Mourning Your Future Dreams in Your Former Relationship

Mourning the future might seem like an odd concept at first.  But, as I'll discuss, mourning often involves not only mourning for the past and present, but also mourning for what will never happen in the future.

Mourning Your Future Dreams From Your Former Relationship

Mourning the Death of a Loved One
We usually associate mourning with the death of a loved one.

If the relationship with the loved one was good, we mourn the loss of the loved one as well as the loss of what we don't have now as well as what we won't have in the future.

If the relationship wasn't as good as we would have liked it, in addition to mourning the loss of the loved one, we mourn what we didn't have in that relationship that we would have liked to have had in the past and the present.  We also mourn what can never be in the future.

The Breakup of a Relationship
The breakup and loss of a romantic relationship can feel like a death even when there's no physical death involved.  It's the end (or death) of the relationship.

If the romantic relationship was good in the past, we might reminisce about the days when it was what we both wanted, but we can no longer have in the present or the future.

All the future plans we had with this person, who we thought we would be as individuals as well as to each other--all of this is part of the mourning process.

Here's an example, which is a composite of many different cases with all identifying information changed:

Alice
Alice and Bob, who were in their late 20s, were engaged to be married.  They had been together for three years and, for most of that time, they were happy together.

But then, four months prior to their wedding, Bob told Alice that he wasn't ready to get married--even though all their plans were in motion, they had talked about how they wanted to start a family, where they wanted to live, and how their lives would be in the future.

Bob told Alice that she was his first serious girlfriend and he realized that he wasn't ready to make that kind of commitment.  He thought he should go out with other women to make sure that he wasn't jumping into a marriage with Alice too quickly.

Alice was completely shocked.  Bob had never mentioned this to her before.  She had no idea he felt this way.

Even though Alice realized that Bob was emotionally torn up about his decision, Alice felt overwhelmed by a combination of shock, disbelief, anger and sadness.

A few months after the breakup and the cancellation of their wedding plans, Alice came to therapy to sort out her feelings.

By now, she realized, in hindsight, that there were telltale signs that Bob wasn't ready to get married, but she ignored these warning signs.

Even though she was angry with Bob, she still very much loved him and missed him in her current life and missed the relationship that they had in the past.

As we continued to work together, Alice realized on a deeper emotional level that the future she thought she would have with Bob--all the things she wanted in her life with him--weren't going to be possible now.  And she wasn't going to be who she thought she'd be--at least not in the context of a life with Bob.

So, she mourned for the past, the present as well as the future of her dreams with Bob.

Mourning Before "Moving On"
Our culture places a high value on "moving on" from loss as opposed to giving ourselves the time we need to mourn our losses on multiple levels, including past, present and future.

But if we force ourselves to push our feelings down without working them through, we risk having an even more protracted form of grief that could manifest itself in other ways, including depression as well as physical illness.

Mourning is a Personal Process
Mourning is different for everyone.  No one can tell you what the mourning process should be for you.  It's best not to rush the process or to try to conform to other people's ideas of the mourning process.

There can be many ups and downs with mourning--whether it's mourning the death of a loved one or mourning the loss of a relationship.

Sadness often comes in waves.  How and when the waves occur is often unknown until they occur.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you're dealing with a loss and you feel alone, misunderstood by others or you feel confused by the profusion of feelings you're experiencing, you could benefit from working with a licensed psychotherapist who has experience helping psychotherapy clients to work through the mourning process.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many people to work through the mourning process so that, in time, when it was right for them, they did eventually move on in a meaningful way.

To find out more about me, visit my web site:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable

One of the most common experiences for adults who sustained early childhood trauma, especially early abuse or emotional neglect in their family, is that they often grow up feeling unlovable.

Feeling unlovable can be at the root of many personal problems, including problematic relationships, as well as career problems.

