Mindweather 101:
Navigating Mental & Emotional Distress
TABLE OF CONTENTS
GETTING STARTED
Class Background 2
Class Introduction 5
I. MAKING SENSE OF THE PROBLEM
a. Lesson 1. The brain’s role in mental distress: One view 8
b. Lesson 2. What we believe about the brain matters. Part one 11
c. Lesson 3. The brain’s role in mental distress: Another view 16
d. Lesson 4. What we believe about the brain matters: Part two 20
e. Lesson 5. Just being there: Insights for family and friends 25
f. Lesson 6: Different ways of thinking about recovery 32
II. RESPONDING TO THE PROBLEM
a. Lesson 7. One way of responding to mental distress 40
b. Lesson 8. Can making it “go away” make it worse? 44
c. Lesson 9. Another way of responding to mental distress 51
d. Lesson 10. Surrounded with gentle acceptance: More for family and friends 69
e. Lesson 11. Can a gentle approach make a difference for mental and emotional pain? 78
III. WORKING WITH DIFFICULT THOUGHTS
a. Lesson 12. One way of thinking about thinking 89
b. Lesson 13. Re-thinking thinking 96
IV. BROADENING THE CONVERSATION
a. Lesson 14. Exploring the full range of contributors to mental/emotional distress 112
b. Lesson 15. Considering the full range of options 119
FINISHING UP
Class Conclusion 133
GLOSSARY
A – Z terms 134
CLASS BACKGROUND
“As night follows day and day night, the mountain just sits, simply being itself . . . At times visited by violent storms, buffeted by snow and rain and winds of unthinkable magnitude, through it all the mountain sits. Spring comes, the birds sing in the trees once again...streams overflow with waters of melting snow. Through it all, the mountain continues to sit, unmoved by the weather, by what happens on the surface.” –Jon Kabat-Zinn, Wherever You Go, There You Are, 1994, 137–138
Sometimes the weather is sunny. Sometimes the weather is stormy. And sometimes a tornado hits. It’s kind of the same in the mind and body. Depending on the day, and even the moment, different thoughts and feelings come and go like weather patterns in the sky. At certain points, the mind and heart can be pushed so far that extreme mental and emotional states arise:
depression. . . panic . . . addiction . . . mania . . . bingeing . . . delusions . . . hallucinations.
“I was so devoid of hope—so devoid of hope—and felt so alone . . . my world had become so small that I didn't see any light at the end of the tunnel.”
–Woman reflecting on previous mental illness
Amishi Jha, PhD, Cognitive Neuroscientist, University of Miami: “When you’re actually in these negative storms that can last months and even years, it’s very hard to think that it’s possible to step outside of it. It is your world.”
Troubling thoughts and distressing emotions aren’t anything new, of course. But some research studies suggest that in the complexity of the modern world, the number of individuals facing mental and emotional disorder is increasing . . . and not just because we’re more aware of these problems.
“When I was about 4 or 5 years old, my father began to molest me. When I was 16, I was raped by a boy I was dating. A year later, I was diagnosed with schizoaffective disorder.”
–Ann Rider, CEO, Recovery Empowerment Network
For any person who goes through something like this, it would be abnormal not to hurt so badly. When we go through really hard experiences, hurting this bad can actually mean we have a depth and sensitivity to us that is responding to the reality of a painful situation. In other cases, overwhelming mental or emotional pain can seem to hit us out of the blue, in ways that are not proportional to surrounding events. Whatever the reasons, severe mental and emotional pain can come to overwhelm any of us.
Tom McConkie, Cofounder, All of Life: “It was just a disaster, I was a time bomb that went off at adolescence. And by the time I was 15–16, that’s when the problems were so pronounced that they were starting to manifest in upsetting ways. I first started seeing doctors and they diagnosed me with from depression, to anxiety disorder, to hyperactivity. I describe myself at that time in my life as a miserable human being.”
Vicki Overfelt, Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction Teacher: “Right around age 30 I was teaching—I had been teaching in private schools—and you know, just sort of the typical profile of not making a lot of money, and having incredible schedules. It was an interesting phase for me, because the anorexia peaked and I got very, very thin. And also during that time, I began to experience anxiety and depression and a phase where I felt just out of control, like I didn't quite know how to get a grip on all that was going on, and I couldn't quite handle it.”
Whoever it happens to hit, whatever exactly it is, and however it arises, the collective mental and emotional pain in the United States and across the world is enormous.
Motivated by the possibility of reducing some of this mental and emotional pain, an enormous research effort composed of hundreds of scientists has taken place—and continues today. In the last twenty years alone, literally hundreds of thousands of studies have explored many contributors to these problems and how best to encourage healing and relief.
To give you a sense of what we're talking about, our own search of a major medical database shows that from 1940 to 2012 there were over 100 thousand research and scholarly articles on depression alone, 99 thousand exploring anxiety disorders, 42 thousand on eating disorders, and 23 thousand looking at ADHD.
With the sheer number of studies done, you might expect that the amount of mental and emotional burden around us is decreasing. Instead, the scope of these problems seems to be getting worse. Depression, for instance, has become the “leading cause of disability in the U.S. for ages 15–44,” and the fourth highest source of the “global disease burden." Research confirms higher levels of anxiety, and a literal eating disorder “epidemic." Ever-rising cases of attention problems also now plague both youth and adults. And in some areas of the world, even delusional problems have risen in recent decades.
