The post Self-care with a chronic illness appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>
Written by Cathy Kramer, a buddhify user since 2016
In my continuous journey with rheumatoid arthritis, taking a little time each day to practice better self-care is something I make a priority. Meditation is one simple way I can show myself some love and appreciation.
Living with a chronic illness such as rheumatoid arthritis, you realize that pain has a way of taking up a lot of space in your head. It’s not only the physical pain experienced by joints you never even realized you had, but the constant fears of what this disease has in store for you. Will I be able to continue working? Will I be a good parent? A good wife? Will I live to my full potential?
Meditation is a way to refocus the pain and quiet the fears. Stress has a way of inflaming a body that is already upset. Taking a little time each day to shift my thoughts to positive ones greatly benefits my body.
As I prepare for my morning walk, I think, “What do my heart and body need today?” This can vary. Sometimes my body is flaring, and I need to deal with all the emotions that come with not feeling well. Other times, it’s been a difficult day in the news, I am experiencing stress as a parent, or I’m feeling drawn to focus on self-care just for me. I try to listen to what my heart is telling me it needs at that moment. Whatever it is, I can use meditation to work through how I am feeling before I get back to my day.
The insights I have during meditation return to me throughout the day and remind me to be kind to myself and others.
Before starting a meditation, I often feel my thoughts are fighting each other for space. As an introvert who craves quiet, this weighs me down and affects how my rheumatoid arthritis does that day. After a meditation, I feel like myself again. Taking a break for meditation allows all of my various thoughts to file themselves in my brain so that I am better organized to deal with them.
Transforming a love/hate relationship with meditation
In the past, I had a love/hate relationship with meditation. I loved the way I felt afterward and knew I needed more of it, but with a family that seems to never sleep and a highly energized dog, finding a quiet place to sit by myself was a struggle.
When I discovered the modern mindfulness approach, I was instantly hooked. I now can practice mindfulness sitting in a traditional meditation pose, or on a walk, while cooking or eating, in the car, and even while enjoying a bubble bath. The simplicity of this approach and the ability to make it my own is what draws me back each day.
Peace, gratitude, and love
The insights I have during meditation return to me throughout the day and remind me to be kind to myself and others.
My favorite type of meditation is loving-kindness. It is a nice way to focus on people I know, strangers, and myself. When I practice in this style, I often imagine kindness being dropped into my heart. Throughout the day, I might have a student who is challenging my patience and the image I saw during meditation of kindness in my heart comes back to me. I take a deep breath and feel my patience being restored. With a new mindset, I see my student feeling heard, which makes him/her feel happy and in turn, makes my body relax and smile inside.
When I practice in this style, I often imagine kindness being
dropped into my heart.
There are three words that come back to me over and over as I pass through my day — peace, gratitude, and love. A fellow driver needs to be let in, I have the peace and love in my heart to do that. I see a neighbor on my walk that looks to be in pain, something I understand well, I have the peace and love to say a kind word or give a simple smile. As I drive to work, I have the gratitude practice to say “thank you” for a job I love, for allowing me to get this far in life, and to have a home and family I get to go back to every day. All in all, it’s a nice reminder to hone in on what really matters in life.
Cathy Kramer is based in Naperville, Illinois, where she is an adult ESL/GED teacher. As a big fan of loving-kindness meditation, her favorite track is Kind (Meditation 101), which she often listens to on her daily walk. For more on the topics of rheumatoid arthritis, chronic illness, and self-care, check out her blog The Life and Adventures of Cateepoo.
If you feel you have learnt something important through your meditation practice and you’d like your share your insight or experience, we’d love to hear from you. Let Dana know via stories@buddhify.com and she’ll get in touch.
The post Self-care with a chronic illness appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>The post Why my meditative journey has been essential to my pain management appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>
Written by Samira Rajabi, a buddhify user since 2012
My chronic pain comes from a brain tumor called an acoustic neuroma. While these are typically benign tumors, they can still wreak havoc on the body by crushing important structures of the brain. Even after nearly a dozen surgeries, I’ve had to endure the loss of my balance nerve on one side, the complete loss of hearing, and continued constant headaches, muscle aches, and back pain.
As I work hard every day in physical therapy and trauma therapy to deal with the consequences of my health trauma, my meditative journey has been essential to my pain management.
When my pain ramps up, I am often not in a place where I can or want to medicate myself and sleep it off, so I look to meditation.
