What is Mindfulness?
“Mindfulness is awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment, non-judgmentally.”
~ John Kabat-Zinn
Why Mindfulness?
The screen addiction epidemic is negatively impacting teenagers. The lack of experiencing the real world while being drawn into a dreamlike state within gaming and social media pulls teenagers further away from being aware of what they might be feeling. This can result in body image issues, eating disorders, depression, anxiety and more with out the self-awareness of these concerns. There is a running theme of responses I hear from adolescents when they first arrive to working with me, “I don’t know,” “good,” “numb,” “bored…” They don’t even know what they are feeling because their mind has been pulled so far away from their body. Mindfulness practice is especially helpful to reconnecting them to their body.
Children have access to hearing and seeing worldwide news to the likes in which we have never seen before. This can be traumatizing to witness. They also deal with struggles at home and the unfortunate reality of school violence and bullying. They need a practice to get back into their body to process the profound situations they are thrown into these days. Mindfulness is a big part of my IFS sessions.