In our world full of hustle and bustle, we have created for ourselves conditions of anxiety and depression. To put this into perspective, according to the Anxiety and Depression Association of America (ADAA), anxiety disorders is the most common mental illness in the U.S., affecting 40 million adults 18 years old or older, with a cost to the U.S of 42 billion per year. Depression affects 15.7 million adults in the U.S., as of 2014.
I am 1 among these statistics. I have struggled with anxiety and depression for most of my life; caused by my traumatic home life and marriage. I didn’t realize anything was wrong until 2002, when my children and I were court ordered to participate in counseling, due to the abuse at the hand of my ex-husband.
I understood that I was “sad”, because of the way I was treated; but I did not know that, how I was treated was not “normal”. I also didn’t understand that I was depressed; when it was said by my 1st counselor. It has been through this current process with counseling, that I have learned what damage has really been inflicted upon me and my children.
Living inside the trauma, I learned to “plan” for whatever situation would present itself. By this I mean, whatever situation I was faced with, I would look at the choices I could make and weigh what the responses my abusers could take to each choice. I would then make the choice that had the possibility of bringing the least pain. I tried to neutralize each situation, but this rarely worked. This volatile environment created a great deal of anxiety, because I never knew what was going to happen next. I only could anticipate. What I didn’t realize is the continuous abuse was causing a deeper and deeper depression for me.
As I have lived outside of the abuse, I have held onto the memories of what has happened to me as a reminder to never allow that to happen to myself, or my children again. I have created a hyper-vigilant behavior in me by doing this; which precipitates more anxiety. Constantly reviewing the memories, also compounds my depression. This has become a vicious cycle, one that I have decided to break.
In my search to heal, I found a book called, Mindfulness, by Gill Hasson. She describes how living in the past, we become depressed. Continually worrying about the future, we become anxious. Just that little bit of information summed up exactly what I was doing.
As I continued reading, I came across this quote she gives by George Harrison, “It’s being here now that’s important. There’s no past and there’s no future…all there is ever, is the now. We can gain experience from the past, but we can’t relive it; and we can hope for the future, but we don’t know if there is one.” This put into perspective that I was missing a key part of “living”. I needed to learn the concept of mindfulness.
Here is how Ms. Hasson describes the concept of mindfulness: “Too often, life zips by. There’s no time to experience what’s happening now, because you’re busy thinking about what needs doing tomorrow or you’re caught up with thoughts about what did or didn’t happen yesterday. Your mind is chattering with commentary or judgement.
But thinking is not the enemy. It’s essential to your life. Your mind is able to think back and reflect on past events and experiences and learn from those experiences, and you can reflect with pleasure on the good times. Your mind can also think about the future. It can plan ahead and look forward to forthcoming events.
This ability to think back to the past and forward to the future is not, though, always a blessing. Your mind’s ability to project backwards and forwards means that you can get stuck in the past, going back over and dwelling on events. You can also be paralyzed by worries and anxiety about the future.
Mindfullness is a way to have a more helpful relationship with this thinking, to recognize when your thoughts are being unhelpfully dragged back to the past or catapulted into the future. Mindfulness is about knowing where you are (being in the moment) but also having an awareness of – but not getting stuck in – where you have been (reflection) and where you are going (anticipating).”
She provides great information to teach you how to become mindful; staying in the moment, staying in today. I have learned from her that my past was to give me experience only, not to be my prison. My future is mine to make into whatever I want, and does not have to do with how anyone is going to respond. Mindfulness frees you from the inconsequential things of this life. It gives you freedom to enjoy what is happening at this very moment. It gives you the ability to truly live.
“From the moment we are born, now is always what we have. There is never a time when our lives are not now, in this moment. The present moment is, in fact, life itself!” Gill Hasson-Mindfulness