Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Welcome to the Safe Place Therapy YouTube and podcast channel. My name is Stuart Sheridan and I am a mental health social worker and one of the owners of Safe Place Therapy. And today the topic line is I hate mindfulness. And there's a big reason why we're throwing out such a big title there. We'll get into that in a second. But hopefully that resonates with lots of people who have. Might have had issues in the past with mindfulness and kind of talking about that discussion further. But before we kind of jump in, I'd like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands in which we meet today and record this session. We're recording today on the lands of the Kulin Nation. And I'd like to pay my respects to elders past, present and emerging.
And so we actually have with us Sophie and Steph.
And do you want to just go ahead and introduce yourselves?
[00:01:05] Speaker C: Yep. So I'm Stephanie. She her. I'm a provisional psychologist at Safe Place Therapy.
[00:01:11] Speaker B: Great.
[00:01:12] Speaker A: And I'm Sophie. She her. And I'm a counselor at Safe Place.
[00:01:16] Speaker B: Great. Awesome. Welcome and thanks for coming along.
Yeah.
[00:01:22] Speaker A: To.
[00:01:22] Speaker B: To our kind of topic line. The I hate mindfulness or I hate meditation, usually with the end.
The clients sometimes say when they first come into counseling. We're. So I'm wondering, how about we just start with. Have you either of you had that example of a client saying that? And what's that been like, hearing that?
[00:01:43] Speaker A: Yeah, quite a lot. I think so. Yeah. I've had clients tell me, yeah, they hate mindfulness, they hate meditation, breathing exercises, all those kind of related sort of techniques, I think, related to mindfulness.
[00:01:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:01:58] Speaker A: Before I. We even get close to that, tell me, you know, don't. Don't suggest that to me because I hate that.
[00:02:03] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:02:05] Speaker A: Yeah, don't get into that. I'm sure why that's really fair.
[00:02:09] Speaker C: Yeah. Just breathe. Okay. Like, don't. Don't even try it.
Breathe. It's fine. I'm alive. Don't tell me to breathe differently.
[00:02:18] Speaker B: Yes, yes. And we'll get into the kind of deeper things as to why that might be the case from like a psychological aspect or perspective. But generally speaking, usually when people say that they've probably had enough not great experience with a counselor previously where they've kind of been pushed to do it or pushed to do something, the counselor, you know, takes something off the metaphorical, you know, bookshelf. They dust it off and go, here you go, we're going to do this thing and kind of push that as. As an idea.
Yeah. So a couple of clients. So I used to actually work at Headspace and worked with a lot of teenagers. And yeah, their idea of working with school counselor or something is they. They've put this activity in front of them to try some, you know, slowing your breathing down or. Or mindfulness exercise. And there's quite a few different reasons as to why that doesn't go well. So maybe we just jump straight into neurodiversity or ADHD as kind of reason number one. So there's other reasons, but we'll stick with this. First, what is your kind of take on ADHD being a problem for mindfulness or meditation tools?
[00:03:45] Speaker C: So the biggest one is we get distracted.
[00:03:49] Speaker B: Yeah, it's.
[00:03:50] Speaker C: It's very hard to sort of empty our head of thoughts and things when there's just so much happening. You know, we can never be in a perfectly quiet environment. There's going to be a car alarm down the street. There's going to be traffic noises or a random cat. There's going to be random thoughts. ADHD isn't that we can't pay attention. It is too much attention. We get too. We tune into too many things and we can't stay with what we're working on.
[00:04:20] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:21] Speaker C: Very difficult for us. And also we love fidgeting.
[00:04:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:04:26] Speaker C: To get us to sit still, hence the fidgets that we bring to these.
We want to be in motion.
[00:04:34] Speaker B: So even just the idea of sitting in a room and then, you know, thinking about your thoughts or. Or trying to do an exercise where you're focusing on just your breathing can be super, really hard for people who, you know, their brain's bouncing all over the place.
[00:04:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's it exactly. And getting, you know, the. What Steph was saying about kind of paying attention to. Paying quite a lot of attention to every little bit of stimuli or information.
