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NON-JUDGEMENT: 3rd of 9 Foundational Attitudes of Mindfulness As Part of Resilience

It is in the full definition of Mindfulness itself — we must remember that mindfulness is not just being in the present moment, it must be “awareness of the present moment Without Judgment.”

Or stated this way:

“Paying attention in a certain way -on purpose, in the present moment, Non-Judgmentally.”

Non-Judgment in itself, as well as, when utilized along with the other 9 attitudes of the mental wellness state of mindfulness that I discuss in this group, is a game-changer when put into practice.

There have been many articles and books written about the practice of Non-Judgment.

One of my original teachers of this is the very well-known Gabrielle (Gabby) Bernstein.

This is where I learned to utilize this transformative go-to short statement every time something arises in my mind that could be a wrong judgment and could cause all kinds of chaos for no reason:

“I choose to judge nothing that occurs.”

I am going to go in-depth about this here, because it is that important.

It even has helped me tremendously in my marriage which I am very proud to say, with my dedication to mindfulness as a new way of life, and with my emotional intelligence growth that I keep sharing with you, I have taught my husband how he needs to grow along with me, and due to my persistence to create a life that I want to live, our marriage going on 15 years has evolved into what I shaped it into, based on my values, and my mental health needs. And he is a tough one, to say the very least. He never would have grown at all otherwise.

Non-Judgement of myself too has been a game-changer for me to learn one of the biggest lessons of all of life that I was not taught growing up— Self-Love.

And that my friends, is something we cannot afford to not master, so I will dedicate another post at another time to that Key to Everything.

Every time the impulse to decide whether something is good, bad, right, wrong, ugly or pretty arises, stop and say, “I choose to judge nothing that occurs.”

Everytime you see someone and think “they should” or “they shouldn’t”, “that’s good” or “that’s bad”, “she’s right” or “she’s wrong”, instead, just observe and don’t comment to yourself or others. Go cold turkey and stop judging totally for a period of time. Do a judgment detox.

A judgment detox means giving up judgment of all things. Judgment of self, others, the world, things that happen or don’t happen.

Choose to say these things to yourself instead:
“Today I choose to accept all that is for what it is – nothing more, nothing less.” You can also say to yourself daily -“Judging serves no purpose”.

You may find that you will have more peace. You may find that you feel less anxious because you are not having to figure everything out. You may find that you start observing life more and trusting more.

How much of your time and energy is taken up judging what is right, wrong, good or bad for everybody and everything? How much of your time today do you spend trying to predict the future? “That would just be terrible” or “If I do this, then I’ll be miserable.”
Or “If I do this it will make me happy”.

How would your life be different if you stopped judging and evaluating everyone and everything? Think about it. We evaluate everything. We put a value on everything. We are assigning meaning to things.

We spend a lot of time analyzing, criticizing, and pretending we know what’s good/bad, right/wrong, and on and on and on.

The real danger lies in becoming attached to our judgments.
Believing you really know what’s right or wrong, especially for someone else, can be very hurtful and damaging.
But also, we can’t assign meaning to something someone does because we might not be looking at the real reasons why they do it or don’t do it, that could have nothing to do with us intentionally.

If you want to dive into this deeper, you can read one Gabrielle Bernstein’s New York Times Bestsellers:“Judgment Detox: Release the beliefs that hold you back from living a better life.”

If you are like me and love extracting all of the teachings within the best article, here’s her articles website link: Gabby Bernstein Blog Articles | Informative Articles From Gabby

The critical ways I learned to apply non-judgement to my marriage and to my life choices I also learned from Kathy Murphy, PhD in her Article “Today I Will Judge Nothing.”

She discussed how our judgments have ruined many a good relationship.

The problem is we think we do know. Then we become limited by our perceptions and beliefs. We become bound by what we think we know and may be missing some of the greatest opportunities and lessons of our lives.

In addition, how does one design a life without making judgments, without deciding what’s good or bad or what’s right or wrong? We do need to be able to make choices for our lives, but maybe we need some new strategies for making these decisions. We can recognize and admit that all we really have are our preferences, our desires, our opinions, and our best guesses. With this information we discern what would be our best choice for today giving credence to the reality that “you never really know” how it will turn out. It’s a subtle yet powerful shift to change our language from what is right or wrong, good or bad to simply stating what we prefer.