Be brave and keep going
My pain is very much tied up in fear and meditation has fundamentally changed the way I disentangle my feelings from my physical challenges.
Once when I was in the hospital awaiting a procedure for a spinal tap, I had a horrible headache come on. The stress of the anticipation, combined with the procedure prep on my body had left me tense, afraid, and in very real pain. I cried out to my mom and my partner that I could not continue forward on this path. Even through all my tears, I knew this procedure was important to guiding my next steps and that I had to endure it.
The pain had amplified and I was losing strength — I felt stuck as I writhed around on the gurney. In desperation, my partner encouraged me to try doing a meditation. I began to quiet my breathing, to let go of my attachment to the results of this moment, to accept my inability to control this pain, and to allow it to exist in a space of unknown future. Not knowing how long this pain would last, I was able to open up space for the possibility that it may not last long at all, at least not in its severity. This mindful approach enabled me to be brave and keep going.
The practice of noting and naming
I find it very beneficial to “get out of my head” — meaning to get out of the spiral of fear pain can cause, and instead note what my body is actually doing. There have been many situations where I’ve noted the pounding in my head, the pulsating of the muscles in my neck. Though these sensations certainly give me pause, as I attempt to regulate my breath and release my fixation on how bad it hurts, the pain and breathing form a rhythm of their own.
At times, the practice of noting my pain and naming a realistic aspiration has moved me to tears in the best way. While the pain is still there, I become less fixated on it, I stop worrying so much about it. I remember that my aspirations are small and simple. “I can continue to exist in my life, even as I allow my pain to exist.”
I have released myself from the constant need to fix my pain and instead I am sort of walking alongside it.
This helps me focus less on fixing my body, and more on accepting it and letting the pain run its course. In finding comfort in the unknown, I have also found acceptance of my body. I have released myself from the constant need to fix my pain and instead I am sort of walking alongside it.
Finding a space for healing
Meditation has not been my only saving grace, but it’s been a big one. When my pain ramps up, I am often not in a place where I can or want to medicate myself and sleep it off, so I look to meditation. I push myself to integrate it into my life.
With mindfulness, I can typically interrupt the pain cycles before they hit. I like to meditate when I walk home from work, to make sure I don’t bring home the stress of the day; in the morning, so I wake up energized and calm; and while I walk my pups, since that’s an activity that had previously triggered headaches.
I now find myself unphased by the frenetic energy of the city and the frantic energy of my heart beating fast against my chest when my pain comes on. My practice helps me be calm and calm just helps chronic pain, so even when my meditation is not directly about my pain, it’s always about my pain and I’m finding a space for healing in all of it.
Samira Rajabi is based in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. She has found the technique introduced in Care (Pain & Illness) to be extremely helpful.
If you feel you have learnt something important through your meditation practice and you’d like your share your insight or experience, we’d love to hear from you. Let Dana know via stories@buddhify.com and she’ll get in touch.
The post Why my meditative journey has been essential to my pain management appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>The post Keeping anxiety monsters at bay with meditation appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>
By Cristin M., a buddhify user since 2012
Like many people, Cristin began meditating to keep her anxiety in check. But unlike most, she didn’t start by sitting. As a runner, yogi, and cycle commuter, she found active meditation to be a more natural path into practice.
I came into meditation as a means to help with my anxiety. I’ve always struggled with both depression and anxiety — it’s never been what I would classify as severe, but I’ve had periods where things were difficult. I had gone the medication route, but it didn’t feel right so I looked to alternative methods. I found cognitive behavioural therapy, being active (I run, do yoga, pole fitness, and cycle commute), and meditation were good ways to manage and cope.
Active meditations
With the meditation piece, I initially hit a roadblock. I had problems just sitting still and breathing, mostly because anxiety monsters would enter my mind. The little voices would say “You’re not meditating well enough”, “You’re not doing this right”, “Your breathing is wrong,” and things of that sort. This kept me from sitting.
Active meditations quieted those demons straight-away.
Luckily, I discovered walking and travel meditations. Active meditations quieted those demons straight-away. Focusing on my movement, focusing on my tasks, that pulled me straight out. Learning tricks to be mindful and knowing I could walk, stand, and be present kept the anxiety monsters at bay.
