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The Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC has been providing continuing education in mindfulness and ecotherapy since 2007. During all of that time, students of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy have continually expressed a desire for an organization that specifically caters to the educational needs of counselors and therapists who practice Mindful Ecotherapy.

With these needs in mind, the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC will be creating a new two-year certification in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy. This new certification will train and certify counselors and therapists specifically in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy.

This will be an intensive two-year certification process, including up-to-date training in the latest techniques, research, and education in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy.

Certification will require renewal every three years, and will have a continuing education requirement during each renewal period, so that MBE practitioners are up-to-date on the latest techniques and interventions. It will also require case presentations and supervision for certification.

This will be a different and much more intensive certification than our current Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy Facilitator training. Trainees who complete the two-year training would be certified Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapists (MBE) and would be entitled to use the designation MBE in their credentials.

The new program will include the following:

• 20 hours of continuing education in Mindfulness
• 20 hours of continuing education in Ecotherapy/Ecopsychology
• 30 hours of continuing education in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy in Clinical Practice
• 5 hours of continuing education in suicide prevention
• 3 hours of continuing education in ethics
• 10 hours of continuing education in electives
• 20 hours of supervision
• Case presentation

NEW Ecospirituality Program

The current Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy Facilitator Certification course will be replaced in 2024 with the Ecospirituality Program, which will expand to include a more spiritual element to the training and to the program.

Somewhere between 90% and 95% of people on Earth practice some sort of spirituality. Obviously, spirituality must be pretty important. Studies tend to back this up. What the studies show is that the type of spirituality doesn’t really matter. Whether you’re Christian, Muslim, Jew, Buddhist, Hindu or Pagan, or even agnostic or atheist, practicing some sort of spiritual path yields benefits.

Since the particular type of spirituality is secondary to the benefits gained (in other words, since all spiritual paths lead to a better quality of life for those who practice them properly), what is it about spirituality that allows it to work its magic?

Suppose you could take all the spiritual paths practiced worldwide, put them into a cauldron, and boil them down to their essence. What would remain? I believe that the common thread to all spiritual practices is a feeling of connection. Connection to others, or connection to the divine, or simply connection to nature and to ourselves. In short: Spirituality = Connectedness!

If you think back on the spiritual experiences you’ve had in your lifetime, do recall feeling connected on some level? Many describe spiritual experiences as a sense of ‘oneness.’ Oneness implies connection to something outside ourselves. In this sense, even an agnostic or an atheist could achieve spirituality through connection.

The new Ecospirituality Program scheduled for release in 2024 will incorporate elements of this connectedness!

Changes to the Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy Certification Program

Although the Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy Program was created to be facilitated by licensed mental health professionals, in the past we’ve had quite a few coaches who have also taken the course. While mental health professionals are highly regulated in most states and in many countries, coaches are usually not.

Due to this lack of regulation and credentialing for most coaches, some states and some organizations have restricted the use of the term ‘ecotherapy.’ Because of this, we are re-naming the current Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy 12-week program. In 2024 the program will become the Ecospirituality Program. Current certified facilitators of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy will be allowed to take the new Ecospirituality Facilitator Training program for free when it is available.
The new Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy Certification will then replace the current designation. This will be a much more in-depth two-year certification process only available to licensed mental health professionals.

The new Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy program will require intensive study, supervision, and a case presentation prior to becoming certified. Once certified, licensed mental health professionals will be able to use the designation “MBE” in their credentials, for “Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapist.”

When the first cohort of Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapists graduates we will begin a Supervisor Training Program that will educate MBEs in supervision so that future training programs will have a variety of supervisors to choose from.

As we move forward with these changes we would love your input! Click here to visit the forum and join the discussion!

The idea behind using Meme Triads is to move from a problem-focused paradigm to a solution-focused paradigm. One of the goals of using Meme Triads is to begin to think in terms of solutions instead of in terms of problems. When we start thinking in terms of solutions, we begin to live with intention. The power of intention is one of the skills of mindfulness, so by living deliberately and with intention, we move to a solution-focused paradigm.

To illustrate the difference between a problem-focused paradigm and a solution-focused paradigm, and how to move from one to another, we’ll use the example of a couple in which one or both partners are engaging in emotional aggression by expecting the other partner to be responsible for making them happy.