Mindfulness Attitude of Non-Judging is cultivated by assuming the stance of an impartial witness to your own experience. To do this requires that you become aware of the constant stream of judging and reacting to inner and outer experiences that we are all normally caught up in, and learn to step back from it. When we begin practicing paying attention to the activity of our own mind, it is common to discover and be surprised by the fact that we are constantly generating judgments about our experience.

#MentalHealth #Mindfulness #MajorDepressiveDisorder #BipolarDepression #BipolarDisorder #Depression #Agoraphobia #Anxiety #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #Addiction #ChronicIllness #ChronicFatigue #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #IfYouFeelHopeless #Cancers #AnorexiaNervosa #EatingDisorders #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #Fibromyalgia #Selfcare #Selfharm #Grief #SuicidalIdeation #SuicidalThoughts #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #Suicide #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #PTSD #Trauma #RareDisease #SocialAnxiety #Fibromyalgia #Loneliness #Migraine #CerebralPalsy #MultipleSclerosis #ParkinsonsDisease #MoodDisorders #MotorDisorders #PersistentDepressiveDisorder #ADHD #Relationships #FamilyAndFriends

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Leaning on knowing my Resilience -Personal Example

Yesterday to this morning for me is another example of why I am so thankful every day that I took the University of Pennsylvania’s online course on learning and applying resilience skills, so grateful that I typed up every single word that was taught, and that I recently started this group to share this critical knowledge from the actual people that researched this.

U. of Penn’s definition of Resilience is not only the ability to bounce back from adversity, but also the ability to grow from challenges.

In this course, Dr. Karen Reivich focuses on the psychosocial aspects of resilience. The aspects of resilience that are determined by your psychology, and by your social relationships and interactions.

So, yesterday was one of the rare days within recent years that 1) my fatigue completely took hold of me, and 2) my brain’s sleepiness was to the point that most of my brain would not wake up - all day- and I could see myself not able to function practically at all.

It’s not like this was the first time this ever occurred, and it’s always a possibility, but it is still very hard to watch myself go through this and it is also very hard to wake up from the next morning—the kind of “slap in the face” reminder that oh yeah, I live with a chronic illness that can at times, and I will never know when, will have me almost completely disabled.

So, this morning I woke up with this “setback.” And I look at it like I was brought to a “fork in the road.” And now while yesterday’s adversity was not in my control, this morning, which I always work to look at as a fresh, new day full of good possibilities, it was actually now in my control as to which way I let myself go in my mind at this “fork in the road.”

Of course upon waking up, my mind started on autopilot and took me the wrong direction. Then, the moments that I made myself ready for, the clarity, the practice of never staying in autopilot and moving forward on purpose, with intention, with as much control as I can have and before it gets too hard to get the control back.

I turned my brain’s thinking around, I put my focus on the truths that were on my side- including but not limited to the fact that I Have Bounced Back From Much Worse Than This…;and I turned my mind away from dangerous cognitive distortions and right then and there pretty fast I would not let the negativity bring me downward.

Yesterday, I still had the mindful awareness to apply radical acceptance, non-judging, patience, trust, and just letting be with what is — for this one day -these are part of the 9 Attitudes of Mindfulness that I have begun to write posts about here for you. These all link together with the skills of resilience.

What you will learn too here, amongst other important things is that -it is when we start paying attention to our inner experience, that we rapidly discover that there are certain thoughts and feelings and situations that our mind seems to want to hold on to.

And amongst other what are called “resilience interventions” that I applied were these skills that I committed to in living with intention- what are called “protective factors” that I nurture every single day so they will be there for me when I need them most, when I have to dig deeper from a wider range of resources —

I learned the Critical Skill of Optimism —which gives us the attitude to continue to persist —and I learned how Optimism is the most important factor in resilience and in all of life - well-being and strong relationships;
I commit myself to living for clarified purposes that are bigger than myself, this is not limited to relationships, it is even better for our wellbeing to have an attachment to something larger than yourself which might also be to a mission, to a purpose, to an idea, something that you believe is critically important and worth fighting for (by the way, my personal mission is that all of you are worth fighting for);
I learned what my Personality/Character Strengths are and I learned how to leverage them;
I Developed Mental Agility;
I learned how to create a “buffer of positivity”, and what is called the “Broaden And Build” theory of positive emotions;
I learned how to take control of “thinking traps” by applying “cognitive strategies”…

All of these are what is so effective about the newest branch of psychology that I approach my life by to overcome all that I do overcome— where in addition to everything else, we build strengths supports.