Overcoming the Emotional Pain of Feeling Unlovable

Often people don't realize that feeling unlovable is at the root of their problem.  Instead, they might attribute their problem to having low self esteem or depression.  And, while these issues might be part of the problem, working to boost self esteem or elevate mood often isn't enough when the root cause is that, deep down inside, they feel unlovable.

The following scenario which is, as always a composite of many different cases, is an example of how early childhood trauma can develop into feelings of being unlovable and how these feelings can be overcome with trauma therapy:

Ted
When Ted began therapy, he was in despair about ever being able to have a happy romantic relationship.  In his mid-30s, his fiancee of two years just broke up with him.  This was the third serious where his girlfriend broke up with him.

There was a particular pattern to all three relationships:  Initially, he was happy in his relationship with his girlfriend.  Everything seemed to go well up to about the second year.

Then, after a while, similar problems began to crop up in each relationship:  Ted began to feel that his emotional needs weren't being met, and each of his girlfriends felt that he wasn't the man she thought he was.

Recognizing that his emotional needs weren't being met any more and hearing that each girlfriend was disappointed in him after a while was emotionally devastating for Ted.  By the end of the third relationship, he felt like there must be "something wrong" with him.  He felt defective in some vague way.

After hearing Ted's family history, I could see parallels between his romantic relationships and his relationship with his mother.  Of course, this isn't unusual.  We often replicate our early childhood relationships in our adult romantic relationships--many times without even realizing it.

In Ted's case, based on what he heard from his older siblings, his mother was very attentive to Ted while he was an infant.  She liked being close to her children when they were infants.  But when they got a little older, she no longer found them to be as emotionally gratifying.  So, just as she did with Ted's older siblings, she relegated Ted's care to a series of nannies who left after a short time because Ted's mother was difficult.

Babies need consistency in their physical and emotional world.  So, having his mother, who was his primary attachment figure, withdraw from him and then having other caregivers come and go, created a great deal of emotional insecurity in Ted from an early age, even though he learned to hide it as he got older.

As Ted and I explored the dynamics in all three romantic relationships, it became apparent that certain interpersonal dynamics developed after a period of time.  As is true for most relationships, both Ted and his girlfriend at the time were on their "best behavior" during the initial stage of the relationship.

But after a while, Ted's emotional insecurities were more evident.  Until that point, Ted appeared to be more emotionally independent.  But this appearance was really a pseudo emotional independence that many children, who are left to fend for themselves, learn to exhibit on the surface.  Just below the surface, there are often strong dependency needs that become more apparent later on in the relationship.

This is why, at first, Ted's girlfriends experienced him as being confident and emotionally secure.  Ted learned to project confidence and an emotionally secure self to the world in order to survive.  It wasn't that he was trying to manipulate or deceive anyone.

Exhibiting a confident and secure persona is the way many people with early attachment problems come across in order to protect themselves from getting hurt.  Many people don't even realize that this what they're doing.  Often, they really believe that they are the persona that they've adapted to show the world.

But as a romantic relationship develops and matures, people can't maintain what amounts to a facade of pseudo emotional independence.  With increased emotional intimacy, emotional vulnerabilities become more apparent.  And this is what happened in Ted's relationships as each of his girlfriends realized that he was really a lot more emotionally dependent.  And this is why they felt that he wasn't the man they initially thought he was.

So, in the end, both Ted and each of his girlfriends were disappointed.

Since, on an unconscious level, Ted chose women who had narcissistic traits, unconsciously replicating his childhood experience with his mother, when his true dependency needs surfaced, they weren't capable of offering him the empathy that he needed.

As Ted and I worked on clarifying his feelings about himself, he started with a vague sense that he "wasn't good enough."

As we continued to refine how he felt about himself, he had an "Aha!" moment when he realized that it wasn't just that he felt "not good enough," he actually felt unlovable.

This feeling of being unlovable really resonated with him.  And, along with the feeling of being unlovable came a lot of shame, as if he felt he was to blame for being unlovable.

