Research from Department of Psychiatry, University of Oxford, Warneford Hospital, Oxford UK, published in Behaviour Research and Therapy shows how Mindful meditation can be an effective method to treat and more importantly prevent relapse into depression .
Mindfulness is the common translation from the Sanskrit word smriti, which literally means “remembering”. To re-member or re-collect is to bring back together all the (apparent) disparate parts of one experience into an integrated whole. When one remembers, you pay attention to what is happening. Mindfulness arises in the context of relationship, and in the case of low-self esteem or other negative thoughts, mindfulness is becoming “mindful” of ones content, such as thoughts, emotions, intentions and desires.
Mindfulness is paying and sustaining awareness in a non-judgmental, non-evaluative way to thoughts, feelings and body sensations. This practice enables one to change the way mental events are experienced and therefore enable individuals to “see” that thoughts are not objective facts and are seen as “passing events in the mind that were neither necessarily valid reflections of reality nor central aspects of the self’’
Research suggests, “Cultivating metacognitive awareness may be helpful not only to patients who experience recurrent depression, but also to people with longstanding low self-esteem .
What is metacognitive awareness? Metacognitive awareness is the acceptance that thoughts, assumptions and beliefs are mental events and processes rather than reflections of objective truth.
Change is possible and there are practical methods for achieving the change we desire through cultivating mindfulness.
Reference: Melanie J.V. Fennell, Depression, low self-esteem and mindfulness, Behaviour Research and Therapy 42 (2004) 1053–1067
