After a month since returning to school, how are you doing? Feeling any of that Syllabus Shock? Have you settled into routines of classes, dining hall hours, sports practice or music rehearsal or the on-campus job? For a lot of students, September is an exciting time of reconnecting with friends, meeting new people, signing up for clubs and committees. With so many opportunities offered to you at the start of each semester, it can be easy to overbook yourself and forget to leave time for, oh, I don’t know…sleep. Exercise. Eating well. Studying, even.
Compassion and Comparison
How many times have I been in a support group and someone says, “I’m not like them. Why should I be here?” Or maybe, “You’ve never been through it, so how would you know what it’s like?” I think that when people say this, they’re really asking the question: Will anyone get it? Will anyone take the time to hear, to see, to suffer with me?
Digging deep?
You can’t dig your way out of a hole. Think about it. You are in a hole and you keep digging. What happens? Eventually, the hole gets so deep that you can’t throw the dirt out of the hole anymore and it just keeps falling back down around you. If you start to dig sideways, the integrity of the walls weakens and risks falling in around you. What should you do?
What does my therapist mean when she tells me to be “mindful”?
I decided to dedicate a blog to answer this question. As I began considering my own understanding of the concept of mindfulness, I was forced to first consider what mindfulness is not. I found myself doing multiple things simultaneously. I focused part of my attention on the television show that was playing in the background. I ate a bag of chips while typing notes. I ensured that my cell phone was at arm’s reach, checking it for the time every couple of minutes. The general population calls this “multi-tasking”, a “skill” that many of us feel fortunate to have mastered. Still, I wonder, is attending to multiple tasks depriving us of the ability to fully experience each one?