The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness

we want to be. Focusing on the mismatch between our idea of the people we want to be and our idea of the people we see ourselves as makes us feel worse than we did in the first place, when the doing mode started its attempts to help.

Jon Kabat-Zinn

rumination is part of the problem, not part of the solution.

Eventually we may reach the point where every moment of sadness is no longer experienced as a whole life that’s going badly—but just as a moment that feels sad.

Here are some examples of possible activities: Washing the dishes Loading the dishwasher Taking out the garbage Brushing your teeth Taking a shower Doing the laundry Driving the car Leaving the house Entering the house Going upstairs Going downstairs

Being mode is the antidote to the problems that the doing mode of mind creates.

Because, in the case of our moods, the very act of focusing on the gap, comparing how we are feeling with how we want to feel (or how we think we should feel) makes us feel unhappy, taking us even further away from how we want to be.

When we ruminate, we become fruitlessly preoccupied with the fact that we are unhappy and with the causes, meanings, and consequences of our unhappiness.

We cannot let go, because the doing mode of mind insists that our highest priority is to sort ourselves out by identifying and solving this “problem.”