Practice, not perfect
In terms of evolution, I can actually do sitting meditations now on my own as well, because of the techniques I have learned over six years of meditating. Growth has come through gentle reminders and forgiving myself if this time around felt imperfect or uncomfortable — accepting my experience will change each time. I also accept that mindfulness is a ‘practice’ and not a ‘perfect’!
Recently I missed my yoga class. I wrote the time down wrong. It happens. Back six years ago, I would’ve been in hysterics because this yoga class is really good. The instructor is incredible and it’s exercise, meditation, and mindfulness — the whole package. Instead of breaking down, I went straight home, dealt with what I could control (making sure my calendar had the right times for next class), and then sat for a bit to breathe.
Growth has come through gentle reminders and forgiving myself if this time around felt imperfect.
Using mindfulness, I acknowledged my sadness and anger, and I also forgave myself for a simple error — it happens. I then spent time with my breath, which was fast, and worked through what was happening in the present moment. I accepted I was ‘practicing’ and not ‘perfect’ and I was able to keep myself in check.
Maintenance & repair
I focus on goals to help with anxiety and I work annually to review how I’m doing. I’ve set a reasonable target to spend 5 minutes ‘meditating’ however I choose — travelling, walking, or right before bed. For everyday stress, like when my mind is flooded with all the things I need to do, making time for practice helps me to let go of the noise and chatter in my head in a kind way.
Meditation also continues to get me through flare-ups and difficult spots. If I’m actively struggling with anxiety or depression, especially when I’ve had an event trigger an attack or need to retreat, mindfulness is part of my coping strategy.
Creating space, exploring the uncomfortable or worry in a gentle way — that’s where I can usually calm whatever my anxiety monsters have come up with at the moment.
I actually have written down the phrase ‘I am the sky’ and keep it posted as a reminder to the Rain meditation. It’s important to remember emotions come and go but I can find a fixed point, especially when things get stormy in my head. Creating space, exploring the uncomfortable or worry in a gentle way — that’s where I can usually calm whatever my anxiety monsters have come up with at the moment.
Cristin M. is based in Oxford, England. She likes to clear her head with ‘This’ or ‘Flex’ from Travelling 1 and ‘Still’ or ‘Step’ from Walking 1.
If you feel you have learnt something important through your meditation practice and you’d like your share your insight or experience, we’d love to hear from you. Let Dana know via stories@buddhify.com and she’ll get in touch.
The post Keeping anxiety monsters at bay with meditation appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>The post Mindfulness for boosting well-being and effectiveness at work appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>
Written by Hayley Lever, a buddhify user since 2016
In my current leadership role, I spend my time in back-to-back meetings, seminars, and conference-style events. On an average day, I am talking, listening, and interacting with 20 to 30 people. I am always thinking, planning, reflecting and working out ways to keep things moving in a positive direction. Making time for mindfulness breaks throughout the day helps me find calm amidst the frenzy.
I am a serial doer, rarely stopping to be. Whilst taking the train to work, I am often reading papers or getting on top of emails before the day begins in earnest. In between meetings, as I walk across town, the temptation is to check emails on my phone and make calls. I have to fight the urge to keep ‘doing’ all the time.
Meditation and mindfulness practice doesn’t come naturally or easily to me. But when I have a million thoughts and plans rushing through my head, making time for it during the workday is amazing for my well-being and my effectiveness. A simple pause can have a knock-on effect that positively impacts the way that I interact with others and the work I do for the remainder of the day.
There are many occasions when this practice has been absolute gold. If I am being more mindful, I’ll close my eyes and meditate during my commute. What I notice when I do this, rather than work up to the second the train pulls into the station, is that I arrive calm and ready for the day. My mood is lighter.
A simple pause can have a knock-on effect that positively impacts the remainder of the day.
When there is conflict, tension, or struggle in my day, these mindfulness breaks are also powerful. Regular meditation develops the habit of a breathing space. So even in the middle of a meeting, if things are difficult, or I am having a negative emotional reaction to something that someone has said or done, I can remember to breathe. With some deep breaths, I am able to take my ego and emotion out of the situation and gain perspective.
I find a similar approach to be really useful ahead of public speaking, which is another significant part of my role. Arriving at a conference or event, there is so much going on. I have my speech or presentation whizzing around my head with the usual anxiety about talking in front of a room full of strangers. I am often still sitting with the content — working out whether the approach and style of it is right for the situation. On top of that, there’s making sure the tech is all working, meeting people as the coffee is served, and building up the courage to speak.
