Posted on by

Setting Good Boundaries

connecting

The way to deal with conflict in positive ways is to realize that you are not responsible for anyone’s feelings but your own. If you avoid conflict out of a fear of upsetting others, first ask yourself why you think they would be upset.

Worrying about the emotional reactions others might have in a given situation is usually a sign of poor boundaries with the other person. Either they routinely cross your boundaries, or you routinely cross theirs, and when this happens the result is usually conflict. Conflict is the root of most emotional aggression. The way to solve this problem is to establish good boundaries in all of your relationships. A sign of poor boundaries is the belief that another can be responsible for your emotional wellbeing, or that you can be responsible for another’s emotional wellbeing.

A good rule of thumb when establishing boundaries is to ask yourself, “Am I being asked to do something that I wouldn’t ask (the other person) to do?” If the answer is ‘yes,’ then there’s probably an issue of poor boundaries in the relationship. Here are some signs that you may have poor boundaries with others:

  • Conversations on emotional topics result in anxiety and discomfort
  • You avoid conflict until things build up, then you explode
  • You feel responsible for other people’s feelings
  • You’re afraid to say ‘no’
  • You feel guilty when you do say ‘no’
  • You rarely speak up for yourself because you fear it may lead to conflict
  • You sometimes feel disrespected if you do stand up for yourself
  • You feel that you’re constantly giving and never getting back
  • Others ask you to do things for them that you would never ask them to do for you

If you answered “yes” to more than half of the items above, then you probably have poor boundaries.

Why is it important to set boundaries? If we have poor boundaries, we begin to feel responsible for the emotional wellbeing of others. We may also expect others to be responsible for our emotional wellbeing. By learning to set healthy boundaries, we minimize frustration, guilt and anxiety for both ourselves and others. Healthy boundaries keep others from manipulating us, and help us to avoid the temptation to manipulate others.

Here are some statements that you may use in your relationship with others to help you practice setting good and healthy boundaries. Use these statements when you feel that one of your boundaries has been crossed, or is about to be crossed:

  • “I care about you, but I cannot be responsible for your problems.”
  • “I care about you, but right now I need time to be alone.”
  • “I will not be the object of your hostility.”
  • “Just because I disagree with you, that doesn’t mean I don’t still care about you.”
  • “I enjoy spending time with you, but today I have other plans.”
  • “I don’t allow others to make me feel guilty about myself.”
  • “Even though I disagree with you, I still respect your right to feel the way you feel.”

In any relationship, there are core issues and there are issues that can be compromised upon. A core issue is one in which there can be no compromise. Refusing to accept physical or verbal abuse would be an example of a core issue. It would be ridiculous and absurd for an abuser to offer a compromise of, “I’ll only physically abuse you on Tuesdays.” Physical abuse is an issue that is not open to compromise. It is therefore a core issue. Other examples of core issues might include drug abuse, marital infidelity, and verbal or emotional abuse.

A compromise issue, on the other hand, is an issue that you are willing to compromise on. An example of a compromise issue might be the question of where to have lunch with a friend or family member. You might have a lunch preference, but the choice is something that you would be willing to compromise on to some extent.

The way to distinguish a core issue from a compromise issue is that in order to compromise on a core issue you would have to give up who you are. In other words you would have to change your core identity. Having healthy boundaries means refusing to compromise on your core values and your core identity. In mindfulness we call this core identity your True Self.

People without strong boundaries often feel used, disrespected and walked on. It is easier to set very strong boundaries at the beginning of a relationship and then loosen them over time than it is to strengthen weak boundaries. If you find yourself saying, “I will do this just this one time . . .” then you probably need to strengthen your boundaries.

You cannot force anyone else to be responsible for your happiness; likewise, you cannot be responsible for anyone else’s emotional wellbeing. By setting and keeping good boundaries, you make life easier for both yourself and others.

Posted on by

Emotional Regulation

Emotional Regulation

Successful mood management comes from successful emotional regulation. Emotional regulation means recognizing patterns of emotional aggression and stopping the cycle of emotional aggression before it starts. This means becoming aware of and attuned to your own cycles of emotions.

Before you can become attuned to your own cycles of emotional behavior, you must first be able to identify your emotions.

Society often teaches us that there are acceptable emotions to display in public, and unacceptable emotions to display in public. Those emotions that we feel safe displaying are our secondary emotions. In situations where people tend to become emotionally aggressive, there are underlying emotions driving these secondary emotions.

