Tag: therapy

Managing Adversity with Mindfulness

Mary Fowler recently published a memoir, Bloom: Creating a life I love, that covers the period from her teens to early adulthood. Mary is considered one of the brightest female talents in soccer in Australia.  In 2018, when under 16 years of age, she was the fifth youngest soccer player to represent Australia.  Since then she has gone on to represent Australia in soccer on 64 occasions, scoring 16 goals.

The highs

Mary had been selected to represent Australia at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup but owing to a hamstring injury was unable to play.  She had always dreamed of being an Olympian and, although a gifted long-distance runner, chose soccer as her sport to excel in.  The highpoint of her soccer career, in her own words, was being chosen in the Australian team for the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo.  She scored a goal in extra time in Australia’s quarter final win over Great Britain.

Mary was elated to be chosen in the Matilda’s team for the home-based 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup.  With the loss of team captain, Sam Kerr, through injury, Mary’s role in the team increased significantly.  She scored her first World Cup goal against Canada and was instrumental in the win over Denmark in the Round of 16 game.

In her memoir, Mary recounts the lead-up and successful execution of a penalty goal in the penalty shoot-out against France in the quarter final.  She expressed appreciation for her coach’s extensive pre-game practice of taking penalties in a shoot-out, including the line-up at halfway, the slow progression to the penalty spot and the elation on scoring against the goalie.  After her World Cup performance, Mary was chosen to represent Australia at the 2024 Summer Olympics in Paris.

The Lows

Throughout her soccer career and much of her early life, Mary was plagued by negative self-thoughts – questioning whether she was good enough, looked good enough or was a good person.  Her low self-esteem was frequently aggravated by social media messaging that reinforced her negative self-image.  With the sudden advent of fame, Mary’s social media following expanded dramatically and so did the “haters” and belittlers (which only fed her negative view of herself).  Wisely, a close friend advised her to stop responding to the online “haters” and spend her efforts commenting on messages from supporters who sought to acknowledge her skills and achievements and wanted her to do well.

In her memoir, Mary describes her period at Montpellier Football Club as her lowest point.  She joined the club on her 17th birthday and spent three years with the club (2020-2022).  In her early period there she spent a lot of time on the bench.  She was very conscious that being the youngest player in the team, she lacked the experience of the other players.  However, she felt acutely the status differential between the “starters” and the “benched” players – the latter sometimes being totally ignored by the coach.

Mary found that as the team suffered a series of losses, conflict within the team grew. She was challenged for the amount of time she spent in the gym, as if she was contributing to their losses by trying to improve her fitness and overall stamina.  She also felt keenly the divide within the team between the French players and the “internationals”, the later considered of a lower value. 

Mary’s mixed race (Irish and Papua New Guinean) had always been a source of low self-esteem and differentiation by others.  These feelings of inferiority were compounded when she finished up at Montpellier.  Players leaving the team were given flowers at the end of the of their tenure whereas Mary and her close friend (two of only six black players in the team) were given bananas.  She didn’t know whether this was an intentional slight or just a consequence of an accidental series of events. 

Mary, who valued her creativity in playing soccer, had offered suggestions on ways to improve the team’s play but had been told by the Montpellier coach to “do what you are told”.  This frustration of her creativity was another source of dissatisfaction for her.  However, her experience was the opposite when she played with the Australian team as coach Tony Gustavsson encouraged her to be adventurous.  Mary found, too, that the move from “striker” to “wing” reduced the pressure on her to score but enabled her to provide plenty of “goal-assists” and become a real team player.

Mary reached an absolute low point during her time with the Montpellier soccer team.  She describes cutting herself and engaging in other forms of self-harm, ultimately leading to thoughts of suicide.  She also lost her love of the game and thought seriously about giving up the sport (to the point of planning her “retirement”).  What helped Mary recover was the very strong support of close friends and family, together with therapy.  In her memoir, Mary strongly encourages people who are not coping to reach out for help and therapy if needed.  She argues that, like her, people who are stressed have to get past feelings of vulnerability and be willing to share their feelings and concerns with others.  Mary learnt that being vulnerable with friends actually deepened her relationships.

As Mary’s fame grew, so too did the pressures on her.  She could not go out to do shopping without people recognising her and seeking “selfies” and autographs.  She had to deal with increased performance expectations from her friends, fans, team mates and coaches. Negative social media commentary intensified.  An additional pressure was the invasion of privacy, particularly in relation to her emerging relationship with Nathan Cleary (who was famous in his own right).

