Activating the Present Moment: Mindfulness in Behavioral Health

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October 26, 2018
Written by: Stephanie Catalano, LCSW

Activating the Present Moment: Mindfulness in Behavioral Health

Tired of living in the sadness of yesterday and the worries of tomorrow? Stop and really think about that. How many times today have you found yourself upset about something that happened days ago or worried about what might happen tomorrow?
Life gets busy and more often than not, people are going at a fast pace, making it difficult to stay in the present.

As human, we like to be in control and it’s always really interesting how people try to control everything that is external of them. This typically leads to anxiety, something that most experience or have experienced. While sure, humans are conditioned to respond a certain way to certain stimuli, but this also means, humans can be re-wired or re-programmed if willing to put forth the effort and work it requires.

Mindfulness, is one practice that can alleviate anxiety and other unpleasant feelings as it is a psychological process of bringing one’s attention to experiences occurring in the present moment. This practice helps you become more aware of your thoughts, emotions, environment, feelings, and sensations in any given moment. To be mindful is to acknowledge your thoughts and feelings without judging them as good or bad.

If Mindfulness is introduced early in Behavioral Health as an intervention it can lead to great results for the person seeking treatment and healing as it is a way to reconnect with one’s own mind, body, and spirit. Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) are two effective ways to improve mental health conditions such as anxiety and depression, reduce stress, balance emotions, learn cognitive skills to counter negative thoughts, and increase self-esteem.

Contact Agape Wellness Centers today!

Hope Medicine

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By: Benjamin Dobbs- Liberty University –BS / AA-Biblical Studies

Executive Director

In our 3- Phase Partial Hospitalization and Intensive Outpatient Program at Agape Wellness Centers, we offer solutions to hopelessness through Spiritual Faith Based Rehab, which we call Spiritual Hope Medicine, for Addiction Help. When reviewing a source for rehabilitation and addiction medicine, I discovered in my career, by mass encountering with individuals’ struggling with addictions, primarily with substance abuse, a common distinctive factor arose. That medicine can come in a form of a simple message of hope.  Let us examine some different perspectives on science and the word substance. Science as according to the World Wide Web resources is defined as the following: The intellectual and practical activity encompassing the systematic study of the structure and behavior of the physical and natural world through observation and experiment (dictionary). So hope is a message that develops within a person, can become a behavioral and physical expression, which in terms grants science to have a defined foundation in the meaning and attributes of hope. The word substance can be defined in some languages as just simply existing, and then the word medicine is written to be utilized from a substance in treating.

So, our medicine can be a spiritual substance that promotes hope with influence to our scientific behaviors. In point, I am a grateful advocate for medication stabilization, or MAT – medication assistance treatment, when treating individuals’ with substance abuse addiction. But, I believe that medicine can be a healing substance, found in a form of past experiences, which enter a realm of spirituality or character building information, developing an internal substance that becomes tangible with hope becoming the medicine.

Introduction:

The exploration of life can be a journey, one of meaningful events that will always serve a purpose, either in the here and now, or in the latter stages of the days to come. In some ways we can examine the outcomes by our own part or piece we present through our daily living display or what role we play in the specific details of the events, but in actuality some events are not for us, but for others to receive the benefits. Through my personal journey in life I have been through challenges, obstacles, difficulties, and struggles.

The pin pointing monument was being able to overcome them, but not until I was able to defeat the strong man, then deal with the strongholds and at that moment in the journey the challenges, struggles, obstacles, and difficulties became victories. I was given Grace to overcome a long period and many seasons, in fact 15 years of the struggle to addiction. When this occurred it was only by connecting to God and exploring an in-depth relationship with Him, placing all trust, hope, and faith in His promises and purpose. In those times of struggle during the deliverance process I started to feel a sense that God had a bigger plan for my life and addiction was going to be a piece of the puzzle, but not afflicting me, but teaching others how to overcome the battle of addiction. It wasn’t until having one year of sobriety that I began to notice the plan slowly being revealed into my spirit. I knew it was ministry, but didn’t understand quite yet it would also be a career. It is absolutely amazing how God can turn a negative outcome and present it to be turned around into a positive outcome. The scriptures state we our overcomers by the blood of the lamb, and the word of our testimony.

I can freely say that not a day goes by in which I don’t get a chance to think or speak about my testimony, but it is no longer mine it is the Lord’s and to be used for my service unto Him to help others overcome. In my meditation moments I have come to realize that it is no longer the overcoming, but it is now the journey of having the understanding to help others in difficult seasons of their lives.

The Benefits:

Through it all, the character that God has designed within me, is truly a breath of fresh air, that can be breathtaking itself when it is deeply known of where I was, and where I am with Him today. The fruit of the Spirit is truly God’s that He allows us to be partakers of to benefit others and be a true statement of the supernatural transformation process that the wonderful creator displays from within our human souls. The acknowledging of personal qualities has to be also a moment of self-examination and self-awareness to be humbly reviewed and explored also with proven confidence that others acknowledge in agreement that you hold onto some of the dearest character given freely to you through the determination of enduring trials that have made you who you are.

