We have all experienced stress and being lost in our emotions. Those feelings can be very overwhelming and hard to move on from. Mindfulness is a great way to overcome those feelings. Mindfulness is a state of mind where you are observing your thoughts and feelings without judging them and helps to teach us to live in the moment and not dwell on the past or have anxiety about the future.
This series, led by Dr. Allison Allen, a clinical Psychologist at our Ashland Downtown clinic, teaches practical mindfulness tips to become the observer of your thoughts and feelings, which helps you to feel less stressed and overwhelmed.
Part 1 – What is Mindfulness?
This first video covers what Mindfulness is and how our mind is structured so that we can become more aware of how it can work for us and not against us.
Part 2 – Learning Mindfulness
In part 2 of this series, Dr. Allison Allen shares an important exercise that is the foundation of mindfulness, learning how to recognize your thoughts.
Part 3 – Mindfulness and Disengaging Negative Thoughts
This video examines a crucial exercise to help disengage the negative thoughts that can pop up in our heads that promote stress and anxiety.
Part 4 – Mindfulness and Breathing Better
Did you know that you can stress yourself out just by the way you breathe? This video walks through how the way we breathe can contribute to our stress and gives breathing techniques that can help us to slow down and tell our minds to relax.
Part 5 – Mindfulness and Observing Emotions
Have you ever felt lost in your emotions or have a feeling that just sticks with you? This video explains a simple technique to help become an observer of your emotions by using language to identifying them. When you use language to identify your emotions, you change the relationship you have with them and instead of just experiencing emotions, you can also observe them. When you become the observer, it will shift how you experience the feeling so it’s less overwhelming and you allow the feeling to show up but then allow it to move on.
To help identify emotions, use a feelings wheel like this one: https://ytp.uoregon.edu/sites/ytp2.uoregon.edu/files/Feelings%20Wheel%20in%20PDF.pdf
Part 6 – Mindfulness and Treating Yourself Well
Dr. Allison Allen gives us one last tip to help in the mindfulness journey: treating yourself well. Being able to be kind to yourself and giving yourself grace is very important and encompasses all the other mindfulness lessons in this series.
We hope that this series was helpful and gave you some practical tools to help, but if you feel that you could benefit from seeing a behavioral health therapist, please call 888.834.4551 to schedule an appointment.