And that can be your own thoughts as well. You know, a lot of what they teach in mindfulness and meditation is to watch your thoughts drift by and let them just float away.
And that can be really hard for someone with ADHD who's. Who's, you know, psychological makeup is more inclined to make them quite. Get quite hooked on every thought.
You'll get hooked on the next one and the next one in the next.
[00:05:32] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
What I think is. Is important because, yeah, a lot of people kind of throw out the word mindfulness, the word meditation, the word grounding quite a bit and kind of use them interchangeably. So first off, I think it would be good to kind of define each of Them.
So mindfulness isn't actually meant to be about focus, your brain per se. It's actually about awareness. Where is your awareness? So if your awareness is with the car outside, if your awareness is with the dog, bike. If your awareness about my voice and how weird it sounds, that's actually. Okay. So, you know, the. By just looking at the definition straight up, we can actually take that idea, that definition, and run with it through different ways. Right. So instead of just sitting still, what would it be like to wave your arms, you know, in a circle again and again? How do your hands feel? How do your arms feel? What's your breathing like as you're doing it? Now let's go the other way. Like, mindfulness doesn't have to be this sitting still and doing very little.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Yeah, it's so true. It's. Yeah, it doesn't have to be about.
Especially more with meditation, like emptying your mind and quietening your mind. Yes. Maybe more when we go into meditation. Specifically.
[00:06:53] Speaker B: Specifically, yes.
[00:06:54] Speaker A: Specific. What is meditation? But mindfulness, like you said, so much more broad. It's so much more flexible, can be so many more things, but can give you just as many benefits.
[00:07:04] Speaker B: Exactly, exactly. And I think that misinformation or that it's not explained enough and. And how it then can be tailored to a client and their. And their brain experience. You know, that's the missing gap that I think a lot of people miss out on or. Or turn off quickly to because they think they' kind of the same thing. Right?
[00:07:27] Speaker A: Yeah. Yeah.
[00:07:28] Speaker C: They definitely get lumped in together.
[00:07:30] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:07:31] Speaker C: It's. I. I feel a bit for the Indian culture that this has all come from, because we have definitely taken bits and pieces from it and turned it into something that is more palatable to a Western audience. But with that, there is a huge range of different ways to meditate or to be mindful. And it really is just about being present in the moment when it comes to mindfulness. And I think that's what really took off when you had all those mindful coloring in books.
You're with every. Every stroke of the pen. You're with every movement. You're in this sort of picture. You're focusing on this tiny section and just coloring that in.
[00:08:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:08:16] Speaker C: Now everyone's like you. I'm done with that.
[00:08:19] Speaker B: Stop it. Maybe, maybe. Or what that is kind of tacking onto is an interest that that person might have. Right. I like coloring. I like the movement. I like being really specific. Even how I'm using the pencil or how I'm Kind of doing the coloring. There's so many bits that, again, the client has control over and. Yeah. Tailoring it to themselves.
[00:08:44] Speaker A: You're right. I think it's so much easier to do. And yeah, we tailor it to someone and go with what they're actually interested in, what it's going to be easy for them to enjoy putting all that awareness onto.
[00:08:57] Speaker B: Because.
[00:08:58] Speaker A: Yeah, like you were saying before, Stu, it's, it's. It's not so much about focusing and quietening, it's just about being aware of whatever it is that's going on.
[00:09:06] Speaker B: Yes. Yes.
[00:09:07] Speaker A: In your internal experience or your immediate environment, whatever it is you're choosing, it's just. Yeah, it's just. Just awareness. Another, like, even fidgeting is something that we can be really mindful of doing. We can do it in a really mindless way and that could be really helpful. It help us be a bit more calm and a bit more present. Or it's something that we could really dive into. Like, I could just really notice what these little. What these little balls and my little fidget feel like in, in my fingers. And maybe I could try the back of my hand and see how that's different and.
[00:09:40] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:09:41] Speaker A: And that's mindfulness.
