Although it may seem counterproductive, facing negative emotions head-on can often alleviate the anguish that they so often cause. By confronting these painful feelings, we are able to break the feedback loop that flows through our minds. This cycle of frustration, anger, and aversion is typically exacerbated by extended aversion, so if we accept these emotions for what they are, we can eliminate much of the power they hold.
Why Is It So Important To Cultivate Allowing/Letting Be?
There are two paths we can take when faced with an uncomfortable situation. Path One is to automatically react with aversion to avoid the negative sensations associated with the situation. Path Two, the more strenuous path, is to consciously acknowledge the negative sensations we are experiencing and do our best to accept them for what they are rather than push them away. It can take time to develop the mindset for Path Two, as it is natural for us to dislike adverse situations. By taking Path Two and Allowing/Letting Be, we let go of the struggle to evade unpleasantness and accept that it is a common visitor into our lives. This can feel immensely freeing, both physically and mentally, as this battle can be quite taxing on our bodies as well as our minds.
Benefits of Mindful Practices with your health can include improved:
neural plasticity
self-compassion
non-judgment
loving-kindness
Sitting Meditation: Working with Difficulties (Optional Exercise)
Allow yourself to guide your awareness to wherever you feel the most intense unpleasant sensation or feeling in your body.
If this feels frightening or difficult, do not worry. If you wish, take a moment to focus on your breathing and complete an internal scan of your body, registering any tension or uncomfortable feelings. If the feeling you tapped into has completely overwhelmed you, consider holding an ice cube in your hand and just focusing on the sensations you notice pertaining to that ice cube. This should help you ground yourself in your body again.
If you are willing, return to feeling the unpleasant sensation in your body. Try to employ a gentle, positive awareness of these locations in your body. Accept them rather than push them away. See if you can feel your body’s attempt at aversion. Overcoming this barrier can be quite difficult yet fulfilling once you accomplish it, so take pride in the fact that you are making good progress in this exercise.
Continue this exercise of bringing compassionate attention to these areas of aversion for as long as it feels comfortable. As you feel the sensations, try to investigate them while staying connected to your experience.
Awareness of Difficulty and Working With It Through the Body
Begin by practicing mindfulness of breath and body. Once you feel a sense of self-attunement, move on to the following instructions.
During this course, you have been instructed to be aware of moments during which your mind is dragged away from the task at hand to a variety of negative emotions and then bring your awareness back to the task. This time, you are going to try to allow your mind to stay in this uncomfortable place, and try to pinpoint any physical sensations that are associated with these painful feelings.
Once you have identified one such sensation, try to focus on the part of your body where this sensation is strongest. Imagine that you are directing your in-breath to this location, filling it entirely. Then, on the outbreath, imagine that you are emptying this region, leaving it cleansed of the negative emotion that was just there.
It is okay if you are not feeling any particular negative sensation in your body at this time. If this is the case, take this moment to consider some difficult situation that you are facing at this moment, bringing your awareness to it. You can also select some event from the past that caused you to feel negative emotions for this exercise.
Now, once you are tuned into the troublesome thought that you have chosen, take some time to feel the physical sensation that accompanies it as well as the reaction that it evokes.
Once you have zeroed in on the sensation, however unpleasant it may appear to me, allow yourself to experience it rather than attempt to push it away.
Accept that the sensation is already present and that you are experiencing it right now, so it presents nothing that you are unable to handle.
It may help to say to yourself either in your head or out loud phrases such as “It’s alright that I don’t like these feelings; as they are already here, I want to try to be open to them.” These statements can act as a reaffirmation of your self-confidence at this moment, as you are accepting an emotion despite its negative charge and you are still in control. Remember, acceptance doesn’t mean you approve of what’s going on, it just means you acknowledge it and give it some space to just be as it is.
Feel free to continue this exercise with another negative sensation that you may be feeling, or even with unpleasant thoughts if you feel no other sensations at the moment.
Take a moment to congratulate yourself on this accomplishment. Accepting unpleasant sensations and even seeking them out is no small feat, as it requires a fair amount of courage and determination. Throughout the entirety of this exercise, there is one simple yet fundamental ideal that is ever-present: kindness. The ability to be kind to ourselves helps us to disempower aversion and allow our experience to just be without labeling or judging it.