Managing adversity with mindfulness

Mary turned to a series of mindfulness practices to help her restore calm and balance to her life and provide her with the mental clarity and stamina to manage the stresses in her life.

Mary found the strength to go on and pursue what proved to be a stunning international career, as well as eventual success with the Manchester City English Premier League team (2022 till now).  She drew on a range of mindfulness practices to help her manage the downside of her career as an elite athlete and to achieve her potential:

  • Journalling – Mary had been journalling since she was a child but found new commitment and energy for journalling as she progressed in her career and had to deal with the pressures of international fame.   Journalling enabled her to deal with the unpredictable and daily challenges.  She also found that journalling helped her to get in touch with her feelings, which she tended to hide from others and herself.  It provided her with a different perspective on issues and served to challenge her negative thinking about herself.
  • Positive Affirmations – Mary had to deal with constant negative self-talk that told her she was “not good enough” in many ways.  She turned to daily recitation of affirmations to reinforce what was good in her life and was good and positive about herself.  Danette May argues that affirmations can replace unconscious negative thoughts with reinforcement of what is good in ourselves.  This change in focus (from negative to positive thinking) can alter our mindset and reality.
  • Drawing nurture from nature – spending time in nature played a major role in Mary’s life and, in her memoir, she acknowledges the role of nature in providing her with calm, new insights, energy and a source of awe and wonder.  While in Montpellier she undertook daily mountain walks with her brother to absorb the peace and tranquility of nature.  In her memoir chapter on “Stop & smell the flowers” (Chapter 8), Mary explains how she began an intentional practice of stopping to admire a flower, closely observing its colours and textures, and smelling its aroma.  This became a habituated practice and extended to stopping to observe any animals along her path (such as birds and possums).  She experienced excitement and a warm glow from these animal encounters.   Mary often spoke of the Moon as a personal source of stability, energy and positive self-affirmation.   Mary’s discussion of her encounters with nature and her slow, observant walking resonates with a mindful walking approach to developing mindfulness.
  • Reframing goals – Mary was an obsessive goal-setter.  She had goals for when she would get pregnant, get married, own her own home and many other things in her life and career.  Her goals had set times for achievement.  While this aided her outcome focus, it eventually created undue stress through self-created time-pressures and left no room for the vicissitudes of life (such as sporting injuries) that can prevent or delay goal achievement.  In a discussion with her “bestie” at the time, Mary decided that she would set “targets” instead of “goals”, removing the constraining effect of detailed timelines.
  • Expressing gratitude – Mary discovered the power of gratitude to offset negative feelings. Like Kim Armstrong, she found that daily gratitude practice builds resilience, overcomes resentment and envy, and develops a positive mindset.  In the final analysis, expressing gratitude helps us “to get in touch with ourselves”.  Mary found that routinely expressing gratitude helped her manage the downside of her soccer injuries – times on the sidelines from concussion, an ACL injury and hamstring injury.
  • Present moment awareness – Mary consciously sought to be in the “present moment” whether playing competitive soccer or being with friends and family.  She was strongly influenced by a book, The Power of Now, written by meditation teacher, Eckhart Tolle.  She routinely practised meditation to develop this present moment awareness.  Mary found that through this mindfulness practice, she began to savour the small things in her life.
  • Mindset change –  Mary had publicly stated that she wanted to be the “best in the world” as an international soccer player.  After a period of reflection on how self-limiting this goal can be (she pursued it at the expense of her relationships with friends and the opportunities for fun and new adventures), she changed her target to “be the best that I can be”. This change in mindset freed her from obsessive practice, a sole focus on soccer and a tendency to envy the success of others.  Instead, she developed better as a team player, savouring the success of others.

Reflection

Mary Fowler experienced some great highs and some serious lows.  Her negative self-talk contributed to many of her lows.  However, by turning to mindfulness practices she discovered that as she grew in mindfulness she developed resilience, changed her mindset, increased her happiness, savoured the small things in life, developed a positive self-image and increased her capacity to deal with the stressors in her life.

In her memoir; Mary states that she has now achieved a high level of happiness; increased her tools for managing challenges; and developed sound, close friendships that support her daily.  By using a range of mindfulness practices, she has developed a toolkit to address mental health issues as they arise and to draw on the positive energy that surrounds her.