We’ll graph it out as follows:

1. What is the problem? The problem meme is, “My spouse must be responsible for my happiness.”
2. Why is this a problem? This is a problem because “My spouse is getting tired of being responsible for my happiness.”
3. How is the problem maintained? In this example, the problem is maintained because I believe my spouse must be responsible for my happiness, but my spouse has grown tired of being responsible for my happiness. If I try to solve the problem by insisting even more that my spouse be responsible for my happiness, she reacts by getting even more tired of being responsible for it.

The first step in moving towards a solution is to eliminate the problem-based meme. Since the meme has three components, and all three components are interrelated and dependent on each other, we can choose any of the three components to change. By changing any one of the components, we transform the meme.

In the example above, we’ll look at what happens when we change any of the three components. Let’s start with the ‘What’ component. This component is, “My spouse must be responsible for my happiness.” What would happen if this component was changed to, “I will be responsible for my own happiness?”

If we make this change, what does it do to the other two components?

If the ‘What’ component is now changed to “I will be responsible for my own happiness,” let’s first look at what this does to the ‘Why’ component. The ‘Why’ component above is “My spouse is getting tired of being responsible for my happiness.” If the ‘What’ component is changed to “I will be responsible for my own happiness,” then the ‘Why’ component is altered, because if I am now responsible for my own happiness, my spouse is no longer responsible for my happiness, and has no reason to get tired.

Now let’s look at the ‘How’ component when the ‘What’ component has been changed to “I will be responsible for my own happiness.” The answer to the question, “How is the problem maintained?” is that the more tired my spouse gets of being responsible for my happiness, the more I pressure her to take on that responsibility. If the ‘What’ component has changed, and I have now learned to be responsible for my own happiness, there is no need to pressure my spouse to shoulder that responsibility.

So by changing the ‘What’ component of the triad, we have changed all three components, and transformed the meme into something more productive.

Let’s now examine what happens if we focus on changing the ‘What’ component. The ‘What’ component in the problem-focused example above is, “My spouse is getting tired of being responsible for my happiness.” In this case, I cannot change the ‘Why’ component, because it deals with my spouse’s thoughts and feelings, and not my own, and I cannot force my spouse to change her feelings if she doesn’t want to. But let’s just assume that hypothetically she decides to continue to bear the burden of my happiness, even though she is tired of it. If that is the case, what happens with the ‘How’ component?

The ‘How’ component is no longer an issue, because if my spouse has agreed to continue to bear the burden of responsibility for my happiness, even if she is tired of it, then I have no reason to continue to pressure her to do so. Therefore the ‘How’ component is no longer relevant.

So if the ‘Why’ component is altered in this way, what does it do to the ‘What’ component? If the ‘What’ component is “My spouse must be responsible for my happiness,” and my spouse has agreed to be responsible for my happiness, there is no problem (not for me, at least…my spouse may feel differently!).
Finally, let’s look at what happens when we change the ‘How’ component.

If the ‘How’ component is that I pressure my spouse to be responsible for my happiness whenever she complains that she is tired of being responsible for my happiness, I could change it by not pressuring her to take on that responsibility. If I do that, the ‘What’ component of, “My spouse must be responsible for my happiness” is irrelevant, since I am no longer pressuring her. And since I am no longer pressuring her, she no longer feels tired of the responsibility for my happiness, thereby changing the ‘Why’ component as well.
In the illustration above you can already see elements of moving from a problem-focused paradigm to a solution-focused paradigm.

Let’s take it a step further by exploring the Solution-Focused Generic Meme Triad.

Looking at the problem-focused triad above, the central issue is ‘my happiness.’ The problem manifests because I am trying to derive my happiness from the actions and feelings of someone else: My spouse.
What happens when I move to a solution-focused paradigm? If the solution (or the intention) is ‘Happiness,’ the solution-focused triad becomes:

1. What is the solution? I am responsible for my own happiness.
2. Why is this a solution? Because if I am responsible for my own happiness, nobody else has to be responsible for my happiness. Also, if I am responsible for my own happiness, nobody else can ever take it away from me.
3. How is the solution maintained? The more I am responsible for my own happiness, the less I am dependent on others for my happiness, and the less dependent on others I am for my own happiness, the happier I become.
   

With all of the meme triads that follow in future posts, the objective is to move from a problem-focused paradigm to a solution-focused paradigm by altering the memes that are leading to negative consequences.

By altering our memes to a solution-focused paradigm, we become proactive in creating positive consequences in our lives.

Contrary to popular belief, a ‘meme’ is not an internet picture with words on it. A meme is just a belief that has been passed from one person to another. We get most of our core memes from our families of origin.

