Mindfulness Online Therapy In Maryland
What can a mindfulness based approach offer you?
Mindfulness seems to be a buzzword everywhere these days. Mindful eating, mindful listening, mindful movement, etc. But what is it exactly and how can it relate to therapy?
What Is Mindfulness?
Mindfulness is paying deliberate attention to the present-moment experience—sensations, thoughts, feelings, experiences, our environment—without judgment.
Already we are looking at a bit of a challenge. Sustaining attention on anything can be hard for most of us (research shows us that we are getting worse at this overall). Now we’re supposed to do this without judgment? Are you kidding me? Judging things—this stinks, that’s better, this time isn’t as good as last time, that’s too loud—is like a national pastime.
How Can Mindfulness Be Helpful?
If it’s going to be some real effort, why is practicing mindfulness worth it? Well, the research is actually pretty clear in demonstrating the benefits of practicing mindfulness—the list includes, but is not limited to: improved sense of wellbeing, improved health measures such as blood pressure and ability to cope with pain, and reducing symptoms of anxiety and depression. The natural tendency of the mind is to grumble—to be focused on ourself, to look around for what it doesn’t like or thinks is/could be wrong and to stew about it. I know that, left to its own devices, my mind sounds a lot like Roy Kent, from the show, Ted Lasso.
The good news is that we can actually incline our minds towards less grumbling, through mindfulness practice, setting us up to hopefully reduce our suffering and increase our happiness (THAT’S the big prize here). Mindfulness practices allow us to see our minds and experiences more clearly, with less reactivity, and give us the opportunity to choose the most skillful options for engaging with life, all while being a whole lot nicer to ourselves than we usually are in our minds.
What’s a Mindfulness Based Approach to Therapy?
Mindfulness based therapy brings in skills to improve our ability watch and observe our thoughts, feelings and physical sensations with less reactivity and more clarity. This can help us to get off the hamster wheel of scanning—ruminating—reacting—judging that often sets us up for difficulty and displeasure in our minds and in our relationships with others. Bringing these skills and approaches to therapy can help us harness the power of attention and choice to help you move in the direction of whatever your therapy goals are—improve your relationships, reduce symptoms of anxiety and/or depression, loosen the stickiness of habits that you don’t like but can’t seem to ditch, become a better friend to yourself, and on and on.
There are mindfulness based skills for dealing with the mind, ones for being in touch with the body, ones for communication and many others. We can practice them and apply them to what brings you in for treatment, like a living laboratory for practice, as you build out those skills in your life. This also means that I come to appointments with a mindfulness approach as well—paying close, but kind, attention to what is happening right now between us as we meet. Observing, without judgment. Paying attention to more than just the words you say.
Mindfulness based online therapy?
We can do all this close attending to the moment with all that is happening in a session and in our bodies ONLINE?!?!?!! Yep. It still works! I’m still a big fan of in-person appointments and offer them in College Park. But there are also big benefits of online sessions too. First of all, you don’t have to be near College Park! I am licensed in the state of Maryland, so this gives folks in any part of Maryland greater access in finding someone that is experienced with mindfulness informed therapy. The other big benefit is that you end up practicing these skills that we go over in sessions in an environment that is already part of your everyday life, whether it’s your home, your office, your car (no judging—we are all doing our best here), or your backyard. So you get to experience practicing these skills and tools in the places where you are going to want to be using them regularly in your life. Brains love that stuff—easy connections make it easier to replicate later.
A free consultation for Mindfulness Online therapy in Maryland
Hopefully this gives you more information about mindfulness based online therapy in Maryland. If you want to explore this more, feel free to contact me for a free 15 minute phone consultation. You can also find out more about how I help with mindfulness-based therapy, and other services throughout my website.