[00:09:43] Speaker B: Yes, exactly. Cool. And so therefore, the, the. The basic mindfulness tricks or tools need to be adapted for the, for the client's brain. And what this, what opportunity, this idea, this whole concept is about is how is the client's brain Right. How busy is it? Does it have, you know, two streams of thought at the same time? Is it, you know, in fancy words, tangential? So it's jumping here to jumping there to jumping there. You know, just by capturing that, by testing some of this stuff out can go a long way to understand the client and build a nice framework that works for them.
[00:10:24] Speaker A: Yeah, exactly. That's it. And I think maybe as you were saying before, Stu, I think a lot of people maybe haven't had that experience.
[00:10:31] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:10:32] Speaker A: With mental health therapists. And so maybe come in feeling like mindfulness is this really prescriptive.
[00:10:39] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:10:41] Speaker A: Difficult thing that they're. That they just do because it's been maybe pushed on them in a way that just doesn't fit them.
[00:10:49] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. Okay, cool. So that's kind of group number one or problem number one related to neurodiversity, I guess autism too. Right. Like to kind of really hone into that. Sometimes people get lost in language or get lost in specific details of instructions and mindfulness activities. Usually there's a. Do this now, do this, now do this. But if, if you're lost at step one and, you know, the. Was trying to explain step two and step three, you've already lost them. Right. You need to actually walk through step one. What's your understanding of step one? You know, when people, when people think, you know, imagine, imagine a stream of water. Okay. Is it a river? Is it, is it a creek? Like, what is it? Right, like, you know, I've had so many clients go, well, hold on a second. Like, we need to stop there. When you say this is that. This, is this. Okay? Like, you know, now I've got this jungle over here. Is it okay to be a jungle? Or what about this? Is it, you know, like, you can get so lost and sometimes you need to really break down the. The reason for it. So kind of intellectualizing, conceptualizing what we're trying to do here, and then the openness, the flexibility of this thing. Again, whether you have, you know, if you're on the spectrum and you think a bit differently, or in neurodiversity in a, in a broader way with ADHD or a busy brain.
[00:12:23] Speaker A: Yeah. That's also a good example of how we can tailor to a client as well, if we know they might have a tendency to need for instructions, to be really specific so that there's no room for them to kind of get lost and not be sure in what direction to go in. Yeah, Doing a bit more of that work beforehand to explain what we're going to do and what the reasoning and the meaning, the purpose of it is, what it's going to look like.
[00:12:47] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Group number two that sometimes I find interesting, that I think maybe lots of us can ascribe to, and that is simply a busy brain. Right. So we've got ADHD brain that you, whether you've been diagnosed with that or you think that might be going on for you. But people who literally have so many things going on, they're stressed at work, or there's a lot of emotions bubbling up for them, or they're just so used to being all over this, all over the shop, which is different to adhd.
And for people like that, I think it is really important to maybe introduce multiple stimuli. So you could have some kind of physical stuff that you're doing at the same time, or you could be just helping them do a bit of a checklist, you know, of what they need to do before they, after they leave the session, or just checking in on how busy their brain is. So if their busyness is literally, you know, eight out of 10, it's going to be super hard to. To do this. Yeah.
[00:13:53] Speaker C: And some strategies around that is if we're going to spend some time trying to be mindful, it can help to have a little notepad nearby. Because if our brain suddenly goes to, oh, I need to put this on the grocery list.
[00:14:07] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:14:07] Speaker C: Gonna be so distracted.
And it can also be helpful to have something that we can tune into. So that might playing that can help us, you know, hold over some of our brain a little bit while we do something mindfully.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. It's almost like sometimes clients need a bit of a landing. Right. They need to kind of, you know, come in from work, you know, they've had a really busy day, and they've still got that email in their brain or their bosses in the head telling them what to do, etc. And they just need a bit more of a softer, slower landing to get to some kind of more karma space. Isn't it funny that you kind of need a bit of a calm brain to get to a karma brain? Right?
[00:14:55] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like this little bit of calmness gets you. Yeah, a little bit more calmness. And yeah. You know, it's a gradual thing for sure.
And yeah, having more of those kind of tools, like, more stimulation there for someone who is used to just being very stimulated a lot of the time, probably really helps them kind of in those gradual steps.