Positivity Psychology, a somewhat newer term, describes a dual approach to mental health- where we build strengths supports, and healthy lifestyles, as well as treating illness and distress.

AlI of this is all what I will keep breaking down into chunks in most of my posts here to this group.
This takes some work first on my part - to keep breaking down the many variables- so bear with me.

#MentalHealth #MajorDepressiveDisorder #ChronicFatigue #ChronicIllness #Disability #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #Depression #Anxiety #MoodDisorders #MotorDisorders #BipolarDepression #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #AutismSpectrumDisorder #AnorexiaNervosa #EatingDisorders #BipolarDisorder #Selfcare #ADHD #Relationships #FamilyAndFriends #Fibromyalgia #ChronicPain #Cancers #Addiction #Selfharm #SuicidalIdeation #SuicidalThoughts #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #Suicide #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #PTSD #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis #PostTraumaticStressDisorder #Trauma #RheumatoidArthritis #SocialAnxiety #LearningDisabilities #CrohnsDisease #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #PersistentDepressiveDisorder #RecurringMDD #TreatmentresistantDepression #Mindfulness #MDD #TRDSupport #EhlersDanlosSyndrome #AutonomicDysfunction #PosturalOrthostaticTachycardiaSyndrome #MultipleSclerosis #LymeDisease #MajorDepression #ClinicalDepression #MotivationMonday #resilience #Grief

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So thankful to have This chosen family. I want each of you to know that I am Thankful for You. We all have a special connection that is very real.

If You don’t think you are special, then why would I make You this collage and on a holiday🤗

Extra appreciation for everyone that has been joining this group of mine, Yay🙌🙌🙌🙌 We’re growing!

“We may not have it all together, but together we have it all.”

“It’s the friends we meet along the way who help us appreciate the journey.”

Ok, so you all need some of my tools like right now 😊

These 3 powerful words Will
Always help you to come back to only the present moment:
“Be Here Now”

I can’t emphasize enough that The most powerful tool that you Always have for self-regulation of all of your emotions and for pulling some energy out of nowhere when you are fatigued and depleted is Conscious (Deliberate) Breathing.
And it is also about taking control of what's going on in our bodies. Being aware of our breath or our heart rate.

Let’s do some deliberate breathing together:

Think these simple & fun mindful words with me:
As you inhale “Breathe in the good”
As you exhale “Breathe out the bad”
Make it a deep and strong inhale and an even longer exhale

“Just Take Care Of Now.”
This is a short but very calming go-to sentence when you are overwhelmed and or running on empty, so out of gas.

This is my quick & empowering go-to statement as well to remind myself fast that I am not a mind reader and thoughts are not always facts…
“I choose to judge nothing that occurs.”
This in technical terms helps with -
—Nonjudgment of inner experience and
—-Nonreactivity to inner experience (Creating That Space/spaciousness of mind)

We will be talking about this and so much more in here in my group “Resilience and Mindfulness” so if you haven’t joined us yet - click that Join button and keep this group on your radar.

May this help your Thanksgiving day and everyday bring you Ease, Calm, Peace, and Balance.

#MentalHealth #WarmWishes #Mindfulness #MajorDepressiveDisorder #Depression #Anxiety #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #ChronicFatigue #ChronicPain #Selfcare #Selfharm #Grief #SuicidalIdeation #SuicidalThoughts #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #Suicide #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #BipolarDepression #MoodDisorders #BipolarDisorder #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #PTSD #Trauma #Agoraphobia #Cancers #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis #Headache #Migraine #ADHD #Addiction #AnorexiaNervosa #EatingDisorders #Autism #RheumatoidArthritis #Disability #ChronicIllness #RareDisease #IfYouFeelHopeless #Cancer #EhlersDanlosSyndrome #dissociativedisorders #MightyTogether #DistractMe #CheckInWithMe #SocialAnxiety #Relationships

