My name's Keara.
I'm 20 years old and I'm from Swords County Dublin.
When I was a teenager, I suffered with my mental health.
Obviously, growing up as a teenager
some things hit others
harder and I felt emotions really deeply.
I never knew a way to deal with it.
I kind of deflected it almost, so
I'd kind of behave in a bad way, say.
I'd act out and I'd do things like that were out of character for me.
Last year,
I had gone through a breakup.
I didn't want that happening to me again.
I'm a bit old for acting that way, almost if you know what I mean.
I was with the person for four years,
so obviously that kind of had a big impact on me,
and I was kind of like, oh what do I do?
After the breakup
I was like finding it hard to sleep and stuff like that.
So I remember talking to my youth worker,
and he had said to me, like, why don't you try a mindfulness
practice like during the day or when you experience these feelings?
I had always kind of heard about mindfulness,
especially when I was in secondary school,
and it was never something I really paid attention to.
It just it wasn't along the lines of what
I wanted to spend my time doing.
But I had decided then to go back
and work on that mindfulness that I had been introduced to.
Everyone has the preconceived idea, and I did as well,
that it was like sitting down and just being quiet,
and I felt kind of uncomfortable at the start.
But afterwards, what kind of sparked it for me
is that I did
feel like a weight had been lifted.
So that was kind of like
the first week or so, I just kind of felt uncomfortable
but the feeling afterwards made it worth it almost.
What led on from that afterwards
was that I enjoyed, say, the five or ten minutes
that I spent in the quiet doing that.
I got used to kind of listening to the sounds around me
and just being aware, and it was just
a really nice feeling.
The feelings that came up
there was obviously all the hurt I was trying to deal
with and kind of get over during the breakup.
It might feel like it was
getting better for a while and then they might come up again.
But I found that with the mindfulness journey,
a lot of it kind of interlinked
with a healing journey as well.
They were helping each other out, per se.
The mindfulness was really giving me the peaceful
reassurance feeling
towards the hard upset
and down feelings the healing journey was bringing me.
Mindfulness taught me how to manage my emotions
more clearly, whereas before, when I was down
and when I felt upset, it could turn into anger
and it could turn into aggression,
whereas it was now
coming out the same amount
as it was when I felt low
but in a better manner,
I was reflecting it in different ways.
When you're starting mindfulness,
it is hard to obviously,
like, know if you're doing it right.
Are you being aware of too much, not being aware of enough?
Like what am I actually feeling
and trying to actually pinpoint
what it is because it can be overwhelming too.
Before I practiced mindfulness,
I was obviously carrying around all these feelings
from years ago and everything that had gone on.
And I had no self-esteem, I'd no self-confidence.
Practicing mindfulness and say, about six months in,
I found that I had a newfound confidence.
I could walk down the street and be like, "This is me".
It was like a new Keara.
Within six months of practicing it
I had decided to go back to college.
I had branched out and I had met loads of new friends.
I had joined spumout.
And I had just branched out within the outside world as well,
I wasn't so confined to myself
and to everyone I had already knew.
And it just helped me improve my wider circle.
Mindfulness is different for every person.
It's never the same story or the same journey.
It differs for everyone.
And if it doesn't work, it doesn't work.
At least you can say you've tried.
Having an open mind going into trying it
is the best thing possible because the more open
you are to it, the more you're going
to get out of it and it's going to be really, really
beneficial for you.