[00:15:16] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Which moves me into kind of definition, another definition around grounding. Right. So the idea of grounding is, are we up here, so our thoughts bouncing around and we're all over the shop and we're kind of, you know, camping, living up here? Or do we feel in our body, do we feel that we could notice, you know, the us sitting in the seat, if we wiggle our toes is. Does that feel a bit weird? Do we feel a bit connected with our head and our body, or is it all zoomy, zoomy up here?
[00:15:51] Speaker C: Yeah. And that's one where you often get the, you know, what are five things you can see, four things you can hear? I can never remember the order of that.
[00:16:02] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:16:03] Speaker C: That's the sort of main grounding tool that I think people are most familiar with and can also be most frustrated with because sometimes the issue is that they are using it to completely avoid how they're feeling.
[00:16:19] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:16:19] Speaker C: And we can't get rid of our emotions. We can't shove them under the carpet. We can definitely suppress them, but it's not really healthy. But grounding techniques aren't going to magically make them go away.
[00:16:31] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:16:32] Speaker C: They're just helping you anchor while something is happening and then letting that sort.
[00:16:37] Speaker B: Of blow over a bit.
[00:16:38] Speaker C: And as a little bit of time passes, it will get a little bit easier to deal with.
[00:16:41] Speaker A: With.
[00:16:42] Speaker B: Yep.
[00:16:42] Speaker C: It can be very important with grounding techniques to focus on bringing you back into your body and into the environment.
I always think of grounding like a tree. We've got our root system. You know, a little. Little toes are feeling. Feeling the grass, but we're digging into the dirt. We're bringing ourselves back into the world.
[00:17:03] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. Really good. Segue into group number three. People who have experienced trauma. Or as you say, Steph, there's a big emotional stu here that we're trying to escape from or we live up here for a reason. A, because we're busy or B, because we feel too much here. This is like, you know, the floodgates are opening when we access this. Particularly for people who might experience significant, like a abuse trauma.
You know, getting someone to focus on their breathing can be a trauma trigger.
So. Yeah. Have any of you experienced that by. By asking a client to. To ground and that kind of trigger happening?
[00:17:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, for sure. I think, yeah. Especially with people who've experienced trauma and. Yeah, especially. Especially abuse trauma that grounding into the body can be really distressing because the body can be in a really kind of hyper vigilant fight or flight kind of stage that maybe living very much up in your head keeps you a little bit dissociated from. And so grounding back into that can connect you to what might be a lot of distress. You're kind of keeping being pushed down a lot of the time and then.
Yeah, so I think that those clients often do need a different approach. They might need more of that gentle landing that we were talking about before. That gentle landing might just be a bit longer and we might need to be a bit more creative about just being curious about really neutral parts of the body. Like maybe your knees.
What do your knees feel like right now? You know, rather than just trying to tune into the body altogether or going straight to where we tend to feel feelings like in our chest, for example, and our shoulders, stomach, you know, things like that.
[00:18:56] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:18:56] Speaker C: It could also be something where clients that have a lot of chronic pain or. Or an injury or disability going into the body is where everything hurts.
[00:19:05] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:19:06] Speaker C: So it can also be very difficult if they're dealing with those kinds of issues and we're bringing them into that kind of space as well.
[00:19:15] Speaker B: So kind of having a little bit of a history check or understanding, you know, we might not get things right all the time, but sometimes just asking or knowing a little bit about the client's background first is, Is important before we jump into some of this stuff. But the thing about body, you know, there's a famous researcher, Babette Rich Child, that wrote a book called the Body Remembers. And sometimes we actually aren't aware. Right. We're not actually cognizant what's held here, especially if we've lived up here forever. Right.
[00:19:49] Speaker A: Sometimes those triggers, if they happen, can be a bit useful, you know, if you come across some new, like, oh, that's, that's a trigger for me. I didn't know that. And I didn't know that maybe I was holding so much in this part of my body. Yeah, that can, that can be hard, but that can also be a really useful thing. A really big opportunity for some learning, some growth, some healing.