Logically, Ted understood that these feelings were distortions, but he felt them deeply nonetheless.  No matter how many times he told himself that his feelings were distorted, he continued to feel he was unlovable. So, just knowing wasn't enough to change it because, on an emotional level, this was how he felt.

Using a combination of clinical hypnosis and Somatic Experiencing, we worked on Ted having a different felt sense of himself as being a lovable person which, of course, he was.  Most people who knew him experienced him as being a very lovable person.  But he needed to have his own felt sense of this before he could really believe it at the core of his being.

Mind-Body Psychotherapy: Somatic Experiencing Combined With Clinical Hypnosis
People who feel deep down inside that they're unlovable often don't realize just how common an experience this is because it's not something that people usually talk openly about.

It's not unusual for people to go through their whole lives feeling unlovable without realizing the emotional impact this has on their inner world as well as their relationships with others.

If you've been going through life feeling unlovable, help is available for you.

My experience, as a licensed psychotherapist who has a lot of experience working with emotional trauma, has been that regular talk therapy, where psychotherapy clients talk about their problems, often doesn't help clients to overcome this problem.  They might develop intellectual insight about it, but they often don't have the felt sense of change.

My experience has been that clients who have this problem are more likely to have this felt sense of change through a combination of a mind-body psychotherapy, like Somatic Experiencing, and clinical hypnosis, which helps clients to get to unconscious feelings more readily.  The combination also allows clients to have a felt sense experience of change rather than an experience of talking about changing.

Getting Help in Therapy
If this article about the emotional pain of feeling unlovable resonants with your personal experience of yourself, you could benefit from working with a licensed therapist who is trained in a mind-body psychotherapy, like Somatic Experiencing and clinical hypnosis.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients to overcome emotional obstacles so they could lead more fulfilling lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 or email me.

Working Through Emotional Trauma in Psychotherapy: Learning to Separate "Then" From "Now"

One of the most challenging aspects for people considering through emotional trauma in therapy is their fear that they'll be as emotionally overwhelmed in therapy as they were originally when they experienced the trauma.  Many clients have this fear even when the trauma occurred a long time ago.  So, when a therapist does trauma work, it's important to help the client to distinguish between what happened "then" from what's happening "now."

Working Through Trauma in Psychotherapy: Learning to Separate "Then" From "Now"

The Dual Experience in Trauma Work

To help clients work through trauma, as a trauma therapist, I help clients to keep "one foot" (so to speak) in the here-and-now of the therapy room with me and "one foot" in the memory of the trauma.

Having this dual experience is crucial for the client to feel safe enough emotionally to do the trauma work and not fearful that s/he will be emotionally overwhelmed.

Clients Need to Have the Emotional Capacity to Do the Trauma Work
As a trauma therapist, I assess if the client has the emotional capacity to do the work.  If I assess that the client lacks the capacity at the beginning of therapy, I help the client to develop this emotional capacity before the actual work on the trauma begins.

Creating a Therapeutic "Holding Environment" for Doing Trauma Work
A therapeutic "holding environment" is important in any kind of therapy work, but especially when the client comes to do work on trauma.

It's not enough for the client and therapist to have a rapport.  The client must feel emotionally "contained" in order to feel safe enough to do the work.

See my article:  The Creation of the "Holding Environment" in Psychotherapy for more details about this.

Somatic Experiencing and Trauma Work
I have found that Somatic Experiencing is a gentle and effective form of therapy that helps clients work through trauma.

Somatic Experiencing also helps clients to differentiate "then" from "now" so they are less likely to feel emotionally overwhelmed.

When clients come to see me and they're considering Somatic Experiencing, I usually recommend that they read Peter Levine's book, Waking the Tiger, which explains Somatic Experiencing.  I also recommend his more recent book, In an Unspoken Voice.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you have emotional trauma that has not been worked through, you owe it to yourself to get help from a licensed psychotherapist who specializes in trauma work so you can lead a more fulfilling and meaningful life.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my web site:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Self Blame and the Internal Critic: Overcoming the Tyranny of "Shoulds" You Impose on Yourself

Many people have such a strong internal critic that they feel overwhelmed by that self blaming part of themselves.  The internal critic imposes so many "shoulds" that it becomes emotionally and physically exhausting.

