Always we hope
someone else has the answer.
some other place will be better,
some other time it will all turn out.
This is it.
no one else has the answer.
no other place will be better,
and it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
you have the answer;
you know who you are
and you know what you want.
There is no need
to run outside
for better seeing.
Nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being;
for the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart
and see
the way to do
is to be.
--Lao Tzu
To me, the therapeutic process is about helping people “abide at the center of their being” and to “ search their hearts and see”…
No matter what, we will experience suffering in life. People will come and go, we’ll have times of failure as well as success, we may experience sickness or traumas. And this suffering can naturally lead to fear and worry and sadness. When we become overwhelmed by these experiences and don’t have access to our own innate ability to navigate them, anxiety and depression occur. Often this happens when we either turn inward and criticize and blame our selves for whatever is happening, or we turn outward and blame others, or even life itself.
Mindfulness-based therapy is about cultivating space between “action and reaction”. When we expand our ability to “pause” in a compassionate way during stressful events, we increase our ability to make new choices… choices that are not based on automatic or habitual reactions. It’s about creating more kindness and consciousness in our lives and gaining greater access to our own rich inner resources and using them to create a more fulfilling and balanced life.
Mindful self compassion provides powerful tools for emotional resilience. Mindfulness is the first step in emotional healing - being able to become aware of and turn towards and acknowledge our difficult thoughts and feelings with a spirit of openness and curiosity. Self-compassion involves responding to these difficult thoughts and feelings with kindness, sympathy and understanding. Both being mindful and compassionate leads to greater ease and well-bing in our daily lives.
Benefits from Mindfulness-Based Therapy include:
- Decreases in anxiety and depression
- Improving communication skills
- Increasing self-awareness and self-compassion
- Increasing attentiveness
- Decreasing reactivity/impulsivity
- Decreasing stress