Mindfulness is a potentially powerful way to still an unruly chaotic mind, ground during dissociative or flashback phases and pull out of the "I'm useless, everything is wrong" downward spirals. And for me at least, it works (sometimes, as one of an arsenal of tools).
Looking back, it's ironic that I learned mindfulness because mental health was seen as my problem. It was certainly my life getting screwed up, so in a very real way it was my problem. But in another sense, my mental health was problematic because of other people's response to me.
I am different. I hope I will always be different. I love myself as I am. And in learning that, my life stopped being screwed up - I stopped having a mental health problem and simply had a mental health difference. It wasn't mindfulness that got me to this point - that's another story for another day.
My point is that, these days, my biggest use of mindfulness is to handle other people's reactions when I stand up as someone with a long term mental health difference.
This is Mental Health Awareness Week. It has the theme of mindfulness.
Please promote awareness.
Please promote mindfulness as one tool among many.
Most of all, please,remember that most of the disabling, screwing-lives-up side of mental health is down to attitudes to mental health, not a mental health condition.
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