So, you’re stressed, not coping at work or at home, maybe your blood pressure has gone up, and your friend tells you to meditate, it worked for them. Someone at work tells you how much better they are feeling since they started meditating, and suggests you give it a go. You hear about it all the time, but why should you meditate?

Meditation has been documented since the 5th and 6th century BCE, finding its beginnings in Taoism and Buddhism. In the Western world, meditation has been something that used to be for hippies or alternatives, or a form of Christian prayer, but long ago made its way into the mainstream. There’s quite a lot of research to back up claims that meditation is “good for you”, in very specific ways. For example, a small study of teachers in a behavioural school found that meditation reduced stress, depression and burnout (ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3951026/). Even more interesting is a long-term study that showed a decrease in blood pressure and mortality for those who meditate – a difference of 30% compared to those who didn’t meditate (journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.4278/0890-1171-14.5.284). Statistics aside, meditation has been linked to increased happiness, improved relationships, increased productivity, better recovery rates after surgery, and so much more. Most importantly, meditation can improve your mental health, not eliminate it, but help you manage your symptoms better.

In that case, why wouldn’t you learn to meditate?

Sometimes we need a prompt to do something that we know that’s good for us. All the diet, exercise, quite smoking, get active campaigns in the world and we still sit on the couch and watch the world go by. Try to find out what is going to motivate you to meditate. Perhaps there's a time of day that works for you, first thing in the morning, lunch time, just before bed. Think about what's convenient, when you are least likely to be interrupted. I set a timer on my phone to remind me to do the things that I know I should but aren’t habit yet, and plan meditation for as soon as I get to my office - but I often get distracted. Post it notes in convenient places can be useful, as is a note in your calendar. Once you make it a habit, the same time every day, you won’t need the prompts, but first you have to want to get started.

How do you start then?

There are loads of apps and websites that can get you started. My current favourite is Smiling Mind, a free Australian app, that gives you a range of meditations, for different lengths of time and various age groups. Breathe helps to just focus your breath, which can be particularly helpful for anxiety. Insight Timer links you to guided meditations, although I'm having a bit of trouble getting my head around that one. Start with a 5-minute meditation, make it a daily thing, always at the same time and see if you can get others involved. If you’re the manager at your workplace, introducing a 10-minute meditation at the start of the work day can see an increase in workplace happiness and productivity, so there's a reason to start!

And then you start to see the benefits. Insights into what you're experiencing, blocks you are trying to work through, feeling calmer, more relaxed about the day ahead. The benefits are what make you keep up with meditation.

If you have any questions on how to get started, or would like to find a local meditation group, just ask me and I'll see what I can find for you.

Namaste

“It is a great way to communicate with people that you don't get to see, to get events and a message out there.”

“It is very easy to take things the wrong way, which can be hurtful.”

“[What bothers me about facebook] is family trolling me, people unfollowing me, people telling me how I should use my personal profile”

(Comments from various people who responded to a question about issues with facebook)

When asked how they feel about social media, most people responded in a positive way, but many people have their doubts, and many more find social media to be a minefield, where random strangers or close family can troll you, people don’t filter their language or thoughts, and don’t consider how others feel about whether they are your facebook friend or not.

“My jokes [on facebook] fall flat too most of the time. Laughing at myself is the thing to do then”

What’s are the social rules around Facebook? Most of us have relatives who don’t want to add us, friends who delete our friendship, family who say mean things (followed by “lol jks”), and others who block us for no explicable reason. Then there are strangers who troll us on public forums, and facebook groups that don’t protect you from abuse. Facebook started as a social platform for students, there wasn’t a set of rules for behaviour, but there was probably an assumption that people would follow cultural norms on social media as they do in physical life. Unfortunately, facebook has become a place where people can say “wtf, I can be whoever I want here!” and forget that nanna is watching, or that their constant attacks will drive their classmate to suicide.

“I unfriended someone because they called my brother a [foul word] on a Facebook post… I don't think she would have said it to his face.”

What if you were at a party, all your family, friends and colleagues are there, then the grocer and postie turn up, your neighbour from around the corner, a dozen people from the next suburb over who you’ve never met, people from interstate, London, Tokyo, Bruges… This doesn’t happen in the real world, so we have no frame of reference for how to deal with this level of social interaction on social media. If you don’t talk to your cousin at a party, you’re being rude, so you make small talk and move on. But if you snub them on social media you can pretend to yourself that they won’t notice. Or maybe you don’t care. But people do care, people do notice.