If your memes (inherited beliefs) are leading to consequences you want, then nothing needs to be changed. If, however, you have memes that are leading to consequences you don’t want, you have a choice. You can change them to something more conducive to positive consequences.

The first step in changing a meme is to examine the components of the meme. There are three basic components to a meme: What, Why and How. The explanation of these components is as follows:

1. What is the problem? The ‘What’ component is usually the meme that is causing the problem.
2. Why is this a problem? The ‘Why’ component of the meme indicates why the meme is leading to consequences you don’t want.
3. How is the problem maintained? Sometimes the attempted solution to a problem only serves to make the problem worse.
   If I believe my spouse must be responsible for my happiness, but my spouse has grown tired of being responsible for my happiness, I might try to solve the problem by insisting even more that my spouse be responsible for my happiness. I might even resort to blaming, shaming, and guilt-tripping my spouse in an attempt to get her to resume responsibility for my happiness. But the more I try to force her into taking that responsibility, the more tired she gets of being responsible for it. My attempted solution to the problem is only serving to make the problem worse. It’s been said that, “Insanity is doing the same thing in the same way and expecting different results.” If what you’re doing to solve the problem isn’t working, then doing more of it isn’t going to work either.

The first step in changing a non-productive meme into a productive meme that generates positive consequences is to identify the components of the meme using the outline above.

Once you’ve identified the components of the meme, picture them as legs or sides of a triangle. Triangles have three sides. All three of those sides are connected to each other. If you take away one of the sides of a triangle, it is no longer a triangle. Furthermore, since all the sides of a triangle are connected to each other, if you change one side, the other two sides must change as well.

Memes have a similar construction. Looking at the What, Why and How components of a meme, we can see that if one side is changed, all of the other sides are changed as well. Furthermore, since all three components are necessary in order for a meme to exist, if one component is taken away, the meme ceases to exist.

Since there are three sides to a triangle, and three components to a meme, a triangle can be constructed with one component of the meme on each side. One side of the triangle would be the ‘What’ component, another side would be the ‘Why’ component, and the base of the triangle would be the ‘How’ component.

Once a meme is graphed out in this fashion, then taking away one of the sides means that it is no longer a triangle. So if one of the components is altered or removed, it eliminates the meme altogether or completely changes it.
Changing one of the sides changes the two remaining sides, and therefore the meme is changed as well. So if you have a meme that is leading you to consequences you do not want, and you graph that meme out on a triangle, you have three separate chances to change the meme. You may change the ‘What’ component, or the ‘Why’ component, or the ‘How’ component. By changing any one of these components, the other components change as well, and the meme is altered. When the meme is altered, the consequences of acting on the meme are altered as well.

This may sound confusing at first, but over the coming weeks we’ll go over it in more detail. With more practice it will start to make more sense.

Sometimes our beliefs lead us to consequences we don’t want to experience. The way to change those beliefs is to dispute the beliefs you have that are leading you to consequences you don’t want to experience. When you’ve experienced a negative consequence in your life, examine and challenge the beliefs you hold that led you to act in such a way that you got consequences you didn’t want.

Note that this act of disputing the belief is a process of trial and error. Changing a belief is no guarantee of getting a better consequence. But it is certain that if we don’t change the belief, we will continue to get the same negative consequence. Making a change isn’t an automatic recipe for success.

We can, however, make educated guesses as to how we might change our beliefs in order to get the consequences we do want. Once we’ve found a belief that might lead to a consequence we do want, we troubleshoot it before implementing it by asking what sort of things might go wrong if we change our beliefs. By making a plan to cover any potential misfires, there’s a greater chance that the changed belief will work to change the consequences to something more to our liking.

There is a special category of beliefs called memes. ‘Meme’ comes from the Greek word mīmēma, which means “imitated thing.” Memes are to ideas as genes are to physical characteristics like hair color, height, and eye color. A meme is an idea, belief or behavior that is passed from one person to another.

We get many of our earliest memes from our parents and our family. Later on we may pick up memes from our friends, our teachers, and our culture and society. Taken together, our memes make up our belief system and the way we deal with others.

If English is your native language, you probably learned it from your family. If you had been raised in a family that only spoke Spanish, then Spanish would be your native language. Your language was handed down to you from the people who raised you. You learned the language though a process of imitation by repeating the sounds you heard.

