A few days ago, we posted a video to share how mindfulness can help patients suffering from anxiety disorders (if you haven’t seen the video yet, check it out here).
But how else can we apply mindfulness in our work? What other patients could benefit from integrating mindfulness into their lives?
Today, we’d like to share the story of a practitioner who introduced mindfulness to a young woman with bipolar disorder to help her cope with the rapid cycles of highs and lows . . .
. . . even though the young woman was not open to mindfulness at first. Hear how the practitioner gradually saw her client’s reluctance turned around, and the incredible changes that followed, in this short video:
I was moved to hear the dramatic changes that happened in that young woman’s life after she began to practice mindfulness.
Have you ever seen a client’s life turned around with mindfulness practice? Please share your experience in the comments below.
I have had bipolar 2 disorder for many years. Mostly had depression. I have tarted mindfulness meditation for the past month – every day for 40 minutes, focussing on thins nobody else has done. I have stopped tow of my medications completely, and reduced the doses of two more. I am free of depression, and have not felt this well for years. Interesting!
I like your idea of having him embrace his “little boy”. I often use ego state psychology to help patients identify the “state” that is having problems. Often the “little child” is frightened, the “adolescent” is feeling angry and rebellious. Having a mature adult self as chairman or head of the “ego family”, able to protect, understand, modify, the intensity of the troubled state’s experience, can be very helpful in the healing process. Embracing the troubled, vulnerable parts of the self can be so validating. “I can do this” is often the surprised but pleased response. That means I don’t have to wait for my therapy sessions to feel like I am healing.
I have used mindful meditation and hypnotherapy with several of my bipolar patients. It works well if they are not on too many mind numbing medications. Often the patients really begin to make great progress, identifying their moods, the cues that cause shifts in mood, allowing themselves to express feelings, even strong feelings, in more managable ways. Then something occurs, the illness of a parent, rejection by a friend, loss of a job, that throws them off kilter. That is often when the psychiatrist increases their medical dosages, and they become too emotionally numb, or exhausted to maintain their focus on the “observing ego”.
Mindfulness meditation changed my life by allowing me to sit with myself in the psychological pain of titrating off of 16 years of psychiatric medications. This step took six months. Afterwards, I was tested and had been wrongly diagnosised with rapid cycling bipolar/major depression/borderline personality disorder/ and many others. The real diagnosis is more like preverbal developmental enduring childhood trauma. LOL Ok something like that..I don’t identify with that anymore either.
I was very blessed to have found a mindful therapist along with a speciality in meditation training. My counselor was open to exploring with me different avenues in my healing process. Along with the mindful meditation, I found healing in weekly massage, which brought up a totally repressed memory in a safe manner. I utilizied qi gong, mindful poetry/writing classes, dream work, volunteer work at a retreat, and neuro feedback. I eventually purchased an individual biofeedback unit from mindalive (David Delight). I also educated myself about spiritual awakening and trauma.
It’s been about two years now, and I sense, that I am communicating within a growing and new awareness of myself in process. I continue to study and hope to have a small business of helping others on this wonderful and exciting opening that mindfulness provides in our life!!
Namaste
I’m a Christian myself, and I must say that we don’t dieidsrct meditation, not at all for we practice it ourselves- just by another means. Instead of transcendental meditation, we meditate through the medium of prayer of which simlarly, we close out external influences. However instead of emptying the mind, we emphasize more on a direct mode of personal communication with God. Aside from this, another form of meditation Christians pursue is the meditation of God’s Word.