References
Teasdale, J., Williams, J, & Segal, Z. (2014). The mindful way workbook: An 8-week program to free yourself from depression and emotional distress. New York, NY: Guilford Press.
Application: Effectiveness of Mindfulness
Dialectical Behavior Therapy (DBT; Linehan, 1993) is a common therapeutic approach that incorporates elements of both mindfulness/acceptance and cognitive behavioral strategies “and therefore provides a natural synthesis of two broader lines of treatment research for adults with ADHD” (Fleming et al., 2014, pg. 2). An adjusted version of DBT was found to be helpful in a randomized control trial using of 33 undergraduate students with ADHD between the ages of 18 and 24 (Fleming et al., 2014). The participants were randomly assigned to the DBT group or a group that received self-guided skills training handouts. The Barkley Adult ADHD Rating Scale–IV (BAARS-IV) was used to measure ADHD symptoms. The Brown ADD Rating Scales (BADDS), a self-report questionnaire, assessed executive functioning. Quality of life was assessed using the ADHD Quality of Life Questionnaire (AAQoL). One’s general tendency to be mindful in daily life was measured using the Five Facet Mindfulness Questionnaire (FFMQ). The Conners’ Continuous Performance Test–2nd edition (CPT-2) was a laboratory task used to measure attention regulation.
Using independent samples t tests for continuous data, chi-square tests for categorical data, univariate repeated-measures analysis of variance (RM ANOVA), and linear regressions, the authors found significant improvements in ADHD symptoms [F(2, 62) = 3.13, p=.056], executive functioning [F(2, 62) = 5.46, p= .007], and overall mindfulness [F(2, 62) = 4.15, p= .031] at post-treatment and follow-up (Fleming et al., 2014). Quality of life was significantly higher in the treatment condition at post-treatment [F(2, 62) = 3.47, p= .038] but not at follow-up. Unlike Mitchell et al.’s (2013) study, laboratory tests of omission errors related to attention did show significant improvement at follow-up related to the control group [F(1, 30) = 4.50, p= .042].
The authors found that participants were significantly more satisfied with the DBT treatment than they were with the self-help handouts condition (t(30) = 5.59, p< .001, d = 2.00; Fleming et al., 2014). Interestingly, on a scale from 1 (not useful at all) to 10 (extremely useful), participants endorsed mindfulness as the most useful component of the treatment (M= 9.25, SD= 1.99) and information about ADHD as the least useful component (M= 6.69, SD= 2.27). This is noteworthy given that psychoeducation about ADHD is typically considered to be an essential part of treatment for ADHD (Hallowell & Ratey, 2005). One of the major strengths of this study compared to others in the mindfulness field is that an interviewer, who was blind to the participants’ treatment condition, collected 3 month follow-up data in addition to their pre-and-post treatment data (Fleming et al., 2014). This reflects a strong research design. Nevertheless, the research design was somewhat flawed such that the control group never received face-to-face contact with the therapists. Rather the control group was simply given 34 pages of skills handouts related to ADHD, organization, time management, structuring their environment, and stress management. The DBT treatment group received 100-minute weekly sessions and 7 weekly 10-15 minute phone calls. Thus, it is possible that results could be biased by the difference in the amount of face-to-face treatment. Overall, this study offers further support for the effectiveness of mindfulness-based treatments for ADHD.
References
Fleming, A. P., McMahon, R. J., Moran, L. R., Peterson, A. P., & Dreessen, A. (2014). Pilot randomized controlled trial of dialectical behavior therapy group skills training for ADHD among college students. Journal of Attention Disorders, 1-12. doi:10.1177/1087054714535951
Hallowell, E. M. & Ratey, J. J. (2005). Delivered from distraction: Getting the most out of life with attention deficit disorder. New York City, NY: Ballantine Books. ISBN: 0345442318
Linehan, M. M. (1993). Skills training manual for treating borderline personality disorder. New York, NY: Guilford.
Mitchell, J. T., McIntyre, E. M., English, J. S., Dennis, M. F., Beckham, J. C., & Kollins, S. H. (2013). A pilot trial of mindfulness meditation training for ADHD in adulthood: Impact on core symptoms, executive functioning, and emotion dysregulation. Journal of Attention Disorders. doi:10.1177/1087054713513328