“I've deleted all my family from my business pages, groups and email list because I don't want to feel criticised for what I do”

What makes some people affected by social media vs those who can let it roll off their backs? I have seen a lot of clients over the years who are deeply affected by what’s going on with their social media – friends doing things they can’t afford to, calling someone else their “bestie” at a party they weren’t invited to, seeing how truly bigoted people are, blocked by a family member with no explanation, and being disgusted by the language they use. But they feel trapped. If they’re not on facebook, they won’t know what people are saying about them, or doing without them. There is the fear of missing out (FOMO) that keeps them stuck. Often people lack the confidence to respond to nastiness, or to delete people that are trolling them.

“The problem is people think they are anonymous are therefore can write whatever they like and it doesn’t matter if they sit there and troll discussions”

But even strangers insult, intimidate, bully and harass for no good reason. Like the time I commented on an ABC article and was told (by someone I’d never met) that I was an idiot. I could’ve told him to bugger off, or explained my stance, but he had no right to know the latter, the former was a waste of my time, so I deleted the thread and blocked him. But not everyone feels comfortable doing that. People feel threatened, scared, which is a normal response to being attacked, the flight or fight response makes them either engage in an argument with someone who they have no attachment to, or give them more time and more information than they deserve, or delete their friendship.

“I look at most of it as the trash taking itself out”

Then there’s the lack of privacy – you’ve joined a closed group for incontinence sufferers, well people can see your name in that list. You comment on a public page and forget to check the privacy, now everyone knows that you have a problem, maybe something you didn’t want anyone else to know.

“I am selective about who I have on my personal fb page. It is only very close family and some friends”

Those who commented that they weren’t bothered by what people said on facebook, or whether they were blocked or unfriended, are generally not bothered by what people do in their personal life either. In the main, these people talked about it being important to them to keep some people off of their personal or business facebook account, that they didn’t worry about what other people think, and found it easy to let go of the hurtful people in their lives. Really, it comes down to how strong your self-esteem is, how confident you are, how good you are at coping in general – your resilience in essence. If you have a caring group of friends or family, feel generally liked and supported, them someone’s random facebook act won’t be as likely to bother you.

“I don’t have any issues but it might be because I don’t give a shit”

“Life is too short to worry about what anyone else thinks”

So, what can we do about it?

“make people accountable for what they write and the system would be greatly improved”

I would like to see people behaving as they should behave in real life. If you don’t like your uncle and avoid him at parties, maybe you could just say your facebook is a personal platform and you don’t like too many people on it. In other words, somewhere between being nice and being honest. If someone upsets you on facebook, send them a pm about it, instead of deleting them. At the extreme end of the scale, a few people are now realising that you can sue someone for slander. If we let abuse go, people are only going to feel encouraged to be their worst self. If we follow up with the legal system, the word will eventually get out there that you can’t get away with abuse on social media. And when it comes to bullies and school kids, the best we can do is to take a bigger involvement in our child’s social media – put rules around access, phones in the kitchen at an agreed time, have access to passwords (which will result in less inappropriate sharing), inform your children of the dangers of friend requests from unknown people, tell them that nude photos can lead to charges of child pornography for themselves and anyone who receives them.

Most importantly, we need to look at how to build or own and our children’s resilience. If you are part of a caring and supportive family and group of friends, then you are less likely to be distressed by someone’s actions on facebook. For example, I found out someone had blocked me on facebook, I sent a message to my sister about it, we talked it through, and now I’m all good. I realise that this is one person out of a very big group of family and friends, and it’s about them, not me. If you can see someone’s actions as being about them, not you, you are less likely to take it on board, more likely to move on.

“I worry that people become more interested in facebook than the real world”

What about overuse of social media?

This is a common issue that people complain about now. The rule of thumb for me is, if you were to go out with friends and read a book the whole time, would that be ok? Would it bother anyone? If it’s ok to read a book, then by all means, pick up your phone and scroll. If you wouldn’t read a book in that setting, then put your phone away. We are back to FOMO here. Social media isn’t time sensitive, if you don’t look at it for 2 hours, it’s still there. Sure, you might miss out on a joke, but if you are scrolling, you might miss out on a really good time with people who are with you here and now.

“When I see people out at dinner using facebook on their phones or people visiting others at home, but still feel the need to scroll through facebook, this saddens me”

“I want to see, not the backs of their phones”

Final thoughts…

Do you have problems with social media? Do you worry about what people are saying, do you feel compelled to check all the time? Let me know if you would like to talk it through.

“Life is too short for bollocks and rubbish”

A question I am regularly faced with is “why does therapy make me feel worse?” It’s not something that happens for everyone, or in every session, but it’s something I aim to clarify in this blog.

