An Introduction to Transforming Anxiety and Stress with Mindfulness by Dr Debra Campbell-Tunks
The centre for
wellbeing @ stmichaels
Congratulations for taking this first step! This e-book has been created to give you some basics for living more mindfully. Whether or not you take part in our Transforming Anxiety and Stress e-course you will find helpful pointers here for adopting a more mindful perspective in everyday life. The goal is emotional freedom and a more positive relationship to the inevitable anxiety and stress that arises in life. Living mindfully is not just about learning to meditate - although that is a part of it. It’s about changing your perspective of life and gradually experiencing the world with less fear and worry and more confidence and calm. Learning mindfulness skills will not only lessen your experience of stress and anxiety – it will transform the entire way you experience your mind and emotions. Mindful living is about creating a calmer, more contented and self-compassionate inner and outer you by changing your relationship to your deepest most personal experiences – your thoughts and feelings. The information you will receive in our 7 day e-course and the practices you will undertake may seem simple, and indeed they are on the surface, but they will take repeated practice in order to positively transform your outlook and experience. So let’s put some supportive conditions in place now.
What is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is a way of being in the world. Being mindful means responding, not reacting, to the ever-present flow of events and experiences in life with patience, openness and compassion. - Thomas Roberts Mindfullness means learning to shift into a different way of being and experiencing the world. It‘s like changing gears from a ‘busy mind gear’ to a ‘clear and spacious mind gear.’ We don’t have to be sitting and meditating to change gears to clear and spacious mindfulness, but when we are learning, it certainly helps. Later, you can take your spaciousness of mind anywhere and ‘change gears’ anytime!
...................................
Why Mindfulness? People who suffer anxiety have often developed the habit of automatically spiralling into negative, fearful emotions and catastrophe-laden thoughts that evoke and sustain their anxiety. They are stuck in an unhelpful mental ‘gear’ and the gear is grinding them down. The stress or even panic spirals can become so automatic that they are set off without conscious triggers, so the person doesn’t even realise what’s happening until they are hit with a rush of anxiety for no apparent reason. Alternatively, they may just feel background anxiety most of the time. As many people have found, trying to think our way out of anxiety doesn’t always work, especially if we don’t know why we’re feeling how we feel. No matter how much we think, the thinking doesn’t give us any new place to go. What we need is a new way of mind.
...................................
SHIFT
A Little Consistency A core skill in developing more mindful living is to learn to change your mode of mind from thinking and doing to spacious being. Like any new and important skill, learning to change your ‘mental gears’ takes some practice. Can you find 5 or 10 minutes a day for your deepest wellbeing? You see, to strengthen the new brain paths you want to choose when you’re anxious and stressed, and abandon the old anxiety or panic pathways that do not serve you, you need to strengthen those new pathways through practice. Our brain, like our muscles, gets ‘fitter’ and stronger at the things we practice. If we practice anxiety and panic and feeling out of control we strengthen those pathways. If we practice mindful living, meditation and relaxation, we strengthen those pathways. Once we’ve made a choice of the path we wish to follow, we need to regularly walk the path to keep it clear, strong and ‘weed-free’, laying more secure stepping stones to greater emotional freedom. In sum, practice is the only way to create and strengthen your new ways of mind, so give change time and give yourself compassion when you feel resistance to change.
...................................
PLACE
The Place You might undertake mindfulness exercises and meditation at your computer or on a mobile device, it’s up to you. In fact, it might be helpful at times to listen to some meditation practices on your mobile device whenever you need calm, centring or support to refocus away from unhelpful or anxious thoughts. At other times, to help your ongoing commitment to mindful living, you might wish to set aside a nook, a space on your desk, a corner of a room or a little table somewhere, and put together an item or two that evoke positive calm and support your mindfulness practice. Some suggestions might be:
A framed inspirational quote A candle you can light when you come to do a sitting practice
A sacred statue or image that is calming and meaningful for you or
A yoga mat to lay out to create a little spot for doing some gentle movement based mindfulness.
Have a think about what appeals to you. Although a special place or object is not essential, it will be supportive to have a safe little mindfulness spot organised as you begin, to have a physical place to go to practice, as well as a place in your heart and mind.
