MINDFULNESS
One of the core methods for helping you achieve your wellness goals is mindfulness. As used in counseling and coaching, mindfulness is a term that means much more than how one is ordinarily mindful in day-to-day life. Although mindful awareness is strengthened through practice, many people experience positive results almost immediately when they make the decision to just sit and watch in a non-judgmental way.
The best way to understand mindfulness as used in counseling or coaching,
is to tell a story...
Veronica & David
Veronica*
seeks help with anxiety and panic attacks, a situation she has struggled
with for years, often with pharmaceutical help from her doctor. Not only
does she want to lessen her dependence on prescription drugs, she wants
to achieve her initial wellness goal of decreasing anxiety and panic attacks
by 80%.
A mindfulness approach to counseling Veronica's problem would not only examine how her thinking and feeling contribute to the problem, but also explore—and change—her relationship with thoughts and feelings. As strange as it sounds, Veronica's anxiety and panic attacks are only made worse by her efforts to fight them. A mindfulness approach to counseling teaches Veronica a special way to observe and ultimately increase her acceptance of her distress thoughts and feelings. She starts with a simple meditation exercise, and over the course of several weeks, eventually learns to achieve a calmer, more centered state of mind—even when things get tense!
Veronica found the meditation exercise to be simple to do, but it was more difficult to find the time (and the will power) to actually do it. However, she discovered that committing to five to ten minutes a day was a workable solution. After all, all she had to do was to sit quietly (without interruption) and focus on her breath. Veronica discovered that as long as she could focus her awareness on the sensation of her breathing, her troubling thoughts and feelings would recede into the background. This felt good, like finding a port in a storm. Over time, the exercise became easier and easier, and she noticed how much more calmly she reacted to stressful events even when she wasn't meditating.
Veronica ultimately achieved her wellness goals, but along the way she also discovered the power of a mindfulness approach in dealing with her husband, David.* Not surprisingly, she had learned that many of her anxiety problem actually stemmed from her constant worry about David's angry outbursts. Money issues had always been an issue for the couple, and because it had always led to arguments, they never seemed to have the discussion they needed to have in order to be financially responsible. However, Veronica discovered that as she became less anxious, she felt less fear and worry about David's anger. In the end, because Veronica had learned to better regulate her distress, she and David were able to resolve several important money problems. As she told her best friend later, "It wasn't easy, but at least we did it!"
Read more about Mindfulness...
Mindfulness Training
In addition to using a mindfulness approach to counseling, Commensa also provides workshops and trainings with mindfulness as a key ingredient:
MindBodyOne™—A Course in Mindfulness, Movement, and Relationship
Watch Your Words™—A Workshop in Mindful Communication
* Any resemblance to persons living or deceased unintentional
CALL NOW at (541) 326-0848 or email to info@commensa.org