Greetings and welcome to my blog! Today I’d like to spend just a little bit of time talking about mindfulness and anxiety. First off- let’s create a working definition of what being mindful really means. In its most basic form, mindfulness can be thought of as a “particular form of attention” (Tull, Gratz and Chapman, p.25). I find myself telling my kids- be mindful of what you are doing or be mindful of what you are saying. In other words, I’m saying PAY ATTENTION!!!! We want our kids to pay attention to their environment, first responders are trained to pay attention to their environments and now we are training teachers to pay attention to their environments. External, external, external- right?
When do we turn this attention around, and begin to pay attention or become mindful of our very own thoughts? “Oh that’s scary Dr. Chelsea! Why would I ever want to pay attention to what’s going on in my own head…” Well, I’m glad you asked! And, I’m glad I have a wonderful excerpt from, The Cognitive Behavioral Coping Skills Workbook for PTSD (2016) that explains the “why”
“Mindfulness can help you combat this vicious cycle by allowing you to notice your anxiety without getting caught up in the experience or reacting to it. Rather than getting swept up in your anxiety or anxiety-related thoughts, this skill will help you take one step back from your experience so that you can simply observe your anxiety, without getting stuck in it. The goal isn’t to avoid your anxiety or get rid of it; in fact, mindfulness will actually help you become more aware of your emotions. Instead, the goal of this skill is just to notice all of the different part of your anxiety, without trying to push them away or cling to them.” (The Cognitive Behavioral Coping Skills Workbook for PTSD, Tull, Gratz and Chapman, p.37)