Mindfulness,Psychotherapy,amp, DIY Mindfulness Psychotherapy & Counseling: Boulder Center f

When starting a new work at home business it is very easy to become consumed by it. We spend so much time trying to get the business up and running that we may end up becoming burned out and lose our motivation. There is so much to learn and Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in

What is mindfulness and why are so manypsychotherapists and counsellors now incorporating mindfulness into theirpractices?There is no doubt that mindfulness hasbecome a buzz word that is attracting considerable interest, especially afterthe tremendous success of the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) andMindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn andothers. Such mindfulness-based programs have now become the method of choicefor effective stress management and are having a major effect on how weapproach psychotherapy and the management of anxiety and depression.Of course, mindfulness was central to theBuddha’s path of enlightenment and awakening, so the practice of mindfulnesshas been around for a very long time. Today we are gaining a new appreciationof the remarkable place that mindfulness has in our own lives as a tool forhealing the mental afflictions that assail us and the conflict and violenceendemic in our world. Now, more than ever, people from around the world arere-investigating this ancient state of consciousness that has remained centralto Buddhist meditation and practice. Mindfulness itself is a remarkably simplepractice, and the full understanding of the principle of mindfulness is easilyoverlooked and poorly understood. But we are already faced by many conceptsthat have central importance in our lives, but which cannot be easilyunderstood, except through approaching them over and over again at differenttimes and from different angles. Love is one such concept, as is God andBuddha.The other important consideration to appreciate,before we attempt to define mindfulness, is that the word is multi-dimensionaland incorporates several different qualities of conscious awareness, which Iwill attempt to outline below. First and foremost, mindfulness, or sati in the Pali language used at the time of the Buddha, means to befully aware of what is happening as it is happening. It is the opposite ofdaydreaming and absent-mindedness and the usual condition of habitualreactivity that governs most of our waking consciousness. In its most basicaspect, mindfulness means to remember to be present and this means to be ableto recognize when we are not mindful. This I call the RECOGNITION function ofmindfulness.            Mostof the time, we are not aware of ourselves, but simply react out of habit. Thishappens, and I react that way. He says this, and I feel hurt. She says this,and I react by becoming angry. Such patterns of reactivity are very common inour personal relationships and are at the root of most marital conflict andsuffering. We just cannot seem to stop ourselves reacting. This is a universalproblem that affects not only our relationships with people and partners, butalso how we relate to our inner experience and emotions. We seldom reallyexperience our inner suffering, anxiety or depression, but most often all thatwe experience are the products of our reactivity. We may feel anxious, butinstead of focusing our attention on this feeling, we become embroiled inreactive thinking and worrying. The original emotional complex becomesrepressed and frozen in the recesses of the mind where it will continue tofester and generate suffering.            Itis also a universal principle that if we are unable to be present for our innersuffering, or to be present with our tendency to react, then nothing willchange. If we cannot be fully present for our partner, then we cannot learn howto relate differently and more skilfully. Therefore, it is absolutely essentialthat we wake up and learn to recognize our reactions and get to know them ingreat detail. This marks the beginning of the path to change and transformationand the healing of conflict and suffering. Mindfulness is a process of tuningin to what is happening in our minds so that we can recognize when we arebecoming reactive so that we introduce the element of choice. This choice aboutwhether to react or not may be very brief, but it is a beginning and a soundfoundation for transformation.            Thefirst function of mindfulness is, therefore, about learning to be present andaware of reactivity. It is simply learning to show up for your own experience,rather than being compelled down a path of mental activity that takes youfurther and further away from the present. However, this is only the beginningof mindfulness. Recognition is a great skill to learn, but mindfulness hasmuch, much more to offer. The second dimension of mindfulness is learning toestablish a relationship with whatever you are experiencing - whether this isyour inner experience of a painful emotion, or outer experience of yourpartner.            Mindfulnessdescribes a particular form of awareness that is present-centered, direct andnon-reactive towards an object of awareness. It is best described as thecombination of PRESENCE and INVESTIGATION in which there is an openness of mindand heart to fully experience and know what is present in our field ofawareness. Presence is one of the most important components of sensitivelistening as when we are listening to a friend who is suffering. As we knowfrom experience, simply being there with him or her in this way with completeattention and presence is often more important than what we say or do. In thissame way, learning to be fully present for our emotional suffering is highlytherapeutic and is perhaps one of the major contributions to the healingprocess. When we can be fully present for our experience, then it respondsquite naturally by unfolding and differentiating - we simply start to see andexperience more. This is a natural consequence of a mindfulness-basedrelationship: the movement from the superficial first appearance of things toan awareness of a much deeper structure; the movement from the gross to thesubtle; from falseness to truth. If you look with a mind that is open, you willdiscover more than if you simply react out of habit.            Thissecond dimension of mindfulness which allows us to see more of the truth andfine inner structure of our emotions and reactions not only gives us morematerial to solve our problems, but actually opens us to the intuitivedimension of experience and the natural innate intelligence that already knowshow to heal conflict and suffering, but is hidden from us by our reactivity.Therefore, there is a third dimension to mindfulness: THE TRANSFORMATIONALDIMENSION in which the psyche heals itself through intuitive awareness andintuitive intelligence. Over and over again, I find that my clients alreadyknow how to resolve their anxiety, depression or even phobias and post-traumaticstress. But, the solutions are very subtle and this demands a very refinedquality of listening and investigation at the core level of their suffering andconflicts. This is where mindfulness really comes to its own, because thequality of sensitivity and subtle attention to detailed that is developedduring mindfulness psychotherapy creates the ideal environment and space inwhich transformation can occur.The healing effects of mindfulness are often likened to the warming and life-giving effect of sunlight. Our inner suffering is caused by emotional energy that becomes frozen in place around core beliefs and patterns of negative thinking. Illuminating this frozen energy is like opening the curtains and allowing the sun's rays to shine on a block of ice: It responds to the sunlight by spontaneously melting. The same happens when we illuminate painful emotions with mindfulness: It promotes direct healing.