5 Ways To Use The Power Of Mindfulness and Compassion

By February 1, 2016 Uncategorized No Comments

Todays guest blogger, Adrienne Glasser, LCSW, teaches mindfulness and an Introduction to Internal Family Systems theory and practice In the FACTS program, a division of ICP (Institute for Contemporary Psychotherapy). Her last guest article was chosen as an Essential Read by the editors of the Psychology Today website.

Mindfulness is everywhere these days, but how can we use it when helping families? In it’s most simple form, mindfulness is remembering to come back to the present moment.  A simple but fair question is: “What else would one be doing?”  A busy mind races to the past and future.  Resentments and to-do lists and everywhere.  We bring these too-busy brains to all of our relationships, to our partners, our family and our children. Many times, this can make the love and positive regard we have for others feel less accessible to them. It can cause us to momentarily forget how much we care for them.

Sharon Salzberg shares a fable on Happify in which an elder protagonist states, “I have two wolves fighting in my heart. One wolf is fearful, vengeful, envious, resentful and deceitful. The other wolf is compassionate loving, generous, truthful, and peaceful.” A child asks, “Which one will win the fight?” The elder responds, “The one I feed.” How we work with, acknowledge and energize our feelings determines the direction of our growth. We change ourselves through our own intentionality as we seek to become the persons we want to become.

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