These underlying emotions, called primary emotions, are emotions that we do not feel safe displaying or discussing in public. If we suppress these primary emotions for long enough, it is possible that we may eventually forget what these emotions are and what they feel like. When this happens, the first step to emotional regulation is to identify these lost emotions.

By using the mindful skills of observing and describing, you can distract yourself from drowning in unpleasant emotions by simply identifying the emotions and describing their characteristics to yourself. As you step outside of the stream of feeling by distracting yourself with the process of observing and describing, it may help to name these emotions to yourself.

For example, if you’re feeling angry, repeat to yourself, “That’s anger.” As you begin to ponder this emotional state, trace it back to its origin. Are there any primary emotions driving the anger? Could it be that you are angry because you fear losing someone or something? Are you angry because of a fear of being inadequate in some area of your life? Are you angry because you are frustrated at a personal failure? The feeling behind the secondary emotion is the primary emotion.

Ruminating Cycles and Emotional Regulation

As you use your skills of observing and describing, you will not only be distracting yourself from fully experiencing the negative aspects of the mood. You will also be exploring the primary roots of the secondary emotion being experienced. As you observe and describe your emotional states to yourself, you become more emotionally aware of their origins. The more aware you are about the origins of those emotions, the more you are able to choose which emotions to give your full attention, and which emotions to let go.

A ruminating cycle is a cycle of thought or emotion. There are positive ruminating cycles and negative ruminating cycles. Such cycles consist of the self-talk we engage in as we go about our daily business.

Let’s look at a couple of scenarios involving ruminating cycles. These cycles are from Joe and Jim. Joe’s negative ruminating cycle might look like this:

“My wife just frowned at me. I wonder what she’s upset about?”
“What have I done wrong this time?”
“Can’t I ever do anything right?”
“Why is it so hard to please her?”
“Maybe I should just divorce her and get it over with. She’s never happy.”
“I’ll show her! I’ll give her the silent treatment!”

Jim’s positive ruminating cycle might look like this:

“My wife just frowned. I wonder if she’s upset?”
“Maybe she’s just having a bad day.”
“I wonder if there’s anything I can do to help?”
“I’m happy that she trusts me enough to share her innermost feelings with me!”

Joe’s negative ruminating cycle assumes that his wife’s frown was personal in that Joe believes that his wife was frowning at him. Jim, on the other hand, simply noted that his wife had frowned, without assuming that the frown was directed at him personally. Joe also assumed that his wife’s frown was indicative of a pervasive problem: That Joe cannot ever do anything to please his wife. Jim, on the other hand, recognized that this was just one incident, and not a pervasive problem. His response to his wife’s frown was, “Maybe she’s just having a bad day.”

Finally, Joe’s ruminating cycle assumes a permanent problem: That Joe can’t “ever do anything right,” while Jim doesn’t see it as a permanent problem. He’s even willing to try to change the situation by wondering if there is anything he can do to help his wife.

Try this: The next time you find yourself in a ruminating cycle, whether it is a positive cycle or a negative cycle, begin talking out loud. Verbalize your thought and feeling patterns by observing and describing them. Look for any permanent, personal or pervasive patterns of thinking and feeling.

Be on the lookout for all-or-nothing thinking. You can usually identify such patterns of thought by looking for words like always and never. The good news about thoughts like, “Things have always been this way,” and “Things are never going to change,” is that you only need one example to disprove them. If Joe has ever done a single thing to please his wife, then he cannot say, “I can never do anything to please her.”

If Joe can find just one example of where things have gone well, then he can’t say, “I always do the wrong thing.” He might do the wrong thing 99,999 times, but if there’s even one case in which he did the right thing, then he is not justified in saying, “I always do the wrong thing.”

If Joe can think of a single time when he was able to do the right thing, then it means that it is possible to do the right thing. If it is possible to do the right thing once, it is possible to do the right thing again. All that remains is figuring out what made it possible, and repeating the conditions that made it possible.

The key point to remember about ruminating cycles is that they are self-reinforcing. Emotions like to hang around once they’ve shown up. Research has shown that once a ruminating cycle of emotional aggression gets started, we tend to act, think, and feel in ways that perpetuate the cycle. We’re conditioned to believe that when we have strong emotions, we must immediately act upon them.

Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy teaches us that we do not have to act on those emotions, and we don’t have to dwell on them. We can simply observe and describe those emotions without feeling the need to react or respond.

It may help to remember that there is no such thing as a ‘good’ or ‘bad’ feeling. What may be considered ‘good’ or ‘bad’ is the behavior that comes after the feeling. So the problem is in the behavior, not the feeling itself. One of the behaviors that can be labeled as ‘good’ or ‘bad,’ or ‘positive’ or ‘negative,’ is the ruminating cycle itself.

It works in this way: You have a negative feeling (anger, hostility, sadness, etc.). You then activate a ruminating cycle by continuing to dwell on the feeling. As you continue to dwell on the feeling, the negative emotion feeds off of the ruminating cycle and the emotion causes you to become more and more emotionally aroused, until you act out with emotional aggression.

You can change this behavior in this way: When you note a negative emotion, simply observe it and describe it, while recognizing that you do not have to dwell on it. The feeling itself is not ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ It simply is. You can decide not to give it power over you by disengaging from the ruminating cycle. In doing so, you don’t feed the negative emotion, and it eventually subsides.

When you have mastered this, you will be well on the way to managing your moods.

Posted on by

Mindfulness – The River

thought streams the river

Our thoughts and feelings are a river.

What does this river look like?

As we’ve discussed often, mindfulness means paying attention to the present moment, with intention. There are six skills involved in mindfulness. These are:

  1. Observing
  2. Describing
  3. Participating
  4. Being non-judgmental
  5. Being one-mindful
  6. Being effective

Would these skills help you to recognize that your emotional states are simply processes of the mind? Would these skills help you to identify any addictive processes that lead to emotional aggression on your part?

It may help to realize that your thoughts and feelings are like a river. The goal of mindfulness is not to dam up the river and stop its flow. The river is always flowing. Sometimes negative thoughts and feelings float to the top of that river. Sometimes positive thoughts and feelings float to the top of that river. If you find yourself in a period where those negative thoughts and feelings are floating to the top, you have a choice. You don’t have to drown in the river. You can choose to get out of the river, sit on the riverbank, and watch if flow by. When you choose to get out of the river, you’re not stopping the flow of the river. You’re just choosing for a time not to ‘go with the flow’ if the flow is negative. The choice is always yours.

One goal of mindfulness is to realize that we are not our thoughts. We are not our feelings. We are something else. We can choose to identify with our thoughts and feelings, but we can also choose not to identify with negative thoughts and feelings. In doing so we come to realize that we are not bad people. We’re just people who sometimes may have less productive thoughts and feelings. We’re not angry people. We’re just people who sometimes may let our anger get the better of us. We’re not sad, anxious or depressed people. We’re just people who sometimes experience sadness, anxiety, or depression.

The River of Perfection

Sometimes emotional aggression is the result of feeling the need to be ‘perfect’ all of the time. People who have problems with emotional regulation are obviously passionate people. We feel strongly about things and people we believe in. Sometimes that passion can manifest in perfectionism. But what does ‘perfect’ really mean?

Try this sometime: Ask three of your closest friends what their idea of the ‘perfect’ day would be. I’m willing to bet that you’d get three different answers. Some people might think that a perfect day would be spent at the beach, while others might think that a perfect day would be spent hiking in the mountains. Still others might consider a day in a library or bookstore to be the perfect day.

The point here is that if different people have different definitions of what ‘perfect’ means, there can be no objective definition to the word ‘perfect.’ If there is no objective definition to the word, then each individual defines perfection for themselves. If you find yourself defining ‘perfect’ in such a way that perfection becomes impossible to achieve, then you have a choice. You may choose to redefine it in such a way that it becomes possible to achieve. You may also choose not to feel guilty or inadequate if you are unable to meet your own self-defined standards of perfection.

The tools and skills of mindfulness help us to understand that we don’t have to meet some arbitrary standard of perfection. Mindfulness teaches us self-awareness, and with self-awareness comes the realization that we are “perfect” just as we are. Until we come to that realization, change is not possible.

Mindfulness helps us to come to that awareness.

Posted on by

NEW COURSE: Ethics of Ecotherapy

ethics and ecotherapy
  • Target Audience: Mental Health Professionals
  • ONLINE Continuing Education Hours: 2 (Two)
  • NBCC Approval: Yes
CLICK HERE TO PURCHASE THIS COURSE! ON SALE UNTIL JUNE 30, 2023!

