Stress Management - Mindfulness
Bringing awareness to your health

Even in the midst of living with stress, pain, illness and feelings of being disheartened, overwhelmed, angry or frightened, you can help restore and balance your health and well being in all aspects of your body and mind, heart and soul. It is a way of learning to relate directly to whatever is happening in your life, a way of taking charge, of doing something for yourself that no one else can do for you. It is a way to consciously and systematically work with your challenges.

Mindfulness is an adventure in healing and transformation. The easily learned techniques support stress management and optimize your ability to handle life’s inevitable difficulties and changes with acceptance and grace.

Mindfulness involves holding your experience in awareness by tenderly attending to whatever arises—by opening to the present moment as it is, rather than as you want it to be. This practice is simple and profoundly illuminating. Fortunately, mindfulness is not something you have to “get” or acquire. It is already within you—a deep, internal resource, available and patiently waiting to be used in the service of learning, growing, healing…and inner peace.

A student of mindfulness since 1990, Kathleen includes its information, practices and suggestions as part of your treatment. We all sometimes require gentle reminders or encouragement to cultivate greater mindfulness in every aspect of our daily lives.

Benefits
• Decreases anxiety
• Enhances sleep quality
• Boosts energy, reduces fatigue
• Improves concentration
• Reveals mental patterns
• Transforms difficult emotions at their
   roots
• Gives a sense of the essential self
   beneath personality
• Incorporates loving kindness,
   compassion and forgiveness into
   work and life

Kathleen highly recommends the 8-week Mindfulness-Based Program (Link) offered locally at Dominican Hospital and Santa Cruz Medical Foundation, taught by Bob Stahl Ph.D. and Karen Zelin. For other locations and information, see Center for Mindfulness-UMass Medical Center.

The National Institute of Health's National Center for Complementary and Alternative Medicine has researched the efficacy of mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) in promoting healing. Studies have found that use of drugs for pain decreased and activity levels and feelings of self-esteem increased for a majority of participants. The MBSR program began at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center in 1979 and is now offered in more than 200 medical centers, hospitals, and clinics around the world.

“Mindfulness is the basis for wise action. When we see clearly what is happening in the moment, wisdom can direct our choices and actions, rather than old habits simply playing out our patterns of conditioning.” –Joseph Goldstein, Co-Founder, Insight Meditation Society