Negative and Positive Thoughts

Human beings in general are very good at getting caught in negative thought processes. You might try this activity sometime to illustrate the point: Buy a bag of marbles and carry them in your pocket all day. Every time you catch yourself having a negative thought during the day, take a marble out of the bag and put it loose […]

Living in the Moment

We all have things that make us anxious. Think about some things that cause you anxiety or stress. Now ask yourself, “How many of them have to do with worrying about events that happened in the past?” It doesn’t matter how recently in the past the event took place. It could have been five years ago, five days ago, five […]

Process Addictions

Emotional aggressors can sometimes become addicted to their gaslighting behaviors. The three major symptoms of an addiction are withdrawal, tolerance, and loss of control. In substance abuse, “withdrawal” manifests in physical and psychological symptoms upon abstaining from the drug of choice. “Tolerance” means that it takes more and more of the same drug to get the same effect. “Loss of […]

How Gaslighting Works

Last week we talked about what emotional aggression is and how emotionally aggressive people often use gaslighting to achieve their goals. Today we’re going to talk about how gaslighting works. We’ll also discuss some common statements used by gaslighters who are being emotionally aggressive. The term “gaslighting” comes from the 1938 play, Gaslight. This was made into a film in […]

Emotional Aggression and Gaslighting

One of the concepts we frequently talk about in Mindfulness-Based Ecotherapy is emotional aggression. Emotional aggression is the aggressive use of our own emotional states in an attempt to manipulate or control others, or in an attempt to make others be responsible for our moods. If I hold others responsible for my emotional state, I am being emotionally aggressive. Likewise, […]

Radical Acceptance

Radical acceptance means that you learn to accept yourself and others without judgment. It is a skill that can be learned in an afternoon, yet take a lifetime to master, especially in Western cultures where we are conditioned to strive for certain ideals of perfection. We are told by the media that if we don’t drive the right car, wear […]

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT) was developed as a method of introducing the techniques of Mindfulness into psychotherapy. ACT is based on Relational Frame Theory (RFT), which is a theoretical framework developed by Steven Hayes of the University of Nevada. RFT is a way of looking at how language influences behavior, and how behavior influences languages. A corollary to RTF […]

Fully Participating

Fully participating can be described as a state in which we are in the present moment, devoid of thoughts or anxiety about the past or the future. Fully participating is most closely associated with Baer’s “act with awareness” factor of the Five Factor Model of Mindfulness. To participate fully in any activity is to be aware in every moment, and […]

Describing

“Whatever you are doing, ask yourself, ‘What’s the state of my mind?’”– Dalai Lama, 1999 Baer et al (2006) described five factors associated with Mindfulness. These factors are: observe, describe, act with awareness, non-judge and non-react. These five factors can be measured by several instruments, and have been shown to be good predictors of psychological symptoms and/or psychological resilience. While […]

Mindful Moments: Compassion

The first ‘C’ of mindful mood management is ‘compassion.’ Compassion is a re-examination of our core values by asking ourselves two questions, and answering honestly. The two questions are: Emotionally aggressive people are passionate people. We care deeply. By channeling that passion into compassion, we can live the lives we were meant to live by focusing on our intentions.