With some deep breaths, I am able to take my ego and emotion out of the situation and gain perspective.
I have realised that I need to take myself away from all this for a few minutes before the event starts. Preferably, I go outside to look to the sky and breathe the fresh air, but in a worst case scenario, it’s going to hide away from the chatter in a toilet cubicle! Either way, I do three things. I meditate, I breathe, and as a wise woman told me once, I ‘put on my big girl pants’ before I go back to deliver my speech. When I do this, the results are fantastic.
Meditation gives me clarity of thought and a level of calm in an often frenetic life.
It’s all about taking a momentary mental step away to prepare for whatever is next. As a whole, using meditation on the job and in the rest of my life makes me a nicer person. It gives me clarity of thought and a level of calm in an often frenetic life.
Hayley Lever is based in Manchester, England.
If you feel you have learnt something important through your meditation practice and you’d like to share your insight or experience, we’d love to hear from you. Let us know via stories@buddhify.com and we’ll be in touch.
The post Mindfulness for boosting well-being and effectiveness at work appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>The post A beginner’s take on body scan meditation appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>
By Valérie W., a buddhify user since 2018
Valérie has been exploring multiple tools in order to cope with recently diagnosed Borderline Personality Disorder as well as C-PTSD, depression, and anxiety. Since discovering mindfulness within therapy groups, she’s been meditating almost every single day. Here’s a new insight that has been enriching her meditational practice.
I didn’t initially see the point of body scan technique, until I made the connection that if we can more easily notice what’s happening in the body, we can correlate it with the mind. Once we recognize how things are during particular mental states and that the body reactions follow the mind, we can change the mind by physically changing the body.
For me, when I experience anxiety, I have a tight chest and shallow breathing. By opening up the chest, breathing deeply, and adjusting my posture, I am able to shift my mood. This was a huge eureka! moment for me, and it’s helped quite a bit.
The scanning process has helped a great deal with the difficult question posed by therapists “How are you feeling?” My previous answer was typically “I don’t know.” Now I do a quick scan and ask my body how I’m feeling, and it (usually) tells me! Extremely cool.
The more I practice, the more confident I feel. Tapping into my own ability to heal and center has helped my confidence and self-sufficiency. When I feel the edge of a panic attack, or just start feeling particularly stressed, I’ve found meditation gets me back on track faster than anything else.
I don’t think there’s an area in my life that doesn’t benefit from meditation and mindfulness. When dealing with depression, everything from getting up in the morning to falling asleep at night can be a challenge. That’s why I’ve tried to find ways to practice various techniques throughout the day.
Aside from being a tool to calm panic attacks, I’ve now incorporated meditation to my wake up, sleep, and work routines. It continually provides a rare moment of calm and helps to keep me centered. Since I started meditating several months ago, I find myself dealing with far fewer symptoms on the days that I practice compared to the occasional day that I miss.
Valérie W. is based in Portland, Oregon. To give this body-awareness technique a try, check out Scan (Meditation 101).
If you feel you have learnt something important through your meditation practice and you’d like to share your insight or experience, we’d love to hear from you. Let us know via stories@buddhify.com and we’ll be in touch.
The post A beginner’s take on body scan meditation appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>The post How meditation helps me face the challenges of living with a chronic illness appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>
Written by Cat R., a buddhify user since 2016
I have chronic vertigo and vestibular neuronitis, the latter of which is an invisible disability that can affect cognitive function as well as physical balance. In a nutshell, I feel drunk all the time and it’s really not as fun as it sounds when you’re trying to live a normal life. The whole experience is incredibly isolating and frequently results in anxiety, which impedes recovery.
At times, the physical symptoms of an acute vertigo attack are so distressing for me it leads to an anxiety attack. This means I am overcome by a wave of emotions and panic as well as the physical spinning sensations and nausea of vertigo. As I become panicky and start to hyperventilate, this only makes the situation worse. I’ve had to lie down on the bathroom floor before as I was so disorientated.
I am overcome by a wave of emotions and panic as well as the physical spinning sensations and nausea of vertigo.
I find any increase in my physical symptoms can cause a rush of stressful thoughts about what’s wrong with me and what it means for my future. This anxiety can quickly spiral out of control and it can be difficult to break through the internal noise.
Letting go with guided meditation
One coping strategy that helps is to focus on a guided meditation.
