Mindfulness has been shown by researchers to strengthen body awareness, boost attention and increase the ability to regular emotions. Mindfulness teachers recommend it to us as a healthy way to experience the world and ourselves. At the same time, prevalence rates for trauma are high. As pointed out by David Treleaven, Ph.D. in his excellent [...]
Clients sometimes make comments like, “How do I empower myself? I don’t even know how to go about healing. How do I start?” Self-empowerment is a path towards setting goals and strengthening and developing oneself. It requires taking personal responsibility and having a belief in an internal locus of control where one has the power [...]
Judson Brewer, M.D., Ph.D. is the director of research at the Center for Mindfulness and associate professor in medicine and psychiatry at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, an adjunct professor at Yale University, a longtime meditator and has written a book called The Craving Mind. His research has shown him what leads to people [...]
The book Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, The Process and Practice of Mindful Change, Second Edition, by Stephen Hayes, Kirk Strosahl and Kelly Wilson, is a good introduction to a type of therapy developed in the 1980s, which while the authors identified it as a form of behavior therapy, is different from other types of behavior [...]
Mindfulness has become almost a buzzword in our culture. Mindfulness is being aware of the present moment without judgment. Current research has found that there are practical applications for mindfulness in therapy. Karen Hooker and Iris Fodor's 2008 article on mindfulness and children provides practical examples for how to teach children mindfulness skills. Children and [...]
Most days I start my morning by rolling out my yoga mat. Most yoga classes follow a similar structure; starting with an intention and moment of meditation. As you begin, your yoga teacher might help remind you to practice “non-attachment.” Non-attachment is the idea of not feeling attached to the results of the class or [...]
Don't munch on feelings. Often we munch on feelings when we don't have useful tools to cope with distressful feelings. If you’ve identified yourself as someone who uses food to avoid and soothe a distressful emotion, then you may lack the necessary, non-food-related, tools to cope. Making this change is challenging as food is a [...]
Everyone at some point in time experiences distressing emotions. It could be related to the loss of a job, a relationship, a changed lifestyle or even having a new president. Often, the strategies we use to manage these feelings do not help. Some people try to avoid their feelings by distracting themselves with other activities [...]
Radical Acceptance is one of the techniques utilized in Dialectical Behavioral Therapy (DBT). I thought I could find out just what Radical Acceptance is by checking out the book entitled "Radical Acceptance" by Tara Brach, PhD (2003). Not surprisingly, this approach is about accepting ourselves. But it is not accepting just the good parts of [...]