Self Blame and the Internal Critic

For many people, this internal critic is so strong that it stops them from even starting a new endeavor because they know in advance that they'll be overwhelmed by self criticism.  It feels safer to just stick with what's familiar than risk the tyranny of "shoulds" they impose on themselves.

The Internal Critic Can Show Up in Any Area of Your Life
For some people, the internal critic comes up in specific areas, like their physical appearance.

For those people, just looking in the mirror can be emotionally painful as the internal critic criticizes their physical appearance, often in very distorting ways.

For other people, the internal critic comes up, not just in specific areas, but in most areas of their life, no matter what they're doing.

Parts Work Combined with the Mind-Body Connection in Therapy to Overcome the Internal Critic
Parts work in therapy has many different names, including ego state therapy, internal family systems, and so on.

Parts work combined with the mind-body connection can be a very effective way to overcome the internal critic.

Self Blame and the Internal Critic

Using parts work and mind-body therapy, like Somatic Experiencing, the therapist can help facilitate the identification of the different internal aspects of self (or parts) that are affecting the client, including the internal critic.

Parts work is non-pathologizing, so that all the parts are recognized as having a good intention of wanting to preserve the self, but the parts might be going about it in a skewed way.

Here's an example of a client struggling with a strong internal critic and how a combination of parts work and mind-body therapy helped.  As always, this is a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed:

Nina
When Nina came to therapy, she was nearly paralyzed by self blame.  In almost every situation in her life, she had self blaming thoughts like, "You should have done it this way instead of that way" or "You shouldn't try that--you're just going to fail."

Before she could embark on any new endeavor, like a new job or a new project, she had to do battle with all her negative thoughts.  It was mentally, emotionally and physically exhausting.

Nina was aware that she grew up in a home where both of her parents were highly critical of her and of themselves. So, she knew she internalized this critical part of herself from an early age.  But just knowing this wasn't enough to change it, which is often the case with problems like this.

Helping Nina to get into a relaxed state, I asked her to recall a memory when she felt the internal critic as being especially strong.

Nina remembered how she felt when she moved to NYC from her small hometown in the Midwest to attend college in NY.

She remembered being plagued with negative thoughts about how she would never make it in NY, including the thought, "You should stay home and go to the local college.  You'll never measure up to the other students in NYC."

We continued to work with this self blaming part to try to understand what its intention was.

Before I go on, I should explain that looking at the internal critic this way is a symbolic way of making it come alive in an accessible way.

Rather than just thinking about the thoughts, we explored the internal critic almost as if it was a person.  After a while, Nina was also able to identify where she sensed the internal critic in her body, including a tightening in her throat and in her stomach.

Using parts work and the mind-body connection (i.e., identifying where the feeling is sensed in the body) helped Nina to continue to explore the feeling more deeply.

After a while, what she discovered was that the internal critic really did have a good intention, which was to keep her from getting hurt.  So, for instance, when it told her that she should stay home instead of moving to NYC to attend college, this part held a lot of fear and its intention was to keep Nina safe.

The problem was that, even though the internal critic's intention was good, the way it expressed itself was critical and damaging.  So, we worked towards helping that part to be more balanced in its expression.

With practice, instead of being critical, Nina learned to soften this part's expression so that it could evaluate in a more balanced way instead of being critical.

Of course, this takes a lot of work because the internal critic doesn't develop overnight and it takes a while to change.

As Nina became more aware when the internal critic was operating, she asked herself, "What's the intention of this part?  What is it trying to do?"

