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Mindfulness and Depression
Beyond Coping: An Mindfulness Exercise
You can apply today...
"The important thing is not the neurosis, but the man
who has the neurosis. We have to set to work on the human being,
and we must be able to do him justice as a human being."
Carl G. Jung1
Jung is correct. The most important thing is not the depression,
but the person who has depression. Among all the clients I
work with, what I can say for certain is that the quality of
each person's inner experience and their life situation is very unique.
Yet...
While treating depression is unique for each person, there are
great general practices that can be helpful.
This is where mindfulness and depression practices have their relevance.
While most mindfulness practices are designed to help you cope with the symptoms of depression, others reach deeper.
They address the collective aspects of the human psyche and simultaneously help you uncover and realize your unique, individual potential.
Applying mindfulness to depression isn't simply a technique. Its clinical value is a consequence of the context in which it is presented.
Before applying a mindfulness exercise for depression, guilt, worry, shame or
any other depleting emotional state it is critical to
acknowledge a central element of a successful mindfulness practice...
A contextualization of the nature of consciousness.
Mindfulness and the Nature of Consciousness
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and other psychological
applications of mindfulness share two things in common.
Each has roots in various wisdom traditions, and each asserts
there is a difference between you and your thoughts.
A core aspect of mindfulness is becoming aware of
one's sense of self, and our misleading tendency to
identify ourselves as our body and/or mind.
Numerous spiritual traditions make an essential distinction -
we have a body and mind, but we are not the body and mind.
One of the most powerful contextualizations of these distinctions is offered by psychiatrist, David R. Hawkins.
Body
Hawkins notes it is relatively easy, experientially, to realize
that our inner sense of awareness and presence is not dependent
on the body.2
How many times have you awoken with
your arm or leg "asleep," only to find that while 20% of your
physical body wasn't registering - your inner sense of self was
unaltered?
As children we recall poking our arms that fell asleep,
perhaps surprised that we didn't register any sensations.
Yet our sense of "me" didn't change.
A common question highlighting this point is this...
If both legs were amputated, would your awareness of yourself - your
inner sense of presence - be disturbed?
While a significant portion of the body may be missing entirely,
or may not be registered in the mind, the core sense of 'I' or 'me',
does not change in the slightest. As Hawkins notes,
the sensations of the body are registered and experienced
in a larger field of awareness commonly referred to as Mind.2
Mind
The mind, which registers the sensations of the body,
is commonly assumed to be the locus of our sense
of self and the source of our thoughts. If you think this is true, take one
minute and cease thinking entirely...
Any luck?
If you tried this you noticed right away that the
mind went on chattering of its own. If you were the mind,
you could cease thinking at will.
What's more...
Practically speaking, in the context of mindfulness and depression,
if you were the mind you could stop all negative, ruminating thinking at any moment.
Like the body, the mind is actually experienced in a still larger field
of awareness2. And this is where the value of mindfulness practices
comes in.
The Witness
What is it that watches and observes the content of the mind?
How do you know what you are thinking? Depending on the tradition or
psychological technique, there are many names used to describe this impersonal
quality of human consciousness that watches the content of the mind.
We will refer to it as the Witness.
Just as the sensations of the body are registered in the mind,
the content of the mind is recognized in a larger field of awareness.
This greater field is consciousness. As Hawkins notes, the song of a
songbird would go unnoticed if not for the silent back drop of the forest.3 Similarly, our thoughts would go unnoticed if not for the silent field of
human consciousness.
This is point is essential
Why? Because one of the greatest obstacles to overcoming
depression is identifying your sense of self with your thoughts and feelings.
That which we are is far greater than our mind would tell us. If you're
constantly swept up in your thoughts and negative feelings,
and believe them to be true reflections of what you are,
you naturally feel trapped and hopeless.
Setting the Stage for a Mindfulness Practice
The common inclination is to attempt to stop, shut down, control,
deny and change all these thoughts, assuming this is the way to go about
lifting yourself out of depression.
A core tenet of a
mindfulness approach to depression is to stop trying to
do anything with your thoughts.
A friend of mine once joked that practicing mindfulness or sitting
in meditation is like picking up the phone and listening to a
lunatic on the other line, only the lunatic is "you."
More accurately, this voice on the other line is the mind,
and the "real you" is that which is aware of its chatter.
Mindfulness practices invite us to make friends with this worried,
desperate person on the phone. We need not heed their advice
or take what they have to say literally. Instead, we are to
compassionately allow this person to be as they are.