The people who raised you taught you your native spoken language. But there is also another language they taught you: Your emotional language. Your emotional language is the language you use to deal with relationships. The language you use to express emotions is made up of memes you inherited from your parents, guardians, or other loved ones in your life.

The vast majority of memes that we inherit are good and productive memes. They help us to function in our daily lives. But sometimes the memes we inherit lead to consequences we don’t want. For example, if I have a meme that says that my spouse must make me happy, and my spouse is okay with that, then there are no negative consequences.

But what happens if my spouse gets tired of bearing the burden of carrying my happiness for me? In such a case, if my belief, or meme, is that my spouse must make me happy, and my spouse has grown tired of trying to make me happy, then the consequence will be that I cannot be happy unless I learn to be responsible for my own happiness.

If that is the case, then I need to change the meme, “My spouse must be responsible for my happiness” to something more productive, along the lines of, “I must learn to be responsible for my own happiness.”

Meme Triads are a way to change beliefs. Next time we’ll talk about the components of a meme and how to use meme triads to change our less productive beliefs.

In our ongoing effort to improve the quality of the courses we offer, we will be applying to the National Board for Certified Counselors (NBCC) to be able to provide LIVE continuing education opportunities in addition to our online offerings.

As part of this process we are offering this FREE two-hour course on Ethics in Ecotherapy in June of 2023!

This course will cover some ethics issues common to the practice of ecotherapy. In addition to two free hours of continuing education on the Ethics of Ecotherapy, participants will receive a coupon code good for $25 off any course offered by the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC.

This course will be conducted by Zoom, so you will need access to Zoom for the course.

This course will be live TOMORROW, June 20, at 10:00 a.m. Pacific Time.

Join Zoom Meeting
https://us06web.zoom.us/j/89945203020?pwd=YzNTYnhoT2xqYkt3M0pTYk5wSG1lQT09

Meeting ID: 899 4520 3020
Passcode: 462232

If you are attending, please make sure you have updated Zoom to the latest version! Older versions may not work with this course!

 

Ecotherapy usually includes doing therapy outdoors. Therapy in non-traditional settings presents unique ethical challenges. These ethical issues are usually not covered in therapy graduate school programs. In this course we will discuss how to address some common ethical issues for therapists and counselors that are unique to the process of ecotherapy.  

Course Objectives

After taking this course the student will be able to:

• Discuss and describe confidentiality and informed consent issues common to the practice of ecotherapy
• Discuss training recommendations regarding the practice of ecotherapy
• Discuss assessment and client safety issues common to the practice of ecotherapy
• Discuss and describe what constitutes dual relationships in ecotherapy
• Discuss and describe values conflicts in ecotherapy settings
• Develop a sense of self-awareness for counselors and therapists practicing ecotherapy  

Course Instructions

This is a LIVE course that will be offered on Tuesday, June 20, 2023 at 10 a.m. Pacific Daylight Savings Time. An email reminder containing the Zoom code to access the course will be sent the day before the conference. The conference will be presented on Zoom. You need to be present for the duration of the course to get course credit.

The course will be two hours on Zoom. At the end of the course you will have access to a link for the final exam.

Upon successful completion of the exam you will receive a Certificate of Completion in pdf format, and you will be emailed a coupon code good for $25 off any course offered by the Mindful Ecotherapy Center, LLC.

“Never underestimate your power to change yourself; never overestimate your power to change others.”

-H. Jackson Brown, Jr.

The skill of Mindful Acceptance can best be described as the Art of Letting Go. Once you have done everything in your power to solve a problem, you have done all you can, so at that point worry and stress is counterproductive.

Note that letting go of the stress and anxiety doesn’t necessarily mean letting go of the problem itself. For example, suppose you have a car payment coming up, and you don’t have the money to pay it. This would naturally cause you anxiety. If, after brainstorming for solutions, you find that you still don’t have the money to pay the car payment, then at that point you’ve done all you can do.

At that point, you let go of the anxiety associated with the problem. That doesn’t mean that you let go of car payments. You’ll make the payment when you can. In this case, letting go just means that you won’t worry about not making the payment. The energy you might have used worrying about the situation could be put to better use in trying to come up with solutions.