By looking at the internal critic in this way, Nina learned that there were times when the internal critic had something of value to express but, as mentioned before, it was expressing it in a skewed way.  Nina could stand back and look at her negative thoughts (the internal critic) and use her judgment to assess when to pay attention and when to gently put the thought aside.

Doing Parts Work and Mind-Body Psychotherapy
Parts work combined with mind-body psychotherapy is a gentle process.  We're never trying to squelch or get rid of a part.  Instead, we're recognizing that the part usually has a good intention, but there's a distortion involved and the part needs to be modified in a way so that it's more balanced.

Parts work helps with many different aspects of yourself.  It can be an angry part, a sad part, a fearful part, and so on.

Parts work combined with mind-body psychotherapy helps you to recognize how many different aspects of yourself are involved in you, and how the different parts can manifest at various times and in different ways.

It also helps to explain why you might feel many different feelings at the same time.  Before you recognize that you have many different aspects of self, this can be confusing.

Mind-body psychotherapy and parts work work well together in combination in dealing with difficult parts.

Getting Help in Therapy
If you feel overwhelmed by self blame that comes from a harsh internal critic, you could benefit from working with a therapist who does parts work and mind-body psychotherapy, like Somatic Experiencing.

If you work through the issues involved with your internal critic, it's possible to feel a heavy burden being lifted from you and you'll feel freer to live your life.

About Me
I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Discovering That Sadness is Often Hidden Underneath Anger

People are often surprised to discover that when they deal with their anger in therapy, underneath their anger is sadness.

While this phenomenon might not be true for everyone, as a psychotherapist in NYC, I've seen that underlying sadness or grief is often the underlying emotion for many people who experience a lot of anger.

Sadness is Often Hidden Underneath Anger

Anger Feels Easier To Deal For Many People Compared to Feeling Sadness
Many people find it easier to be angry than to be sad.  Feeling angry makes them feel more empowered as compared to feeling sad, which feels disempowering.

So, anger often becomes a cover up for sadness when people feel uncomfortable dealing with their sadness.

Let's look at the following example, which, as always, is a composite of many cases to protect confidentiality:

Mark:
Mark's wife urged him to come to therapy because he was snapping at her and their children.

Mark recognized that he had a problem with anger, but he wasn't sure what to do about it.  He came to therapy reluctantly at first.

Mark, who was in his mid-30s, had never been to therapy before.  Prior to coming to therapy, he thought that only people who had serious mental illness came to therapy, so I provided Mark with psychoeducation about therapy, which included common reasons why people came to therapy.  He was surprised that many people came to therapy for problems that were similar to his problems.

When we went over his family history, he realized that his parents didn't deal with their emotions.  Not only did no one at home talk about how they felt, but talking about emotions was actually discouraged.  So, Mark never learned how to deal with his emotions.  Instead, he stuffed his feelings, and he was hardly aware, at any given time, what he was feeling.

Identifying Emotions
The first step in our work together was helping Mark identify his emotions.  At first, he was able to only identify in a very general way uncomfortable and comfortable feelings, but nothing specific.  This was a good start.

The Mind-Body Connection in Therapy
I worked with Mark to identify where in his body he was feeling his comfortable and uncomfortable feelings.  This was completely new to Mark because he was somewhat cut off from what he felt in his body.

Just learning to sense into his body was a big step.  This took time because Mark felt like he was going against an unspoken family rule that they shouldn't acknowledge their feelings--let alone intentionally sense them.

Gradually, he discovered that he generally felt his comfortable feelings in his chest and his uncomfortable feelings in his gut (this is a very individual pattern, and it will be different for each person).

Then, we worked towards helping Mark to differentiate his feelings.  Over time, he learned to distinguish anger and happiness.

Since Mark was struggling not to lose his temper with his family, we spent more time on his feelings of anger.

After a while, Mark was more adept at identifying his anger and where he sensed it in his body, so I encouraged Mark to talk about an incident where he became angry at home and to stay with these feelings as long as his feelings remained tolerable.