Throughout her memoir, Mary provides several reflection questions that are relevant to the discussion in each chapter.  She offers reflection questions such as:

These questions can provide a rich source of reflection and insights and can serve as journalling prompts.   The discussion that precedes these reflective questions provides a basis for challenging our own mindset and identifying ways to enhance our own life and happiness.

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Image by Lori Dunn from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Healing the Wounds of Trauma

Corey De Vos of Integral Life and Ryan Oelke discussed the need to address the effects of trauma at sometime in our life.  Their discussion, Inhabit Your Wound, was wide-ranging and covered the impacts of trauma, barriers to addressing the wounds and processes for uncovering the wisdom that lies beneath the pain of trauma.  They suggest that each of us has our own “unique constellation of trauma” but if the wounds are addressed with a gentle curiosity, social support, professional help and self-compassion, they can release new insights and energy to enable us to more fully realise our purpose in life.

Trauma tends to impact many facets of our life, often below the level of consciousness.  It might be reflected in irrational fears, reluctance to appear in public, constant anxiety and depression, inability to develop and/or maintain intimate relationships, eating disorders or addiction, indecisiveness, inability to hold down a job or an overall sense of lack of meaning and purpose.  Many things can trigger a trauma response, including objects, people, news, conversations and observing a violent incident – because trauma impacts at a “cellular level”. Trauma can leave us directionless, powerless, confused and disoriented.

Barriers to healing the wounds of trauma

Corey and Ryan maintain that the shadow of trauma follows us throughout life, but we typically have defence mechanisms to prevent us from dealing with the pain and healing the wounds.  The memory of a trauma is often submerged below our level of consciousness because we sense that recollection is potentially too painful.  We may even have experienced dissociation to keep the memory away from our inner awareness.  We may have developed an internal narrative that is based on denial – “it really didn’t happen” – and this acts as a barrier to exploration and healing from trauma.

Ryan and Corey also observe that sometimes we could be part of a collective trauma experienced as a result of systemic discrimination or jointly experienced life events.  These life events could take the form of war, mass incarceration, natural disasters or a terrorist incident.  They can lead to “culturally inherited dramas” imprinted on our psyche.  Experience with religion during childhood or later in life can leave its own “baggage” and can be “harder to unpack” and deal with because it can become caught up with other traumatic experiences.  Corey and Ryan suggest that sometimes people want to hold onto their trauma because it makes them feel special and may even elicit a desired, sympathetic response from others (neediness in this area my be symptomatic of the trauma itself).

Processes to heal the wounds of trauma

We may have developed the ability to operate productively and confidently with our work environment but become aware of some disfunction in other arenas of our life.  Alternatively, we may have noticed a habituated and unhelpful response to a specific kind of incident such as personal criticism, open conflict or someone challenging our ideas or perspective.  These experiences can be the catalyst to deal with the “residual effect” of trauma and provide the necessary motivation to change our behaviour.

Corey and Ryan suggest, in line with Jon Kabat-Zinn, that a potential starting point is to “reinhabit our body” – to start noticing our bodily sensations and reactions.  This can lead to curiosity about what has triggered these responses and what prior experiences underly the nature and intensity of our response.  Ryan suggests that we need to work with any resistance we may experience in our body, but we should proceed slowly with a tender and caring curiosity.  A key here is our readiness to open the wounds and our resilience in dealing with the result – timing and support are of the essence.  Somatic meditation has proven to be an effective way to deal with the wounds of trauma and it is often undertaken with professionally trained facilitators.

There are a wide range of therapists to assist anyone who wants to deal with trauma and its effects.  Some employ cognitive approaches (such as Dialectic Behaviour Therapy) requiring voicing our thoughts, feelings and assumptions, others use less cognitive approaches such as art or music as tools for therapy.  A more recent development is the use of equine (horse) therapy which may be more appropriate for someone who loves animals and particularly horses.  Organisations such as Beyond Blue provide links to resource centres and professional therapists and others such as the Black Dog Institute offer support groups.  Keith Witt offers two books, Shadow Light and Shadow Light Workbook, that provide insights into our trauma-induced, unconscious responses and offer practices to illuminate the nature and potentiality of our “shadow self”.