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This is me again sharing my suicide attempts.. One thing I have realised is that having suicidal thoughts and suicidal attempts are totally different.. Cause the first one makes you feel that you are thinking of doing it but you didn’t make any attempts.. Well, as a person of having continuous and scary suicidal thoughts, I would definitely admit how hard and painful it is to fight against those thoughts.. It’s crazy.. I have been going through this for like one and a half year.. It’s extremely difficult to hold yourself not to do it.. But, there comes suicide attempts.. If I go back, as far as I remember is that I have faced it maybe more than 6 or 7 times.. I don’t remember it exactly.. It’s a trauma.. For me, suicide attempt is the worst stage of depression.. Yeah, even after having MDD, I would still indicate it as the scariest part of my depression.. I am at loss of words what to say actually.. This is such a horrible memory and it just happened like 2 days ago... I didn’t share it anyone else except my mother.. And, I have seen my mother breaking down badly 💔.. I was telling her about it in a very calm tone but the way she was howling.... Breaks my heart.. She was saying if you had done it, I would have lost you forever💔.. Then, you won't be with me anymore... My mother is the strongest person I have seen in my life but when I saw how badly she was crying, my heart just broke in thousand pieces.. She didn’t even let me sleep alone and the whole night she hugged me and just didn’t let go.. I told her about it yesterday night.. And, she was saying you know I am your mother and I can feel the distress.. The whole day I was feeling something is wrong.. Then, you told me about it... Now, let me tell you what happened exactly.. Past few days, I was not doing really well.. I was having depression.. But, that night it just got worse.. I was feeling so bad that it made me feel that maybe I am goona do something cause it was out of control.. The medicines my psychiatrist specifically mentioned to have when it’s like this weren’t even working.. I had tripple dose of them but nothing.. And, believe me,suddenly the thought of giving up from life was so intense that I can't 😫.. I have never faced something like this.. I mean totally giving up from life and it was so scary that I couldn’t even control myself.. It was like so determined that I am actually giving up from life and the only way I saw that time was committing suicide.. I was at my home.. Before doing it, I went to parents room and my grandparents room.. Maybe for seeing them for the last time 💔.. Something I did it last year.. But, totally giving up from life and the determination that I can't do anything anymore were never like this before.. I did suicide attempts but it was never this intense to completely give up on life.. And, I was trying to cut my wrist something I never tried before cause I just couldn’t gather the courage for that.. But, that day, I was continuously doing it.. Now, it gives me chills in my spine that what if it would have actually happened...... When I couldn’t do it, the next thing I did was to take medicines.. Yeah, I opened 23 medicines to consume... Still, I Couldn't.. The whole night the knife and medicines were on my bed just next to me.. But, when I woke up, then I realised how horrible thing I was goona do..... I took all the medicines in a tissue paper and kept it in my bag.. But, after talking with my mother, I gave it to her and I could clearly sense her fear and anxiety after seeing these... She was baffled for a moment 💔... Same goes for me too when I realised what I was goona do in the next day.. It was horrifying and my scariest and serious suicide attempt for so long something that never happened before cause even the whole night I wasn’t able to stop myself from doing it or to go to my mother for help 💔... All that flashed back to my memory was my mother's helplessly breaking down and crying so badly 💔... I was calm but she wasn’t... The fear of losing her daughter was haunting her 💔..It actually makes me guilty and I just don’t want it happen ever again. Nope never............... #Depression #MentalHealth #Anxiety #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #MajorDepressiveDisorder

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I’m here over the holidays too to help as many of us as possible 🤗

Holidays, right?!

I would like to open this post up here in my group “Resilience and Mindfulness” to an ongoing conversation and place for you to share and be seen, heard, understood and helped if even in any small, but possibly big way.

A lot more heavy emotions and thoughts come to surface.

Even ones we have been healing from.

Then there is also the stressful energy that others around us bring to our space of balance and peace.

I want you to know that since I am really living up to my fun username my first group members gave me-
slay queen, I have been slaying these heavy old memories and complicated feelings that have been already arising for me - during this Thanksgiving time, and I have been slaying my husband’s gaslighting and negativity…, so I am in a great place to be here to give a shoulder to lean on, two ears to listen deeply if you can open up and share with me here in this group I created for all of you, or feel free to message me to my inbox and I will do all that I can to give (as soon as technical difficulties in this app or time allows) to reply back to you to give you more light, more strength, more confidence, more connection, more perspective, more resources and tools, more positivity, more tangible hope…..

I want you to know that opening up and talking through your dark is strength, and so is letting others you can trust in our safe space, others like me who are reaching out a hand to take a hand, to take many hands, and offering to care more.