[00:20:10] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, you can actually come back to this stuff. Right. So if this feels a bit too hard or, or you don't want to go there, sometimes you might actually intellectualize some things that you've been going through and talk about, you know, issues in your life, relationship, etc, and actually stay up here for a bit longer to build some safety, to build some rapport with the clinician first before you jump into body stuff, before you jump into mindfulness. A thing.
[00:20:43] Speaker A: Yeah, I think, I think most things are easier when you've got a good relationship, got a good rapport with, with your therapist. But especially things that can be a little bit more vulnerable, like tapping into your body, especially if, and I think a lot of us do, you know, spend a lot of time in our heads because it's very encouraged by our culture. You can, you know, achieve a lot by living very much in your head.
And so, yeah, I think it's a really common problem, but so it can, it's. It is definitely a difficult def. A defense.
[00:21:11] Speaker C: Right.
[00:21:11] Speaker A: A kind of coping mechanism. And so trying to poke at that a bit and see what's. What that's protecting you from.
[00:21:17] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:21:18] Speaker A: Be vulnerable. And so having that relationship is really important. And that's where you know all that stuff about finding the right therapist for you and everything. Like that's going to be really important.
[00:21:28] Speaker C: That safety net, really. Yeah, yeah.
[00:21:31] Speaker B: Is there any tools that you have worked that are kind of different to mindfulness that you would kind of do as an alternative? Is there any ideas that, that, that you think help settle a client into grounding or mindfulness, like a bit down.
[00:21:46] Speaker A: The track, I think, just being creative with. With it, you know, and going with. Wow. How they're already presenting, like, I don't know, they might already be fidgeting with something or they might spend a lot of time in a certain position in the. On the couch or something that I think just kind of.
I think it's a very organic process for me. I think I kind of just go with what's happening for them in. In that moment and go with what I'm curious about and ask about that and ask them if they want to be curious about what that internal experience is like in their body or.
[00:22:24] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:22:24] Speaker A: With whatever they're fidgeting with. Yeah, I think I just try to have no. No idea about like. Like right and wrong, basically, and that it's. It is just about building awareness and curiosity.
[00:22:37] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One. One little tool that I test out with some people just to see how they are at trying that if they're. If they're willing to. And that might actually be getting some emotional stimuli. Something that has a little bit of a spark to it, but not too much, and then going, let's check in with your body about that. Right. So what does it feel to do a little bit of a body scan? How does. In your tummy? How does it feel in your chest? About work? Right. What happens when I say work?
What happens internally? Right.
So that can be one way of. Let's check in. Is that. Okay. And then you're kind of boxing things up. You're kind of directing it. You're kind of using a bit of specific pathway to get them used to the idea.
[00:23:34] Speaker C: And I like to use art therapy as well and incorporate that into this. So I've got a. A big bit of Masonite down here and we've got rolls of paper, so we clip them up. We've got oil pastels. And it's really good for kids, but adults, too, run them through what color feels like, you know, which emotion, and then how does that feel to draw it?
[00:23:56] Speaker B: Nice.
[00:23:57] Speaker C: Because there will sometimes be people that can't draw access. Something like maybe anger, you know, they just. They just sort of. You tell them, you know, try anger, and they just kind of look at you like. And then they, you know, do little trollies. It's like. But you can tell with that that we're not able to make that connection. There's something that's really keeping us out of that space, which can indicate that we've got a bunch of history around. Probably suppressing that or avoiding that. That might be. Be helpful to sort of explore slowly. So that can also be, I think, a useful way to get into that space because you're using something that's tactile. You're exploring what emotion feels like in the body, but in a smaller area. So it's like, how does this feel just in your arm? Is it slow, soft movement? Are we being more aggressive and rigid? And that can be, I think, in some ways a lot safer than exploring the body itself.
[00:24:53] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. And. And back to neurodiversity or. Or just people not having a whole lot of knowledge about grounding and what the hell it is is. Maybe you need to go back and kind of pick a few moments where they probably are more grounded just in their general day. Like, you know, after you've had a big gym session, you know, usually you feel a bit more like your. Your breathing's probably a bit heavier. You can feel your muscles. You can kind of feel all tension here. Tension indicates that you are more in your body. Or you might be in the shower and you're scrubbing away and you're kind of, you know, kind of pushing different, like pressure points and stuff. Again, maybe not always.
