So a couple of years ago I did a mindfulness based cognitive therapy for depression course
and I blogged about it for Mind and it really helped me. I still practice it today and it’s
helped me to reduce my antidepressants a bit and kind of helped me to manage by anxiety
and depression day to day. But today I kind of wanted to talk specifically about how my
dog, Watson, helps me to keep up my mindfulness practice and keep it part of my life, how
he reminds me of some of the kind of core teachings of the course I suppose.
And the first one is acceptance. Watson kind of takes his experiences as they come. He
doesn’t make judgments about what’s going on in his head or kind of feel that he should
be feeling differently. He just feels. And sometimes he does feel rubbish for a bit,
like when he eats food in the park that he shouldn’t and throws up or if he gets told
off for eating fluff out of his bed or maybe if we’re out for the afternoon and he’s
just bored at home. But when he feels better he embraces it. He doesn’t dwell on the
times that he felt bad and let it seep into his better mood. And I always try and kind
of learn something from that. I have a tendency to judge my experiences all the time, usually
kind of on autopilot. I kind of judge them as not being quite right in some way, thinking
this isn’t quite what should be happening or not quite what I should be feeling. And
this kind of leads into thoughts about blame and what could or should be different, so
sort of thinking I shouldn’t be feeling like this, I’m always getting things wrong,
things are always going to be like this, kind of get sucked into this rumination cycle and
kind of end up in those sort of well-worn grooves of negative thoughts that it’s kind
of hard to get out of I think and can take you to some sort of dark places.
Watson encourages me to kind of accept how I feel in the moment and, you know, take action
to try and do things to distract myself and kind of just wait until my experiences or
feelings change until that particular tape has run down. And I think with this approach
kind of my negative feelings are sort of something to be dealt with in the moment and are less
likely to kind of worsen and spiral down. Obviously Watson’s acceptance comes from
his inability really to kind of think in any other way I think, but I have to kind of more
consciously use mindfulness or something else to sort of practice this kind of approach.
Another thing that he’s always reminded me of is curiosity. Wherever we go and kind
of whatever we’re doing he’s always really, really interested in it, sticking his nose
in, you know, trying to find out what’s going on. If we’ve got a new thing in the
house he’ll be all exploring it, kind of checking every corner for kind of the smells
that tell them sort of stories of what’s been there before. And mindfulness kind of
encouraged me to approach my body and my mind with a kind of gentle curiosity, so kind of
taking time to experience my feelings and emotions, even the more negative ones, instead
of immediately trying to kind of push them away. And I think doing this
can help kind of you recognise how… Or helped me recognise how my body and mind interact,
which I don’t think I always take the time to examine or I didn’t before.
I think another one is really the last one I suppose is just the sort of sense of things
not really necessarily having to have a point, kind of doing things for the joy of the moment.
I think when I’m down I don’t always see the point of something that could actually
kind of help me. I experience this kind of averse motivation, so usually I suppose motivation
works by you want to do something and then you do it, but when I’m down I sometimes
find that I have to start doing something, maybe going for a run or meditating, before
I sort of want to do it, before I realise, okay this is helping me, I want to carry on.
And I kind of find it quite difficult to make decisions when I’m depressed. I spend a
lot of time kind of worrying about the pros and cons of each decision and how that’s
going to make me feel and what’s the right thing for me to do right now. And I think
Watson is a good reminder to sometimes just go for it without kind of thinking too much,
to kind of let go and express myself and kind of just try and make sure that I do things
that kind of give me pleasure, whether they always have a point or not. So like he did
earlier today, kind of carrying an enormous stick for miles around the park because it’s
fun to do and then just drop it, leave it alone, even if everyone else in the park thinks
you’re a bit silly.