What is Mindfulness?

Stressed out? too busy for yoga? no time for caring for yourself? overworked? sad? Well this little nifty technique called "mindfulness" may just be the thing you need. My first exposure to this now "trendy" form of meditation, was through a therapy group called Dialectal Behavior Therapy, or DBT for short (this is a therapy originally created for people with borderline personality disorder, to help them recognise there emotions in situations and cope with them in a healthy way). Previous to this group, I had never heard of mindfulness. It is so important to mental wellbeing that they do round of minfulness in between each DBT group and now rehabilitation and meditation centers have bought it into practice, to help the every day person relax, feel grounded and more stable. Following is a brief summary of what mindfulness is, what it is helpful for and a few little techniques Ive learnt along my hospital and meditation course adventures.

Advice for happiness

Sometimes when I wake up in the morning, or just suddenly through the day I can be hit by a wave of sadness, emptiness or lack of motivation. This could be due to the fact that emotional dysregulation is part borderline personality, meaning that emotions run are heightened and run up and down a million times a second. But to be honest, I think any human being, "normal" or not, will be hit by these feelings at least a couple of times a week. So here is what I have taught myself to do, to pull myself out of these dark moments

Introduction

In recovery I believe it is important to treat your body with kindness or over kindness if that is possible.

For me, that was something I definitely wasn't doing while in active addiction to alcohol. The only nutrients I received was from the red wine I was drinking, or as one GP liked to put it "Well, at least your getting some nutrients"... that obviously left me giving her a brief "kind of" laugh and the death stare from hell (hello borderline personality coming through). The only exercise I received, was going across the road, to the bottle shop, to buy wine YAY! mission complete for the day. But then it was back to drinking, till I fell asleep and awoke again to the same routine.