What Mindfulness Means to Me

“Mindfulness involves intentionally bringing one’s attention to the internal and external experiences occurring in the present moment.” – Wikipedia

“Bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis.” – Marlatt & Kristeller

“Paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” – Kabat-Zinn

“Consciously bringing awareness to your here-and-now experience, with openness, interest and receptiveness.” – The Happiness Trap

What does mindfulness mean to me? Quite simply put, it is focusing as much attention as possible on what I am doing right now and when I catch my mind wandering, I gently notice what took my attention away and return it to what I am doing in this moment. I was forced into mindfulness in a way. I am not sure I would have discovered it if the following had not occurred.

Sixteen years ago, I had an emotional breakdown, caused in part by a change in medication. I had been suffering from depression for several years and felt I needed a change in meds to address my obsessive compulsive tendencies, which my GP agreed to. However after three nights of no sleep (a side effect of the new medication which I was desperately trying to ride out) I had a nightmare whilst I was awake. The result was a massive panic attack. The only thing that would alleviate my symptoms was to be heavily sedated, which I was. After finally being able to sleep again, I began to have moments when I was not panicking. These moments gradually increased to a few minutes at a time. It was almost a year before I had a day with no panic attacks at all. I would fight them as hard as I could but they persisted.

Eventually, I went to see a psychologist to see if he could help me and he introduced me to ACT, (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy), a very specific set of techniques to stop struggles with negative emotions. At first I was sceptical, as the intention with ACT was not to get rid of or fight these unpleasant feelings, but to see them in a different light. To observe them with curiosity and allow them to just be, using Defusion and Expansion techniques. Once I read the Happiness Trap by Russ Harris, it all began to make sense.

Gradually over the years that followed, I had more and more time in between the attacks and they lost much of their power over me. As time when on, I began to realise these techniques could be applied to other areas of my life. Accepting things as they are at any given moment, good or bad, and knowing that all things pass in time.

I rarely get panic attacks anymore, but when I do feel one coming on, I don’t fight it, I almost encourage it. I like to experience the sensations and observe the power of mindfulness and ACT. They don’t usually last for more than a few minutes and are much less severe.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy help me: