Mindfulness

[Tiddler]

Hi

I’m new and waiting for diagnosis. I hope that’s okay (since I’m not ‘official’ yet, but everything is finally making sense and my GP says adult diagnoses are rare as hens’ teeth but I’m plugging away at it…)

Anyway, the reason for the thread is that I thought it would be useful to have a go at ‘mindfulness’ after it was recommended to me.

So, my question is, has anyone managed to anything like this? I’m stumbling at the first hurdle because I don’t know how to do it.

One really good website on it suggests this: Listen not to your thoughts, but to the space between your thoughts. That space is awareness. It’s always there, always available to you.

But I don’t seem to HAVE a ‘space between my thoughts’. One of the exercises is to count slowly and to go back to zero when any thoughts other than the numbers jump in. It suggests that it’s perfectly normal to get to 3 or 4 and have to go back. I can’t actually get through thinking the number ‘ONE’ without having to go back to the start again.

I have only recently learnt that it’s not usual to have constant thoughts in my head (noise/chatter) but I didn’t realise that even within that I simply don’t stop thinking – not ever. Well, once, when I was in Greece and it was 42 degrees and I was too hot to think, but that’s the only time.)

So my question is (since the waiting list to see someone is 6 months and even then I don’t know if I’ll get to see someone who understands and can diagnose so I might not have the opportunity to get medication for a long time if ever) can it be done and if so how?

Thanks.

I appreciate that this is all a bit cluttered but I wasn’t sure where to put a ‘hello’ post and didn’t want to just jump in without explaining a little about me – I’m 39, female and in England.

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[Tiddler]

Also, I want to do it because I thought it might help me be more ‘present’, since I thought the comment on one of the videos that I can’t find my keys because I wasn’t there when I put them down rang true.

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[Anonymous]

Hi Tiddler,

I have had lots of experience with mindfulness. My first was with a program called MBSR (Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction) which was developed by Dr Jon Kabat-Zinn at the U of Massachussetts Medical Centre. There are a number of offshoots of this (MBCT or Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Training, etc). People offering these programs are health care professionals (usually psychologists) and the program involves 8 weeks of training (weekly group class, 1 group silent day on a weekend, mindful movement instruction and home practice of about 45 minutes per night). Then there are usually “graduate” groups that meet periodically. The MBSR program got me started in meditation practice, although I’ve moved on to zen practice and recently dzogchen and tibetan meditation practices.

Try doing a google search for your city or town and MBSR or mindfulness training, and see what comes up. Here’s a link to Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s program at U of M http://www.umassmed.edu/content.aspx?id=41252

Here’s a place where you can search for a program in the UK http://w3.umassmed.edu/MBSR/public/searchmember.aspx

And here’s a link to Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s website for the audio programs if you want to try to go it by yourself http://www.mindfulnesscds.com/index.html

Honestly, it’s best to work with someone if you can and train properly and then sit with a group periodically. There’s something about the energy of a group that’s very helpful for practice.

Hope that helps.

Susan

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[Tiddler]

That’s great. Thank you for putting the time in to help. I’m looking forward to making these steps.

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[Anonymous]

Correction: MCBT refers to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy.

Good luck in your search! You could start with Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s books, you can probably borrow them from your local library.

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[Tiddler]

Thanks again. (Wish I’d found out about all this 30 years ago!)

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[Anonymous]

Oh me too, I’m 55. But it’s never too late to start.

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[Tiddler]

Thanks. Love your avatar. It looks like my screen!

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[Anonymous]

It’s actually pretty close to what my second computer monitor looks like (the one that I have for when I need to do graphics editing, which I can’t do because it is covered in post-it notes).

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[Geoduck]

Yup. I got none. Neither space between the thoughts, nor mindfulness. Not even when I sleep. Not unless I take my adderall. Then there’s some relief from all the “noise.”

Rarer than hens teeth? Do hen have teeth? Until I know, I don’t know if he’s full of poo or not. Many adults have ADD. I read that one in 7 people have it and it doesn’t go away magically when you grow up. It changes, because you’ve learned some self control as you age, but the truth is, it’s still there. Some docs are still under the impression that ADD is all about being hyperactive.

My brother swears he outgrew it, but can’t even hold a conversation. He didn’t outgrow any of the inattentiveness or impulsivity at all. He just manifests his hyperactivity differently now.