I recently suffered an immensely distressing relapse. When this vertigo attack hit, I found it particularly upsetting because I was still recovering from my last one over a year ago, which had a really negative effect on many aspects of my life.
My partner tried to help me calm down, but I just couldn’t respond. So I got him to open the buddhify app for me and select a meditation I had saved in my favourites. The specific track is called ‘Replace’ and it does just that — the intention is to help you replace the stream of negative thoughts and overwhelming feelings of panic with a feeling calm. As soon as it started playing, my mental focus changed.
I can regulate my breathing to follow the mantra, so it feels like the negative thoughts are leaving my body as I exhale.
The exercise is all about tuning into the one gentle phrase of ‘let go’. I can regulate my breathing to follow the mantra, so it feels like the negative thoughts are leaving my body as I exhale. Although it takes me a few minutes to slow my breathing, I gradually begin to calm down.
Over the past year, since my previous vertigo attack, I have been trying to develop a regular meditation habit in order to keep my stress levels low and my chronic dizziness to a minimum, so when I was in the middle of another attack it was reassuringly soothing to hear the familiar meditation.
Pressing reset
Once I’ve meditated, I immediately notice I feel much calmer and lighter throughout my body and mind. It’s like I have pressed a reset button and am regaining control. The tension has gone from my body, my heart rate and breathing are slower, and my mind is quiet, like waking up from a refreshing sleep.
Sometimes I need to give myself a few minutes to fully bring myself back into the world. With renewed clarity, I’m better able to focus on what needs to be done in the here and now rather than letting my anxiety overwhelm me.
It’s like I have pressed a reset button and am regaining control.
As the day goes on, negative thoughts may begin to creep back in, but if I have meditated I find I continue to be more mindful and notice my thoughts before they take over. I might breathe deeply and repeat ‘let go’ to myself a few times without needing to do the full meditation again.
The road to recovery
Not only did meditation get me through the acute attack, but it has also been helpful as I try to meet the challenges of everyday life. My rehabilitation clinician is a strong advocate of mindfulness and meditation as an invaluable tool alongside physical rehabilitation exercises, so I’ve made it a priority to develop a routine.
My meditation experience has taught me that mindfulness doesn’t just happen — it takes work and it’s important to practise when times are easier because then, in the midst of difficult situations, mindfulness starts to come more naturally and can be a powerful tool. By practising meditation more regularly, I’ve stopped experiencing panic attacks because I’ve learnt to notice my emotions and physical sensations sooner and allow myself time to regulate them through breathing.
My rehabilitation clinician is a strong advocate of mindfulness and meditation as an invaluable tool alongside physical rehabilitation exercises.
Some days are tough, but I generally have a more positive outlook and have learnt to focus on the present and be grateful for the pleasurable moments in each day, however small. Although I do have many worries about the future, my practice helps me lower my stress levels day-to-day, which gives me a better chance of recovery in the long term. It’s helped me find peace within myself over the past few months and given me strength in the belief I can get through my current episode of illness.
Cat R. is based in Manchester, England. It was Replace (Stress & Difficult Emotion 1), which she has saved as a favourite, that she found to be reassuring when she was distressed.
If you feel you have learnt something important through your meditation practice and you’d like to share your insight or experience, we’d love to hear from you. Let us know via stories@buddhify.com and we’ll be in touch.
The post How meditation helps me face the challenges of living with a chronic illness appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>The post The Highs and Lows of Customer Service appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>
By Pärtel Unga
As with any app or product, people often get in touch with us to share feedback or ask questions about buddhify. A big part of my role is to respond to these messages that come through and over the years, I’ve been lucky to have people share their personal experiences around mindfulness and meditation with me. These experiences have not only informed our approach to customer service, but have also consistently provided us some moments of reflections about our own lives as well.
Using Front to consolidate all our channels
There are many different channels that people reach us through; Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and of course, email. Because we are quite a small team, having a clear structure to our customer service process is particularly important in making sure we can respond to any messages that come through.
To make sure that we are all on the same page, we use software called Front. This helps us simply see all our messages across a range of email addresses and social media accounts, so we don’t have to constantly switch between them to respond. It also allows us to assign messages to other team members in cases where someone has better knowledge on a specific topic or issue and allows us to keep our archives nice and tidy with a simple tagging system. We’ve been an early user of Front – they have a great product and a really helpful and responsive team and and we’d definitely recommend it. Outside of Front, we also respond to reviews on the App Store and Play Store. These channels can give us a quick indicator of how the app is doing, especially shortly after we have released a new update. If there’s a little spike of negative reviews coming through, it’s a good bet that something has slipped through the net of testing and so we start relaying any useful information to our developers.
