Mindfulness-Based Counsellor & Meditation Trainer | Halifax, Nova Scotia
We all have different faces that we wear depending on the people we’re around and the situation we’re in. For example, the person we are at work is different than the person we are at home, with friends, around our romantic partner, and so on. But, when it comes to our mental health, it can …
We all get lost from time to time. That’s part of being human. Sometimes life throws you unexpected curveballs, but sometimes you make a series of decisions that, without realizing it at the time, end up throwing you so far off course that you wake up with the realization, one day, that you hardly recognize …
I’m an avid meditator. I’ve been meditating since my undergraduate years in university. To this day, I do my best to commit 15 minutes each morning to the practice as well as attend a 1-3 hour group meditation on weekends. Up to 3 hours… First, sitting for 25 minutes. Self-supported, dignified, upright posture. Eyes resting …
![“Why does paying attention in this way help? Because it is the exact antithesis to the type of ruminative thinking that makes low moods persist and return.
First, mindfulness is intentional. When we are cultivating mindfulness, we can be more aware of present reality and the choices available to us. We can act with awareness. By contrast, rumination is often an automatic reaction to whatever triggers us. It is tantamount to unawareness, being lost in thought.
Second, mindfulness is experiential, and it focuses directly on present-moment experience. By contrast, when we ruminate, our minds are preoccupied with thoughts and abstractions that are far away from direct sensory experience. Rumination propels our thoughts into the past or into an imagined future.
Third, mindfulness is non-judgmental. Its virtue is that it allows us to see things as they actually are in the present moment and to allow them to be as they already are. By contrast, judging and evaluating are integral to rumination and the entire doing mode. Judgments of any sort […] imply that we or the things around us have to measure up in some way to an internal or external standard. The habit of judging ourselves severely disguises itself as an attempt to help us live better lives and to be better people, but in actuality the habit of judging winds up functioning as an irrational tyrant that can never be satisfied.”
From “The Mindful Way through Depression” by Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn.](https://scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com/v/t51.29350-15/164489477_1593454414377665_7469603957669224801_n.jpg?_nc_cat=109&ccb=1-3&_nc_sid=8ae9d6&_nc_ohc=t4edAMfU30oAX8n7c2N&_nc_oc=AQm1fjgmVZpLtXVUJsWRJvF2UK9mmzmJbFz-TkqRSyqmbP0ocQYsqj0aQFvlddfIhNE&_nc_ht=scontent-yyz1-1.cdninstagram.com&oh=b47c0149291ae02234ab22f8a321cdc4&oe=60C848C5)