Course Description

Ecotherapy usually includes doing therapy outdoors. Therapy in non-traditional settings presents unique ethical challenges. These ethical issues are usually not covered in therapy graduate school programs. In this course we will discuss how to address some common ethical issues for therapists and counselors that are unique to the process of ecotherapy.

Course Objectives

After taking this course the student will be able to:
  • Discuss and describe confidentiality and informed consent issues common to the practice of ecotherapy
  • Discuss training recommendations regarding the practice of ecotherapy
  • Discuss assessment and client safety issues common to the practice of ecotherapy
  • Discuss and describe what constitutes dual relationships in ecotherapy
  • Discuss and describe values conflicts in ecotherapy settings
  • Develop a sense of self-awareness for counselors and therapists practicing ecotherapy

Course Instructions

This is a recorded version of a course that was offered on Tuesday, June 20, 2023. This version of the course is for ONLINE CONTINUING EDUCATION CREDIT. Once you have purchased the course, there will be several course documents available for download, plus a series of lessons including a two-hour video presentation. When you have completed the presentation and the review, there will be a final exam. You have three attempts to pass the final exam with a score of 80% or higher. Once you have passed the final a certificate of completion will be generated in pdf format for your records.

Be informed when new courses are added –

subscribe to the Mindful Ecotherapy Center’s monthly newsletter.

Click here to read our refund and return policy

Click here to read our Privacy Policy, Terms and Conditions, and Program Policies

We have a feature that prevents brute force attacks on the website. If you have unsuccessfully attempted to login more than three times you will be locked out of your account for five minutes. Please try again after five minutes.
Posted on by

Ethics of Ecotherapy TOMORROW

ethics and ecotherapy

In our ongoing effort to improve the quality of the courses we offer, we will be applying to the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) to be able to provide LIVE continuing education opportunities in addition to our online offerings.

As part of this process we are offering this FREE two-hour course on Ethics in Ecotherapy in June of 2023!

This course will cover some ethics issues common to the practice of ecotherapy. In addition to two free hours of continuing education on the Ethics of Ecotherapy, participants will receive a coupon code good for $25 off any course offered by the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC.

This course will be conducted by Zoom, so you will need access to Zoom for the course.

This course will be live TOMORROW, June 20, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89945203020?pwd=YzNTYnhoT2xqYkt3M0pTYk5wSG1lQT09

Meeting ID: 899 4520 3020
Passcode: 462232

If you are attending, please make sure you have updated Zoom to the latest version! Older versions may not work with this course!

 

Ecotherapy usually includes doing therapy outdoors. Therapy in non-traditional settings presents unique ethical challenges. These ethical issues are usually not covered in therapy graduate school programs. In this course we will discuss how to address some common ethical issues for therapists and counselors that are unique to the process of ecotherapy.  

Course Objectives

After taking this course the student will be able to:

  • Discuss and describe confidentiality and informed consent issues common to the practice of ecotherapy
  • Discuss training recommendations regarding the practice of ecotherapy
  • Discuss assessment and client safety issues common to the practice of ecotherapy
  • Discuss and describe what constitutes dual relationships in ecotherapy
  • Discuss and describe values conflicts in ecotherapy settings
  • Develop a sense of self-awareness for counselors and therapists practicing ecotherapy  

Course Instructions

This is a LIVE course that will be offered on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 10 a.m. Pacific Daylight Savings Time. An email reminder containing the Zoom code to access the course will be sent the day before the conference. The conference will be presented on Zoom. You need to be present for the duration of the course to get course credit.

The course will be two hours on Zoom. At the end of the course you will have access to a link for the final exam.

Upon successful completion of the exam you will receive a Certificate of Completion in pdf format, and you will be emailed a coupon code good for $25 off any course offered by the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC.

Posted on by

Plateau Pride

The Mindful Ecotherapy Center has always been an advocate for the LGBTQ+ community. Representatives from the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC recently attended Plateau Pride 2023 in the Tehaleh Community of Bonney Lake, Washington.

This video features interviews with many of the vendors and members of Hope Development Practice, the sponsor of the event.

We celebrated Pride Month at Plateau Pride in Bonney Lake, Washington. Watch the video highlights here!

