- 5 Easy steps to Integrate Mindfulness into Everyday Life Safely and Effectively
There is a growing trend of mindfulness apps, retreats, workshops, guided visualization CD’s and the like along with a plethora of self help books and blogs on how to do mindfulness. What isn’t being talked about is the self discovery process and what this means for those who have a harder time coping inside their own bodies or dealing with repressed emotions or trauma. Lets start by assuming that you haven’t played with mindfulness yet perhaps you just started. There are three possible outcomes:
1.
The technique that you used
brought the desired peace and calm you were going for.
2.
The technique brought up discomfort
or, if you had an extreme experience perhaps even panic or a feeling of dying.
3.
Nothing.
Let’s stop and look
at what mindfulness is really doing. Mindfulness is a term that we use to
describe a state of awareness where we recognize all the different aspects of
the now and how we experience it. There are two parts to the now, the internal
and the external world. They are continually interchanging information and for
the most part this happens automatically and without much awareness otherwise
known as being on autopilot. When we begin to become mindful what we are doing
is illuminating this interplay between the internal and external world
interacting in the present moment. For those who haven’t spent a lot of time on
introspection, (self-examination,) then much of the information they uncover
will be extremely new. For those who have gone through therapy of any kind they
have already begun to look at their internal and external worlds to find
disharmony and have taken steps to change and create flow.
The Benefits of a Holistic Mindfulness Approach
Having a mindfulness practice when used with
support and in a positive healthy way has many benefits. It can allow us to
create pockets of space in our days where we can relax and completely let go of
anxieties and worry. It can allow us to de-stress, find more freedom and mental
clarity. It can help us to illuminate unhealthy choices, behaviors and beliefs
that keep us stuck in less then favorable circumstances. It will allow us to
have more energy, motivation, and healthy boundaries, better relationships;
well you get the idea. Mindfulness has so many benefits because it allows us to
create change in whatever way we need it, it allows us to illuminate the things
that are no longer working and to let go of things in our lives that are
hemorrhaging our energy.
It will allow us to
have more energy, motivation, and healthy boundaries, better relationships;
well you get the idea.
Mindfulness
also allows us to finally, once and for all let go of the crazy mind chatter
that seems for most of us to be overwhelmingly negative or fearful. Imagine how
much more energy you will have in your life without the constant dialogue in
your head.
Why Mindfulness Works
Mindfulness practice works because as I
mentioned earlier it allows us to create change. The formula of change is
fairly simple.
1. Awareness –
Something is no longer working
·
Work through internal blocks, gain clarity of
situation
2. Awareness –
Lacking something to move to
·
Exploration of wants, why’s and needs
3. Awareness – Of
where we want to move to (To Be)
·
Moving Towards (the middle bit, taking the physical
steps to create)
4. Awareness –
Completed the Change and in ‘New Way’
·
Complete Release of ‘Old Way’
Normally to create
change we stumble around a bunch, take steps forwards and back and eventually
we get somewhere, hopefully. We normally don’t truly understand how this stuff
happens, we just say man my hard work and or luck paid off. In reality if you
can become aware of the formula of change and then consciously move through it
you will be able to create change easily and quickly provided there isn’t a
huge wall of resistance within keeping you from doing so. In order to be able
to transcend autopilot and move through the formula of change we will need to:
1.
Become
aware of the present moment
2.
We
must gain clarity and understand what we have become aware of
3.
Move
through the Formula of Beneficial change
So you see everything
starts with awareness, which is another way of saying mindfulness. Normally
mindfulness is sold as a way to relieve stress, create more joy in life etc.
While it can do these things, this definition falls so short of what
Mindfulness is actually capable of cultivating for you. It is also skimming
over the risks of starting a mindfulness practice. Lets look at some of those
now.
The Risks of Mindfulness
Mindfulness because of what it is puts us in
touch with our internal landscapes, our internal world. The internal world is
made up of:
1.
Physical sensations
2.
Emotional sensations
3.
Mental sensations
4.
Spiritual sensations
5.
Integration sensations – how the previous 4 interact to create the
present version of you.
For those who have
spent a great deal of their lives living in their minds, out of touch with
their bodies, emotions and dreams, coming back in touch can be uncomfortable to
downright terrifying. It can get even worse if there were trauma’s present that
haven’t been integrated and healed. This means that as you start your practice
you may experience sensations in the body that you weren’t used to, it can be
very hard to get comfortable with the body and all the physical information
that it processes. Some people may feel like hypochondriacs or to the extreme
have panic attacks over small sensations that they don’t understand.
Emotionally it can be
very unsettling to all of the sudden become aware of intense levels of emotion
and have no way to cope or process them. Sudden burst of anger or sadness,
anxiety’s for no reason, feelings of dread or excitement can leave us feeling
off kilter.
It can also be hard
to see if the lives we created don’t actually resonate with what we truly want
inside. This can lead to an identity or life crisis in which now that we have
assess what we really want; are going to settle for what we have and the
resentment, depression or other emotions that come along with that, or take
huge risks and change everything up?
Mindfulness can also
access trauma. Mindfulness gets things moving, brings them to the light so that
you can heal them and become whole. If there were traumatic events that were
repressed into the body they can begin to come to the light which can be
extremely uncomfortable if not supported and worked through with a trained
trauma councilor.
All
of this means that it will be necessary to find the right teachers, therapists
and communities to make sure that your journey back to wholeness can be done
safely and with love and support. Mindfulness has so many benefits but only if
we use it with the right amount of support. Like anything else that we learn in
life it takes practice, patience, a willingness to get dirty and wade through
the mud to get the clear waters on the other side. This being said not everyone
will find mindfulness uncomfortable, some will take to it easily and with vigor
feeling the enrichment instantly. The following steps are just important for
those that find that path straight and easy as those that find the journey to
be a little more scenic.
5 Easy steps to Integrate Mindfulness into Everyday Life
Safely and Effectively
1.
Find Health Practitioners that
are good at what they do to help you integrate what you discover.
2.
Find the right tool(s) that
works for you. Not everyone will love focusing on the breath; I know I don’t.
3.
Take it easy and above all
self-care.
4.
Choose safe people in your life
as support and to share with.
5.
Always be honest with yourself
and don’t try to make things fit that don’t and let yourself dream
Charlotte Brammer
Psychotherapist. Hypnotherapist
Equine Assisted Therapist