The ups...
Guided meditation apps are by design an intimate experience. A meditation track becomes a guiding voice in your head, helping you navigate a range of different experiences, be they positive, negative, or even neutral. That’s why a special part of our customer service is the number of people that get in touch with us to share their experiences with meditation and in many cases, how buddhify helps foster these experiences.
Hearing about the different ways buddhify has impacted people using it is without a doubt the most wonderful part about working on it. Whether it’s for a better night’s sleep, for calm in the midst of intense difficulty and emotions, or for simply the curiosity for meditation and the mind. Whatever it may be, we so appreciate it when people share these experiences with us and provide us a moment of reflection through compassion and empathy. We even have a dedicated tag called ‘LovelyFeedback’ for emails that are sure to give us a little boost for days when we need it.
...and the downs
Now of course a large part of customer service is also listening to and dealing with issues and criticism. And just like with the positive feedback, it can feel much more emotionally charged because of the personal nature of people’s experience with meditation. Initially, the hardest part is to not take it personally because it’s easy to feel as if criticism directed at your work also reflects on you as a person. Learning to separate the two is not only healthier for your mental well-being, but it also allows you to respond to criticism with much more sensibility and composure. Inevitably, there will always be some frustration involved because no matter how quickly we resolve an issue or question, it always feels like we can approach it better and faster. That’s just part of the process.
The power of human responses
As a team, we really value the personal interactions we have with people using buddhify. We make sure we all take some time to read and respond to people and do so by each having allocated days where we do just that. Perhaps the most surprising part of this process has been noticing that the very act of getting back to people with a personal response can diffuse the negative experience they are reporting to us. There seems to be an expectation for an automated or curated response that doesn’t necessarily acknowledge the issue or emotions they are facing. Yet we’ve come across numerous occasions where someone has left us a negative review or message and reversed their response entirely after someone from our team has responded to them. I think this is especially the case because it’s the core team behind the app who respond to messages and not just an outsourced customer service desk. That personal and direct aspect of our approach really does make a difference.
Whether it’s a question, suggestion, a story, or simply just saying hello, get in touch with us at hello@buddhify.com. It’s always lovely to hear from you.
The post The Highs and Lows of Customer Service appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>The post Beating depression with total acceptance appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>
Written by Daniel Sleat, a buddhify user since 2015
With depression and mental health issues, Daniel has discovered from personal experience that the route to recovery and a healthy mind often comes through speaking openly with others and sharing useful tips. That’s why he wants to pay it forward and share his own wisdom about getting better. Spoiler alert: mindfulness is part of the equation.
A few years ago I was suffering from anxiety and depression. I had overworked my mind with overthinking, worrying, and other bad habits like these. When my mind became tired, anxiety symptoms were triggered. I then fell into the classic trap of worrying about these symptoms — the anxiety cycle.
This is the anxiety trap, because identifying with the thoughts adds extra work on a tired mind and keeps it trapped in that state.
What I did wrong was to then deeply engage and identify with these thoughts. “Why do I feel this symptom?”, “Oh gosh, what is happening now?”, and it spirals from there. This is the anxiety trap, because identifying with the thoughts adds extra work on a tired mind and keeps it trapped in that state.
All the mind wants at this stage is to be left alone to get better and repair. There is a lot you can do to slow down that process or make it more difficult, particularly overthinking. However, there is very little you can do to speed it up — patience is critical.
Finding my own route to recovery
A combination of things helped me break free of this pattern: a low dose of antidepressant medication, mindfulness, and also properly understanding anxiety and how to then get better. My biggest tip for someone feeling unwell with anxiety/depression is to first understand what is happening and get familiar with the different phases the mind goes through.
The next stage is to find a route to recovery that is right for you and try to stick with it. In my experience, I found that the explanation from Paul David and Dr. Claire Weekes of what anxiety is and how its symptoms manifest themselves to resonate. Their work based on acceptance made a lot of sense to me, and alongside mindfulness, it gave me a platform to get back to normal.
The acceptance piece
In my case, putting this idea of total acceptance into place has deepened my connection with mindfulness. Only recently did I truly come to understand the intention is not to stop a thought, but rather to accept it — to recognize and allow it, but not engage or identify with it.