Could be just a way for you to go, look, you're actually doing it already now. Can we ramp it up a little bit now? Can we just stay in that just a little bit longer and build that. Okay. Level.
[00:25:49] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I think that's great as well. Just working with whatever they're already be doing, whatever they are experiencing times where they're maybe more mindful.
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:25:59] Speaker A: And building. Yeah, so true. Yeah. I just remembered how I like to get clients to just kind of try to get their blood pumping a little bit, Especially if they are feeling kind of quite low or slumped over and just feeling more on the sad, depressed side of things and what it's like to just sit up straighter or maybe just kind of their thighs a little bit.
[00:26:26] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:26:26] Speaker A: Just shake their arms around and see the change. You know, we're not trying to make anything happen here. Just see how you feel different when you move your body in a certain way.
And again, it's just the awareness. Right. Just noticing how you feel changes, how your state changes. Want to control it. Not trying to make yourself calmer or anything like that.
[00:26:46] Speaker B: That.
[00:26:47] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Reminds me, I've had this one client and gorgeous client came in really nervous and it was a couple sessions in, and they'd still sit very, very closed. Very, very closed off. They Couldn't sort of relax in the space yet. And I ended up sort of challenging them. Like, oh, you know, you're sitting on the edge of your seat. You know, you're. You're having a very small amount of space. What would it feel like to just.
[00:27:12] Speaker A: Spread out, you know? Yeah, yeah.
[00:27:14] Speaker C: And like, they. They sort of did it. They got, like, real comfy and they sort of like burrowed into, like, the cushions and everything that they spread out. And so, like, this is. This is nicer, actually.
[00:27:24] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:27:24] Speaker C: And they sort of ended up coming back to some, like a sort of medium in terms of redness. They're like, this actually feels a lot better. Like, they hadn't noticed at all the tension they were carrying and that sort of, you know, closeness that they were exhibiting.
[00:27:39] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a. Yeah, that's a great. You're both bringing out really good examples of what we call in the psych world as attunement. Right. You're. You're attuning to what they're kind of presenting, whether they. Whether they know it or not. Right. And you're going, Hm, What's. What's going on here? And there might be actually nothing. It might be just how they normally sit. Sure. But can. Is there a bit of flexibility? Is there a bit of malleability? And they. We shift that a little bit. What is that? Like, do they actually slow down and regulate and, you know, connect more with their bodies, which is corporate grounding? Or do they loosen up and feel more okay and comfortable in the space? Like, we really need to tune in with what we're presenting as counselors as a tool or a thing, but also what they're presenting. And as soon as you might say mindfulness, and you just get this recoil from them. Them, maybe not a great idea, or maybe you need to talk about it first more. Right?
[00:28:39] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's it. Exactly. So true. Yeah. And it's so much about just respecting where people are at. You know, if they recoil at mindfulness. All right. Pay attention to that.
[00:28:51] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Or go back to what they want to talk about. Like, again, this kind of bookshelf attitude. Dare I say that lots of councilors have. Where they, you know, they have this real structured black and white idea on how sessions should look. But actually, the client usually is bringing stuff. They don't just turn up for counseling for the fun of it. They're usually turning it up because they're in pain. There's something tangible that they want to sit with and Explore.
[00:29:21] Speaker A: I mean, I think I should ideally feel like they're in charge of the process. They, they get to kind of dictate what happens in the sessions, what's covered, what's focused on, what's going to be helpful for them.
[00:29:33] Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like all about it being client led and that is keeping this, this space safe for them. That's, you know, lighting that sensory issues. And that's also what we talk about and whether if we are going on tangents, as Sophie's talked about previously, whether we bring them back or if they're comfortable just exploring the tangent. So it's really building that safety and that relatability and that attunement and just working with what the client brings us and what they're comfortable with exploring.
[00:30:07] Speaker B: Yeah, great. So what if the client says absolutely not, not going to go there? Like, do we feel that it's necessary to get there? Or can counseling kind of go around that, grow around that?