As we allow the difficult sensations accompanying negative thoughts
to come up and be experienced within, this voice on the other
line gradually becomes more sane and reasonable.
In the modern spiritual classic, I Am That, one of the most
celebrated sages of India, Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj, continuously
invited visitors to simply watch their minds. As Maharaj suggests,
simply watching the mind begins a process in which the nature
of the mind and the corresponding emotional states change for the better.4
In other words, your task isn't to convince the
upset person on the other end of the telephone
line to change his ways. Instead, you are to watch and listen to
him with as much compassion as you can muster.
The first step in a mindfulness exercise is to have the
willingness to allow yourself to feel and experience
what comes up once you cease attempting to change or control your thoughts.
Jung's famous quote, "What you resist persists" could not be more apt. And as Hawkins notes, "when you let go of resisting a thing, you disappear it."
Paradoxically, trying to overly analyze your negative thoughts
or change your thinking may be a form of resistance. A mindfulness practice
invites you to take your attention away from the specific content of
thoughts and ruminations.
Instead you are to bring your awareness to the sensations within your body.
As you do this you stop resisting the unconscious pain and fear
that may need to be released and undone by experiencing it out.
A very useful metaphor commonly applied to a mindfulness
psychotherapy process is to picture your repressed feelings and
thoughts as residing in a compressed tank of propane gas. As you
allow yourself to feel the sensations in your body that accompany sadness,
worry and self-contempt you gradually open the valve of the tank.
With time the intensity of difficult inner states diminishes and you no
longer feel dominated by the next wave of painful thoughts and feelings.
I like this metaphor, because it is up to you to
determine how much to open the valve at any time, and
how long to leave it open. The good news is that there is only
so much the tank can hold, and with time, it empties.
A final, classic analogy is useful to set the stage for a step-by-step
mindfulness and depression practice...
The feelings and sensations in your body, like the thoughts in your mind,
are all like the tumultuous waves on the surface of a vastly deep
and calm ocean. Our tendency is to personally identify
with the tumult of thoughts, feelings and sensations that
collectively make up the waves on top of the ocean,
forgetting that one mile below is an infinitely peaceful stillness,
completely unaffected by the activity on the surface.3
The bottom of the sea is like the witness,
that sane person on the telephone line listening to the desperate
beliefs and thoughts of the mind. Naturally, if you identify with
this irrational 'person' on the other line as you, you will feel scared.
Yet, dis-identifying with the mind and simultaneously allowing it to
rant, creates an empowering space to dwell in.
We know that in reality there is no way this desperate person on the
other line can actually harm us - much like the bottom of the sea remains
absolutely still and calm despite the waves above.
The Mindfulness Practice
Now that we've set the stage, let's turn to a mindfulness practice which helps
diminish the intensity of difficult feelings, not by running
from them, but by going into them and allowing
them to run through you. For less intense emotions, you can
apply this practice in ordinary daily activities.
Clinical Note- this practice
is not for everyone. If you are having suicidal thoughts,
are severely depressed, or have a history of trauma or abuse,
do not apply this practice. It could potentially be harmful. In such cases, it is strongly suggested you seek support from a licensed, mental health professional.
Click here for a
downloadable pdf of a
mindfulness practice you can try on your own.
This practice can be applied to any disturbance, whether resentments, frustration, worry, etc...
Return from Mindfulness Exercise for and Depression
References
1. Jung Carl G. 1966. The Practice of Psychotherapy: Psychotherapy and a Philosophy of Life. (Collected Works Vol. 16). Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press.
2. Hawkins, David R. 1987. DVD Lecture: Archival Office Series, A-10 Depression. Sedona, AZ: Veritas Publishing.
3. _______. 2002. "Realizing the Root of Consciousness: Meditative and Contemplative Techniques." Lecture 6, June. Sedona, AZ: Veritas Publishing.
4. Maharaj, Sri Nisargadatta. 1973. I Am That. Trans. By Maurice Frydman. Durham, NC: The Acorn Press.
Matt Laughlin, MA
Psychotherapist
303-929-3353
Contact Me
My Boulder Psychotherapy Practice Location is:
1634 Walnut Street, Suite 111C
Boulder, CO 80302
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Why "Spiritus"?
The Latin word "spiritus" has several meanings, such as spirit, courage, soul, and vigor.
Spiritus is at the core of a transformative counseling process, revealing one's intrinsic potential.
Spiritus Counseling
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