The counseling profession calls for an utmost of personal character qualities of integrity, along with diligence, compassion, understanding, emotional intelligence, gentleness, discernment, kindness, communication skills, ethics, morals, patience, and most of all Love. I personally have made an attempt to continue to dig deeper into God to have these eternal qualities, to be not only a component of my mind and heart, but a permanent fixture. The lifestyle of addiction can be a place of despair, darkness, depression, anxiety, fear, and unhealthy relationships fueled with jealousy, hatred, anger, codependency, and a place to hide and find refuge for our insecurities.

I utilize all of my character qualities in most of the encounters with clients, but some might need to be displayed in a case to case basis, not everyone has been what I have been through, and if so not everyone went through the difficult moments as I approached them.

We all are different uniquely and wonderfully made to be different. When counseling it is better to validate with truth and occasionally leave out your circumstances and challenges and present it has a neutral source. Meaning instead of saying “What I would do, or what I did”, utilize the advice tool and from a place of presenting the knowledge that your statements are evidence based and not just personal experience.

In Closing:

All of my personal experiences of my past, the present, and future will continue to be utilized, whether I encounter an individual with AIDS, HIV, Hep- C, addiction, cancer, or just everyday struggles. I will always continue to love them the way Jesus loved me during my sickness and dark moments in life, and how He still loves me today,  so I choose to do the same because it will never fail if you approach every person in this character and form of life. There is an occasional hindering process that sometimes occurs, which is when I encounter people that are not willing to put the work in to try to overcome their issues or problems. I have to understand that again not everyone is willing or wanting to whole heartily change. God is and gives us a Spirit of counsel, and through my experiences personal experiences can make some of the most understanding and effective counselors. So spread your message of hope to bring forth the medicine that can improve our rehabilitation and methods of healing.

References:
dictionary. (n.d.). world wide web .
Wikipedia The Free Encyclopedia. (2016, June 4). Retrieved from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_American_Taxation

Faith Based Rehabilitation through Forgiveness

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Faith Based Rehabilitation through Forgiveness

During addiction many afflictions can come about and expose the core issues of attachments from the past situations in life. In the function of emotions and mental influence, we can begin to find through studies and comparison that the deeper underlying issues, rest in the hands of the topics that are being compared, not all issues, but a majority of them do. We will explore the differences between the two subjects, which are: Forgiveness and Un-forgiveness. With so many people in the world today, so much hatred, anger, and selfish ways of the individuals. The scientists along with mental health professionals have now become more open to studying words that are spoken from spiritual and inspirational books. Exploring the outcomes of people that choose to forgive, have been a basis of recent studies involving the above listed professional, with people in need of healing from trauma, drug abuse, mood disorders, and even long-term illnesses.

We have witnessed from the beginning of time, the battle between forgiveness and un-forgiveness, and the way each one will affect an individual in their life. Let us examine first, the attributes of forgiveness, and the following perspectives based in part of my own findings through an individual’s personal experience. Forgiveness is a transformation process, but the key is to release the suffering to unlock the chains to reveal a path to freedom, that will lead us in a direction to increase inner peace, having understanding, and will guide us to find love. Forgiveness is a path to emotional and spiritual freedom, due to the ability of how it frees you from the control of the person who caused the harm. They lose the power to cause you to feel negative emotions. Forgiveness is done first and foremost by the person doing the forgiving. Forgiveness can also break old behavior patterns that might otherwise interfere when you try to create new relationships, most of forgiveness is a choice.

Now, let us expose the attributes of un-forgiveness. It is one of the key components that can and will restrict our abilities to let go of internal hurts and pains. The manifestation of even the thought or holding on to un-forgiveness will lead us to multiplying our internal emotions and thought pattern, into a negative cognitive affect in our feeling and emotional realm of our lives. The ripple affect can be demonstrated as such; un-forgiveness leading to regret, resentments, bitterness, anger, strife, jealousy, depression, isolation, self-affliction, and worst of all hatred. Another affect can be found by the individual processing emotions, as example when someone that may have done something wrong, comes against them either verbally or physically, or in a negative directive towards the individual causing harm or pain. This can and will bury itself down into the spectrum of our being and we will begin to act out of fear in protecting ourselves from suffering the same familiarity emotionally, tying and launching us into our feelings and emotions into past situations. There is now evidence that long-term illnesses are being directed from a source of un-forgiveness, but again choosing to live in this degradation is solely up to the individual. The main topic and focus of this comparison is to release knowledge of both subjects discussed and mentioned in this article to bring awareness to the benefits and harm of just making one simple choice. We have to follow the patterns and listen to our internal dialogue and not give our life away by being held captive by another’s power over us, more importantly not being tied into the bondage of un-forgiveness. The important thing is to recognize that the troubles of the world today began from these two comparisons, which are by people choosing either forgiveness that leads to love and peace, or by people choosing to harbor their un-forgiveness and allowing it to manifest into hatred. In closing, remember the choice is and will always be yours, when choosing either forgiveness or un-forgiveness, I beseech you to go ahead and make the call, and decide what will be prosperous for you.

By Benjamin Dobbs