Vajra Blue

Mindfulness and Compassion. Understanding trauma in young people.

Tag Archives: attention


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Conscious attention: looking after our inner world.

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If your mind carries a heavy burden of past, you will experience more of the same. The past perpetuates itself through lack of presence. The quality of your consciousness at this moment is what shapes the future. ― Eckhart Tolle

Our brains have a very narrow bandwidth for the conscious processing of information.  This means that we spend a lot of time letting autopilot run our lives, based on how the unconscious mind processes incoming information.  The unconscious processes information rapidly while the conscious mind is much slower.  This has important consequences for our survival but can create difficulties in the modern world.

The unconscious mind is not able to tell the difference between what is real and what is imagined.  The same pathways in the brain can be triggered by either of them.  This means that we may respond to our internal thought processes or our current emotional tone, as if they were a response to real events in the outside world. Continue reading →


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Mental health: taking a BET on treatment.

Mental health has become a major concern of the modern world.

There are rising levels of depression.

Ever increasing numbers of work hours are lost to stress and related disorders.

There seems to be an epidemic of suicide and self harm among the young.

Current treatment regimens seem to rely too much on medication, often as the only intervention, and fail to address the holistic picture.

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Mindfulness: where does the research stand?

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aglet, aiglet
ag·let  (ăg′lĭt)
n.

1. A tag or sheath, as of plastic, on the end of a lace, cord, or ribbon to facilitate its passing through eyelet holes.
2. A similar device used for an ornament.
[Middle English, from Old French aguillette, diminutive of aguille,needle, from Vulgar Latin *acūcula, from Late Latin acucula, diminutive of Latin acus, needle; see ak- in Indo-European roots.]

Mindfulness and meditation have been around for thousands of years.  It is only relatively recently that they have started to appear on the radar as potential treatments for physical and mental health difficulties.

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Depression: the effects of mindfulness.

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Your mind is not a cage.
It is a garden.
And it needs cultivating.
Libba Bray

The incidence of depression is rising rapidly, at least in the western world.  It has been described as the common cold of psychiatry and psychology.

Depression is a common disorder, but this does not make it either inevitable, or an acceptable part of modern life.  The lifetime incidence of depression continues to show a steady rise, with each succeeding generation having a greater risk.  For people born before the First World War, the lifetime risk was about 3%, for Americans currently in their midtwenties, current estimates put their lifetime risk to be approaching 25%. This rapid increase shows little sign of slowing down.

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Attention and focus: the complications of trying to stay alive

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Challenge is the pathway to engagement and progress in our lives. But not all challenges are created equal. Some challenges make us feel alive, engaged, connected, and fulfilled. Others simply overwhelm us. Knowing the difference as you set bigger and bolder challenges for yourself is critical to your sanity, success, and satisfaction.
Brendon Burchard

Staying alive has always been the greatest challenge for any creature. All species have developed systems to detect danger and potential threats. One of the most effective of these, is the appropriately named “fight or flight response”.  This prepares us to do exactly that, fight or run for our lives.

We detect threat by analysing the incoming data from our environment, both from the external world, and from our inner world of thought, emotion, and knowledge. Our conscious brain can only manage a tiny percentage of the information that we receive from our senses, the rest is processed at an unconscious level.

Our focus is constantly drawn to the events in the world around us. However, the systems that we use to assess threat are designed for a different world. A world in which we were prey animals and not the top predator on the planet.  They are certainly not designed for life in a modern, technological, stimulus rich world, and not for a self-aware creature, whose own thoughts and emotions can be mistaken for a threat. Is that tiny spider really a danger to life?

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Mindfulness, moment by moment.

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Mindfulness is the practice of having greater awareness and of being more present in our lives.

The ability to be mindful requires that we place and hold our attention where we want it.

It is the ability to switch off the running commentary of our minds and to return to the present moment.

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