I have been just posting random thoughts about the divine up to this point, meditate on angels, be mindful, smile, value civil rights, but I am thinking I am going to change the blog to reflect on the uses of spirituality in mental health. Obviously there is a component of action by people who believe in God to take action to work for good in society, social justice, but there is also the concept that spirituality can be very useful in mental health for the individual working to live a sane productive meaningful life.
A first reflection on this is mindfulness as a tool. Mindfulness has been tried and tested as a cure for mental distress. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy founded by Marsh Linehan is one methodology of application of mindfulness specifically to Borderline Personality Disorder. It is also widely tested as stress reduction in Mindfulness Based Stress reduction by Jon Kabat Zin.
For myself as a Muslim, I often struggle with exactly how to apply mindfulness. I often want to try to contain all the endless variations of mindfulness into one little practice to work for my mental health, usually trying to do vipassana mediation, and watch my breath. But then I get distracted and start doing loving kindness meditation or start breathing in and out one of the names of Allah.
Chanting the names of Allah, remembrance of Allah is a very useful sort of meditation and I find it very helpful. Sending blessings on the prophet also has proven to be a source of great help to me.
I think the place I am at with it is I need both. I need meditation where I just work on my concentration, so that I can focus my mind better and I also need to spend time remembering Allah to focus my heart to the Creator. Also I find trying to continually reflect on the signs around me, the creation and see God's messages in creation is important. This last one is one that is mentioned extensively in the Quran.
More reflections on mindfulness to follow, as well as the uses of the spiritual in social work for client and counselor.
A first reflection on this is mindfulness as a tool. Mindfulness has been tried and tested as a cure for mental distress. Dialectical Behavioral Therapy founded by Marsh Linehan is one methodology of application of mindfulness specifically to Borderline Personality Disorder. It is also widely tested as stress reduction in Mindfulness Based Stress reduction by Jon Kabat Zin.
For myself as a Muslim, I often struggle with exactly how to apply mindfulness. I often want to try to contain all the endless variations of mindfulness into one little practice to work for my mental health, usually trying to do vipassana mediation, and watch my breath. But then I get distracted and start doing loving kindness meditation or start breathing in and out one of the names of Allah.
Chanting the names of Allah, remembrance of Allah is a very useful sort of meditation and I find it very helpful. Sending blessings on the prophet also has proven to be a source of great help to me.
I think the place I am at with it is I need both. I need meditation where I just work on my concentration, so that I can focus my mind better and I also need to spend time remembering Allah to focus my heart to the Creator. Also I find trying to continually reflect on the signs around me, the creation and see God's messages in creation is important. This last one is one that is mentioned extensively in the Quran.
More reflections on mindfulness to follow, as well as the uses of the spiritual in social work for client and counselor.
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