Forum Replies Created
-
Posts
-
1. I found the Urge Surfing exercise to be somewhat difficult for myself, partly because I was not feeling any sort of “urges” in beginning the exercise. Eventually I was able to focus on an Impulse that I struggle with, bring it up and try to “surf” through it. Physically I felt some anxiety when envisioning the impulse, a tightness in the chest, fluttering in the belly and tension in the muscles. After a few minutes of practice, I was able to “ride the wave” and find some relief from the feelings and sensations I was experiencing. The more I practiced this, the easier it became and the more relief and acceptance I felt. I do think that urge surfing could be particularly helpful for those struggling with a substance use disorder. Allowing oneself to experience the craving, to breathe through it and to realize that it will ebb and flow and you will feel relief could be a very helpful experience. Urge surfing might be best suited for individuals that have some experience in mindfulness and feel ready to deal with urges specifically. In my practice, with individuals who struggle with urges, I may introduce to them the concept and then proceed if they feel comfortable and ready to do so.
2. For the second mindfulness exercise I chose Loving Kindness. I chose this exercise because I often find that I can be very hard on myself, my thoughts, and my emotions. I felt this exercise was a good choice as well, because although I initially struggled with the acceptance exercise, I did find it helpful and wanted to build on that. I found this mindfulness exercise to be a beneficial one for me. Overall my physical experience was on of calm. Perhaps because of my caregiver role I found a sense of warmth and compassion when focusing on loving kindness to others. I do think that it helped me feel a connection to something greater then myself, particularly when at times, I can get stuck in my own thoughts and the way I feel. I think that I would continue to like to practice loving kindness to myself, learning from the way I provide loving kindness for others. Many of the individuals that I work with struggle with self-compassion and I think this exercise could be one that I could begin to teach with them. As I do work with individuals for a short period of time, I may introduce this concept of self-compassion through mindfulness as something they can consider building on as they work with their outpatient clinician.
3. I have found integrating increased mindfulness in my life over the past several weeks to be very beneficial, it is clear that it is helped me begin to alleviate some suffering in my own life. I have been practicing some mindfulness for myself and occasionally bringing it up with patients that I work with, but this has brought such a larger awareness for me of the helpfulness and benefits. I personally plan on continuing my mindfulness practice and building on what I have learned while participating in this training. I also plan to be more aware of patients that are ready and might particularly benefit from beginning to think about and learn mindfulness techniques and work on developing an outpatient plan with them where they could have support to build and expand on this.
1. I found the Soft Belly exercise to be one of the more beneficial ones for me personally. I found it extremely helpful to have a focus and words to repeat to bring me back to the breath when my mind began to wander. In relaxing my belly, the rest of my body followed. I was actually surprised about the amount of tension I was holding in my middle section. It was easier, initially for me to relax my belly on the inhalation, and more difficult on the exhalation. I found this meditation very beneficial in allowing me to accept my feelings in the moment. I have actually used it since the initial practice when I have been feeling stressed and overwhelmed and have found that it is helpful for me, even when practiced for a short duration.
2. I struggled more with the Acceptance Exercise, especially as I begun. When I began repeating to myself, “May I accept myself completely as I am right now?”, I felt an initial huge wave of anxiety. My physical body felt initially tensed and I found it difficult to relax with the amount of anxiety I was experiencing. I do think it helped that I chose to do the guided meditation; I may have stopped if I was trying it on my own and experienced that amount of anxiety. I did notice that after continued repeats of the phrase, my anxiety lessened and I was able to relax and accept my feelings, even the anxiety, more. Near to the end when I repeated the phrase “May I accept myself completely as I am right now?”, my subconscious replied with a “yes”. This meditation was much more difficult initially in allowing me to accept the way that I am, in the moment. I would say that overall I think it helped, and with practice I would likely experience less anxiety and more long term benefit.
3. I think that incorporating self-acceptance meditation in to my practice with individuals that I work with, especially those with substance use disorders, is important. If a patient was willing, I think that I would likely begin with the soft belly meditation. This one, in my experience was easier to grasp and did not evoke immediate strong feelings. For patients that were more experienced in meditation, or those that I was able to work with for some time, I might suggest the acceptance exercise. While it does seem to be a practice that might evoke stronger negative feelings initially, it could be very beneficial to accept oneself in their current state. Because of the environment I work in, I envision working more with the soft belly exercise and trying to connect individuals to outpatient clinicians that could continue to work with them in this modality.
1. The Lying down/body scan meditation is one that is very familiar to me. I frequently practice it in times of stress and prefer having the guiding meditation, with several favorites on YouTube. I came to the practice feeling somewhat tense. In focusing on and making contact with the different areas of my body, I find it easier to relax, or accept the way my body is feeling. My mind tends to wander less during body scans. I find body scan meditation to be very effective in developing concentration in the moment , but also increasing flexibility of thought by allowing the body to “be” in its current state.
2. I found the focusing on a single object helpful, but one I will need to practice! In this exercise, I felt more alert initially and perhaps less focused and more easily distracted then when doing the other meditations, were I tend to close my eyes. After the initial feelings of distraction, I was able to focus my mind and thought process back to my object (A facial jade roller) and each time my mind began to wander, I was able to bring my focus back more quickly. As mentioned before I found this meditation more difficulty to maintain my focus. On the other hand, I think it is one I would like to practice as it would be a good meditation to use it times of anxiety or stress, where I might not be able to do one of the previous meditations, but could use an object to focus and relax.
3. In thinking about incorporating these meditations in to my practice, it would be more feasible to incorporate the focusing on a single object due to the setting that I practice. In my current work on an inpatient mental health unit, it would be difficult to complete the body scan practice with patients. Fortunately, we do have groups that incorporate this, so patients on our unit are able to benefit from it. However, frequently patients are stressed and overwhelmed when I meet with them and at times have difficulty focusing on what we are trying to accomplish in our meeting (frequently discharge planning). Asking them if they would like to briefly stop and focus on a small object in their room and guiding them through this, would not take a significant amount of time but would likely be very beneficial to help calm and refocus their mind to better attend to our meeting.
Question 1:
During the Breath Counting Meditation, my physical body was initially somewhat tense and I was experiencing some feelings of anxiety. However, as the exercise progressed, I felt much more in a relaxed state with no anxiety present. With the initial counts of the exercise, my mind wandered slightly, however it became easier to focus only on the breath and counting and be present with this. For me, this exercise was quite successful in calming and stabilizing my mind and I felt quite relaxed afterwards.Question 2:
During the Basic Mindfulness meditation, which I did several hours after the first, I was not really experiencing anxiety beforehand and was able physically feel a sense of calm, immediately. My mind did wander more frequently in this exercise, without the focus of the count, but I was able to refocus, each time to the breath and this did help to focus and clear my mind. I think with practice of this exercise I would be better able to understand the habits of my mind, but I did notice that my mind can wander fairly quickly without a focus.Question 3:
In my experience, both exercises led to a sense of calm, I actually became sleepier with the Basic Mindfulness Meditation, but both did illicit calm. My mind wandered much more in the Basic Meditation as compared to the counting. In integrating meditation in my clinical work, I might suggest, particularly to people that are struggling with racing thoughts or trouble concentrating, the Breath Count Meditation as a place to start.