Your friend in this very hard thing called life,
Dawn

#MentalHealth #MajorDepressiveDisorder #Relationships #ChronicIllness #ChronicFatigue #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #Anxiety #Depression #Grief #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #Loneliness #MoodDisorders #BipolarDepression #BipolarDisorder #Autism #Disability #Selfcare #Selfharm #EatingDisorders #RareDisease #Mindfulness #SuicidalIdeation #SuicidalThoughts #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #Suicide #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #MyalgicEncephalomyelitis #Fibromyalgia #PostTraumaticStressDisorder #PTSD #Trauma #Addiction #Agoraphobia #SocialAnxiety #Cancers #ADHD #AnorexiaNervosa #Cancer #Caregiving #IfYouFeelHopeless #MightyTogether #CheckInWithMe #ChronicPain #ChronicDailyHeadache #Headache #Migraine #WarmWishes

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ACCEPTANCE: 2nd of 9 Foundational Attitudes of Mindfulness As Part of Resilience

“On this sacred path of Radical Acceptance, rather than striving for perfection, we discover how to love ourselves into wholeness.”
- Tara Brach

“There is something Wonderfully Bold And Liberating
About Saying Yes To Our Entire Imperfect And Messy Life.”
- Tara Brach

The 9 Foundational Attitudes of Mindfulness also helps us to understand the significance of Full/Radical Acceptance.

First, from my own words and my own horrible things I just had to finally fully Accept: first you must grieve whatever kind of loss it is and then you must let it go (letting go/letting be - the doorway to freedom will be another post of mine here in this group) — but first, I had to grieve that surprise! I will be managing my Chronic major depressive disorder for the rest of my life, biggest surprise for my husband and I firstly was that I did not win the lottery with the type of depression that occurs once, we had no idea there was such a thing as Chronic, Recurring Major Depressive Disorder! And I had to grieve that this took my career away since my onset of this beast of an illness was at 34 years old. We had to grieve that we would struggle on 1 income because I could not work any job well enough anymore which we finally had to accept by the time I was in my early 40’s. I had to grieve that I was too sick and disabled and with our 1 income that I wouldn’t become a Mom (except to kitties). I had to grieve that this left me isolated from making new friends and I had to grieve the “friends” that deserted me when I was too sick and not myself. I had to grieve that I had never had healthy parenting from either of my parents and that I had to save myself and cut off the extremely toxic relationships with both of my parents with their narcissism and their emotional abuse to me. I had to grieve the devastating trauma that onset this horrendous illness that made me very suicidal back then and more times-even one time of that is too many times- I am sure many of us know what I mean. I also had to grieve more than once when my MDD took away my sense of self- I had to keep relearning who I am, what I like & dislike, remembering with surprise that I am actually funny and full of life and joy and positivity inherently. But, Thankfully I finally learned from my Mindfulness teachers and other experts that were better than my therapists ever were, that without learning (Radical )Acceptance and all of the integrated 9 attitudes of Mindfulness and so much more (I read psychology in my free time to learn to conquer my illness every single day) and this was my only way to attain the most beautiful inner peace, and to manifest my best life after all plus transforming into my best, most authentic self.

Acceptance- The attitude of actively recognizing that things are the way they are, even if they aren’t the way we want them to be.

Accepting Reality- mindfulness and awareness help you to *Come To Terms* with and accept things in life that are less than wonderful.

Acknowledging the present reality as it is (you don’t have to like it, it’s just how your body is feeling right now - it will not be completely just like this always/not for the rest of your life); Acceptance does not mean approval or compliance in every situation. As a mindfulness principle, acceptance means seeing the present moment as it truly is, taking it in, and living with that knowledge. You can accept a fact and decide to change it, if that seems like the appropriate choice to you. ***This principle is not about keeping things the same***, but ***it is about letting go of denial or ignorance and accepting or acknowledging what is happening in the moment.***

Accepting what is, even if that is challenging. When you know what you are dealing with, you can discover what can be mindfully changed and what has to remain as it is.

With MBCT (Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy) you can prepare yourself and find ways to cope with the bad in a way that allows you to move on and even to eventually see some of the bad as a surprisingly good thing.

There is also Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT; Hayes et al. 1999)

The Six Core Processes of ACT”).
To put it in less clinical terms and make it a bit easier to understand, Dr. Russell Harris (2011) has defined ACT as “a mindfulness-based behavioral therapy that challenges the ground rules of most Western psychology” with the goal of helping patients create a rich and meaningful life and develop mindfulness skills, even with the existence of pain and suffering.