I teach mindfulness and meditation in my communication workshops. The reason I do this is that it has profoundly changed my own life. I used to have so much anxiety that I couldn’t sit and meditate because the pounding in my chest and tightness in my gut were painful. Id be sweating and jumping out of my skin as people instructed me to breath deeply. Breath deeply?? I could barely take a breath! People recommended mindfulness but the techniques given to me were not useful… until I found Continuum Movement. Emily Conrad has created a system where one uses sound to get into a deep meditative place. When I first experienced her work I couldn’t believe the calm and peace I felt. Pain id had for years was gone. It felt like swimming in a warm, safe bath. I took her workshops and felt my system changing. It was also profound because I could do it in a group of people or alone. And when done with others it helped my system feel regulated, safe, functioning optimally with others. That was a huge healing as my anxiety had been worse with people around. Now I can do all forms of meditation because my system knows the feeling of ease and peace alone and in groups. I now teach sound and physical based meditations in the workshops I give. I use sound meditation daily because sound is the easiest way for me to access all of my brain and body. If someone I work with now is resistant to meditation or mindfulness I do not push it. I try to find something preasurable and fun for them. Many are not ready for sitting meditation and there are so many ways to be mindful that are small steps we can take. Some like the gym, a more active, physical place to try to focus on muscles contracting, the sensations, some like music, some like walks, some like sitting and breathing, some like tai chi, some like focusing while eating, some like playing the piano, some like dancing. In my experience, it doesn’t matter the activity as long as it helps bring some focus. in And then once that pathway is established the person will have the ability to focus and calm in more places than they imagined. Thanks for this beautiful series and the quality information that is so accessible.
We started a Mindfulness series at VA Mental Health Clinic three years ago. Along with the a new series every 8 weeks, the veterans gather for thirty minute mindfulness meditation every Friday.
The Vietnam combat vets especially are drawn to it and many report improved quality of life and many have gotten off of all psychiatric medications.
The word of mouth is strong and we have a wait list as each series fills quickly.
This special population has taught us the art of guiding respectfully and tenderly.
Hi Katie,
I am impressed by the programs you and your organization are providing for veterans in your area! I think mindfulness would be an excellent piece of my hypnotherapy practice and wondered if you would recommend a training or a good book that will help me prepare to teach this to others.
Thank you for all the good work you bring to our vets!!
Joanna Calderwood
CCHt
I have a middle-aged female client who had the worst case of anxiety disorder I have seen. When she came to therapy, she had tried to commit suicide and was hospitalized for a month. She was unable to be in the room with me without her husband present. She could not tolerate being alone at home. Her husband dropped out of his life to be there for her. She insisted he lay down with her in order for her to fall asleep. She became totally dependent on him and could not make a decision. Her sensorium was clouded to the point she could not put a sentence together. (The medications accounted for a lot of the fogginess and memory problems.) She was fearful of everything in her environment.
Through mindfulnes, this client slowly began to come into therapy independently. She learned to trust me and apply what she was learning in therapy to her daily life. She got the book on mindfulness for anxiety and began to devour every work and process it sentence by sentence, slowly. It is now three years later. My client now goes where she needs to go independently and take her residual anxiety with her. She is part of a spiritual support group and shares her story with the group. Her husband is working again and into his life. She continues to work her program with ACT and mindfulness and is loving her life. She still has anxiety. We recently discovered that her “sleep anxiety” (waking up with anxiety or experiencing anxiety when she tries to nap) is due to sleep apnea. She now has a Cpap and is determined to work with it and stay with it, even though it is uncomfortable for her. She does not struggle with “sleep anxiety” now. She acknowledges the body sensations she experiences and does not panic from it. She is teaching others about mindfulness and continues to read and reread all of the tools she can find. She is an inspiration to those around her, including me.
Thank your Carol for your comments. Can you tell us the name of the book about anxiety and mindfulness?
I prited very much from the Peter Levine`s suggestions, he showed an the wivdeo. Especially useful is “embracing Yourself”
I have a Patent who was severely abused by a teacher to whom his pariebnts wanted my patients to gom when they were away, and they were so often and for a long time.
I use d brainspotting and suggested embracing himself.
He realized his neediness of a protecting home and he called this the little boy in him.When he started to use embracing himself he reported feeling “his little boy” grow and able to protect himself from the problems in his Familie. He feels his “indipendence”.