Mindfulness: The method that will help you deal with this crazy period

Whether you are in isolation, sick in Corona, or just suffering from the uncertainty that has characterized the last few weeks - it is certainly not easy for you.

This reality cannot be changed at the moment, but through mindfulness and self-compassion, you can get through it a little more easily.

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Iris Cole

14/01/2022

Friday, 14 January 2022, 07:13 Updated: 07:53

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If there's one thing we all need after the last two years of the Corona it's resilience - an inner strength to face challenges, difficulties and unwanted realities without collapsing.

One way to develop such resilience is through mindfulness.

Bella Zaretskis, a psychotherapist and facilitator of mindfulness and self-compassion groups at Ichilov Hospital, hosted a podcast from a specialist clinic to explain how the popular method can help us, and how exactly to do it.

"Mindfulness is like a bridge - a bridge between a wandering consciousness in the past, thoughts of the past, experiences of the past, and the future. We are constantly in our thoughts between the past and the future, in fact we are not here and now, not in what is happening, in our present experience," she explained. Zaretskis, "Mindfulness basically teaches to return at every moment to the present experience, as it is experienced in the here and now, it means thoughts, body, emotions, and we learn to do it consistently and repeatedly. We keep coming back to the here and now."

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And it's not as simple as it sounds.

Our thoughts are very automatic, and they have a lot of them.

"Studies show that 47 percent of the time our consciousness wanders," Zaretskis explained, "so first of all to recognize that there is thought, it is already mindfulness."

How do you develop mental resilience?

Zaretskis explained that the process of resilience is built through our ability to deal with difficulties.

When there is difficulty, when we are attacked by anxiety or when there is physical or mental pain, we usually avoid, repress or run away from it.

But mindfulness teaches us how to treat difficulties differently, in the form of self-compassion.

"Self-criticism acts on the body like an external threat that attacks us, but in fact we attack ourselves," she explains, on the other hand - self-compassion allows for better motivation, she asks what I can do to improve my situation next time.

Self-criticism acts on the body as an external threat.

Depressed girl (Photo: ShutterStock)

It is important to understand that self-compassion is not a waiver, nor is it an acceptance of a given situation without its change.

"Compassion is motivation, self-compassion is the motivation to do good with ourselves. Self-criticism builds anger over anger," Zaretskis explained. "It can help me to cope better with the next test. It creates a sense of competence, of an internal agent who can go through this difficult experience."

She added that mindfulness and self-compassion allow each experience to be more beneficial, they change the attitude to difficult experiences.

Everyone can change their inner voice

If the possibility of changing our inner self-criticism and being better for ourselves, and being more present in the present sounds impossible to you, you should know that this change is possible at any age and in any situation.

Zaretskis explains that "these are resources that exist in us, we were born with them, with this resource of drawing attention to something else, of changing focus."

Just as we have moments where we feel compassion for a friend and take time to listen after, so we can do it for ourselves.

"It can be called compassion correction, because we learn how to relate to ourselves, how to approach ourselves," she added.

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When you dedicate yourself to mindfulness you are gradually learning to build the ability to observe, to pay attention, to begin to develop a space that can accommodate even the hardest emotions.

And it's not in heaven, there are also very practical and accessible exercises that can be integrated into everyday life as well.

"You come to the office, and for 5 minutes just take a break and think about how I feel now, why I feel it now, bring yourself here and now, breathe," she explained.

Iris Cole interviews Bella Zaretskis on the subject of instantness and self-compassion (Walla system)

And what do you do when there is a big internal storm? "The idea is to see that we are not just the thoughts, not just the emotions, we have more parts. So we ask: I noticed there is a thought, but what else is going on inside me? What else is happening now? Expanding the inner contemplation." It takes time to reach this state, to be able to identify while on the move what is happening to us. "The recommendation is to practice at home for 35-40 minutes," to get closer to this conscious place.

The purpose of the practice is to really pay attention to our thoughts and breath, to pay attention to the anchors that bring us back to the present. "Life happens now, when we are in the thoughts we do not notice that we think reality, and do not live it" explained Zaretskis, "it is very significant, it changes lives, I can tell about myself - to me it really changed life, and people really testify about Changes in their lives, changes in their attitudes towards themselves and the environment. "

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Tags

• Mindfulness

• compassion

• Corona

• anxiety

• breathing