The Mindful Way through Depression: Freeing Yourself from Chronic Unhappiness

Jon Kabat-Zinn

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

Mindfulness is the awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and non-judgmentally to things as they are.

one. If you are not living in peace at this moment, you will never be able to. If you truly want to be at peace, you must be at peace right now. Otherwise, there is only “the hope of peace some day.” —Thich Nhat Hanh, The Sun My Heart

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.”

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

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

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.

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.