Grasping this helps me with some of the very things that initially led me to be unwell — in particular with overthinking, worrying, and obsessive thoughts/fears. What a vital tool it is to learn to simply let thoughts and feelings come and go. I no longer have to waste time or energy engaging in the anxiety cycle. Now I can recognize when my mind is tired at the moment, let it run through the thought patterns it wants to, and come to peace.
It is a continual process of growth, rather than something where you reach a specific point or end state.
Mindfulness is not always easy and my experience with it changes over time. It is a continual process of growth, rather than something where you reach a specific point or end state. For this reason, I’ve found it beneficial in different ways at different times — being present more, deepening a sense of gratitude, and also continuing to understand and reinforce the difference between me and my mind.
Daniel Sleat is based in London, England. He recommends Names (Stress & Difficult Emotion 1) in particular, which he noted is great for recognising and accepting thoughts, but not engaging with them.
If you feel you have learnt something important through your meditation practice and you’d like to share your insight or experience, we’d love to hear from you. Let us know via stories@buddhify.com and we’ll be in touch.
The post Beating depression with total acceptance appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>The post PTSD treatment: Where meditation fits in appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>
Written by Céline Paris, a buddhify user since 2015
Céline is a psychologist who specializes in military PTSD and police resilience. She recently wrote a book explaining the what and how of PTSD and cites meditation as an essential resource. Here’s why it is something she warmly recommends to all of her patients.
PTSD is about being stuck in high gear, physiologically. Meditation fits in at the first stage of therapy, just as the person is learning about their symptoms. The first task is to discover how to downshift and get some control over their mind and nervous system before they can begin the hard part of therapy, which means reliving the worst time of their life.
Guided meditation is a way to go back in with someone holding their hand, the first step to taking back their turf.
People with anxiety do not know or believe that they can actually direct their thinking. Their experience is the exact opposite: their trauma memories or their worries about the future constantly hijack their conscious mind. With PTSD, the mind is stuck on repeat because it is trying to process an awful thing that happened, but it is not being successful. The constant reliving and the hyperarousal are immensely painful; you feel like you have lost control of you.
Those suffering from PTSD behave as if their mind is a strange and dangerous neighbourhood; they spend as little time there as possible. Guided meditation is a way to go back in with someone holding their hand, the first step to taking back their turf.
Finding the right messaging
I think in metaphors and so I believe that the use of metaphors is an excellent approach to helping people understand meditation. We can all relate to the image of our minds “being dragged from here to there”, “like a dog on a leash”, or behaving like a “herd of sheep that need to be collected in a nice corner, all together in the body”. I tell my patients that happiness is determined by where you allocate your attention, that attention is a spotlight that is under your control, and that meditation is training in directing this spotlight.
I’m aware that mindfulness is everywhere now, including psychology, but I’m still amazed at how well the messages — especially around emotional management and positive mindset training — fit with modern psychotherapy. Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) says that thoughts lead to feelings, and so you can use this connection to change how you feel. How cool to try meditation and discover how dropping the story you tell yourself causes your sadness or anger to dissolve.
I tell my patients that happiness is determined by where you allocate your attention, that attention is a spotlight that is under your control
Techniques for working with first responders, police officers, and soldiers
Meditation has a place in prevention also. It’s a wonderful time to be doing this work. People in high-risk jobs are now open to learning techniques of “arousal control” like breathing and meditation to help them be more resilient.
With that said, meditation can be a hard sell with police officers and soldiers. One hint of condescension or of a hypnotizing tone of voice and they are gone in a puff of smoke. I’m the same. What works is treating it like training. First responders will try meditation if they can see it as an important self-control skill that requires practice, just like the skills for their job.
Meditation can be a hard sell with police officers and soldiers. One hint of condescension or of a hypnotizing tone of voice and they are gone in a puff of smoke
If you are leading someone in a guided meditation, it helps to explain what you are trying to do in clear language and a friendly, non-intimidating style. It is so crucial that you don’t talk down and that you speak respectfully like a friend would, just one intelligent person talking to another.
Céline Paris is the author of The What and How of PTSD: Understanding and Moving Beyond. Some of her favourite tracks are Rain (Stress & Difficult Emotion 1), Releasing (Going to Sleep 1), and Fluid (Stress & Difficult Emotion 2).