...................................
BODY ...................................
Your Body Posture is important in staying healthy and certainly has an effect on our mental state. When starting a meditation practice it is helpful, if at all possible, to adopt a comfortable, easy upright position with relaxed, free shoulders that are not slumping forward. You might practice gently drawing your shoulder-blades together and down on your back, then letting them go, to help you find a relaxed shoulder position that is not caving your chest in and impeding the freedom of your breathing.
Tension is who you think you should be. Relaxation is who you are. - Proverb Mindfulness is a way of being that can become our way of life at all times, in any posture, place or situation. When we are starting out particularly, meditation can be a time to give your body the gift of a calm, relaxed posture that is as tension-free as you are able to allow it to be.
...................................
BREATH ...................................
Your Breath Traditional yoga teaches many breathing practices to help you focus your mind, calm anxiety and stress and regulate emotions. The Transforming Anxiety and Stress e-course offers a number of such practices along with meditation, mindfulness exercises and plenty of information about mindfulness. I find one breathing practice - alternate nostril breath (called nadi sodhana in yoga) to be one of the most effective and simple stress relieving breaths of yoga. In itself it is also an exercise in mindfulness, bringing you to a one-pointed quiet focus of breath observation. You can practice anytime but this one is great even under stress. I often recommend using it prior to exams or other high stress situations. Notice how you feel before, and how you feel after a few rounds of alternate nostril breathing.
...................................
Instructions for alternate nostril breath: Step one: Exhale. Now, use your right thumb to close your right nostril. Step two: Inhale slowly through your left nostril Step three: Gently close your left nostril with right index finger, taking your time BUT not holding your breath and release your thumb from your right nostril Step five: Exhale through your right nostril Step six: Now, inhale through right nostril Step seven: When the inhale is complete, close your right nostril and exhale through the left nostril This is one round. Start slowly with about 5 rounds. Never force, breathe gently and don’t hold your breath. Sit quietly for a few moments after you have finished and notice how different you feel.
...................................
Self-Compassion is the Whole Point Without compassion for yourself and an understanding that meaningful change takes practice, adopting mindfulness isn’t going to work. Compassion means having patience and kindness to guide yourself by the hand like a child through learning to take quiet time each day, being less reactive and investing in your long-term wellbeing. Facing resistance to new things is a natural and significant part of making any important and lasting change in life. Mindfulness means acknowledging such resistance for what it is without giving up on yourself or the change you’ve decide to make.
When resistance is gone, the demons are gone. - Pema Chödrön Your resistance is a sign that your system is reconfiguring itself toward success. - Todd Herman
...................................
Self Awareness Consider beginning a journal to reflect on your new self-awareness as it develops. Even a ‘one line’ journal can be revealing. A one line journal is just as it sounds, a journal where each entry is just one line, one sentence or two that sums up your notable experiences of the day. A journal can also be a place of writing freely until you arrive at understandings or answers to questions for which you hope to find answers. Questions that may be helpful to understanding anxiety and removing some of its power might be: What do I feel in my body when I’m nervous and how can I help relieve those physical symptoms?
What are the thoughts, the stories I hear myself telling myself over and over?
How do these stories perpetuate my anxiety and stress?
What are more helpful thoughts I can re-focus on when I feel overwhelmed?
...................................
In the depth of winter I finally learned that there was in me an invincible summer. —Albert Camus
...................................
I hope you have found these starting out tips to mindful living helpful. If this e-book has inspired you to learn more about mindfulness and meditation The Centre for Wellbeing at St Michael’s holds regular seminars that will introduce you to a variety of mindfulness techniques. You might also be interested in our e-course, Transforming Stress and Anxiety, which will be launched in late August 2014. The Transforming Stress and Anxiety e-course will help you to explore the helpful and unhelpful thoughts that crowd an anxious mind and how to change mental gears and come out of feeling overwhelmed. Visit www.centreforwellbeing.org.au for more information.
...................................
www.centreforwellbeing.org.au
9654 5120
wellbeing@stmichaels.org.au