As I said in my first post about yoga, this post will be about mindfulness.

Mindfulness is defined as: a mental state achieved by focusing one’s awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one’s feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique.

Now, for a little back story.

Like most anxiety-sufferers, type-A personalities, and control-freaks – when I finally came to terms with the fact that I am anxious/will have anxiety forever/no this isn’t a normal thought process etc., I obsessively researched every possible resource I could use to cope with it.

I joined every forum and chat room, I bought self-help books and I read the listing of anxiety symptoms on WebMD so often that I’m preettyyy sure I memorized them all.

I knew prior to beginning my research that I was not interested in taking medication, and that I wanted to try to deal with my anxiety in a holistic way, and going in with this knowledge really narrowed my search.

*I want to note that my aim is not to bash medication, or those who use it, but for me, this is just a personal preference which I also based on some of my obsessive-stay-up-all-night-reading-til-my-eyes-hurt research.

I began by downloading the Headspace app on my phone, and attempting to meditate for 10 minutes a day, every day. This app is great, it’s a really impressive and simple tool and ten minutes a day isn’t a lot to ask! While I found it to be effective, I could not seem to find a time of day where I always, consistently had ten minutes to spare.

I realized at this point, that I wanted to have the help of a professional, because I knew that with my non-committal personality type* , I needed some sort of regimented mindfulness practice. I did some research and realized that my workplace offered free short-term counseling (emphasis on the short-term) for those suffering from anxiety/depression/trauma. After undergoing a screening -which essentially consisted of me having a panic attack over the phone while speaking to a counselor- I was referred to a mindfulness counselor close to work and home.

My first session was a unique experience, I didn’t know how to feel or how much to share with this stranger, and I had to quiet my inner-skeptic as I heard more and more about mindfulness.

The counselor spoke to me about my life in a general sense, and asked me a lot of “what brought you here today?” type questions. He then handed me a pen and a pad of paper, and asked me to jot down the following points and to live by them:

Being versus doing. Be present

Control your thoughts

Don’t try to multitask Acceptance. You cannot change the past You do not necessarily have to agree with it, you just have to accept it

When in doubt, try to have a meaningful conversation with yourself and be assertive Being non-judgmental. Judgement is dragging the past into the present. The past is over and you cannot alter it, the future is not a guarantee, all you have is now

True-self versus ego. Your ego develops as a result of external situations

Your true self is how you are born, the person you are born as without the influence of external situations Try to always be your true self

Controllable versus uncontrollable. The only things I can control are: My thought process My responses and communication My attitude and behaviour My actions

At first glance, these may seem like a load of crap. Yes, I said it, a load of crap.

But if you take each and every point, and interpret it in the context of your life and your experiences, it begins to make a lot more sense how and why mindfulness works on anxiety.

For example, on a typical morning, regardless of how much time I have to get ready, I will always feel rushed. I don’t think I have ever just stared in the mirror, and brushed my teeth, focusing fully on how the bristles interact with my teeth, how the toothpaste foams and tastes minty fresh, or how clean my teeth feel.

9 out of 10 times I am brushing my teeth while watering my plants, rearranging some out of place furniture, or while struggling to make my bed using only one hand.

All of this is usually happening while my mind is racing as I replay last night’s (or last year’s) events that I am still obsessing over, knowing full-well that there is no possible way I could even remotely alter the way those events unfolded.

This is what mindfulness attempts to teach you, to live in the moment and let go of all of the weight that you carry around.

One analogy my counselor gave me that really stuck with me was to envision all of your worries/traumas/regrets as giant stones that you drag around behind you. You take them to every event, you let them shape the way you perceive every experience, letting them weigh you down day after day. This is an exhausting way to live.

It is one thing to learn from your mistakes, but that does not mean that you should let them loom over you, allowing them past to cast a shadow over the present.

This aspect of mindfulness has been a difficult one for me to follow, because rather than leave the past where it belongs, I drag it around with me and constantly beat myself up, while replaying scenarios regarding how I could have better handled a given situation.

While all of the advice listed above is vague and up for interpretation, I think the two points that really resonated with me are that:

The past is over and you cannot alter it, the future is not a guarantee, all you have is now.

and…

The only things that are in my control are: my thought process, my responses and communication, my attitude and behaviour and my actions.

Isn’t that so empowering?

Anxiety perpetuates itself and feeds off of a cycle of panic. You wonder what could go wrong, you want to be three-steps ahead of it and avoid impending disaster/doom, you realize you can’t control everything, and as a result you panic which leads you to panic about panicking. Rinse and repeat.

The bottom line is, all you can control is yourself, here, and now. That’s it. Your only guarantee is this very moment. So why not just enjoy this moment for all it is, rather than worry about the future (may not happen) or the past (too late to change it)?

Mindfulness is a very, very long process. I am definitely not there yet. I may never be.

I constantly find myself trying to steer my thoughts back into the present, and I struggle with it daily. Having said that, the fact that I can now recognize the skewed thoughts, and nip them in the bud, puts me leaps and bounds further than I was just a few months ago.

Knowing that tomorrow is not a promise, I want to make the best of my today, and even though it is a struggle, I think I’m worth the fight.

*More to come on this in my upcoming “following-through” post.

For more anxiety-related comics like the one above, give this Huffington Post article a read :).

Thank you for reading and please feel free to comment and share my posts. I really enjoy talking to others about their struggles because I think the hardest part of going through this, is feeling like you are alone. Feel free to connect with me if you’d like to chat.