Mental Health Therapy Material

How We Can Use Mindfulness to Reduce Relapses As you continue through your life, you will face new challenges and new situations. You will inevitably experience times of increased distress when you find it more difficult to continue your mindfulness practices. As we have discussed, mindfulness and skillful action are processes - we all need to continue to attend to these areas, notice when things are slipping, when our attention has wandered or we've begun to avoid feelings or situations, and gently bring ourselves back. This can be a very difficult and disheartening process. Often, the first response after noticing this kind of lapse is a feeling of disappointment and a thought like "I'm right back where I started" or "I can't do it on my own". It can be easy for this to start a cycle of self-critical reactions, increased distress and experiential avoidance, which feeds back into the sense of disappointment and self criticism, continuing the cycle and...

The realization that thoughts are not facts is vitally relevant to all of us. Our thinking will often reflect our mood and mode of mind, not what is "actually" here or who we actually are. Thoughts are not facts. We need to start observing and recognizing thoughts as thoughts, to bring awareness to them as discrete mental events, and to see each thought as simply a thought, an idea in the mind. We use the phrase "thoughts are not facts" to suggest that we don't have to believe everything we think or take it as absolute truth. Exercise: Thoughts and Feelings We ask that you settle into a comfortable position, feet on the floor, eyes closed, and imagine the following scenario:  - You are walking down the street, and on the other side of the street you somebody you know. You smile and wave. The person just doesn't seem to notice and walks by. Take a moment to become aware of what is going through your mind, including your thoughts, feelings, or ...

Mindfulness Exercise: A First Taste of Mindfulness - Eating One Raisin 1. Holding  - First, take a raisin and hold it in your palm of your hand or between your finger and thumb.  - Focusing on it, imagine that you've just dropped in from Mars and have never seen an object like this before in your life. 2. Seeing  - Take time to really see it; gaze at the raisin with care and full attention.  - Let eyes explore every part of it, examining the highlights where the light shines, the darker hollows, the fold and ridges, and any asymmetries or unique features. 3. Touching  - Turn the raisin over between your fingers, exploring it's texture, maybe with your eyes closed if that enhances your sense of touch. 4. Smelling  - Holding the raisin beneath your nose, with each inhalation drink in any smell, aroma, or fragrance that may arise, noticing as you do this anything interesting that may be happening in your mouth or stomach. 5. Pla...

Non-Judgement  - See, but don't evaluate as good or bad. Notice just the facts.  - Accept each moment like a blanket spread out on the lawn, accepting both the rain and the sun and each that falls upon it.  - Acknowledge the difference between helpful and harmful, the safe and the dangerous, but don't judge them.  - When you find yourself judging, don't judge your judging. Ideas for Practicing Non-Judgment Leaving out comparisons, judgments, assumptions: 1. Practice observing judgmental thoughts and statements, saying in your mind, "A judgmental thought has arose in my mind." 2. Count judgmental thoughts and statements by moving objects or pieces of paper from one pocket to the other, by clicking a sports counter, or marking a piece of paper. 3. Replace judgmental thoughts and statements with non-judgmental thoughts and statements.  - Describe the facts of the event or situation - only what can be observed with your senses.  - Describe the...

Observe  - Just notice the experience. Notice without getting caught in the experience. Experience without reacting to your experience.  - Have a "Teflon Mind", letting experiences, feelings, and thoughts come into your mind and slip right out.  - Control your attention, but not what you see. Push away nothing. Cling to nothing.  - Be like a guard at a palace gate, alert to every thought, feeling, and action that comes through the gate of your mind.  - Step inside yourself and observe. Watch your thoughts coming and going, like clouds in the sky. Notice each feeling, rising and falling, like waves in the ocean. Notice exactly what you are doing.  - Notice what comes through your senses - your eyes, ears, nose, skin, tongue. See others' actions and expressions. "Smell the roses". Watch Your Thoughts Get in a comfortable position that won't cause you discomfort, with your feet on the floor and your back straight but not tense. Sit very still, breat...

Reasonable Mind is cool, rational, and task focused. When in reasonable mind, you are ruled by facts, reason, logic, and pragmatics. Values and feelings are not important. Emotional Mind is hot, mood-dependent, emotion focused. When in emotion mind, you are ruled by your moods, feelings, and urges to do or say things. Facts, reason, and logic are not important. Wise Mind is the wisdom within each person. Seeing the value of both reason and emotion. Bringing left brain and right brain together, the middle path. You must go within and integrate the two (thoughts and feelings). Wise mind is that part of each person that can know and experience the truth. It is where the person knows something to be true or valid. It is most always quiet. It has a certain peace. It is where a person knows something in a centered way. Wise mind depends on integrating all of the ways of knowing something by observing, analyzing logically and by experiencing our body sensations. We work towards a b...

Definition: Mindfulness means paying attention, In a particular way, In the present moment, And non-judgmentally. - Jon Kabat-Zinn Mindfulness is living life in awareness. Mindfulness is about being fully aware of whatever is happening at the present moment, without filters or the lens of judgment. Mindfulness consists of cultivating awareness of the mind and body and living in the here and now. Mindfulness is a practice that anyone can benefit from. The purpose of mindfulness is to be able to focus one's attention without judgment in order to have a choice instead of reacting and being driven by emotions. Being mindful helps us respond effectively. Mindfulness is a way of learning how to relate directly to your life. Because it's about your life, no one else can do it for you or tell you exactly how to do it. Fortunately, it isn't something you have to get or acquire. You already have it within you; it's simply a matter of being present. In fact, in the very...