Let’s try another example, this one a bit tougher. Imagine you’re in a relationship. You feel that your partner doesn’t spend enough time with you. You offer suggestions on activities you can do together, only to be met with a blank stare or excuses about why your partner doesn’t have the time to participate in an activity with you. Once you’ve done everything you can do to persuade your partner to spend more time with you, if you still aren’t getting the results you want, it’s time to practice letting go.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that you ‘let go’ of your partner. It just means that you let go of the anxiety associated with the problem. Once you let go of that anxiety, you may find that your partner will actually want to spend more time with you, because you are less stressed-out. But even if this is not the case, you’ve let go of the stress associated with an unresponsive partner.

Mindful Acceptance is observing and describing the thoughts and feelings that cause you anxiety, worry, or stress in the present moment. As you examine these thoughts and feelings by focusing on them one at a time, ask yourself which of these thoughts and feelings concern things you have the power to change. Make a conscious decision to focus your energy only on those things in your life that you have the power to change. If you focus on those things that you cannot change, you are not using your energy to change the things that you can.

Decide right now that you will not feed your negative thoughts and feelings by giving in to them. If you give in to those automatic thought and feeling processes by lending mental energy to them, you are engaging in a ruminating cycle. Realize that it is natural to have negative thoughts and feelings, but having them does not mean that they have to control your life. Learn trust your own inner wisdom. While negative ruminating cycles may come, you do not have to let them rule your life.

Another key to Mindful Acceptance is in understanding that anxiety has a useful purpose. It is nature’s way of letting us know that there is something wrong. Your anxiety protects you from harm, but sometimes it may do its job too well. Ask your anxiety if it is trying to protect you from something that you cannot change. Picture yourself thanking your anxiety for protecting you, and say to your anxiety, “I am now using my own inner wisdom to make positive choices in my life.”

Mindful Acceptance teaches us that each mistake is an opportunity for growth. Each mistake contains a lesson. If you never made a mistake, you would never have an opportunity to learn and grow. In Mindful Acceptance, you learn to accept your mistakes as signs that you are becoming a stronger and wiser individual.

Mindfulness is a skill like any other. It can sometimes be difficult to learn, because it is so diametrically opposed to the way we’re accustomed to thinking, acting, and doing. Some of the techniques of mindfulness may feel strange at first, simply because they are different. ‘Different’ doesn’t mean ‘better’ or ‘worse,’ it simply means ‘different.’ With practice, however, these skills will become easier over time. Don’t give up after trying mindfulness skills only once or twice. Have patience and allow them time to work. Change can sometimes be hard. If it were easy, we’d already be doing it.

There’s a saying that, “Insanity is doing the same thing in the same ways and expecting different results.”
If we’ve been doing things that lead to negative consequences, we’re probably doing those things because they feel familiar to us. This is fine if we like the consequences of our actions. But if we don’t like the consequences of our actions, we may choose to do the sometimes difficult work of making change. The only way to get different results is to do things in different ways. This leads to different consequences for our actions.

Mindfulness is a way to do things differently.

Although meditation is a part of mindfulness, Mindful Awareness is much more than a meditative technique. Mindfulness is a way of life. The techniques of mindfulness can be applied to any of our day-to-day experiences. They are not restricted to the realm of meditation.

Like anything else that has to be learned, mindfulness is a skill that requires practice. Leonardo da Vinci didn’t paint the Mona Lisa the first time he picked up a paintbrush. Leonardo Da Vinci didn’t paint the Mona Lisa the first time he picked up a paintbrush. Likewise, you probably won’t be able to jump right into a ‘mindful awareness’ mode of being without a lot of practice. That’s okay. Give yourself permission to practice once in a while. The more you do so, the more mindful you’ll become!

A fisherman and his son were at sea, going about the daily tasks of catching enough fish to make their living. It was a beautiful spring day, and they were both enjoying the ocean. They were having a particularly good day. They had caught many fish, and they were ready to turn for home and make their way back to the shore when the father noticed a tiny leak at the bow of the boat. The boat was slowly filling up with water. While the leak wasn’t a big one, they both realized that the boat would be full of water before they could row back to shore.

The father and son began to panic as they thought of the prospect of losing not only their boat, but the fine catch they had made that day. In his panic, the father suddenly seized upon an idea. He grabbed the oar and punched a hole in the side of the boat.

The son thought his father had gone mad. “What are you doing?” the son shouted.

The father replied, “I’m punching a hole in the bottom of the boat so the water can flow out!”

They both watched in horror as more water rushed into the boat the father had made. Seeing that his idea had not succeeded, but had only made things worse, the father began to furiously punch even more holes in the bottom of the boat.