[00:30:20] Speaker C: It's a bit of a tough one because I'm in a bit of two minds around it because my instinct is we can totally do that without doing that the way you think we're going to do that.
[00:30:29] Speaker B: Good point.
[00:30:30] Speaker C: That flexibility around it. But it can also be something completely separate to the therapy space of try something like Tai Chi, you know, try something that is more slow but physical exercise because that is still you being mindful about your movements. It's you taking that time out to be in your body and away from, you know, all the cognitive thoughts. So there's ways to do this, it being boring or in a way that we don't want to do it. But at the same time there's also a lot of work that I think we can do cognitively, but we do hit a limit. And that's where some things like art therapy or music therapies or even more body based sort of somatic therapies are bottom up. So rather than cognitive. So coming top down, the bottom up, their body kind of emotion and kind of feeling and exploring things like that. Exploring things through art therapy, for example, can be one way to touch on that and work on that in a way that feels safer for a lot of people. So there are options. And I feel like I've basically said the same thing twice where that's okay. Yes. But you kind of end up doing it anyway in a different way.
[00:31:44] Speaker B: Yeah, it's, it's limited. So if we literally said no, like in, like if we were being really extreme and dramatic, that there was no mindfulness stuff on the car parts that would limit the therapy because. Yeah, you're right. You'd stay up here, there would be CBT kind of tools. But generally speaking, mental health is here. Yes, but it's a good chunk of it is here. And if we disconnect from that, if we stay away from that, we're only dealing with part of the story.
[00:32:15] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, that's it. I think that is a reality. There's still yet work that can be done if we stay in a more cognitive, intellectual realm. Plenty like. Plenty of work that can be done. But real profound changes tend to come from other kinds of approaches.
[00:32:33] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:33] Speaker C: And we're learning that more too. We're learning that there is more benefit or more movement in going from that bottom up approach or really linking that cognitive to the body again, sort of repairing that disconnect.
[00:32:47] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:32:47] Speaker C: So it's still an area that, you know, we're exploring and learning more about and more therapies are coming out that properly, you know, address that in a way that could be more effective. But it's very, I think, important to try and understand mindfulness for what it is and for what it was intentionally sort of meant to be.
And the same with meditation as well, because meditation, there are so many different ways to meditate. It's not all trying to, you know, get rid of your mind. Some of it can be focus on a picture or a piece of music and tune into that.
[00:33:23] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:33:23] Speaker C: So I think a lot of it has kind of been westernized in this very, very, very distinct way that has ended up being quite unhelpful.
[00:33:33] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah.
[00:33:35] Speaker A: And gotten wrapped up, I guess, into like this, like, wellness culture that we have that it can be really unhelpful.
[00:33:42] Speaker B: Can.
[00:33:42] Speaker A: Can be really harmful.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: Cool.
[00:33:45] Speaker A: Yeah. The whole toxic positivity thing, it's. Mindfulness has gotten a bit wrapped up in that, unfortunately. Sometimes I feel like it's useful to not even use the word mindfulness.
Like, sometimes it does. I don't even describe it that way because it's. It can. We can talk about it in so many other ways.
[00:34:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:02] Speaker A: Being present, being present with yourself, becoming more aware of yourself, tuning into your body, all these sorts of things. Sometimes I don't even end up using the word word.
[00:34:10] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:34:11] Speaker A: And the word is is what can also trigger people. So.
[00:34:14] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. And we're also not trying to turn people into monks. Right. Like, we're not. We're not turning ourselves into these Zen characters. And guess what? My. My brain still bounce around like. Like no tomorrow. Like that. We're not training people for this clearing brain, perfect Zen creature. We're literally just, you know, supporting people to build a little bit more.
Little bit more agency in understanding what's going on. But is there some things that they can do about that to shift? Right. That's the kind of idea we've been talking about.
[00:34:54] Speaker C: I think that's part of it. Because if you tell somebody they need to meditate, the end goal is basically monk status.
[00:35:02] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:03] Speaker C: There's no in between. There's no. Am I doing this right? There's. There's no real kind of positive affirmation. I feel. It just feels like we're not doing it right. Because I'm still thinking, I'm still distracted. Everything's going wrong.