Posted on by

Managing Beliefs

Managing Beliefs

Managing beliefs is a way of dealing with patterns of behavior that lead to emotional aggression. When we can look at the assumptions that support our beliefs, we can better manage our behaviors and avoid the tendency to respond with emotional aggression.

Looking over your answers from the Signs of an Emotionally Aggressive Relationship questions last week, did you identify any behaviors on the list that might be the result of your beliefs? If so, are these beliefs leading to consequences you don’t want? Some consequences you don’t want might include unhappy relationships with your partner, family members or friends, or difficulties with people at work or at school, or behaviors that may have gotten you into legal troubles.

As you examine these beliefs and how they relate to consequences, how many of these beliefs are linked to your answers to the questions on the Signs of an Emotionally Aggressive Relationship? Are there any beliefs that you might be willing to change so that you might get more positive consequences in the future?

If you have beliefs that lead you to unproductive consequences, nobody can change those beliefs for you. It’s up to you to change those beliefs. It’s up to you to manage your beliefs, and the first step in doing so is taking responsibility for them yourself.

Managing Beliefs: Emotional Chaos

Emotional aggression and emotional dysregulation often manifest as emotional chaos. People who have difficulty regulating their own emotions often create emotional chaos around them as a means of distracting themselves from their own inner turmoil. 

In addiction treatment, this tendency to create emotional chaos is called “drinking at” or “drugging at” someone. People with substance addictions, who are in denial about having a problem, cannot take personal responsibility for their addictive behaviors. If they admitted to being responsible for their addictive patterns of behavior, they’d have to admit to having a problem. 

So instead, they blame others. This means that in their own minds, if they drink or do drugs, it’s because of someone else’s behavior. A person in such a state of denial will actually provoke arguments with family members and loved ones. When they’ve provoked such an argument, and then the loved one becomes angry, the person with the addiction has an excuse to go out and use drugs. The excuse is, “You made me angry, so the fact that I got high (drunk, etc.) is your fault!”

If we replace the substance of abuse (alcohol or other drugs) with a pattern of emotional behavior, we can see how a person in denial about their own emotional dysregulation might provoke others in order to justify their own emotional aggression. 

Emotional states actually produce neurotransmitters in the brain that mimic the actions of many drugs. It is therefore possible to become addicted to emotional states. Such an addiction is called a process addiction, because the victim of such an addiction has become addicted to certain patterns of behavior (processes) or certain emotional states that generate chemicals in their brains. These chemical transmitters then mimic drugs often used to produce a ‘high.’

If you answered more than five questions on the Signs of an Emotionally Aggressive Relationship questions last week with a “yes,” look back over your answers and see if any of them involved a pattern of emotional aggression as a way of controlling others. 

If so, you may be suffering from a process addiction. That is, you may have become addicted to resorting to emotional aggression as a means of coping with life, or as a means of distracting from your own emotional regulation difficulties.

Next week we’ll start talking about how to deal with process addictions as they relate to emotional aggression.

Posted on by

Signs of an Emotionally Aggressive Relationship

emotionally aggressive anger management emotional aggression

Emotional aggression is the aggressive use of our own emotional states in an attempt to manipulate or control others, or in an attempt to make others responsible for our moods. If I hold others responsible for my emotional state, I am being emotionally aggressive. Likewise, if I attempt to control the emotional states of others against their will, I am being emotionally aggressive.

If you have beliefs that are leading you to react in ways that are emotionally aggressive, you may choose to challenge those beliefs so that you may replace them with new beliefs that do not lead to emotionally aggressive consequences.

One of the tenets of mindfulness is the realization that we are not our thoughts, and we are not our feelings. Thoughts and feelings are simply processes of the mind. We can choose to pay attention to those processes, or we can choose to ignore them.

Here’s a way to demonstrate that you are not your thoughts. Suppose I tell you that for the next ten minutes you are to avoid having any thoughts. Now further suppose that you attempt to avoid having any thoughts for ten minutes. About two or three minutes into this exercise, you catch yourself having a thought.

When you realize that you had a thought, what part of you is it that recognized that you had a thought? It couldn’t be your thoughts, because the thoughts are what you recognized. So that means that there is another part of you that is independent from your thoughts. This part of you is what practitioners of mindfulness call your True Self. The True Self is what recognized you were having a thought. The True Self is independent of your thoughts.