The son, upon seeing this, yelled at his father, “Will you please stop it? Can’t you see you are only making things worse?”

But the father said, “No, my idea will work! I just didn’t have enough holes in the boat! If I keep punching holes in the boat, the water will eventually flow out!”

The son watched helplessly as the father, in a frenzy, continued to batter more holes into the hull of the boat. Finally, the boat overflowed, sinking to the bottom of the sea and taking the catch of the day with it. The father and son had to swim for shore.

Upon arriving at the shore, totally exhausted, they both realized that they had not only lost a fine catch, but they had also lost their means of making a living. With the boat gone, they could no longer be fishermen. With great sadness, they turned to make their way home, wondering about what they’d do to survive in the future.

To think about:
What solutions to problems have you been trying, that only make the problem worse? How could you make it better instead? If what you’re doing isn’t working, could it be time to try something different?

The most basic mindfulness technique involves simply paying attention to the moment. One way to do this is to focus only on your breathing, without thinking about anything. If a thought comes to mind, simply note it and let it go, without judging yourself or the thought. It’s perfectly natural that thoughts will try to surface, because we are taught to be thinking creatures. However, as you practice with mindful awareness, it will get easier to let those thoughts go. Don’t get frustrated if it is difficult at first.

One way to achieve this ability to pay attention to the moment is to picture your thoughts as ripples on a pond. As the wind ceases to blow, the pond becomes calmer and calmer until its surface becomes as smooth as glass. In this case the ‘wind’ is the things that drive your thoughts and feelings, and the ‘ripples’ on the pond are your thoughts and feelings themselves. Your goal is not to make the pond go away. Your goal is to allow the surface of the pond to become calm.

Suppose I tell you that for the next ten seconds, you can think of anything you wish, except for Panda bears. What’s the first thing you’re going to think of? Likewise, if I tell you, “Try not to think for the next ten minutes,” the first thing you’re going to do is to think. Furthermore, if you have a thought, and catch yourself having a thought, and think, “This is hard, I can’t do this,” the thoughts this is hard, and I can’t do this, are more thoughts. So the goal isn’t to try not to think. Trying is doing, and you’re not doing, you’re just being right now.

Some of the features of Mindful Awareness include:

Observing

Think about your morning routine. When you were in the shower this morning, were you actually in the shower, or was your mind racing down the highway to your day-to-day errands? When you were there in the shower, were you feeling the warmth of the water on your skin, smelling the fragrance of the soap, and hearing the sound of the water, or was your mind elsewhere?

When we are preoccupied with thoughts of the past or the future, we are in Thinking Mode. Thinking Mode takes us away from experiencing the world directly with our senses. When we leave Thinking Mode and begin to experience the world instead with our senses, we have entered Sensing Mode. Mindful Awareness teaches us to focus on the world experienced directly by our senses: touch, taste, smell, hearing, and sight.

Experiencing life in Sensing Mode introduces us to a richer world. It’s impossible to be bored or apathetic if you treat each experience as if it is happening to you for the first time.

Describing

This skill of Mindful Awareness involves observing the smallest details of an object, event or activity. Try to approach each daily activity as if you are experiencing it for the first time. Explore as many dimensions of it as you can. For example, you can probably readily identify with the fact that the color of an apple is ‘red,’ or maybe ‘green,’ but have you ever thought about what an apple sounds like? Is there a distinct quality of an apple that would make it identifiable only by sound? By smell? By touch? What would a blind person’s experience of an apple be? When you think of apples, do you have any emotional reaction to them? Do you have any positive memories about apples? What about negative memories? By identifying and labeling these feelings and thoughts about apples, we become more aware of our internal experiences relating to apples.

When we gain experience with this technique, we can apply it to other areas of our lives as well. For example, by looking at your negative thought processes, and identifying and labeling them as such, you are better able to recognize them simply as processes, and not as part of who you are as a person. All of these thoughts and feelings make up our moods. By observing and describing them, we become aware of the primary and secondary emotions at play in our emotionally aggressive states, and in our more emotionally productive states.

Remember when you were a child? Each day the world was new. You approached each day with a sense of childlike wonder. As we get older and learn about things, we learn what to expect by learning how things work. This is usually a good thing. For example, if you learn from experience that dogs may bite, you will probably approach a new dog with caution.