If you feel you have learnt something important through your meditation practice and you’d like to share your insight or experience, we’d love to hear from you. Let us know via stories@buddhify.com and we’ll be in touch.
The post PTSD treatment: Where meditation fits in appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>The post Building a meditation community at my workplace appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>
Written by Alex R., a buddhify user since 2018
Alex works at a large bank in the IT department as a Quality Engineer. In this challenging role, he wanted to help his fantastic (but stressed) colleagues find some balance in their chaotic workday. Having personally practised meditation for over 20 years, he recently decided to start leading mindfulness sessions at his workplace.
Working in an IT organisation, our team experiences a constant barrage of interruptions — I am talking about individuals who get hundreds of emails or messages in an hour, whilst constantly on phone calls all day – from very early to very late.
Couple that with people putting themselves under immense pressure to meet deadlines, I realised that my colleagues were under an enormous amount of stress. All this constant context switching going on in their brains as they juggle all the various pieces of the puzzle was leaving people tired, irritable, and hard to work with.
On a personal level, meditation is what always keeps me centred whilst also dealing with all the wonderful stimuli that life has to offer. I’ve been practising for over 20 years, and I thought if meditation helps me, maybe it could help others.
Creating a community
Determined to get the message out there, I developed a science-based presentation with the help of my wife, a clinical psychologist, which introduced the what and why of meditation and how it helps. I then offered to do this at a number of team meetings and it exploded from there.
I usually do one-hour sessions introducing the concept of mindfulness and then lead a simple mindfulness of breath exercise.
I have now done my talk to around 500 colleagues and have created a community where we share our learning and journey with one another, connecting people and helping to get the message out there about just how powerful and life-changing meditation and mindfulness can be. It’s still in the early days, but it’s good fun.
20-plus years of practising meditation (and there’s still more to learn)
This endeavour has ended up being mutually beneficial because I’ve learned new techniques that have expanded my own personal practice.
My first experience of meditation actually was through a CD by Jack Kornfield almost 25 years ago. It was a gentle introduction into meditation, a simple approach that made me want to find out more. I became interested in Buddhism and then started studying more formal techniques after attending a residential retreat.
I had always been aware of ‘in the moment’ meditation and had practised Tai Chi for about two years, and experienced mindful eating and loved it. However, those practices fell by the wayside as I focussed on more formal meditations, my favourite being the Metta Bhavana or loving-kindness, which I simply love. I have reached a point in my life where I feel pretty confident in my practice and I know a good bit about it.
So when I started leading the mindfulness sessions at work, I typically wrote my own scripts for different practices to share with the group. However, many people started asking for app recommendations so they could practice on their own. That’s when I began looking into what was out there so I could have an answer.
Having been a meditator for so long, I was actually surprised at how much I have learned in the process. I have always practised a more formal form or traditional meditation. The ‘in the moment’ and contextual meditations are a real revelation and something I now recommend to everyone.
Technology + meditation
At first, being introduced to the concept of meditating whilst using my phone, I honestly thought “WHAT!!!”. This just does not make sense how can I meditate with the one bit of tech designed specifically with human interactions and stimulus in mind. Sceptical, I gave it a shot and was pleasantly surprised at just how good it was.
The various techniques from shifting focus on the screen or noticing the weight or even mindful scrolling using Facebook or Twitter with the phone opened my mind not only to a new approach to meditation but to the relationship I have with my phone. This brilliant type of meditation is a fantastic way to illustrate the struggles we can have with internal thoughts whilst using external stimuli that often have a strong emotional context. It seems very simple, but it is really clever in helping to bolster concentration and also in dealing with one’s own thoughts.
After practising phone meditation for a week, I looked at my phone differently. It was just an object, it had weight, and it had a screen and apps that begged me to get involved but now I could disengage with it much in the same way that formal meditation helped me deal with thoughts and feelings. I could be aware of my phone and the content on the screen, but not need to interact with it. Literally, mind-altering.
Alex R. is based in Edinburgh, Scotland. As a huge fan of Paul Gilbert and the compassionate mind approach, he loves the compassionate based meditations within the Growing the Lovely category. If you’re interested in trying a Using Your Phone meditation, he recommends ‘Scroll’ as a starting point.
If you feel you have learnt something important through your meditation practice and you’d like to share your insight or experience, we’d love to hear from you. Let us know via stories@buddhify.com and we’ll be in touch.
The post Building a meditation community at my workplace appeared first on Buddhify.
]]>