Your True Self is who you would be if you could ‘get out of your own way’ and live the life you were meant to live. Your True Self is who you are when you strip away all the masks that you put on in day-to-day life and get down to the business of being who you were meant to be.

Think for a moment about your own True Self. Suppose you could be anyone you wanted to be. Who would you choose to be? What things are keeping you from living in your True Self? When you act in an emotionally aggressive manner, are you being your True Self?

One way to tell if a belief is keeping you from being the person you were meant to be, is to consider the consequences of that belief. Most emotional aggression comes from beliefs that we can change the behavior of other people. In fact, the very definition of emotional aggression is: “Using our own emotional states in an attempt to control the behavior of others.” Emotional aggression occurs when others refuse to live up to our expectations of how we believe they should behave and what they should feel.

One of the marks of an addiction to emotional processes is the belief that we can and should tell others how to feel and what to think. If we have such beliefs, and if people fail to meet our expectations, the result can be emotional aggression. That is to say that we get frustrated that others in our lives resist our attempts to control their behavior, and we may react by becoming angry, or sad, or frustrated.

Because these beliefs are often embedded in processes that have become automatic, it may sometimes be difficult to identify those beliefs. The questions below may help you to identify some of these beliefs and patterns of behavior.

The first five questions are for your partner (if you have one). If your partner is willing to answer these questions, have him or her do so. If your partner is not willing, try to answer those questions as well as you can, based on what you think your partner would say.

The rest of the questions are for you to answer. Be as honest with yourself as you can in answering.

Sings of an Emotionally Aggressive Relationship

Does your partner:

  • Feel afraid of you much of the time?
  • Avoid certain topics out of fear of upsetting you?
  • Feel that they can’t do anything right for you?
  • Feel emotionally numb or helpless?
  • Feel trapped or imprisoned?

Do you:

  • Humiliate, criticize, or yell at your partner?
  • Use abusive language
  • Ignore your partner’s answers
  • Mock or call your partner names
  • Yell, swear, interrupt or change the subject by turning blame back onto your partner?
  • Become emotionally aggressive towards your partner?
  • Twist your partner’s words?
  • Tell your partner what to think and how to feel?
  • Put your partner down in front of other people?
  • Say bad things about your partner’s friends and family?
  • Treat your partner so badly that your partner is embarrassed for your friends or family to see?
  • Ignore or put down your partner’s opinions or accomplishments?
  • Blame your partner for your own abusive behavior?
  • Make light of your own behavior and not take your partner’s concerns about it seriously?
  • Deny that the emotional aggression happened?
  • Shift responsibility for your behavior, or say that your partner caused it?
  • See your partner as property or a sex object, rather than as a person?
  • Have a bad and unpredictable temper?
  • Hurt your partner, or threaten to hurt or kill your partner?
  • Hit, slap, kick, choke, push, punch, beat, or restrain your partner to keep them from leaving?
  • Destroy furniture, punch holes in the walls, or damage your partner’s possessions?
  • Use the children or other family members against your partner?
  • Lock your partner out of the house?
  • Threaten to take your partner’s children away or harm them?
  • Threaten to harm other family members or family pets?
  • Threaten to commit self-harm, up to and including suicide, if your partner leaves?
  • Force your partner to have sex against their will?
  • Destroy your partner’s belongings?
  • Use blaming, shaming or guilt-tripping to control your partner?
  • Act excessively jealous and possessive?
  • Control where your partner goes or what your partner does?
  • Keep your partner from seeing their friends or family?
  • Make rules that it is impossible for your partner to keep?
  • Punish your partner for not keeping these impossible rules?
  • Force your partner into decisions they may not be ready to make?
  • Always insist on being right?
  • Refuse to ‘agree to disagree’?
  • Follow your partner to see what they’re doing and where they’re going?
  • Refuse to leave when asked?
  • Limit your partner’s access to money, the phone, or the car for other than budgetary reasons?
  • Withhold money as a means of control
  • Refuse to let your partner work, or interfere with your partner’s job?
  • Show up at your partner’s job to cause trouble?
  • Constantly check up on your partner?
  • Go through your partner’s emails, cell phone record, text messages, or other communications?

If you checked more than five items on the list above, you may have difficulties managing your emotional aggression towards yourself and towards others.

Posted on by

Mindful Acceptance

Family Resilience Factors: The 7Cs

“Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others.”