But what if it’s a friendly dog? Will you miss an opportunity to play if you assume a friendly dog will bite you?
Our assumptions can work to protect us, but sometimes our assumptions can work against us as well. If you approach all dogs as dogs that might bite, you’re naturally going to avoid dogs more often. You may even miss an opportunity to play and roll in the grass with a friendly dog because your assumption may be that ‘all dogs bite.’

What about people and relationships? If you’ve been hurt in a relationship, your assumptions might include ‘people bite.’ Such an assumption will color the way you approach new people. If you assume that all people are unfriendly, how is a new person likely to react to you? By learning the skills of observing and describing, we can focus more on the whole person (or dog!) and see that each individual has both positive and negative qualities. We can choose which qualities to focus on based on the assumptions we make in our interactions with them.

Fully Participating

Mindful Awareness allows you to experience every aspect of an activity. We have a tendency, when in thinking mode, to see things and activities as either ‘all bad’ or ‘all good.’ This is not necessarily an accurate depiction of reality.

In Mark Twain’s book, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, Tom gets his friends to help him whitewash a fence by convincing them that fence painting is one of the most fun and enjoyable activities in the world. There is an element of truth in Tom’s deception. Most activities aren’t inherently ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ We’ve taught ourselves to think of them in such terms, but we can also teach ourselves a different way. Think about an unpleasant activity that you have to engage in on a regular basis, such as washing the dishes or taking out the trash. Can you think of any pleasant aspects of these activities? For example, the last time I hand-washed dishes, I found myself fascinated by the bubbles in the sink. I watched the way the light played across them, generating myriads of rainbows that danced and moved across the surface of the bubbles. I was so entertained by this, that I was done with the dishes before I knew it.

There are enjoyable aspects to every experience, if we train ourselves to look for them. Even if we find ourselves caught in an activity in which we can find no pleasure at all, at least we have the pleasure of thinking about how good we’ll feel when the activity is over!

Being Non-judgmental

Mindful Awareness teaches us the art of acceptance. Emotional reactions to our circumstances are natural, but that doesn’t mean that we have to respond to these emotions by engaging in behaviors that lead to negative consequences. The mindful skill of acceptance teaches us that we can experience these emotions without engaging them.

Acceptance teaches us that we are not our thoughts, and that we are not our emotions. At any given time we can choose which thoughts and emotions we wish to respond to. The essence of mindful mood management is that there are no ‘wrong’ feelings. What may be detrimental is the behavior we engage in after experiencing these emotions. Our goal is to manage the behavior.

When we do so, we are able to manage our moods. This is the difference between feelings and moods: Our moods are a cluster of behaviors we choose to engage in as a response to our feelings and emotions. While we may not be in control of our feelings, we are in control of our moods (or we may learn to be).

If, at any time, we should ‘slip up’ and engage in thoughts and behaviors that lead to negative consequences and negative moods, this does not mean that we have become ‘bad persons.’ This simply means that we are human beings, and as humans we are entitled to make mistakes. Each mistake is an opportunity for growth and learning.

Forgiveness is a skill and an art. The place to start with learning the art of forgiveness is in learning first to forgive ourselves when we make mistakes. When we are able to do so, we will have learned the skill of being non-judgmental with ourselves as well as with others.

Focusing on One Thing at a Time

I love chocolate kisses. There have been times when I have been engaged in other activities while eating kisses. I grab a handful of them and sit down at my computer, eating kisses as I work. On some of those occasions, I’ve eaten the last kiss without realizing that it was the last one. When this has happened in the past, I’ve gotten a little upset that I didn’t realize that I had eaten the last one. The thought that came to mind was, “If I had known that I was eating the last one, I would have enjoyed it more.”

What is it about knowing that I’m on the last kiss that makes eating it more enjoyable? That particular kiss isn’t any different from the rest of the ones in the box. What makes the experience of the last kiss different and more enjoyable is the fact that I have focused all of my attention on enjoying it, because it is the last one.
What if we could learn to make every kiss the ‘last’ one?

By focusing on one thing at a time, we are able to fully enjoy every experience of life. By leaving Doing Mode and entering into Being Mode, we’re able to focus on the pleasures of the present moment. By leaving Thinking Mode and entering into Sensing Mode, we are able to make every kiss the last one by focusing our attention on the experience of enjoying the kiss.

Blues singer and musician Ray Charles once said, “Live every day as if it will be your last, because one of these days, you’re going to be right.”

The way to live every day as if it will be your last, is to focus on the moment, savoring every bit of every experience the world has to offer. The ability to do this is what we call Mindful Awareness.