A Note from the Far Side (of Thunder Bay)

Wow.  Busy.  Please note I am writing this post at the breakfast table - otherwise we'd never connect.  It's strange to be so busy and so lonely at the same time.  But it does distract me!  To those of you to whom I owe personal emails and old-school letters, I haven't forgotten.  It's just that I have to document my time in three different computer systems, all of which apparently run on steam.  Proper letters and notes are coming; I just need to get the internship engine running a bit more smoothly first.

Despite being outfitted for the proper protective gear, the zombie apocalypse has not yet occurred.  So I got to run my first psychoeducational group at the hospital!  If you're friends with me on FB, you may have seen my desperate plea for a specific Far Side cartoon:

In case you haven't guessed, the group was about Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR).  I wanted to challenge the notion that stress is supposed to roll off of us like, well, some sort of liquid off a duck's back.  The cartoon suggests to me that they are on, at least, their second duck.  It was a great group of cardiac rehab patients, mostly older folks with just wonderful attitudes toward learning this new skill.  Most of my training so far has been with children and adolescents, so running a group with older adults was a great experience for me. 

As far as MBSR, I've been a Jon Kabat-Zinn gal since I started practicing myself back in the mid-00s.  Recently a friend of mine suggested I check out Pema Chodron's How to Meditate.  I also found Stahl has a CD of meditations specifically for cardiac patients! Mindfulness is really huge in psychology right now and I'm curious what its staying power will be.  I mean, hey, just because it's been popular in the east for thousands of years doesn't mean that the west will take to shifting out of the addictive doing mode into "just being."  But it certainly is catching on like wildfire for now.  Last night I was involved in another group (this time a dialectical behavioral therapy skills group) that teaches mindfulness as a key tool for distress tolerance and emotional regulation.  As I sat through the group considering how this could help the teens and families attending, it occurred to me (not for the first time) that this stuff is just really useful for everyone.

So as I struggle with the stress and the loneliness, I remind myself to be mindful in the present moment.  Aaaand, that it probably wouldn't kill me to get back to my formal practice, would it?  As they old saying goes, "You should meditate for 20 minutes everyday, unless you don't have time. Then you should meditate for an hour."