Mindfulness and Psychotherapy has been gaining a mounting interest among  thousands of clinicians and clients. The following is one in a series of informal conversations between Trudy Goodman, Ph.D., Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. and Steven Hickman, Psy.D., the teachers for a unique upcoming professional training retreat entitled “Mindfulness in Psychotherapy” to be held October 2-7, 2011 at the Joshua Tree Retreat Center in Southern California. This series is primarily aimed toward clinicians, but I’m hoping if you are not a healthcare professional you can also gain some insight from it. Enjoy!

Today Steve, Trudy and I talk about the similarities and differences between Mindfulness and Hypnosis.

I’d say the majority of us start off our days with an alarm ringing us awake. As we wipe the sleep out of our eyes and drink our morning coffee or tea, the cobwebs begin to break away and the doors of the mind open to start looking forward and planning/worrying about the day.

The reality is, the planning and worrying sometimes doesn’t wait and they dart in the moment we open our eyes. So, I’m going to suggest a simple and easy idea that could have a major impact not only how you start your day, but how the rest of the day unfolds.

Take a moment to consider what’s really important to you in this life.

Derrick was 13 years old when he stepped into my office complaining of “just not enjoying anything in life.” His parents told me they’d tried everything. They had him playing piano, going to soccer practice, involved in drama practice, along with a few more activities. “He just doesn’t seem to be interested in any of it,” the mom said.

One day, Derrick came into session and I asked him if he could tell me his happiest memory. Sitting slumped into the couch, his head perked up and he said: “I remember when I was six my parents bought something that came in a big box. When they emptied it out, I played in that box for hours, it was my favorite place. It made me happy.” It was clear that Derrick was missing out on his natural right to have more play in his life.

Play deprivation doesn’t just apply to kids, but to all of us. We can easily fall into a state of being overly strict with ourselves and taking life too seriously.

To bring mindfulness into our lives and cultivate a healthy, flexible and resilient mind, we need to loosen up on ourselves, allowing openings to arise, and then like cultivating a garden add in nutrients that facilitate the kind of change we’d like to see. You can think of play as a fundamental way of bringing mindfulness into your life creating spaces for your healthier mind to take root.

There’s a certain way of relating to life that I try and come back to again and again. It’s something that we often lose as adults along the way as life gets filled with overflowing and endless list of “to-dos.” It’s not our fault, our brains are wired to make life routine, getting us disconnected from the wonders of everyday life. Hafiz, a 14th century poet and mystic, sums up this way of relating to life best:

Every Child

Has known God,

Not the God of names,

Not the God of Don’ts

Not the God who ever does anything weird

But the God who only knows four words

And keeps repeating them, saying:

“Come dance with Me”

Come Dance

If you’ve followed my writings, you know that I believe bringing back a sense of playfulness into our lives is a critical factor in our mental health. Play is important to ourselves, in relationships, at work or with parenting. This isn’t something we can just think about because the reality is for many of us; we don’t practice it much and it goes against the grain.

The first thing is discovering what playfulness looks like in your life.

In order to get a sense of this follow this short practice:

Once in a while a story comes into your life that immediately touches that soft spot in your heart and gives you a gift to carry around and support you in difficult times. I didn’t know Jeff Guyer, but my wife was friends with his sister. A few days before his final moments of battling with Sarcoma, an aggressive cancer, he wrote out a post to his friends and family that can be summed up with a single word – acceptance.

His message to everyone came from his connection with Bernie Siegel’s quote in Faith, Hope and Healing: Inspiring Lessons Learned from People Living with Cancer, “Breathe in hope, breathe out love.”

The fact is we’re not all fighting cancer right now (although I’m almost positive we’ve all been touched by someone in our family or friends who has fought the battle), but adversities come up in life that can knock our spirits down.

Whether it’s a sense of battling with anxieties about what the future, cravings and urges for a “fix” to take away the pain, or a relentless form of stress from work or family, the deterioration of hope happens to all of us.

Done slowly and intentionally, “Breathe in hope, breathe out love” is a way of activating the parasympathetic nervous system which acts as the brakes to our anxieties. We begin to regulate our blood flow and calm down a bit.

With the world getting smaller and smaller due to the internet, we all know to some degree the many wars that are currently being waged. But how about the wars that get waged in us all the time? It’s as if we perceive enemies within us trying to take us over. I remember one time I was working within an organization and there was a depression course being listed for patients and the marketing for it said, “Kill your depression for good.”

What? Pour negative energy into your depression? Doesn’t sound like a good cocktail.

There is an African Proverb that says:

“When there is no enemy within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you.”

This is similar to Thich Nhat Hanh’s saying:

“Peace in ourselves, peace in the world.”

I remember when I was a kid, playtime was what I looked forward to the most. I think that’s on par with most kids. But something happens to us as adults where we get indoctrinated into a system where play gets relegated down the priority list. It’s not something we intentionally choose, it’s a subtle process where a belief is planted and nurtured that play simply isn’t important and as the years go on we wonder why we “feel so old.”

Irish playwright George Bernard Shaw said:

“We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing.”

This quote hits the nail on the head. Youth is a matter of mind and attitude. I was recently sitting with a friend, who is 62 years old, but he doesn’t look 62, he looks younger. He told me, “My face reflects who I am on the inside.”

Mattie was born on July 17th, 1990 with a genetic defect leading to Dysautonomic Mitochondrial Myopathy. He was bound to a wheelchair his entire life until he body finally came to rest at age 13. But Mattie was born into this world with a gift, a gift that lead all 7 of his books, including Heartsongs, Hope Through Heartsongs, among many others, to become NY Times Bestsellers and landing him on the Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, Good Morning America, Primetime, The Today Show, CNN News and many other programs many times to share wisdom with millions of lives.

When I heard what Mattie’s final words to his Mom were, it popped me into a space of clarity.

This 13 year old little boy said:

“Choose to inhale; do not breathe simply to exist.”

How many of us just exist in a choiceless world? How often do we actually choose this breath?

Of course the body will continue to breathe if we don’t choose to breathe, it’s automatic. The newsflash that we may not think about is many of our thoughts and behaviors over time have also become just as automatic as breathing.

Some say the fact that most of us are so filled with self-judgment is an evolutionary impulse to keep us safe from danger. If the mind is constantly on the lookout for what’s wrong, we’re more likely to be prepared for it.

Ralph Waldo Emerson lays out the problem:

“Most of the shadows of life are caused by standing in our own sunshine.”

Or maybe Nelson Mandela echoing Marianne Williamson’s words says it best:

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness, that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be?”

Very good question Marianne.

Whether it’s an evolutionary automatic negativity bias or a developmentally constructed belief system from wounding as a child or both, the fact is, many of us are afraid of our own light. Something in us heavily guards against it saying, “I can’t do that,” or “I’m no good at this,” or “That’s not important.” And then the shadow is created.

A while back I wrote a post with the inquiry, “Is it Time to Unplug?” The question was rhetorical in a way saying that in our culture there are too many things to pay attention to and when we end up abusing all our options, we become overconnected and this feeds mental and physical dis-ease. But, what about when our work requires us to be plugged in, what can we do then?

First it’s important to break down how we pay attention to technology. At times we are focused and need to get things done so we power through a number of emails. Other times we need to do research and so we surf the web looking for content and resources. This is an effective use of attention.

However, other times we get overwhelmed by mounting projects and we use technology as a distraction or a way to “kill time.” Maybe we start answer unimportant emails or start surfing the web for brain dribble. This is what is called a distracted or wasteful zone of attention.

So what can we do when we really feel like we want to Unplug, but we can’t because our work requires us to be Plugged in?