[00:35:15] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:15] Speaker C: And we give up because we have failed.
[00:35:17] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:35:18] Speaker C: Then we end up hating this thing that we, you know, have probably not been taught to do properly and effectively.
[00:35:25] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:35:26] Speaker C: And it's. It's kind of just all become a bit of a trap, I think.
[00:35:32] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:35:32] Speaker C: How Weston had stolen this. I have opinions.
[00:35:36] Speaker B: Yes. I do, too. And let me share one. And I have a bit of a laugh with. With clients about this. You know, I actually have a. Be a bit of beef towards monks. Let's. Let's kind of. Let's kind of take on this. Right. So a monk usually lives in a temple. Right. Usually their life is paid for. Right. Like, there's, you know, there's funds or the community funds them.
They're. They're meditating all the time. They've got housing, they've got food. You know, they got a job that they do and you know, kind of supporting the community. They're kind of set up up Right. For this life that is actually not normal.
Yeah. Like, so, yeah, that's great. But you're kind of put in this cocoon, or you're choosing to be in this cocoon. That's actually a pretty abnormal thing. Similar to an athlete. Similar to, you know, someone that is so removed from the normal stresses of life. We can't really aspire to that. We can take steps towards it, but do we even really want to? Right. Like. Like, let's make some further steps for ourselves, for our mental health and building our awareness. So it's helpful for us. But, yeah, that's not the end game.
[00:36:45] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:36:45] Speaker C: We can't replicate those results because that is unachievable for us in. In our lives. And I think that's where I think the marketing of meditation kind of fails. Because how do you get that? You're just disappointed and frustrated and then when somebody says something, they use any M word. They're just cringing. It's like, that's. That's not great. Let's work on just bringing us back into our bodies and creating a more whole and authentic sense of self.
We can do that, I think, without the immense frustration and feeling of failure that perhaps other methods have sort of given us.
[00:37:26] Speaker B: Yeah. Anything else you think we should spend some time on?
[00:37:30] Speaker C: I think we could touch on a bit. So we touched on adhd, but also more of autism, and particularly alexithymia, where we've just got disconnect.
[00:37:40] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:37:40] Speaker C: And basically because we have alexithymia, because it's so hard for us to connect with our body in that way. When somebody asks us, like, okay, check in. How does that make you feel? We don't know.
Literally, I don't know. Like, so many of my clients, that is their only response because they haven't been able to build that connection. When they've been taught, you know, emotions in schools, it hasn't actually connected to their body, to their sense of self. They don't have the words for that. There are so many different ways that, you know, that kind of lesson has not really fit properly in that. When we come in and we try to work on. On mindfulness, on building these skills of reconnecting with the body, it can be so hard. It can take a long time to actually. We feel something that isn't just like, you know, our contact with the world around us.
And that's okay. You know, we need to, I think, validate that that is part of the journey. It's going to take time, and that's completely normal for a lot of autistic people and people that are alexithymic.
[00:38:46] Speaker B: Yeah, good point. And then it's just working with where the clients at with that. So you might use, you know, art therapy, you might use other ways, even movement. Other ways to. To really help them connect in their way, in their unique way.
[00:39:03] Speaker A: Yeah, that's it. People with autistic people, they're like, Savannah might be those other clients that need a. That's gentler, softer, longer landing.
[00:39:13] Speaker B: Cool. Awesome. I love talking about this stuff, and thank you both for your time. It's been a real pleasure, you know, just pulling this apart and being really real about the shitty things. Clients, you know, I have real angst about, like, I think it's important. Important for us as counselors to go there, but even just shout out to those peeps that have. That have struggled and. And. And for them to know there is a way around it. We can work with it. We don't have to keep pushing. You know, this. This same dusty old thing that's been sitting on the bookshelf.
So thank you both. And as you've been listening and watching this today, please, like, please share this. If there is a a person that struggles with mindfulness or you've had a laugh about this with, with some mates that your council tried to do this with, you have a laugh around it. It is actually pretty interesting, but we need to make it work for the people in it safe place. We want to create a spot for all of us and be the safe place for you to talk. So thanks guys and take care for now.