So what’s going on here? Answers to that question are not so simple and deserve some patience and careful consideration. Meanwhile, many who face mental and emotional pain remain stuck in a pattern of getting by day by day, with their problems not fully resolved and feeling only partially well.
“My life really had shrunken to the point where I just saw myself as mostly this mentally ill person who would be dependent on psychiatrists and therapists to get through life. . . . I was told by one professional, ‘Maybe one day you'll get your life together enough that someone will marry you. . . . Maybe you'll have a job one day." –Woman reflecting on previous mental illness
Have you or one of your loved ones ever felt similar discouragement? This class was inspired by seeing way, way too much of this—including in our own family and friends—including in us.
Do mental or emotional problems have to feel this hopeless?
Do distressing thoughts and emotions have to control our lives?
Amishi Jha, PhD, Cognitive Neuroscientist, University of Miami: “For people that are really struggling, that are feeling a sense of real hopelessness, that the storm is overpowering: that they just leave the door open a little bit for the possibility that there’s something you can do.”
Are you open to exploring some new possibilities?
Tom McConkie, Cofounder, All of Life: “What I’m talking about is a kind of courage, and a kind of sincerity, where you look at your life and you’re willing to just see what’s there. And you realize in doing so, that where you are really losing your energy, what was really causing your suffering—what you didn’t realize was causing you to suffer—was all the energy you were spending on avoiding, all the energy you were spending on resisting. When you stop resisting, when you stop avoiding, and you look—you open your closet and look at that bogeyman, and you realize that you’re equal to that task, and that you can look at it and it won’t destroy you. It’s a willingness to hold your life--all of your life in awareness. It empowers you to take account and to start moving in a direction that feels right.”
Are you ready to take a look at ALL of your life?
CLASS INTRODUCTION
Mindweather. What are we talking about? In this class we use the word ‘’mindweather” to capture the wide spectrum of mental and emotional experiences we face as human beings. This includes easy, comfortable moments and others that are hard, where turbulence can hit us out of the blue.
“Hi everyone, my name is Vicki, and I'll be helping to teach the class that you've just signed up for. Welcome!”
“And I'm Tom . . . also happy to be helping with this class.”
“And I'm Jacob. I'll also be helping out with the class, giving Tom and Vicki a break once in awhile. Thanks for joining us.”
With the help of nearly thirty-five other researchers and professionals, we’ve created this class because we know we’re not the only people who have hurt emotionally in intense ways.
If you’re watching this video, chances are you have experience with emotional turbulence or mental distress either in your own life or in the life of a friend or family member.
This class is actually for two groups of people: those facing some kind of painful mental or emotional distress, and those who are supporting them. Although the class discussions are definitely set up for adults, the ideas we will be exploring are relevant to people of different ages. So whether you, your child, or someone else you know is hurting, feel free to apply what you learned in whatever way makes sense to you.
By the way, we’re going to be talking about lots of different kinds of mental and emotional distress: from depression and anxiety to ADHD, eating disorders, and even delusion. This is on purpose. Although many differences exist between the various kinds of mental disorders, there are also surprising commonalities, and some general principles and patterns that span conditions.
Whatever it is you or your loved ones face, we’re sure you’ve already tried different things and learned plenty on your own. You've also probably experimented with different treatments or services and hopefully found some that are helpful.
Our aim is certainly not telling you what to do or making specific recommendations about your situation necessarily. Those are questions only you can settle for sure, with your loved ones and any professionals you trust along the way. We trust you and respect your space to do that. We’re not here to lecture or to tell you what to think.
Instead, our aim in this class is simply to help you think more carefully about some of the core questions and issues at the heart of mental and emotional disorder. By exploring this together, we’ll all come away learning something from the conversation. And trust us—there’s plenty to talk about!
As you may already know, discoveries in neuroscience and genetics over the last twenty years are revolutionizing how we think about mental illness—questioning what we used to believe and introducing some new, exciting possibilities for anyone facing these problems.
For example, have you heard that the brain can change over time? How about the new genetics research that shows gene expression turning on and off, depending on what we do? Or what about the research on mental health and nutrition, or exercise, or sunlight, or sleep, or media, meditation, or relationships? Interestingly enough, there’s very little public awareness about any of this. And that’s where we come in.
What we’ll be doing in this class is opening a broader conversation about mental health conditions and what to do about them.
In total, there will be fifteen separate discussions or lessons organized into these four sections.
To be specific, then, our exploration will center around two key questions currently being asked by millions facing these problems: First, where are these problems coming from? Why am I, or my partner, or my son, brother, friend struggling so much? The first section of the class will explore these issues.
Then we’ll move on to a second basic question: How can we best respond to, and attempt to work with these kinds of mental and emotional problems? What kind of help can I offer my friend, family member—or myself—to really start feeling better: and not just for a good week or two. The rest of the course covers this ground—in three additional sections.
You may be tempted to skip ahead. Since the later lessons build on earlier ones, we recommend you take the class sessions in order.
You may also wonder about trying to get through the whole class in one day. We don't recommend that, either. Think of your favorite television show. Did you ever try watching the whole season in one night? Probably not. In the same way, by taking the time to process each class, you’ll definitely get the most out of it.
Although you'll be hearing from each of us—Tom, Jacob, and Vicki throughout—we've also interviewed nearly thirty-five others, including researchers who have studied these problems, practitioners who have worked with them, and individuals who have faced them.