It took a while for Mark to build the emotional capacity to tolerate staying with his feelings.  At first, his inclination was to either distract himself with other feelings or to shut down emotionally.

Just like building a muscle takes time, building the capacity to stay with uncomfortable emotions can also take time.

On an intellectual level, Mark knew that he learned unhealthy patterns in his family about dealing (or not dealing) with his feelings, but knowing this alone wasn't enough to change it.  So, we worked towards increasing his capacity a little at a time.

When he got to the point where he could stay with his angry feelings, he was able to go deeper, and that's when he discovered the sadness underneath his anger.

To say that Mark was surprised would be an understatement.  Until then, he had no idea of just how much sadness he was carrying inside of him.

Working with the mind-body connection, Mark began to identify the early memories of loss that were connected to his sadness so we could work through those feelings.

Getting Help in Therapy
As I mentioned earlier, anger often masks sadness.  This is usually an unconscious process.  Until you can work through the sadness in therapy, more than likely, you'll continue to have problems with anger.

Working with clients who mask sadness with anger, I've found that working with mind-body psychotherapy like Somatic Experiencing is often much more helpful than just using regular talk therapy alone.

The body is also a window into the unconscious (see my article: Mind-Body Psychotherapy: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious).

Mind-body psychotherapy helps people to orient themselves to the physical cues that are in their bodies.

If you think your anger could be a mask for underlying sadness or trauma, you could benefit from working with a therapist who has expertise with this problem and works with the mind-body connection.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many therapy clients to lead more fulfilling lives.

To find out more about me, visit my web site:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also, see my article:  Mind-Body Connection: Responding Instead of Reacting to Stress

What is Happiness and Where Do You Find it?

As far back as the ancient Greeks and beyond, people have been asking the question, "What is happiness?"  The journalist, Eric Weiner, has written a book called The Geography of Bliss where he travels around the world in his quest to discover what happiness is and if there are certain countries where most people are happy.  

What is Happiness and Where Do You Find It?

His travels take him to the Netherlands; Switzerland; Bhutan, where they keep track of Gross National Happiness instead of Gross Domestic Product; Qatar, the richest country in the world; Iceland; Moldova; Thailand, Great Britain and India.  

The Geography of Bliss is well written, thought provoking, enlightening and entertaining. As Weiner travels from one country to the next, asking people about their happiness, their culture and philosophy of life, he experiences different ways of life and engages in his own self exploration.

I won't spoil the book by giving it away. But if you've ever asked yourself the question:  "What is happiness?," I recommend that you read this book The Geography of Bliss - One Grump's Search for the Happiest Places in the World.

"Are You Happy?"
It's interesting that when someone asks you, "Are you happy?," it becomes a difficult question to answer.  It might even make you feel uncomfortable.  Often, people respond to this question by not even being sure what happiness is.  How do you know if you're happy?  Is it a state of mind?  Is it too elusive to gauge?

Will Having Lots of Money Make You Happy?
Many people are sure they'd be happy if they had a lot of money.  And, since many people feel this way, social scientists have been curious about the possible connection, so there has been a lot of research about happiness and money.

As you might guess, based on this research, it seems that you need to have at least enough money so you feel comfortable (however you measure that).

Most people who are struggling in dire poverty find it difficult to be happy.  But, beyond feeling comfortable, the happiness that people feel initially after they've either inherited a lot of money or won millions in the lottery is short lived.  So, more isn't always better.  In fact, there have been many stories of people who won millions who end up feeling miserable.

What Makes Us Happy Can Change Over the Course of a Lifetime
For most of us, the answer to "What is happiness?" changes over the course of a lifetime.  When you're a child, happiness is getting a new toy (at least for a while, until you get tired of it).


When you're a teenager, you might imagine that happiness would be getting away from your parents, having your own place and your independence.  When you're in your 20s and 30s, happiness might be succeeding in your career.