When someone comes in for art therapy, they have reached a decision, they want their life to be better, they are motivated to change. Rapport develops with the therapist as they share their life experiences, and find they’re not judged. This initial connection in therapy makes clients feel warm, supported and cared about. Therapy progresses well, breakthroughs happen, and there’s a feeling that life is gradually starting to get better. But after a while, deeper issues begin to surface, and the therapy experience starts to change shape.

When you make a decision to start seeking counselling of any kind, it’s because there is a significant problem in your life – a painful loss, a mental health issue impacting on your life, past problems creating unwanted behaviour patterns. People shouldn’t come to therapy because they want a feel-good experience, like a massage or a facial, but that is what many people expect. They expect therapy to be a positive experience, that they will only feel better afterwards, not worse, and that it’s going to be a bit of talking, nothing too hard. It would be nice if it were that easy for every session.

Unfortunately, sometimes therapy is difficult – your unconscious fights change, seeks the status quo, resists discomfort. There is a sneaky voice in your head, below the level of hearing, telling you “give up, it’s much easier to keep things as they are.” It’s fear you’re fighting, understandable fear, and it’s also a sign that therapy is working. Unconscious resistance to opening up the underlying causes of the issue occurs because there is a feeling of insecurity that makes us want to avoid bringing up uncomfortable feelings and memories. For example, someone might see me for help dealing with grief from loss of their partner, but it turns into something much bigger as the impact of past losses uncovers a deeper fear of abandonment. Even if you are not talking about a past trauma in therapy, you are working on the issues caused by the past trauma, so some discomfort is likely to arise.

This can put people off coming back to therapy, they don’t want to feel worse in a therapy session, or between visits, so they make a decision to not come back. No one wants to feel worse, but if you can work through the fear, and continue with therapy, the potential to feel much better down the track significantly improves. My aim as an art therapist is to promote long-term improvement. If you are always feeling better during and after therapy, then chances are that you are not doing the work you need to get better in the long term. If you are feeling good most of the time, and every now and then you have a difficult session, or a bad day following therapy, then that’s good evidence that you are making progress. The best thing to do if you are feeling like giving up, is talk to your therapist or counsellor. Maybe you can slow things down a bit, move back to some less stressful issues, go back to the deeper stuff later. Or take a break and come back to it when you feel like you can manage the difficult issues.

When I grew up, my friends and I had unrealistic ideas of how we should look, standing in front of the mirror together, poking and prodding ourselves, each insisting we were fatter than each other. Once 2 friends and I measured our thighs, all convinced that ours was the biggest, I was shocked to find mine was the smallest, and had a hard time believing the tape-measure. We were all fairly slim, but we never felt that we were slim “enough” – the women on TV and in magazines were tiny, and we weren’t much bigger, but to us the difference was enormous. We have such a critical eye on ourselves that one size difference will seem huge, but others don’t notice that difference, just like that tiny zit on your chin that no one else can see but looks enormous to you.

Then, as we grew older, we envied the bodies we had when we were young, wrinkle free and slim. You see we forget the pain we put ourselves through, the fear that we aren’t good enough, or ever could be. We forget the depression many of us went through because we never felt desirable, or the daily fight to stay tiny, running every day, or practically living in the gym, eating a limited diet. Who has time for that now, with families or work - or both? We forget that, back then, we didn’t see how lovely we looked, and that the fight for an unrealistic objective was consuming us.

As a society, we have gone beyond the idea that young women should be slim to be beautiful, now it’s an expectation of women and men through all stages to look fantastic, be fit, eat green, and so on. But this doesn’t allow for different shapes, metabolic systems, needing a break for pregnancy, or health issues. How often have you seen an article on social media or in a magazine "get back into your pre-pregnancy shape"? So many people I meet are somewhat "obsessed" with working out, "clean eating", without any understanding of nutrition, or what a healthy exercise regime is. The biggest issue though, is that we are impacting on our society’s mental health by imposing an ideal that is unrealistic for many, leaving new generations feeling inadequate, with a low self-esteem, depression and eating disorders. Sometimes I wonder when we will notice the emotional damage and demand change.

We need to learn to let go of the ideal and focus on how we want to feel about ourselves: I truly believe that I'm a much more beautiful person now because I love myself, I am passionate about my work, I eat food that’s good for me but doesn’t feel like a diet. That’s much better to me than when I was young and slim but not happy, constantly depriving myself of treats, jogging (I still don't like jogging), going to the gym. Perhaps you can't be a complete, beautiful person if you don't love who you are, inside as well as out.

A condensed version of this blog appeared here on December 11th 2017:

http://www.southernhighlandnews.com.au/story/5108846/love-who-you-are-inside-and-out/?cs=276

Linda is an art therapist and social worker in private practice in the Southern Highlands, NSW and may be contacted at

linda@highlandsholistic.com.au or on

0438 400 446