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Mindfulness - Counselling In Richmond

Counselling Richmond | Enduring Mind | Greg Savva

Your mental & physical health is probably the single most important human endeavour for us to attend to. And yet with our values so firmly placed on the diversions of modern – making money, entertainment & new technologies – we rarely take the time to develop our inner lives beyond the material world and our intellectual life. What of meditative reflection? Or attending to our five senses in a mindful, considerate way? What about a more sensitive awareness of our emotional life?

All these things are neglected in the name of 'being realistic'. Time, work and earning cold hard cash. These are modern anxieties. And necessities. But that is not the whole story. We have seen as well as a better standard of living, a longer lifespan and more comfortable lifestyle, we are also paying the cost of not caring for ourselves our showing more compassion to others.

As a human being, as well as a psychotherapist, I share these same struggles and concerns. How do I exercise and stick to a healthy diet? How do I spend time more time with my family? What can I do for others? These are all issues we face when we look into the mirror each morning and ask ourselves have I really achieved what I was put on this planet to do.

There are many defences we can employ to avoid reflecting on these difficult questions. However, the meaning of life is not something to be sneered at or derided as a trivial pursuit, which is somehow beyond our busy and hectic lives. How do we find a balance for exercise, work, art and wellbeing? It is not a difficult conundrum to solve.

We can steal moments here and there to develop a mindful awareness of our bodies and minds. And this is something we need to pass on to the next generation who are ever more prone to the insipid illusions of the virtual world. Rather than wealth, property or any grand inheritance trust, what our children really need to learn is how to be happy in their own skin: to have a sense of self-acceptance. I have developed many ways to help clients find the time and space for mindfulness in their lives.

Counselling In Twickenham - likes Place2be

The Duchess of Cambridge is currently the Royal Patron of Place2Be

The princess recently visited a therapeutic counselling scheme to help children deal early on in their lives with the impact of substance abuse and alcoholism. As the princess is a patron of such a laudible therapeutic organisation I am fully supportive of her in bringing the glare of media attention to this noble cause.

The Duchess of Cambridge recently launched a counselling scheme which aims to reduce the impact of substance abuse addiction on children in Manchester. And i know the area well as I did my teacher training in the very area she visited. So good luck to the staff, volunteers and children at The Willows Primary School in Wythenshawe. I now work at Counselling In Twickenham and Counselling In Richmond areas to help counsel adults and young people with addictions

The new programme is made up of a specialist partnership between two charities; Place2Be and Action on Addiction. The counselling programme is currently piloted in Wythenshawe and Tower Hamlets. Action on Addiction has the expertise to train, supervise and support Place2Be counsellors as they deliver counselling to young people whose lives have been blighted by the misery of drugs and alcohol abuse. In a speech at the school the Princess mentioned: "Addiction is a hugely complex and destructive disease and its impact is devastating. Lives and families can be shattered by it. My hope is through this specialist delivery of care, children of affected parents will have the best possible start in life - one they deserve."

The counselling scheme is also supported by Comic Relief and the Royal Foundation. Statistics prove over more than a million children in the UK live in homes where parental substance abuse has a detrimental impact on their well-being and education. Let's hope the scheme receives enough financial support, kudos and status with her support so that it may survive.

Counselling Richmond | Enduring Mind | Greg Savva | Mindfulness

Counselling Richmond | Enduring Mind | Greg Savva

What is Happening to me now?

You may have asked yourself this question many times before without coming to a satisfactory answer – either because you didn’t have time; you were feeling anxious, or easily distracted. Not having time or space to reflect on our lives, comes at a great cost to us in the modern world. Often we don't even have time to sit and eat with our family, have a quiet conversation with a friend, or enjoy the full restfulness of sleep. This can lead to the build up of stress, illness, anxiety and depression. It can lead to angry outbursts, emotional withdrawal and put us into conflict with friends, children and partners. At Counselling In Richmond, Enduring Mind, if a client wants to I can offer to help bring about self-awareness in counselling through learning from Mindfulness.

Mindfulness is a solution to this. It is a way of being present with ourselves - by paying attention to what is happening to us now. Creating the conditions in body and mind for a state of open-mindedness, by living in the moment. Mindfulness helps us develop an attitude of tolerance and non-judgementalism - with ourselves and others. It helps generate self-acceptance. Replacing rigid patterns of thinking and behaving for a more flexible approach and ability to adapt. It means we stop grasping onto the illusion that things are premanent. And it helps us to let go of our fears - fear of abandonment, discomfort, emotional pain or a world without possessions. We can still live normal everyday lives, but also provide some space and time to train our minds and become more self-aware - letting go of distressing memories from the past and preventing us from projecting our fears into the future. But mindfulness does not come at the expense of living in the real world with all its demands on our time and need to multi-task. You might think of it as a middle way. A sort of centre ground – which allows us to create a more balanced way of being in the world. So what is this elusive quality that could bring about inner peace – I hear you ask. It’s not anything new or esoteric. It’s as ordinary as drinking water or breathing air. A way of acknowledging our instincts and being open to all our senses.

Mindfulness is a way of being present in the living moment. It is about developing a sense of embodied experience. At Counselling In Richmond, Enduring Mind, I help clients to cultivate self-awareness and a state of relaxed concentration in order to step-back and reflect on life. As human beings, we may achieve this when we pay attention to our bodily sensations, or enter a state of meditative reflection. Mindfulness is not unattainable. It is a way of being; available to all us. It has been practiced by virtually all human societies, at all times. Mindfulness is a condition that is hard-wired into the human brain - even as babies we practice it instinctively to make sense of our world. Recent advances in neuropsychology have proved this, but it is a tradition that goes back thousands of years – found among people who develop some kind of reflective practice: such as meditation, prayer, reflection or yoga. But mindfulness does not belong to religion. You may have noticed yourself being caught in a moment of quiet reflection as you studied your natural surroundings, or explored your inner feelings. Only to feel a sense of inner peace, as all aspects of your being coalesced into one unified whole. This sense of union may have happened with a loved one as an intimate moment passed between you; while feeling at one with yourself as you take in the natural world; or even as you noticed your inner reflections bubble up to the surface of your mind.

On my website I have a number of self-help pages a blog and Mindfulness techniques to help with anxiety, depression, PTSD, panic attacks, phobias, compulsive behaviours et.c

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