Meaning and Purpose in Your Life
Ask 100 people what happiness is to them, and you'll get at least 101 different answers.  For many people, happiness is finding meaning and purpose outside of themselves, something that is bigger than they are.  This might be their religion or their spirituality.

For others, happiness means having loving family and friends.  For others, happiness is knowing that they are rooted in a long line of ancestors and the family line will continue beyond them.

What is happiness to you?  I would love to hear your responses.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  

I work with individual adults and couples, and I have helped many clients to overcome obstacles that keep them from leading a fulfilling life.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

The Mind-Body Connection: Mindfulness Meditation

Mindfulness Meditation:
When you're overwhelmed by stress, you might experience anxiety-related problems, such as difficulties concentrating, memory problems, or problems with insomnia, to name just a few possibilities. On a physical level, if you're under too much stress, you can become physically exhausted and your immune system can become compromised, causing you to get sick.

Mind-Body Connection: Mindfulness Meditation

This is why it's so important to learn ways to take care of yourself on a regular basis to keep your mind and body calm.

Why Mindfulness Meditation?
Mindfulness meditation is one way that many people find helpful, not only to stay calm, but also to become more aware and develop insight about their inner emotional world.

When you practice mindfulness meditation, you allow whatever thoughts and feelings that arise to come up and you just notice them. You don't try to control them. You don't make judgments about them. You're simply observing what's happening in your inner world. Everything and anything that comes up is welcomed in mindfulness meditation.

The intention of mindfulness meditation is to be aware and awake to what's going on inside you. You're developing the ability to become a impartial observer of your own internal experience.

Mindfulness can be used in just about any area of your life. You can eat in a mindful way. You can walk in a state of mindfulness. You can engage in your relationships in mindful ways.

People who practice mindfulness meditation over a period of time often become insightful about themselves and others.

How to Begin Mindfulness Meditation:
As a psychotherapist, I usually recommend that clients begin with a guided mindfulness meditation CD (see resources below).

As a beginner, you can start by just paying attention to your breath, feeling what it's like to inhale a refreshing breath and what it's like to exhale, letting go of stress. It helps to close your eyes to keep your eyes and mind from wondering.

You an also look down at a point close to you if you don't feel comfortable closing your eyes. I also usually recommend that people sit up when they do meditation because it's easy to fall asleep if you're lying down, and this is not the purpose of doing meditation. Usually, a chair where your spine is straight and comfortable is best.

Mind-Body Connection: Mindfulness Meditation

Everyone is different as to when they like to do meditation. Some people find it most helpful to do in the morning before they start their day. It sets the tone for their day. Other people prefer to do it at night before they go t sleep. And others prefer to do it some time in the middle of the day. To be consistent, it's helpful to have a regular routine for meditation.

Some people who begin mindfulness meditation, find it helpful to concentrate on how their abdomen expands and contracts when they breath. You can begin by practicing for 5 minutes a day and work your way up, over time, to 20 minutes or more.

You don't have to be spiritual to practice mindfulness meditation. Mindfulness meditation can be done in a secular way (see resources below). And if you are spiritual, you will probably find that it will enhance just about any spiritual practice.

As a beginner to mindfulness meditation, you can expect that your mind will probably wonder. This is normal. The important thing, rather than getting frustrated with yourself, is to bring your attention back to your breath each time, even if you must do this countless times. It gets easier over time if you persevere.

Resources for Mindfulness Meditation:
Any of the books and CDs by Jon Kabat-Zinn, PhD., are especially helpful.

Websites:
Mind and Life Institute: http://www.mindandlife.org/

Mindfulness CDs: http://www.mindfulnesstapes.com/
CD for Beginners: Mindfulness for Beginners - by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Books:
Wherever You Go, There You Are - by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness - by Jon Kabat Zinn

The Mindful Way Through Depression (includes CD) - by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Mindfulness meditation is one way to de-stress and become more aware of your inner emotional world. In future blog posts, I'll discuss other ways.

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.