Six core processes of ACT to develop psychological flexibility are:
Acceptance,
Cognitive Defusion,
Being Present,
Self as context,
Values,
Committed Action

Acceptance is an alternative to the instinct to avoid negative, or potentially negative, experiences. It is the active choice to be aware of and allow these types of experiences without trying to avoid or change them.

Cognitive Defusion refers to the defusion techniques that are intended to change how an individual reacts to or interacts with their thoughts and feelings rather than the nature of these thoughts and feelings. Acceptance and Commitment Therapy is not intended to limit our exposure to negative experiences, but to face them and come out the other side with a decreased fixation on these experiences.

Being Present is another familiar concept for practitioners of mindfulness-based therapy. It can be understood as the practice of being aware of the present moment while declining to attach judgment to the experience. In other words, being present involves actively experiencing what is happening without trying to predict, change, or make value judgments about the experience.

Self as Context is a simple idea that an individual is not his or her experiences, thoughts, or emotions. Instead of being one’s experiences, the “self as context” process rests on the idea that there is a self outside of the current experience.
In other words, we are not what happens to us. We are the ones experiencing what happens to us.

Values in this context are defined as the qualities that we choose to work towards in any given moment.
We all hold values, consciously or unconsciously, that direct our steps.
In ACT, we apply processes and techniques that help us live our lives according to the values that we hold dear.

#MentalHealth #Mindfulness #MajorDepressiveDisorder #ChronicIllness #Disability #ChronicFatigue #ChronicPain #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #Anxiety #Depression #BipolarDepression #MoodDisorders #PTSD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #AnorexiaNervosa #EatingDisorders #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #Addiction #ADHD #Grief #Loneliness #Fibromyalgia #Headache #Migraine #BipolarDisorder #RareDisease #Cancers #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #Selfcare #Selfharm #SuicidalIdeation #SuicidalThoughts #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #Trauma #CheckInWithMe #IfYouFeelHopeless #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #Caregiving #SocialAnxiety #Agoraphobia #MightyTogether

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Placing the power in your hands to practice how to improve your wellbeing

Since this is a Practice, and in a practice, we must build upon our knowledge—here, I am going to expand upon my 1st post about the Beginner’s Mind, the first post of this new group - click to join and not miss the interconnected 9 attitudes of the wellbeing mindset of Mindfulness.

There is an emphasis on the importance of cultivating this mindset in all aspects of life.

Has anyone practiced this Beginner’s Mind or think that you will give it a try?
Any thoughts about this particular part of the whole?

Let’s break it down again:

Holding onto a particular belief limits the mind.
We accumulate a lot of conditioning along the way.
We tend to create a world where our opinions and beliefs are fixed.
As soon as we are attached to that one side, we shut off the other side-we don’t see it or hear it.

Only when we are willing to show up in each moment with a fresh, curious mind, willing to listen, knowing that possibly everything we believed and thought -that perhaps that’s not true. And, if we can maintain that freshness of mind, called a beginner’s mind—

then we can create a space where the mind can absorb, can respect the way other people think— take in new perspectives, and all of a sudden, we start to see not only a transformation in our mind, but a greater sense of calm, of clarity, and also a positive change in our relationships.

By letting go of preconceived ideas, expectations, and attachments, we can fully engage with each moment, experiencing life as it truly is, rather than through the filter of our thoughts and beliefs.

Key concepts:

Openness to possibilities:
The mind of the beginner is empty, free of the habits of the expert, ready to accept, to doubt, and open to all the possibilities.

No attachment to outcomes:
By approaching situations with a beginner's mind, one is less likely to be fixated on achieving a specific result, allowing for greater flexibility and adaptability.

And, the extremely critical skill of learning How to focus on the present moment:
This mindset encourages a deep awareness of the current experience, without getting caught up in past regrets or future anxieties; which we all know the negative consequences this has on our mental health.

We have to help ourselves to not be stuck dwelling on either the "what could have been" or the "what might happen", so that we can instead stay living in and fully enjoying the actual present moment. This is all a part of our role in managing our depression and anxiety and not letting these win and take from us and our potential and our lives that we can have.

It’s important to remember that all of this is not an achievement to be attained but rather a continuous process of self-discovery and self-transformation.

