Just in time for Halloween, let’s talk about the darker side of mindfulness….
There is so much great information on how mindfulness helps us. To google mindfulness, one might think that it’s a magic bullet. You can easily find information on mindfulness for anxiety, for depression, for chronic illness, and pretty much anything that ails you. And even this blog is devoted to the benefits of mindfulness, so what could be the problem?
The first issue with meditation (not just mindfulness meditation) is that it can become an escape. I’ve discussed in other posts that meditation can mimic the effects of mind-altering drugs (https://www.minutestozen.com/post/psychedelic-meditation), and used for the wrong reasons, meditation can be just as effective a pathway to avoid difficult emotions. When we avoid emotional experiences, we reduce our tolerance to them, and emotions become harder and harder to deal with. This is the hallmark of PTSD – after a traumatic event, the mind gets really good at avoiding anything that could cause the same threats. This is why PTSD can be so damaging, any resilience we had prior to the trauma gets lost in the shuffle of trying to avoid future threats. Even if you don’t have a trauma, meditation, by taking you completely out of the experience of difficult emotions, will lower your tolerance to distress. It becomes a way to avoid pain, and then pain gets progressively harder to deal with. The funny thing is that I had this very experience. When I started meditating, I knew it was helping me to deal with stress, but if I didn’t have time to meditate one day, or if I got interrupted, I would fly into a panic. My thoughts would race about how I wouldn’t be able to deal with the rest of the day if I didn’t get in a “good” meditation (what does that even mean? I don’t think I could ever tell you what a “good” meditation was). I hadn’t been learning anything about myself or my experience of anxiety, and meditation was just an avoidance of my constant running thoughts. In fact, I became anxious about the experience of anxiety! And that is because, unwittingly, I was reducing my tolerance to anxiety. And taken out of the larger context of mindfulness, which includes acceptance, self-compassion and non-judgement, meditation is just another drug to numb the pain. It works well too, but like any other drug, its effects are limited and often cause a rebound.
The other challenge with mindfulness is sort of a bigger issue with any self-help method. Self-help and personal growth is a huge industry. People buy all sort of products and teachings that will make them better at life through one miraculous method. There have been all sorts of teachers who have tried to package and sell mindfulness. Yet, it’s rare that anyone resolves all their issues through these packages. And when you don’t resolve your issue, you’re left with a feeling of failure. How come all those people who wrote testimonials got great results and I didn’t? Rarely do I ever see a mindfulness or meditation book or program that says “this won’t solve all your problems, but if you get a little benefit, you are on your way to healing”. If they were sold that way, no one would buy. And this is the problem with the “quick fix” mentality. You didn’t develop depression, PTSD, anxiety or any other mental health disorder overnight. It developed over a lifetime, so why would it disappear with one 6-week program? It won’t. And when it doesn’t, or it gets worse because you’re lowering your tolerance for distress, you will feel even worse.
Part of the reason I wanted to become a therapist was because I knew that teaching meditation wasn’t really helping people in a profound way. People would leave my classes and say things like “I feel so good, I don’t need that massage anymore”. But what then? Would their lives change? The answer is no.
With the help of a therapist, one who practices mindfulness can start to recognize when meditation is having deleterious effects on their mental health. Working with a therapist, we’re not alone, we can’t fault ourselves for failing to be yet another testimonial, because therapist is there to help us recognize that self-talk. Don’t get me wrong, meditation and mindfulness have been at the core of a huge transformation in my life. But it’s taken me 12+ years to get to where I am. Lots of tears, lots of failed programs, lots of scary insights into myself all have challenged me along the way. But some of my biggest, scariest insights came with the help of a therapist. And with those insights, I’ve grown to have a greater acceptance for myself. Acceptance is key. But it’s hard to do that on your own.
If you’re working on your mindfulness skills to help with an existing mental health concern, you’re on the right track! I fully believe that mindfulness, when practiced with an attitude of self-compassion, can be genuinely healing. But keep in mind that if you started a mindfulness practice with the idea that it would make you “happy” or “better”, please consult with a therapist who is knowledgeable about mindfulness. You don’t need to do this on your own.
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