The experience of Clare Bowditch in healing the wounds of trauma

Clare Bowditch – singer, songwriter and actor – captured her healing journey in her “no holds barred”, personal memoir, Your Own Kind of Girl.  Clare indicated that she wrote the story of her early life to encourage others to speak to someone and seek assistance if they are suffering from the effects of trauma, especially if they are experiencing anxiety and/or depression.  She describes in detail her own battle with anxiety and depression brought on by adverse childhood experiences and the trauma of seeing her sister die at the age of seven, after two years of hospitalisation with a rare, incurable illness that progressively eroded her muscles and caused paralysis. 

Clare, like Corey and Ryan, stressed the critical importance of relationships (family and friends) for her successful healing journey.  She encourages people to set out on the painful journey because it is “well worth it”, even if it turns out to be tougher than you first thought.  Clare experienced a nervous breakdown – she had fled to London, unprepared economically and emotionally, after she experienced shame and depression following a relationship breakup.  She experienced severe symptoms of her trauma wounds such as an inability to listen to music, write songs, watch TV, listen to the radio, eat well, sleep adequately or go outside.  She was consumed by all kinds of irrational fears and images of death (grieving her sister’s death).   Her response was to return home to her family and spend up to six months healing herself including meditating and learning about the impact of stress and unhealthy foods on the body’s nervous system.

Clare was able to reframe her nervous breakdown as a “nervous breakthrough” because “it was at this time that I got a really deep sense of what made sense to me, which was music” (p. 326).  She had finally found herself.  She rediscovered her need to be creative, to avoid things that did not make sense to her and to sing and write songs that really spoke her truth – her real, raw feelings.  She stated that the journey required the discipline to control her negative self-talk, the insight to realise that despite her life circumstances she had a choice in how she responded and the courage and resilience to persist despite setbacks.

Consistent with Corey and Ryan, Clare maintains that it is important to celebrate the small steps forward because they collectively make up the journey:

… a career is a thing that’s made up of one tiny step, one small act of courage after the other.  It’s only really when you look back later that it all makes sense. (p.313)

Reflection

Trauma affects many people in multiple, idiosyncratic ways.  The problem is that it works away as our shadow self and unconsciously impacts our perceptions, thoughts, emotions, behaviour and responses to triggers.  As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, reflection and self-observation, we are better able to gain insight into how we have been impacted, to develop the courage to address our trauma-induced wounds and move forward (however slowly) to realise our life purpose. 

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Trauma-Informed Mindfulness: Relationship Building through Music

Sam Himelstein has developed several basic principles and a series of guidelines to assist mindfulness teachers to sensitively work with people who are impacted by trauma. While these principles have been developed over more than a decade working with trauma-impacted teens, the principles and guidelines are also relevant to anyone working with adults who have experienced trauma. 

Relationship building through music

In his podcast interview with David Treleaven, Sam discussed a particular case that was a primary catalyst to the development of his principles and guidelines.  He provides a more detailed discussion of the case in his blog post, Trauma-Informed Mindfulness with Teenagers – 9 Guidelines.  The case involved a 17-year-old high school student, Jeanette, who had experienced a traumatic childhood with many categories of traumatic events in her life, including drug addiction of her father.  She had approached Sam, a registered psychologist, for help with her trauma-related issues.

During initial psychotherapy treatment, Sam was helping her to locate her estranged father so she could establish a connection with him.  However, before this reconnection happened, the young woman learned that her father had died from a drug overdose.  This intensified her trauma and when she presented at Sam’s clinic after the death of her father, she was unable to talk about her father, follow a line of discussion or formulate coherent sentences.  Sam described this in terms of “her brain down regulating”.

Sam’s first principle – “do no harm” – came into play as he realised that getting her to talk would take her outside her window of tolerance.  As he knew about her interest in music and her favourite genre, he intuitively realised that listening to music that she liked would enable her to establish some degree of equanimity, build trust and reinforce the relationship through a shared pleasant experience. 

As they listened to the music together, she slowly began to move her head in line with the beat and rhythm of the music.  Then, she began to talk.  Sam described the effect on Jeanette of listening to the music as regulating her central nervous system, bringing her back within the window of tolerance and enabling her to access her language ability so that she could express her emotions such as anger, grief and sadness.

