there's a HUGE advantage to applying mindfulness(or awareness) over meditation... in meditation the clarity and steadiness of mind under stress you achieve is temporary... in mindfulness the clarity and steadiness of the mind stay with you throughout your day... so it's easy to see that mindfulness is clearly the better of the two... everyone can gain something from mindfulness, it's not just good for those with mental illness...
i think it's fascinating that the mind that said "hey, i think it would be cool to cut back on my meds!" would immediately respond by feeling awful and then quickly conclude that cutting will ease this pain... you asked, "why does my head work like this?" that's the subconscious mind at work right there... the subconscious mind is powerful... its database is built as you experience life... it works behind the scenes and it pulls ALL the strings and it's constantly at it! it tells you who you are, how to respond to particular situations, how to perceive your world among MANY other things...
one quick example of the power of the subconscious: a young child is brought up in a household where her father constantly belittled her and she received very little or not enough comfort from her mother ... he'd say things like "you're stupid" or "you're worthless" among other things and he would do this over and over again... over time, the child begins to believe this about herself and grows up with feelings of inadequacy not to mention having a preconceived notion of what men are like... as a teen she may be sexually promiscuous thinking this is the only way a boy could love her... this is her subconscious mind at work... so you see how easy it is for an individual to fall into a state of despair...
during the eight years i've been ill i went through five psychologists... they all used one method of CBT or another... it was getting me nowhere... then about 9-10 months ago i met Kelly... during my first session with her she handed me a sheet of paper on how to "reprogram my subconscious mind"... she spent time going over the steps with me and instructed me that i would have to remain committed and do the exercises everyday... it took two months before it finally started to kick in but when it kicked in it did so in a big way... it allowed me to see myself in a totally different light... it gave me the will to make make decisions about my future and stick to them... it energized my relationship with my wife and children... made it easy for me to make the decision to go vegan and begin exercising(which had a direct impact on my mental health)... it gave me the courage to contact my old employer just to say hi which eventually led to me being offered a part time job(24 hours a week) with them... it got me back into playing chess... i mean i could go on but i hope you get the picture...
i'm always making suggestions to people to consider subconscious reprogramming... i think everyone could gain something from it... ask your psychologist what they think about it... it would be interesting to see what they say... subconscious reprogramming is real science not some new age mumbo jumbo... i'm going to play the cynic now... maybe it's not widely implemented because there's no real money in healing people too quickly... i'm not sure, all i can say is i spent the first 7 years of my illness receiving very little from CBT and in two months of subconscious reprogramming everything turned around for me... if your psychologist is resistant but you're still interested in learning more goggle "how to reprogram subconscious" and try it on your own... you'll come up with about 2 dozen websites explaining how to do it for yourself... i checked out a few for shits and giggles and discovered they generally use the same method Kelly gave me...
cutting sucks... put it behind you...
Kensho
