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Mindfulness editorial essay
Mindfulness editorial essay
Mindfulness editorial essay
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Learning about teaching positive and challenging emotions and the applications of mindfulness in the process reveals the power of Mindfulness Meditation in the process of healing, and how important it is for us, facilitators to be aware of this process.
Trauma is the “left over” of what challenging experiences leave in our bodies. Mindfulness practice can help one connect with positive emotional and social experiences, stimulating parts of the brain linked to reflective awareness. The brain holds the key to the roots and treatment of trauma. By becoming mindful of emotions, one becomes aware of the integration of sensation, memories, and how experience is organized in a context, allowing the exploration of present experiences to be the
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There are two parts to mindfulness, one is self-regulating attention and the other is developing curiosity, openness and acceptance toward experiences. When dealing with trauma one has to become aware of how difficult emotions can effect one’s life, and how it can cause effects in emotions, reactions, physical and emotional well being, often leading to anxiety, inability to regulate emotions and poor impulse control.
Through the practice of Mindfulness people dealing with trauma/challenges emotions can learn how to become compassionate towards self and others and become empowered to make different choices, and fell safe to be with one’s experience, and be available for modification.
It is very clear to me, as a facilitator, to understand the importance to offer gentle, non-judgmental support and guidance without trying to fix or change the outcome of the person I come in contact with. During the healing process of resolving trauma/challenging emotions, we need to be aware of giving people the power to trust their own intuition, keep your own ego out of the way, and make them fell safe enough to
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I want to assist the ones I facilitate to, by choosing the most skillful way in which to respond to unpleasant thought, feelings or situations, by providing a different view on their lives and by giving them the knowledge to be in the present, focusing in developing a more accepting mind, observing one’s emotions when it occurs by practicing equanimity and balance, and realize that thoughts come and go. It is important to reassure that we all have many choices, and that one of them is to breath in compassion to self and others. It’s important to train the mind to notice positive emotions and to identify a neutral moment, to come back to when things get overwhelmed. I have been helping my clients to develop the capacity to manage their own feelings when dealing with difficult emotions, and also providing compassion practices, as a powerful way to rebuild one’s own trust and sense of
This essay will first provide a general overview of HROs concept and then identify five characteristics of mindfulness which are consistently recognized as the aspect of HROs. In the second section, it will introduce the 'Normal Accident Theory' (NAT) by Charles Perrow. Finally, it will highlight the recommendations in improving the current emergency practice to be more effective.
If “teaching meditation or techniques of flexible, novel thinking…could be used to improve health and shorted illness earlier in life,” the lives of many individuals would drastically improve (Langer, 2014). Mindfulness encourages awareness and creative thought while providing the added benefits of improved health. For example, individuals who suffer from a great deal of stress on a daily basis may profit from the addition of meditation to their daily routine. Not only will this help them in the short term, but Langer also suggests that this strategy will improve health in the long term as well. People can use the mindfulness skill to help themselves cope with everyday stressors through meditation techniques and critical
Last Spring, as part of a senior project, I took Tai Chi classes and researched how meditation is used in mind/body medicine. I read several books by doctors who use meditation as a form of healing, in stress-reduction clinics and as treatment for people suffering from severe pain and panic disorders. One doctor in particular, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn teaches a method he calls mindfulness, in which he has his patients meditate in order to achieve total mind/body awareness. Zinn instructs patients to focus on their pain and to become aware of it. This often helps them realize that they can live with their pain. No pain is too extreme, he says, in the same way that no emotion is a wrong emotion. Awareness is the only absolute, and the only thing that allows people to live in the moment. Not live for the moment, but live in the moment.
Mindfulness is used as a therapy to treat many problems related to mental health such as stress, anxiety or even eating disorders (Hooker and Fodor, 2008). In addition majority of techniques used in mindfulness originate from Buddhist traditions (Rosenberg, 1998, Cited in Thompson and Gauntlett-Gilbert, 2008). Professionals working with children in mental health settings may find mindfulness applicable. The different techniques used in these types of settings teach self-awareness, increased impulse control and decreased emotional reactivity to difficult events (Thompson and Gauntlett-Gilbert). Research conducted on adults has shown that these effects can be obtained in the long term which suggests that mindfulness can be applied to children who are going through developmental challenges and have still yet to encounter
For thousands of years people have practiced mediation for spiritual, emotional, and physical well-being. Albeit there are many mediation types, in this paper I will be discussing and focusing on mindfulness mediation. Before further exploring mindfulness mediation, it is crucial to define mediation as a whole. Tang, Holzel, & Posner, 2016 state “Meditation can be defined as a form of mental training that aims to improve an individual’s core psychological capacities, such as attentional and emotional capacities” (p.213). Having that in mind, we can dive into mindfulness mediation. Mindfulness meditation is defined as “nonjudgmental attention to present-moment experiences (Tang, Holzel, & Posner, 2016).” A useful analogy to consider is going to the gym, going to the gym allows one to enhance the body, well similarly, practicing mindfulness is akin to taking the mind to the psychic gym, it enhances it. Mindfulness meditation involves focusing on your breathing and then bringing your mind’s attention to the present all while dismissing discursive thoughts and maintaining a special focus on breathing.
