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Mindfulness and Pastoral Care
“People will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul." - Carl Gustav Jung
Where does your mind go in the quiet moments? Fantasies of escape? Vindication? Shame patrol? Complaining? If you could get your mind to go somewhere else in those moments, where would it be? Noticing God’s creation? Solving a problem creatively? Comforting scripture? Mindfulness, the intentional cultivation of non-judgmental, present-moment awareness, can help awaken our emotions more fully, allow them to be present and to move through us with less struggle. Mindfulness meditation is a 2,500 year old technique for quieting the mind and is practiced in many spiritual traditions as a means for opening to the small, still voice of truth within us.
How does mindfulness practice benefit the pastor or person of faith? Mindfulness allows one to be fully present with someone else regardless of the reason they are together. Perhaps you have been called to visit a trauma victim and their family in the emergency room of the hospital. You may be in a meeting with your congregational leaders that feels like it is getting out of hand. By cultivating the spirit of mindfulness you can let go of any of your own discomfort and tend to those you are called to serve. Fear, anxiety, or frustration may rise up in you but you will be able to tolerate it and move forward into the relationship you are currently tending.
On a personal level, mindfulness practice can lead to powerful insight and a deeper understanding of your relationship to God by having an increased self-awareness and a heightened ability to assess your relationship with God. You can be released from ‘automatic behavior’ that interferes with your ability to be the person of faith you want to be. You ability to demonstrate grace and access compassion will be sharpened.
We all have a ‘shadow’ side but knowing what it is and sharing it with God as a means of personal growth is difficult. Many times it is what separates us from experiencing more fully the presence of God in difficult times. Mindfulness helps us to get in touch with all of this and to feel free about sharing it with God. Mindfulness is a prayer without petition as God ‘already knows your needs’.
Samaritan Counseling Center offers mindfulness classes in the spring and fall for both personal and pastoral care. It has broad applications. It can be especially helpful in treating anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances. It can indirectly improve one’s health and become part of a stress management program. People have used mindful exercises, such as mindful eating, to lose weight. Couples can use it to reduce conflicts and connect with each other in a more heart-centered way. Students, artists and athletes have used mindfulness to “think outside the box” and improve creativity.
Samaritan also offers a series of mindfulness classes for personal care directly tailored to the needs of students. Class topics include: basic meditation instruction, centering prayer, the four foundations of mindfulness, working with disturbing emotions, and mindfulness in everyday life.
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