Mindfulness is about paying attention to what is happening in the present. Even if an emotion belongs to a situation from the past or the future, its energy is always felt in the present. For example, the emotion may be a sense of fear about the future or a sense of anger at someone who has harmed us in the past. The emotional energy is however, always being felt in the here and now. The fear or anger is part of our experience right now. Often we deal with this emotion by getting into the narrative or the story of the situation. That is rarely helpful. The narrative often only worsens the emotion or maybe shuts it down briefly due to rationalization, however the emotional energy is not dealt with. Mindfulness practices train a person to bring wise and compassionate attention to the emotional energy that is present right now and to learn to stay with it. It also helps a person to deal with the body sensations that are associated with the emotion and therefore helps to deeply process the emotion instead of simply rationalizing it away.

Our therapeutic approach is fundamentally holistic. Our therapists don’t only want to help their clients resolve the present difficulties but provide them with insights and coping strategies that will help them with future difficulties. Our intention is that our clients become emotionally resilient and over time need therapy less and less. That they are able to find joy and meaning in their lives and cope with the stresses that are an inevitable part of life. In order to provide such wholesome therapy we use an eclectic approach that is customized to what an individual client needs. Our core approaches are client-centered therapy, cognitive behavioural therapy, mindfulness-based therapy and somatic psychotherapy.

Most mental health issues arise out of an unhelpful ways of thinking, feeling, unhealthy beliefs or actions that are result of our learnings from our past, our life situations, our role models, how powerful or powerless we felt, our trauma and so on, as well as a genetic, family history and bodily disposition towards mental health issues. Mental health difficulties may take the form of depression, anxiety, eating disorders, sleeplessness, addiction, relationship issues and many others and range from severe to mild. In most of these conditions, over time unhelpful messages are given to the body by the brain, things are perceived through a biased filter by the brain, similar neurotransmitters are increased or decreased and slowly the symptoms join together to become a disorder or a habitual wiring pattern in the nervous system. Now the brain works on its own and even if we do not want to have certain thoughts or feelings, we continue to do so, even if we do not want to binge eat or give in to our addictions, there is an internal push. It feels like all this is out of our control. 

Mindfulness can help to change this habitual wiring. This is due to one feature of the brain called neuroplasticity. The brain is always changing and learning. Just as overtime it has learned unhelpful patterns, with mindfulness, focus and meditation it can learn different and more helpful patterns. However, just as it has taken time to learn such unhelpful patterns and to develop into a mental health condition, so it will take time to learn a new pattern to get out of the mental health condition. Some improvement in symptoms is rather quick and can be seen even in a few weeks of regular mindfulness practice. However, complete resolution may take time. Also mindfulness meditation is ideal for mild to moderate mental health conditions. Severe conditions, where self-harm or extreme symptoms are involved, may need a combination of medication and psychotherapy as a treatment of choice. Even in severe situations, mindfulness may eventually be introduced when medication and therapy have helped stabilize the individual. In such cases mindfulness is beneficial for long term recovery as it involves changing the way one relates to one’s thoughts, feelings, beliefs and emotions.