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[caper]

Mindfulness was helpful for me. By paying attention to how I felt, I could catch the times when I was a bit stressed. Then I would do something to relax (go for a walk, listen to music, etc.)

It didn’t help when I was focused. i.e. interrupt me in the middle of writing an important email and I’d probably yell at you.

Having taken concerta, I know know what it feels like not to be driven to react like a reflex.

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[Anonymous]

Geoduck, there is space, it’s just that our ADD minds are so fast, we don’t recognize them. A common analogy is the sky – when it’s cloudly, we don’t see the spacious blue sky, but it is there all the same. Our thoughts and emotions are like clouds, they come and go, sometimes a LOT, but they’re not what’s behind it all.

A book I’m reading right now says that if you’ve tried to do meditation and all that happened was you couldn’t stop thinking, that’s ok. You’re just becoming more aware of it. Eventually the mind does settle down, it has to do with changing the neuron patterns (this is a quick post, hopefully I have the right terms..

I’m not sure how ADD affects this (although I am very familiar with the symptoms), but I do know that it is possible for me to settle down, not every time I sit, sometimes my mind is like a wild child or a pack of chattering monkeys, but other times I’m able to perceive it’s natural peace. Meds do help with that.

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[Anonymous]

Part of my therapy practice is to LEAVE my misspellings. How embarassing! I am a perfect speller – ok, used to be, not any more, I guess! Mind is too fast.

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[Tiddler]

Thanks again.

I think what my doc meant was that it’s hard to get diagnosed here, and I can see why. The doc has, through no fault of her own, sent me to 2 different people who can’t help and I have had trouble finding out who I need to speak to.

Here, there aren’t many people who have caught on to this being a real issue. It was actually my GP that thought that was what was wrong with me but even then she didn’t know who to send me to. Even the local NHS support for children with ADHD couldn’t recommend anyone to go to with suspected adult ADHD, not because they don’t believe in it, but because there doesn’t seem to be much of a service here.

I’m going to be going a couple of hours away and paying privately, hopefully next week or the week after (just waiting for confirmation) and that’s fine, but it’s close enough to some of the riots that I don’t know what’s going to happen (but that’s an irrelevant tangent though oddly surreal for a generally peaceful country. If you’ve seen the world news you’ll probably know what I mean)

So, basically, I’ve been searching for answers since I was in primary school (and I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t get off the bus without leaving my school bag on it) and now I think I know I’m just desperate to ‘get better’.

I have always felt that if I ‘just tried harder I could do it’. I know this is because that’s what I’ve been told all my life. Oddly, I did this with my asthma medication when I was first diagnosed when it became difficult to manage about 10 years ago – if I ‘just tried harder I’d be able to breathe on my own’

So, I’m trying to ‘try harder’ by learning mindfulness and I’m just not sure I’m going about it the right way.

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[Anonymous]

I tried to wean myself off asthma meds after doing an intensive yoga teacher training involving a lot of breath practices. But this past year, I started to have problems again, didn’t think it was asthma since the symptoms were not the same. My doc put me on a new asthma med and it’s helped tremendously. She says “if you have a physical problem with your lungs, no amount of yoga breathing is going to change that”. So I resigned myself to the fact that I need meds for some of my health issues, including ADD.

The thing about mindfulness is that it does require effort to practice (and not let the mind run away with thoughts and emotions), but mindfulness practice itself doesn’t really require effort. It’s just becoming aware, this is our natural state of mind, effortless awareness.

I could add a quote here, but it would thoroughly confuse you.

I recently met a student of this meditation teacher, whos book I am reading right now p it’s called The Joy of Living by Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche. Here’s a link to it on amazon.uk http://www.amazon.co.uk/Joy-Living-Unlocking-Science-Happiness/dp/0553824430/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1312995269&sr=8-1

He talks about some very simple practices that you can do to learn how to build your awareness without effort. Here’s a link to a YouTube video, try it. It may seem very simple but it’s actually a very profound practice. http://youtu.be/3H5Jufpm8sk

Interestingly enough, he suffered from panic attacks as a young boy, and learned how to overcome this through the meditation practices he had been taught by his father and teachers.

Hope that helps! I can’t help you with the issues surrounding the riots in London. I remember we were in Ireland visiting an aunt when we heard about the subway bombings, and it was terrifying to hear about it on the Sky News.

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[Author]

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