Meditation and Mindfulness

How do mindfulness and meditation fit into therapy?

Can Mindfulness and Meditation Actually Improve Mental Health?

How Mindfulness and Meditation Fit in Therapy

Can Mindfulness and Meditation Actually Improve Mental Health?

The short answer is yes. The long answer is almost always going to be, it depends.

Here’s a little poem (I use that term loosely) about what I know::

Meditation is a skill. 

Mindfulness activities are skills too. 

Skills take time to learn. 

Learning is hard. 

Once a skill is learned, practice is a must.

Do you see how “it depends” really fits in here? 

Knowing when and where to be deliberate with these skills is usually where I see people get tripped up.

Let’s get some definitions of these terms so there’s little confusion as we move forward.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is a loaded word these days, so stick with me, and we’ll see if we can find the right course of action for you. 

Let’s get a few misconceptions out of the way first.

Mindfulness is NOT:

• Only feeling happy

• Only feeling calm

• Avoidance of negative feelings

• Avoidance of anger

• Controlling your emotions

• Dissociation or daydreaming

My preferred working definition of mindfulness is paying attention to what’s happening right now, in the present moment. It means being fully aware of your thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations without judging them as good or bad.

When someone practices mindfulness, you focus on the present instead of worrying about the past or future. It can help you feel more calm, focused, and less stressed. 

Mindfulness can be practiced in many ways, such as meditation, breathing exercises or simply paying attention to your surroundings. It’s a skill that can be learned and improved over time with a little deliberate practice. 

At the end of the day, mindfulness is being fully in the moment, whether it is calm, frustration, grief, anger or joy. 

Mindfulness is a full acknowledgement of the present moment. 

What is Meditation?

Very simply, as I mentioned, meditation is a skill. 

Meditation can be used to train and focus your attention or to open your awareness to be more fully present in your mind, body and surroundings. Meditation is a practice used to train your attention and awareness. Folks use meditation to bring mental clarity and practice returning or getting to a state of calm. 

We do have to be really deliberate with these skills though.

And they are skills. These are not activities that people just know. 

Problems can arise when they are oversimplified though.

Meditation is NOT “Just Sitting”

I once had a meditation teacher say, “It’s just sitting.” 

And while he had a point, it came across in a very judgmental way, and he came back later to mention that .

A group of us, strangers with a shared desire to deepen our meditation practices, were on a weekend long retreat. It was Day 3 and we were all dragging. 

The temperatures were in the 90’s that weekend, 80’s at night, no AC, 2 nights of fitful, hot sleep, and early waking. The structure was something like 25 minutes of meditation and 5 minutes to walk, take a break, stand, or stretch. Many of us were lying down to take tiny cat naps on our breaks. It was when 75% of us were lying on our backs trying to sleep that this comment was said… along with a pretty disapproving look from the instructor. 

At that point, hearing, “It’s just sitting,” when we are all trying our best to fully participate with our physical limitations, certainly wasn’t encouraging, or useful.

And as the teacher later clarified, he had been caught in his own frustration of seeing a bunch of “meditation practitioners” dropping like flies because we were so tired and mentally drained from the focus of the weekend.

Paying attention can be really hard. 

Mediation trains us to bring our attention back to the present over and over and over again. 

A meditation retreat is a very specific context to practice in. 

Most folks can use an app or a youtube channel and have wonderful results. 

Be careful not to oversimplify if the context (environment, physical experience and emotional experience) are being ignored in doing so.

How Can Mindfulness Backfire?

WTF “mindfulness and meditation”? Gotcha :) I mean “What’s The Function?”

Skills are meant to function in certain ways.

If we use a skill or a tool for the wrong purpose it might still work, but more likely than not you're gonna have a bad time.

There’s a saying about how a broken clock is still right twice a day… just because it works once out of a ton of tries doesn’t mean it’s an efficient or effective use of that skill.

You’ll need a bit of training before these skills become the life changers so many people shout from the rooftops about. 

Be aware of your expectations. 

Awareness of your thoughts and beliefs about what you expect from a new mindfulness or meditation practice is really important.

My Top 3 Tips in Adopting Any Mindfulness Skill

• Name it. This may be the toughest part for some folks. Can you name your feeling or physical experience? Is it sadness, frustration, worry, delight? Is your body tense? Are you clenching your jaw? Are you slouching? Are you comfortable in your seat? Naming what is happening, right now, is the best place to start.

• Be gentle. There isn’t a hard and fast rule about any of this stuff. No one is grading you. And if you are someone who needs a grade, (shoutout to my fellow perfectionists) it is pass/try again, as there are no failures when practicing.

• Be curious. If you notice your brow scrunching up because you’re thinking so hard about what the emotion is… start there.  

• Example: “I notice my brow/forehead is scrunching up.” Asking yourself what that feels like may be the easiest thread to pull. What does a scrunched up brow feel like? Is it a strained experience, do you like the way it feels? See if you can notice if anything changes just by paying attention.

Mindfulness and Meditation Benefits In Therapy

Mindfulness and meditation are wonderful tools to support your mental health and wellbeing. They can be extremely effective skills to support therapy, helping you to accept the emotions that come with difficult situations rather than attempting to stifle them or push them away.

Having awareness of our inner experience opens doors for healing and change. 

Using mindfulness in therapy can help you become more aware of underlying patterns in your thoughts and emotions so you can better understand how they may be influencing your actions. 

Through meditation you can engage in personal reflection while gaining a greater sense of self-love.

 All of this combined allows individuals to approach their problems from a new perspective, or gain deeper insight into potential solutions without feelings of frustration or stress dominating their experience.

I hope this helps clarify how these skills can support your therapy process and ultimately, your daily life. 

Begin where you are and please reach out if further support will be useful to you.