That line, I don’t have to believe everything I think, jumped out at me from Elisha Goldstein’s 2010 post on PsychCentral’s Mindfulness & Psychotherapy blog, and it still holds true. Goldstein writes about a correspondent who, in the past, used […]
Acceptance means, among other things, acknowledging the reality of situations – but it isn’t the end of the story. Often acceptance tells us what to do next and can even lead us down new and interesting paths. If you get […]
A key mindfulness approach is to pay more attention to the present moment and less to the stories about the past or the future that our mind wants to tell us.
This question can bring you straight into the practice of mindfulness – so long as you don’t answer it. By asking the question, you step out of habitual responses for that moment – out of the wandering mind and preoccupations […]
Snowballing means thinking one negative after another until a problem seems overwhelming. Read three questions that are better than snowballing.
I once noticed that I felt happy when I was walking through the rain on a cold autumn day. That’s illogical – I don’t like cold rain – but I accepted it as a mysterious bonus and enjoyed the happiness. The experience taught me that when I’m in a good mood it’s probably not because life got better; when I’m in a low mood it’s probably not because life got worse.
‘No regrets’ may be a fine name for a song but it won’t work in real life. To live is to accumulate regrets. What gives regrets their sharp edges is the belief that we could have made things work out […]
From reaction to response for better choices The concept of the Cycle of Reaction can help us to appreciate and enjoy some important benefits of mindfulness practice in our everyday life. In particular it shows us how mindfulness helps us […]
We get lost in thoughts which repeat fears, anxieties, regrets and resentments. Very often these concern issues we can no longer do anything about because they are in the past or because they haven’t yet happened. In mindfulness we try to get good at coming out of this painful mind-wandering whenever we notice we are lost in it.
