or get some space from our thoughts, we are able to see them and understand them better, even though we often might not really want to see the hard stuff in front of us.   

Here are some techniques to consider for getting distance from the self-critic:

1. Give yourself the benefit of the doubt that you are feeling the way you do for good reason. There is ALWAYS a reason why you are feeling the way you do, but it is not because you are worthy of hating yourself! Take the example up above. The reason you might be feeling you hate yourself is because there was a painful present moment that you couldn’t control. You actually have no idea why your date never called back. Perhaps they were already dating someone else. Perhaps they were not in a place to move forward in a serious way in a relationship. You can’t know for sure what the reason is, and your feelings of pain are valid, but they are not an indication that they exist because something is wrong with you.

2. Name the emotion. Once you have given yourself the benefit of the doubt that you are feeling something for good reason, ask yourself what those feelings might be. Emotions are usually one word: Sad, fearful, anxious, hurt, etc. Emotions give us important information.

3. “Am I worthy?” is not necessarily the most helpful question to ask yourself. Instead, ask yourself, “What is the Painful Present Moment?” (Which I call The PPM).  Continuing with the above example, you might be dating because you would like to find a life partner. In this scenario, the PPM is that since your date did not call back, you have not yet found your partner. That, in and of itself, does not feel good and could be quite disheartening. The self-critic may say, “It’s because you are not enough.” The mind is coming up with explanations because you are in pain and it is hard to sit with that. It’s hard to accept that you probably need to keep dating, when it clearly has not been a great experience thus far.

4. Anxiety and sadness are not bad in and of themselves. They are there for good reason (See point #1); it’s UNACKNOWLEDGED anxiety and/or sadness that leads to the problems. For example, walking home at night in a not so safe neighborhood, you have two choices: you have a well-lit street that takes longer, or a short-cut through a dark alley. Which one gives you anxiety? It serves a good purpose in our lives if we examine the cause of that anxiety. So the next time you are feeling anxious, give yourself the benefit of the doubt and try find out why.

5. Have Self-Compassion. If you can’t quite access why the negative self-talk is raining down on you so hard, try to have compassion for yourself. In other words, at least try to make the effort to understand yourself, even if you still feel like the emotions are just there for no apparent cause. Practice statements like, “I get why I’m feeling anxious because...” or “I’m probably feeling this way for good reason, even if I don’t know what that exact reason is right now.” My favorites are, “This stinks” and “No wonder I’m feeling this way.”

6. Practice saying, “My mind is having the thought that (insert self-critical statement)...” For example, “...that I’m overthinking this” or “…that I shouldn’t be taking this so hard.” This helps you to separate your mind from your self, and can help create some space that can allow you to recognize that your thoughts are not necessarily cold hard truths.

7. Try slowing the pace of your words, adjust your intonation, and use a kinder tone of voice. “(Oh no!) I'm anxious!” vs. “I AM anxious, and I don't have to pretend I'm not. It's actually my body telling me that something needs my attention.” This helps with cognitive flexibility and organically shifts your perspective. The function of the mind/self-critic is to alert you that something VALID needs your attention.

8. Talk to a trusted other. If my mind is working overtime to either spin and/or criticize me, I know that important truths are begging to be uncovered and unpacked beneath the storylines my mind is trying to tell. And if I can’t uncover it on my own, I ask a trusted other to help me to create space between myself and my thoughts so I can get that shift in perspective I so desperately need. You may think you have talked and thought about this enough already, so last thing you want to do is talk about it more. Consider this idea: yes, you have been thinking a lot, but you are likely stuck in the rabbit hole, especially if there is little to no relief and the end to your suffering is nowhere in sight. Talking to someone else can allow you to formulate more helpful questions so that you can move forward in a meaningful way.

If you find yourself struggling, feeling stuck, and/or could use some help navigating your feelings, you could benefit from Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, and Mindfulness. Dr. Shoshana Shea can help. She can be contacted at 619-269-2377.