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One of the biggest stressors that you may be experiencing is time. In one of the great ironies of life, technologies like the Internet and wireless devices were they were supposed to make life easier and more efficient, but we struggle now with time more than we did before we had these amazing inventions.
It is interesting to compare the original meaning of a word with how it is used today. Sometimes, looking at the original meaning can open up your understanding of a word. The word for today is “cope.” Cope comes from an Old French word that means “to quarrel, to hit or punch, to deliver blows, to engage in combat.”
John Kabat-Zinn defines mindfulness as “paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally” (Full Catastrophe Living, 1994). Each part of that definition is important if you are someone who is struggling with trauma, and the other feelings that go with it, like anxiety and depression.
We all have our own version of stress. When I share with someone that I help people with stress reduction, it is not unusual for them to respond, “I could use some of that.” Stress is something that we all experience; the word has become a term we use for the various struggles and pressures and challenges that we face in life.
In their book, The Mindfulness and Acceptance Workbook for Depression: Using Acceptance and Commitment Therapy to Move Through Depression and Create a Life Worth Living, Kirk D. Strosahl and Patricia J. Robinson describe these two parts of our thinking as the reactive mind and the wise mind. Most likely, the reactive mind is the way of thinking that you are most familiar with. The reactive mind helps to make sense of the world around you.