-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The skill of Mindful Acceptance can best be described as the Art of Letting Go. Once you have done everything in your power to solve a problem, you have done all you can, so at that point worry and stress is counterproductive.

Note that letting go of the stress and anxiety doesn’t necessarily mean letting go of the problem itself. For example, suppose you have a car payment coming up, and you don’t have the money to pay it. This would naturally cause you anxiety. If, after brainstorming for solutions, you find that you still don’t have the money to pay the car payment, then at that point you’ve done all you can do.

At that point, you let go of the anxiety associated with the problem. That doesn’t mean that you let go of car payments. You’ll make the payment when you can. In this case, letting go just means that you won’t worry about not making the payment. The energy you might have used worrying about the situation could be put to better use in trying to come up with solutions.

Let’s try another example, this one a bit tougher. Imagine you’re in a relationship. You feel that your partner doesn’t spend enough time with you. You offer suggestions on activities you can do together, only to be met with a blank stare or excuses about why your partner doesn’t have the time to participate in an activity with you. Once you’ve done everything you can do to persuade your partner to spend more time with you, if you still aren’t getting the results you want, it’s time to practice letting go.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you ‘let go’ of your partner. It just means that you let go of the anxiety associated with the problem. Once you let go of that anxiety, you may find that your partner will actually want to spend more time with you, because you are less stressed-out. But even if this is not the case, you’ve let go of the stress associated with an unresponsive partner.

Mindful Acceptance is observing and describing the thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety, worry, or stress in the present moment. As you examine these thoughts and feelings by focusing on them one at a time, ask yourself which of these thoughts and feelings concern things you have the power to change. Make a conscious decision to focus your energy only on those things in your life that you have the power to change. If you focus on those things that you cannot change, you are not using your energy to change the things that you can.

Decide right now that you will not feed your negative thoughts and feelings by giving in to them. If you give in to those automatic thought and feeling processes by lending mental energy to them, you are engaging in a ruminating cycle. Realize that it is natural to have negative thoughts and feelings, but having them does not mean that they have to control your life. Learn trust your own inner wisdom. While negative ruminating cycles may come, you do not have to let them rule your life.

Another key to Mindful Acceptance is in understanding that anxiety has a useful purpose. It is nature’s way of letting us know that there is something wrong. Your anxiety protects you from harm, but sometimes it may do its job too well. Ask your anxiety if it is trying to protect you from something that you cannot change. Picture yourself thanking your anxiety for protecting you, and say to your anxiety, “I am now using my own inner wisdom to make positive choices in my life.”

Mindful Acceptance teaches us that each mistake is an opportunity for growth. Each mistake contains a lesson. If you never made a mistake, you would never have an opportunity to learn and grow. In Mindful Acceptance, you learn to accept your mistakes as signs that you are becoming a stronger and wiser individual.

Posted on by

The Skill of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is a skill like any other. It can sometimes be difficult to learn, because it is so diametrically opposed to the way we’re accustomed to thinking, acting, and doing. Some of the techniques of mindfulness may feel strange at first, simply because they are different. ‘Different’ doesn’t mean ‘better’ or ‘worse,’ it simply means ‘different.’ With practice, however, these skills will become easier over time. Don’t give up after trying mindfulness skills only once or twice. Have patience and allow them time to work. Change can sometimes be hard. If it were easy, we’d already be doing it.

There’s a saying that, “Insanity is doing the same thing in the same ways and expecting different results.”
If we’ve been doing things that lead to negative consequences, we’re probably doing those things because they feel familiar to us. This is fine if we like the consequences of our actions. But if we don’t like the consequences of our actions, we may choose to do the sometimes difficult work of making change. The only way to get different results is to do things in different ways. This leads to different consequences for our actions.

Mindfulness is a way to do things differently.

Although meditation is a part of mindfulness, Mindful Awareness is much more than a meditative technique. Mindfulness is a way of life. The techniques of mindfulness can be applied to any of our day-to-day experiences. They are not restricted to the realm of meditation.

Like anything else that has to be learned, mindfulness is a skill that requires practice. Leonardo da Vinci didn’t paint the Mona Lisa the first time he picked up a paintbrush. Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t paint the Mona Lisa the first time he picked up a paintbrush. Likewise, you probably won’t be able to jump right into a ‘mindful awareness’ mode of being without a lot of practice. That’s okay. Give yourself permission to practice once in a while. The more you do so, the more mindful you’ll become!