#MentalHealth #ChronicIllness #Mindfulness #MajorDepressiveDisorder #BipolarDisorder #BipolarDepression #MoodDisorders #Depression #Anxiety #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #Cancers #ChronicFatigue #AnorexiaNervosa #Selfcare #Addiction #Fibromyalgia #ChronicPain #Selfharm #Grief #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #SuicidalIdeation #SuicidalThoughts #Suicide #Trauma #Agoraphobia #ADHD #SocialAnxiety #SocialAnxietyDisorder #PTSDSupportAndRecovery #PTSD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Headache #Migraine #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #Disability #IfYouFeelHopeless #EatingDisorders #ObsessiveCompulsiveDisorder #MightyTogether #Caregiving #CheckInWithMe #DistractMe

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I can’t believe I just wrote this entire post about drinking tea 🤣😀 How could you not join this new group I created “Resilience and Mindfulness”?

TRY THIS PEACEFUL TEA MEDITATION TO BRING COMFORT TO YOUR DAY

Let me know in the comments who has tried this or will try it?

Read on to get the full picture-

I just did this and it was so much more than just drinking tea.

I chose to drink a mug of Vanilla Chai tea on this cloudy and rainy day to bring some zen into the ordinary thing of having a cup of tea.

I chose to not do anything else at all while drinking my cup of tea, except to live in the actual moment of this and broaden and build on positive thoughts and positive emotions.

I sat on the stool in my kitchen facing my backyard glass door and I took slow sips savoring the flavor and smell of the tea and I took deep breaths while just watching the raindrops coming down on the concrete of our patio. And seeing the beauty of the golden leaves 🍁 mixed in with the green leaves and some red leaves on one of the trees in my view.

I noticed and smiled a few times seeing one of my two kitties curled up sleeping in her “doughnut” shaped cat bed enjoying my presence next to her.

In the words of Thich Nhat Hanh:

"Drink your tea slowly and reverently, as if it is the axis on which the whole earth revolves...
Live the actual moment."

“Tea is an act complete in its simplicity. When I drink tea, there is only me, and the tea. The rest of the world dissolves. There are no worries about the future. No dwelling on past mistakes. Tea is simple: Loose-leaf tea, hot pure water, a cup. I inhale the scent, tiny delicate pieces of the tea floating above the cup. I drink the tea, the essence of the leaves becoming a part of me. I am informed by the tea, changed. This is the act of life, in one pure moment, and in this act the truth of the world suddenly becomes revealed; all the complexity, pain, drama of life is a pretense, invented in our minds for no good purpose. There is only the tea, and me, converging.”

This is just one of the ways we can consciously choose to help calm and center our mind, and invite a moment of stillness and ease into your day.

You can practice a tea meditation during anytime of the day — perhaps you try it in the morning (or coffee!) to start your day with PRESENCE enjoy it in the middle of the day for increased FOCUS AND CLARITY, or end your day with the PRACTICE for a more PEACEFUL mindset for a better night’s sleep.

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1 of 9 Foundational Attitudes/Principles of Mindfulness

But, first a quote from Jon Kabat-Zinn who introduced these principles

“It is only when the mind is open and receptive that learning and seeing and change can occur.”
Kabat-Zinn, 2005, p. 31

Beginner’s Mind -The attitude of intentionally seeing things around you as if for the first time, by shedding our expectations and preconceptions and welcoming the possibility of a new moment, one that has never been seen before.

Curiosity, simplicity; Rather than coming to a situation with the weight of past ideas and experiences, the beginner’s mind asks you to arrive knowing that you do not know everything. As no moment is the same as another, every moment allows you a chance to learn. Being open and curious can help save you from being stuck in a rut.

#MentalHealth #MajorDepressiveDisorder #Anxiety #Depression #ChronicIllness #GeneralizedAnxietyDisorder #Mindfulness #BipolarDepression #PTSD #ComplexPosttraumaticStressDisorder #Trauma #ChronicFatigue #ChronicFatigueSyndrome #BipolarDisorder #Selfcare #Selfharm #Grief #SuicidalIdeation #SuicidalThoughts #SuicideAttemptSurvivors #Suicide #CheckInWithMe #DistractMe #BorderlinePersonalityDisorder #Cancers #ADHD #Fibromyalgia #ChronicPain #Caregiving #MoodDisorders #Addiction #PostpartumDisorders #Agoraphobia #SocialAnxiety #Loneliness #Headache #Migraine #AnorexiaNervosa #RareDisease #EatingDisorders #IfYouFeelHopeless

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