MINDFUL APPROACHES: 
 

With mindful approaches, clients are asked to notice their inner experience (including body sensations, muscle tensions, sense perceptions, thoughts, beliefs, impulses, feelings, posture, gestures, and various aspects of their personalities) with a spirit of curiosity and acceptance. Using mindfulness and self-study, these messages from within may reveal patterns which were adopted in the past to allow for survival in environments in which clients found themselves. When these patterns persist without conscious awareness into the present, they may cause healthy aspirations to remain underground by numbing them with addictions which can be too subtle to notice, result in extreme emotional expression or actions harmful to one's Self or others, or produce a divided and confused sense of self. However, when these patterns are looked at with a mindful approach, deep lasting transformations and a calm sense of centeredness become possible in the present.

"There is only one single way: go into yourself."     Rilke  (German poet)

"Even during a crisis, when a person's emotions were running high, there would be a difference because of the presence of Self energy. Instead of being overwhelmed by and blending with their emotions, Self-led people were able to hold their center, knowing that it was just a part of them that was upset now and would eventually calm down. They became the "I" in the storm."

     Richard C. Schwartz......founding developer of Internal Family Systems Therapy