Psychotherapist and former Buddhist Monk Donald Altman once said, “If you truly want to change your life, you must first be willing to change your mind.” As research suggests, changing your mind can have drastic benefits for your personal health and well-being. Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as “the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally to the unfolding experience moment by moment.” (Mindfulness-Based Interventions in Context) “[T]he principles and practices associated with mindfulness have been applied within many of the world’s great spiritual or wisdom traditions for millennia, most notably in Buddhism.” (Dobkin and Hassed 9) In fact, it was a physician from the Rochester School
When mindfulness is thought of, mediation comes to mind. However, meditation is not the only way mindfulness is used. Mindfulness practices may have originated from Buddhism, yet mindfulness interventions are based on the philosophy that promotes positive outcomes for mental and physical health (Hardison & Roll, 2016). It is also defined at a state of
Researchers such as Hayes and Strosahl (2005) defines acceptance and commitment therapy (ACT) as an empirically based intervention technique from the cognitive behavior model of psychotherapy that employs mindfulness and acceptance methods mixed in various ways. Grounded within the practical concept of functional contextualism and based on the comprehensive idea of language and cognition, ACT is different from the normal or traditional cognitive behavioral therapy. The differences are manifested in the paradigm of instead of teaching people to control their emotions, ACT teaches them to acknowledge, accept and embrace the emotions and or feelings (Hayes, Louma, Bond, Masuda, & Lillis, 2006). Primarily, western traditions functions under the assumption of “healthy normality” which believes that humans are naturally psychologically healthy; however ACT contends that the “so-called” normal human mind is volatile and destructive. The nucleus concept of ACT is that psychological based suffering is caused by experimental averting, cognitive mess, and psychological inflexibility that lead to malfunctions in taking necessary behavioral steps in agreement with core values (Hayes et al, 2006).
To reach enlightenment in Buddhism, one must overcome attachment to the pleasure of peace. Gampopa defines the pleasure of peace as “the desire to achieve nirvana only for oneself without the altruistic mind for sentient beings, and because of it, one does not benefit others” which is also termed as the lesser vehicle (Gampopa, 126). The remedy for this is the practices of loving-kindness and compassion. When one develops this loving-kindness and compassion, then one will have a mind that wants all sentient beings to meet with happiness as well as be free from suffering and its cause. When one achieves this, then one is attached to all sentient beings and no longer wants to attain liberation only for oneself. Compassion is so heavily ingrained in Buddhist practices, that it has been noted that the Buddha had said “the cultivation of loving kindness and compassion is not just part of our practice, it is all of our practice” (Strain, “Compassion & Stoic Philosophy”). Compassion is not just a crucial aspect of the path to Enlightenment; practicing and training in compassion can function to improve the lives of those unconcerned with achieving Buddahood through means of improving health, well-being and increasing self-motivation. Considering the benefits that can come from compassion, everyone should take part in practicing and experiencing compassion as its benefits extend into other aspects of life.
#*Mindfulness meditation improves mental awareness of the present moment. If terrible thoughts or feelings occur, the individual can practice mindfulness by orienting his or her attention to slow, deep breathing, sensations in the environment, or by noticing how different parts of his body feels.
Therefore, in order to improve our effectiveness we must confront our own adaptive affective, behavioral, and cognitive coping responses to diversity and multicultural populations. As noted by Wallace (2005), adaptive affective coping refers to the concept of identifying and focusing on the positive attributes and strengths of a client, while “having positive expectations about this clients ability to change” and sustain the change behaviors over time (p. 144). A critical component of interactions is empathy, which is defined as an emotional state reached by using one’s own potential to feel in order to appreciate a client’s inner emotional experience, and it likely is the most significant factor related to the success of treatment. In addition to displaying empathy, it is important that counselors demonstrate respect, which is an affective state experienced as a consequence of “acknowledgement of another’s experience as valid, real, and worthy of recognition” (p. 147). Once respect is established, it opens the possibility for acceptance. Acceptance is defined as an affective state that results from appreciating a person’s current situation, “what’s going on with the person, and the nature of the person’s experience” (p.148). An important aspect of acceptance is remaining free from negative judgment, criticism, and disapproval of the person’s emotions and behaviors, values,
Living in the present allows me to live and tend to my thoughts and emotions that I often suppress or ignore. Working as a school counselor, I think that I will use mindfulness to help students with anxiety, behavior problems, and depression. I hope to use mindfulness in the future as I teach students how to use mindfulness in their own lives so that they can exist in the present and connect their mind with their body. Through using mindfulness in sessions with students and possibly in the classroom setting, I will give them a tool to help manage and become more self-aware of the thoughts and emotions they experience so they can learn how to better tend, express and manage them. However, without practicing mindfulness myself I would not have understood its power in the work of my client’s
Does sexual abuse or traumatic events in early childhood contributes to ones lack of awareness? In the article, "Exploring the relation between mindfulness, early childhood maltreatment, and temperamental traits", studies the correlation between mindfulness and temperamental traits. A brief description of mindfulness "is a way to pay attention to the present moment." The basically aspects of mindfulness are observing, describing, acting with awareness, non-judging, and non-reactivity; it will be used to if there are relations between emotional abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse, emotional neglect, and physical neglect.
Mayer and Salovey (2001) maintained that emotions help prioritise, decide, anticipate and plan one’s actions. In order to effectively manage one’s emotions, one must first learn to identify and recognise them accurately. They should not neglect their emotions as this will reflect lack of self-awareness. For example, when someone lost their loved ones, they choose to be in a state of denial allowing themselves to be drowned in depression and sickness. They refused to get away from feeling negative and find solutions to overcome their emotions. These group of people face difficulties in recognising, identifying and managing their emotions.
The main purpose of this chapter is: to illustrate that when we practice mindfulness, we are more aware of our senses and can more fully enjoy what they have to offer. Living in an overindulgent, demanding society, individuals lose sight of the simplicities. The five basic senses – sight, smell, taste, hearing, and touch – appear for many individuals at birth, resting unnoticed throughout life. With continuous stimulation from the external environment and internal factors, our senses do not turn on and off. Due to this continuous stimulation, individuals lose appreciation for their senses. By participating in mindfulness, an individual pulls himself or herself from reality, reflecting on their present experience.