A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

We’ve all heard the common adage that “It is what it is,” telling us that whatever is happening is simply the reality of the current experience. But that’s not the whole truth. The Now Effect adds, “It is what it is, while it is.”  This speaks to a larger reality that whatever is here is also impermanent. This saying can enrich our lives, helping us move through the difficult times with more grace and also illuminating what’s precious in life before we miss it.

Here’s how…

As automatic negative thoughts start creeping into your mind and you notice an irritability starting to creep in, saying “it is what it is, while it is” pops you out of auto-pilot, into the present moment and reminds you that there’s impermanence to this feeling. This reminder helps you not get so wrapped up in it and can also give you the choice to be kinder to yourself. This can help stop a spiral into a deeper depression.

When cravings in the form of desiring thoughts and urges in the form of physical impulses raise their heads, saying “it is what it is, while it is” externalizes these reactions, giving you some distance from them and enough room to choose a different response. Maybe the new action is surfing the urge and not engaging with the addictive behavior.

As the mind gets triggered into the “what if” game, looking at upcoming scenarios through a catastrophic lens, saying “It is what it is, while it is,” reminds you that you just got triggered into a mind trap and can now recognize the fear or anxiety that is currently there. The thoughts are not facts, but the feeling is. You can begin to recognize that the anxiety has a life of its own and is subject to the natural law that all things come and go.

The phrase “It is what is, while it is” isn’t meant to be a panacea to stress, anxiety, depression or addiction, of course you’ll want to integrate this into the other avenues you have found to be helpful along with finding a supportive community whether that’s a therapist, a group of peers or friends, or another form of communal support. It is meant to be a helpful tool along the way that can break up the automatic reaction just long enough to insert more space for choice to engage a difference response.

Depending on the level of difficulty, that response could be engage in the greater art of distraction or maybe approaching the vulnerable feeling with warm presence of kindness and compassion. Inevitably this is the road to transforming the feeling and giving you a greater sense of self-reliance.

Of course, saying “It is what it is, while it is” can also be used with our more comfortable emotions to give a sense of their preciousness, to elicit a sense of gratitude and savor the goodness while it’s there.

Go ahead and bring this into your day, treat it as an experiment without any judgment or expectations. See if it breaks up the habit for enough of a time to allow for a new way of thinking or responding.

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction creates a living wisdom that we can all benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

If there are two things we can count on in life besides death and taxes, it’s stress and pain. Stress and pain often manifest as difficult emotions such as sadness, anger, fear, shame, guilt, among others. When these come up the brain says, “Yikes, how do we fix this” and looks to the past to anticipate the future. Jerry Duvinsky, Ph.D is a Psychologist who wrote a recent book called How To Lose Control And Gain Emotional Freedom: Embracing the “Dark” Emotions Through Integrative Mindful Exposure, based on how to work with these, at times, challenging feelings that visit us day in and day out.

In the book he says:

It has been said, “The role of a therapy is not to make people feel better, but to help people better feel.”

What a beautiful representation of what a growing number of clinicians are recognizing about the role of therapy. It comes as quite a revelation, and often one difficult to accept, to contemplate the reality that emotions, no matter how painful and powerful, whether they be grief, anger, despair, helplessness, or loneliness, are not inherently bad, evil, dangerous, or wrong. Certainly, they can be uncomfortable, powerful, and at times rather inconvenient. But in fact, it is our conditioned fear and shame that teach us that these emotions are dangerous and in all ways “bad” and that therefore, they are in need of control. But in fact, it is our learned attempts to control our “dangerous” emotions that produce much deeper and more insidious problems. We spend so much of our time and energy running from painful feelings and experiences.”

He’s exactly right. It’s the brain’s embedded programming that in the face of discomfort, snaps in the direction of avoidance which can ultimately keep the difficulty around or exacerbate it. No one ever heals their fear of heights or snakes without at some point confronting them. So it is with the difficulties we have in life, but the question is how do we do this?

In a recent blog post he offered a mindful technique called emotional surfing:

The key elements of emotional surfing are fourfold:

1) Focus upon and hold a painful image, memory, thought or feeling.

2) Label as specifically as possible the feeling(s) that arise.

3) Take note and hold your attention at the bodily area from where the present feelings emanate.

4) Pay careful attention to how the emotions, images, and physical sensations change and move as you maintain focus.

Caution – Not everyone can do this on their own. Some may require the perceived safety and support of doing this in a therapeutic context. If one has a history of psychotic symptoms or has difficulty at times differentiating their internal reality, from external reality, than guidance and supervision may be advisable.

In this work we ask people to dip their toes in the emotion. Like Jerry said, you may want to get additional support, but if you feel safe, try it out with smaller emotions like annoyances, frustrations, boredom, or low level stress. The idea is to give your brain the experience of exposure to the feeling. But we don’t just wanted blank exposure, it’s best if we can tinge it with a flavor that breathes of kindness, warmth and compassion. The kind of attention we might give to a child in pain.

