Every therapist I’ve been to has tried to get me on board
with mindfulness, which is basically a type of meditation, but I’ve always been
very resistant to it because there is no way I am going to sit and meditate or
listen to zen recordings, etc. The
therapist I have now initially tried to get me on board by introducing me to
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy but I only lasted a couple of chapters. It doesn’t matter how much it will help, I am
never going to sit and think of meadows or chew my food a hundred times trying
to identify each individual flavour. That’s just not happening. However, she recently started me on Dialectical Behavioural Therapy
which takes a very different approach and so far seems actually doable. Now, I have been seeing my current therapist
for about 18 months and she has been through almost every type of therapy out
there with me, all of which have failed miserably. I give them a shot but usually end up thinking
that the exercises are stupid and ineffective so she was relatively surprised
when she managed to finally find something that I was on board with.
The main reason for starting me on this type of therapy was
that I experience very extreme emotions and am incapable of calming myself down
so I get desperate and turn to other people to talk me down. Unfortunately, most of them are just scared
and overwhelmed by it (and probably not all that pleased either) so it ends up
damaging the relationship. This type of
therapy starts by teaching you distress tolerance, giving you ways to
self-soothe when these emotions hit. In
my opinion, this is way more effective than writing out your thoughts and
trying to tell yourself they aren’t true. I haven’t experienced one of these episodes since I started this therapy
so I don’t know how well it works for me but it just seems much more practical. It is also applicable to trying to fall
asleep, something I often have trouble with, because falling asleep requires
you to be able to self-soothe (apparently this is a skill I never learned). Anyway, I have now moved on to the next
section of the workbook which is mindfulness and geesh why couldn’t all the
other books be this straightforward?! Within the first two pages of the chapter I knew exactly what
mindfulness entailed and how to practice it without meditating for an
hour. Basically mindfulness is just
being aware of the present moment, recognising when your attention wanders, and
bringing your focus back to the current task. How difficult is that to explain? And you can practice it at any time: when you’re reading, watching TV,
having a conversation, etc. As you
continue to read they do give specific exercises you can do, some of which
involve picturing meadows and clouds, but they are just options so if you aren’t
into it you can just stick to the basics. Eventually all this practice is supposed to improve your concentration
and reduce the time you spend worrying about future and past events, making you
happier and less anxious, so we’ll see how that goes. For now I’m just glad that I don’t have to
meditate every day.
