Why Therapy is a Mindfulness Practice
What is mindfulness?
Mindfulness is putting intentional focus on something you're doing. Although this may sound like paying attention actually, they’re not the same. When you pay attention to what you’re doing in the traditional sense, you're completely absorbed by what you're doing. You're so involved that you're not aware of what you’re doing at all.
Mindfulness is different.
In a way, mindfulness is a consciousness of what you're doing while you're doing it. It’s a “meta” experience. It all starts by noticing, without judgment, what is happening in your five senses and in your sixth sense of “interoception.” Which is paying attention to the sensations of energy inside your body, such as pain, tingling, vibration, temperature, and numbness.
Let me explain through an example, take a sip of your drink if you have one. Did you focus on the experience or did the movement feel automatic? Automatic movements are not mindful and movements that are not mindful cannot be modified.
Why mindfulness is the foundation of change
So, if you're trying to modify the way you do something in your life, you first have to see all the movements of the way you do a particular thing. This might sound easy if you’re talking about how you tie your shoe or button your shirt. However, if you’re talking about how to change the way you interact with your family, children or co-workers; things might get a little more complicated.
The thing is, you cannot change what you cannot see. If you want to avoid a cliff when you’re driving a car, you need to see the cliff and turn your steering wheel. If you can’t see your own emotional cliffs, you can’t turn your behavioral steering wheel which can lead to an interpersonal disaster on your hands.
Seeing all the movements that go into your interactions with your various relationships requires seeing processes inside yourself that are largely invisible to you. It often requires that you realize attributes about yourself that you may have been avoiding.
How therapy builds mindfulness
Now, let’s talk about therapy. Since it’s all about seeing how you do you, internally and externally, it is in essence a massive exercise in mindfulness.
Even the old-fashioned name for it, “psychoanalysis,” is a tip-off to the reality that therapy is about mindfulness. When you analyze something, you examine it methodically. You discover or reveal things through detailed examination.
When you enter therapy, you start becoming self-aware. You begin to reveal the moments that cause you to do things the way you do them. Your automatic process can be stopped. You now have a choice about whether you keep doing things the same way or change them because there’s a better way.
When you enter therapy, you start becoming more self-aware. You begin to reveal the moments that cause you to do things the way you do them. Therapy reveals that your automatic processes can be stopped. It gives you the power of choice about whether you keep doing things the same way or change them because there’s a better way.
Gaining these insights can help build your self-awareness and help you gain the capacity to change your behavior. If being mindful is the first step towards a new you, then therapy can equip you with the tools and support to bloom into the best version of yourself.