The brain needs to learn that you can approach what’s difficult with care and that things will be okay.

In time this lays the path to greater emotional freedom and a wiser heart.

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction creates a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

Many of us grew up reading Dr. Seuss. If you have kids, you’ve likely relived your childhood reading over his books only to find, “Wow, there’s some real wisdom in these books.” One book that has grown on me over time as an adult is Oh, the Places You’ll Go! It brings you through all the experiences in life: the triumphs, the doubts, the confusions, the depressions, the fearful moments and the moments you stare your difficulties in the face and overcome them.

There are also several other notable books: Yertle the Turtle, Horton Hears a Who, The Lorax. The list is endless.

Here are 7 Life Lessons from Dr. Seuss:

1.  “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
2. “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”
3. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
4. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
5. “I’m afraid sometimes you’ll play lonely games too, games you can’t win because you’ll play against you.”
6. “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
7.  “And the turtles, of course… All the turtles are free – As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.”

So much to be mindful of in his writings.

Here’s our chance to act like a community. Dig deep and share your favorite quotes below from Dr. Seuss or any children’s book. Either just write the quote or you’re welcome to write what the quote means to you to.

I also welcome you to add your quote and reflection in The Now Effect Community for many more to be inspired. Your contributions not only create a living wisdom for us all to benefit from, but also makes ripple effects far beyond what you might imagine.

Reference:

*This post was inspired by a picture by “Goodwilllibrarian” that has been making its way around social network communities. Enjoy it below:

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

Many of us grew up with Dr. Seuss and if you have kids you’ve likely relived your days reading over books of the past only to find, “Wow, there is some real wisdom in these books.” One of my favorites that has grown on me over time as an adult is Oh, the Places You’ll Go!. It brings you through all the experiences in life, the triumphs, the doubts, the confusions, the depressions, the fearful moments and the moments you stare your difficulties in the face and overcome them. There are so many more favorites that come from Yertle the Turtle, Horton Hears a Who,The Lorax and so many more.

Here are 7 Lessons in Life from Dr. Seuss:

1.  “A person’s a person, no matter how small.”
2. “Why fit in when you were born to stand out?”
3. “You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself any direction you choose.”
4. “Be who you are and say what you feel, because those who mind don’t matter and those who matter don’t mind.”
5. “I’m afraid sometimes you’ll play lonely games too, games you can’t win because you’ll play against you.”
6. “Sometimes the questions are complicated and the answers are simple.”
7.  “And the turtles, of course… All the turtles are free- As turtles and, maybe, all creatures should be.”

So much to be mindful of in his writings.

Here’s our chance to act like a community. Dig deep and share your favorite quotes below from Dr. Seuss or any children’s book. Either just write the quote or you’re welcome to write what the quote means to you too.

I also welcome you to add your quote and reflection in The Now Effect Community for many more to be inspired by. Your contributions not only create a living wisdom for us all to benefit from, but also makes ripple effects far beyond what you might imagine.

Reference:

*This post was inspired by a picture by “Goodwilllibrarian” that has been making its way around social network communities. Enjoy it below:

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

It may be the single most beneficial thing for your brain in terms of learning, mood and memory says Harvard Medical School psychiatrist John Ratey, author of the book, Spark: The Revolutionary New Science of Exercise and the Brain. I’m talking about exercise. We also know that compassion, or the act of it which is altruism, are adaptive in terms of stress, anxiety, depression, addiction and great predictors of health and well-being. Why not marry the two?

There are a plethora of opportunities to get involved with some form of exercise to raise money for a cause that not only helps other people, but also brings meaning and purpose into your life. Purpose and meaning are what we need to be truly happy.

Now here is where mindfulness comes in. In this very moment watch your mind and see what it’s doing. Are the thoughts and stories in service of connection or disconnection? Meaning are they finding ways to move you further from this idea or closer to it? If the answer is further from it, check into those thoughts, get curious and ask yourself three questions that are adapted from Byron Katie’s work.

1. Is the thought true?
2. Is it absolutely true?
3. Flip it. What are some good reasons to do it?

We are all enslaved by our automatic judgments that can often bring us further away from what can be truly helpful to us. It’s this inherent automatic negativity bias that I and others have written about over and again. If it’s good for our bodies, our brains, our mental health, and has ripple effects that benefit a cause we care about, what’s the downside?

Abraham Joshua Heschel said, “Life is routine and routine is resistance to wonder.”

Isn’t it time to break from routine? What would happen if you saw every step in a marathon for a cause as a step into compassion?

Not to mention that it often has a great effect of bringing people together if you end up training with a group. This sense of connection with people who all feel a sense of purpose elevates us.

In addition to marathons, there are Dance-athons and Clean-a-thons too where people choose a part of the city to go around and clean. That might also be a form of exercise.

Why not make the choice to just investigate this today. Use your favorite search engine, look up something local or some place you’d like to travel to, make a plan and try it out.

If you have something upcoming in your area, please share it below. Your thoughts, questions and stories become living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com