Mindfulness is an inside job, a therapeutic technique

Back when Lucy was 21 years old, she was in full force with life’s activities; going to university, working as a bartender, volunteering on campus, hanging out with her friends, playing university basketball and starting a relationship. Some would say her life was ‘busy’, but she loved it and never knew any different. Since Lucy was a child, she was always heavily involved in sports, extra-curricular activities, school, friends, family and living the life of Lucy. But one day, the unexpected happen. While on her way to work, walking through the snow Lucy slipped on an ice patch and bumped her head on the sidewalk. After slowly waking up, Lucy took a moment, gave herself a shake, and slowly continued to work. Yes, she felt a bit ‘weird’ but didn’t think anything of it. She worked her normal shift, closed the bar down, as she normally would, and went home to bed.therapeutic, technique, Mindfulness

The next day, she received a phone call from her boss, Luke, asking her to come into work and go over the numbers from the previous night. Slightly concerned, Lucy said she would and headed straight into work.

While she was getting ready to go in, Lucy noticed she had to slow down. She felt dizzy and disoriented getting changed, but shrugged it off and left for the bar in a hurry.

Looking over the numbers at work, it became apparent to Lucy she had completely left out one of the columns of numbers – something she’d never done before.

Lucy then mentioned to Luke she had actually fallen down on the way to work the previous day and maybe that had something to do with this bizarre behaviour. Lucy admitted she was not feeling like herself that day. Luke nodded and agreed that she should get herself checked.

From the meeting, Lucy went to the doctors and to her surprise, she was diagnosed with a severe concussion.

Shocked, stunned and feeling like her world was collapsing Lucy thought to herself, things happen for a reason or reasons, so life must be teaching me something that I need to learn.  It’s time to be mindful and listen.

Activities Lucy was used to doing she could no longer do. For example, exercising made her dizzy; if she moved too quickly, she would nearly faint. She was unable read, her memory became very short and her eyes began to hurt, so she needed to wear sunglasses inside and outside.  Her energy levels began to fade and what was previously enjoyable, now become a hassle.

One day, while working with sunglasses on in the bar, a guest asked what happened.

Did she get beat up and was covering it up? Was she trying to make a fashion statement? As Lucy explained to the patron what happened, he shared with her that he’d had a concussion before too. Intrigued, as she hadn’t met anyone else with a concussion before, Lucy asked him, how did he heal himself? What technique had he used? It was his one word reply that changed her entire life journey.

He replied, "Meditation."

Lucy had never meditated before. To be honest, she never really took time to slow down, to pay attention or be mindful. Any free moment Lucy had she would be doing something. She hated sitting around. But this time, Lucy had no choice. Her body would not allow her to do what she ‘hoped’ to do.

Upon the end of her shift, Lucy went home and looked up the definition of mindfulness on dictionary.com. She saw that mindfulness is 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 — and which is used as a therapeutic technique.

Lucy loved this concept and wanted to learn more about how she might be able to help herself by practising mindfulness. She came to understand that, as a therapuetic technique, it was not going to be a quick process.

Thus, Lucy began her journey with meditation and other therapuetic mindsets. On this journey she made an important discovery: that true vitality in life is achieved through mindfulness. A way of being, not doing.

Days of implementing mindfulness practise into her everyday life, soon turned into months and months turned into years. Lucy was encouraged to see the light in the darkness, to love herself and be grateful for everything around her. She loved being able to use her abilities of being present in the moment and it did not go unnoticed. People around her noticed the change and began looking into how too they could become mindful.

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Photo by Debbie Ducic on Unsplash