Sam had realised that while Jeanette was positive about the utility of mindfulness in the context of therapy, “conventional talk therapy or mindfulness meditation wasn’t going to work”.  This music intervention was in line with what he described as practising an INCRA, an “inherently non-clinical relational activity” that is not a therapy technique in itself but effectively builds the relationship.  Sam discusses case studies where he has used INCRA in a clinical setting with teens in his forthcoming book, Trauma-Informed Mindfulness for Teens: A Guide for Mental Health Professionals.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection, we can better access our intuition when working with or training people who have suffered trauma.   Being present to the person needing help will enable us to let go of conventional, trained responses and be open to activities that are non-clinical in nature but develop the relationship – the foundation for all helping.  Trauma-informed mindfulness, then, involves not only sensitivity to trauma-impacted people but also the flexibility to depart from habituated responses or processes.  Mindfulness helps us to tap into our innate curiosity and creativity.

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Image by obBilder from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT): A Specialised Mindfulness Approach

In this blog I have been discussing different approaches to mindfulness and mindfulness meditation that are self-initiated and self-directed in the main.  Some of the approaches to mindfulness discussed entailed the involvement of a teacher or mentor to guide the participant through various forms of meditation.

One such approach is provided by the Power of Awareness Mindfulness Training conducted online by Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach.  Even in this course, led by teachers and mentors, there is ample scope for participants to pick and choose what types of meditations and mindfulness practices they will focus on – the choices are not individually focused or directed.

What is different about Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

ACT as the name suggests is an approach that provides therapists with a structured approach to mindfulness development for their clients.  This approach is therapist-led with a defined sequence of exercises designed to enable clients to move from the entrapment of destructive thinking to taking effective action guided by their values (committed action).  Colleagues vouch for the fact that ACT often achieves the desired results in therapeutic situations.

ACT aims to enable clients to experience a full, rich and meaningful life that is built on internal and external awareness.  The approach actively discourages ineffective avoidance strategies and encourages acceptance of pain as a natural part of a life that is lived fully.    Just as mindfulness trainers are exhorted to deepen their mindfulness practice, so too ACT therapists are encouraged to practise the ACT approach and exercises to be able to act more consciously and effectively in therapy sessions.

The ACT approach to mindfulness

Mindfulness in the context of ACT is defined by Russ Harris, author of ACT Made Simple, in terms of the quality of paying attention:

Mindfulness means paying attention with flexibility, openness and curiosity.

In this definition, mindfulness is explained in terms of three key elements – awareness through paying attention, an open attitude and flexible attention enabling a narrow or wider focus or a focus on the internal or the external.

ACT incorporates six core processes as part of its therapeutic approach:

  1. Being here now – consciously focusing on the here-and-now, including our inner and outer worlds.  Fundamentally, it is about being present in the moment, rather than lost in thought.
  2. Watch what you are thinking – this involves standing back from your thoughts and observing them in a detached way. It means not entertaining them and being caught up in them as if they are reality.  Mindfulness expert, Kabat-Zinn suggests that we view our thoughts as bubbles in boiling water floating to the surface and bursting.  He provides the liberating idea that “we are not our thoughts” nor should we be captured by the “narratives” in our head.   In ACT, the process of observing our thinking is called “cognitive defusion”.
  3. Accepting and being open to painfulness – Russ Harris describes this process as “making room for painful feelings, sensations, urges, and emotions”.  ACT provides exercises to develop this acceptance.  In our mindfulness discussions, we have offered mindfulness practices such as forgiveness meditation to address this pain and suffering.
  4. Observing yourself – ACT encourages awareness through getting in touch with the “observing self” rather than the “thinking self”.   Russ Harris describes the former as “the aspect of us that is aware of whatever we’re thinking, feeling, sensing or doing in any moment”.  Mindfulness practitioners encourage meditation practices like somatic meditation to develop this awareness.
  5. Knowing what matters – getting in touch with the way we want to be in the world (our values).  Values guide behaviour, give meaning to our lives and facilitate decision making.  Consciousness about our values can enable us to lead our lives with energy and vitality and provide mindful leadership for others.
  6. Doing what it takes – this involves doing what it takes, despite pain and discomfort, to live out our values in daily life (described as “committed action” in ACT).  It requires congruence between our words and actions and a readiness to commit to “valued living”.

ACT is a therapeutic approach that aims to help clients grow in mindfulness in order to lead a life that is richer and more meaningful, while reducing the impact of harmful thoughts and narratives and pain-avoidance.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of geralt on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.