I wish I fully understood what a child needs - from birth to age 2 was focused on physical needs, those ended up being much easier to understand how to fulfill than the ones from age 3 onwards. What does a child age 5-7 need? I puzzle with this. I wish I could use my own childhood as a reference point but I realized recently that I cannot. The easy answer is : love. But how do you provide loving boundaries, and loving discipline consistently when you have never seen it for your own eyes?
Meditation can certainly help anxiety but remember not one technique works for everyone. CBT has been proven affective when addressing anxiety. Great discussion.
Loves trees, nothing you have written has come across as judgemental to me. The members here are very understanding and welcoming so I don't think you will have that problem here. Also, the Health Educators read over posts and if we find a post is too judgemental we will often edit a post and email the member. We do this in order to prevent conflict on the boards and keep the boards a positive and supportive place. As I am sure you know arguments can get out of hand over the internet! So just keep being yourself and enjoy this great group!
Back to the topic of meditation, for those of you who use meditation how did you get into it? Also, was getting into it a difficult process for you?
I saw you had mentioned mindfulness in other posts so I'm glad you chimed in here. While I think the CBT program here is extremely helpful to work towards confronting the situations and thoughts that bring on panic attacks, I've so far found that mindfulness helps in other ways. For me, I think the guided meditations I have been doing have been helping to reveal some of the underlying issues that lead me to become over-anxious. I bottle things up so much that it overflows into panic attacks, but I've gotten so "good" at it over the years that I'm not always even sure anymore what I'm bottling up. Using mindfulness practices has made me more open to confronting some of my underlying fears, judgments, and criticisms that I've held onto so tightly they make me panicky. In other words, the CBT program prepares me to confront my negative core beliefs, but mindfulness has helped me realize what some of those negative core beliefs actually are.
I think we are born happy, unless a baby is hungry sick or teething they seem to be very happy. I think it is environment that changes them. There is a fellow who's name escapes me who says "give me a child till he is seven and I can influence the rest of his life". Those are the formative years especially from five to seven. I believe he is right.
I have found this to be true too that mindfulness does not cure anxiety. I've been reading about mindfulness off and on for years now. I've known about buddhist perspective towards life ,death, happiness, wanting, emotions, etc.. but still i suffered much anxiety and panic. Now, I have gained a lot of useful insight from mindfulness and its attendant philosophy but it is not CBT. Working this CBT program (I tried one through a work book years ago but lacked the support needed to keep at it and gave up) is definitely a focused approach to address a specific issue effectively (i hope).I would say that they don't necessarily contradict each other though from what I've learned about each one. They are both about paying attention to yourself but not in an ego way.
One of the insights I recently read from a mindfulness book is that we have an inner happiness, we don't have to cultivate our natural ability for happiness and contentment, we have to remove the blocks preventing us from experiencing it. I'm butchering that but I think thats the overall idea behind what he was saying there. I see CBT as removing a major, if not the major blocks preventing me from living with more contentment, happiness and joy. Anyways that is how i see these 2 as related right now for me.
CBT encourages me to be assertive and thats important. I do hope I get my tone across properly in my posts. i worry sometimes about using the wrong words and being taken the wrong way. I posted to a message board once about crafting and got jumped on because i guess some other person thought I was being judgemental, and I was upset because I reallly wasn't trying to be judgmental and wish she had given me the benefit of the doubt. anyways i can feel that it is getting too late to be lucid much longer if at all now. time to rest.
Thanks teebs for posting about mindfulness , its helpful to see these responses here.
You can't fix some thing unless you know why it is broke. If mindfulness gives you that then it is a good thing. We are all different, we all have a different road to walk, but they all lead the same place. Some times they share the same space, sometimes different and some times you have to walk alone, but remember we will always be here for you if you need us.
Thomas - Thanks so much for your comments. They definitely help a lot! I kind of knew in the back of my mind, but it's good to hear from the source that getting stirred up is part of the progress. I'll keep at it, and will go at my own pace.
Davit and Red - I definitely plan to stick with the program here. I worked through the first four sessions when I first joined then stopped when things started going better. This time I'm going to see it all the way through.
I'm not using mindfulness to search for a cure for my anxiety, I'm learning about it as a tool to both help me relax, help me cope with my emotions, learn to live more in the present, be kinder to myself and less judgemental, etc., and all of these things can help me better deal with my anxiety. The box breathing as described in the program hasn't done a lot for me, and I've found that some of the mindfulness meditations are more relaxing. Others stir more stuff up for me, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, because it helps me realize what some of the underlying issues are. Part of my problem has been "I'm anxious....but WHY?" I've had a hard time figuring out what exactly I'm afraid of. I think some of the mindfulness practices are opening me up to some of my deeper issues.
Your point is very well put. I couldn't agree with you more. You have to work the CBT program here if you want to get well and stay well. Relaxation exercises and meds in some cases are tools in the process. Working the program is what will really keep you well in the long run in my opinion.
Keep in mind that mindfulness is a coping skill not a cure. It is still a good thing but you still have to deal with the reason for anxiety and panic. Do not neglect to finish the program just because you are feeling better, you want to be able to feel better without conscious thought. To many that stop half way just end up coming back.
