Can you find healing for bipolar disorder in spirituality? The Buddhist teachings of spiritual balance help reduce the symptoms of bipolar disorder through meditation, mindfulness, and being in a spiritual community.
By applying these practices, you can develop inner strength, enhance your focus, and maintain your well-being while facing the ups and downs of bipolar disorder. This approach provides a holistic framework for wellness that can be used alongside medical treatment. It empowers you to transform your life, cultivate resilience, and find inner peace and well-being during the challenges of bipolar disorder.
Meditation for Alleviating Bipolar Disorder Symptoms
The first principle focuses on the power of meditation as a tool to help alleviate bipolar disorder symptoms and maintain emotional balance. Meditation involves practicing singularly focused awareness, which helps you become more aware of your thoughts and emotions. Having a regular meditation practice has been found in a 2019 study to have a positive impact on those suffering bipolar disorder symptoms. It was seen to help alleviate guilt, depressed moods, and helplessness-hopelessness. Meditation creates a heightened awareness that allows for better self-regulation and management of the extreme mood swings associated with bipolar disorder.
Practicing Meditation
To meditate is to stop all thoughts. The key instruction for meditation is that simple; just stop thought. It’s also important to talk about what meditation is not. It is not spacing out, sleeping, or being dissociated so that your awareness descends to a place devoid of cognitive thought. When meditating, it’s important to be awake, aware and fully engaged to stop thought.
What does meditation feel like? It can feel like that feeling while watching a sunset, sitting by the ocean, or walking in nature. To be completely in the moment, and having a feeling of peace, connection, and well-being. Meditation is a period of time when you invoke that experience and still your thoughts.
It can be helpful to add meditation to both morning and evening routines. By regularly engaging in meditation in the morning, you can learn to still your mind and prepare yourself for the day. This heightened awareness can enable you to recognize the onset of mood shifts and implement coping strategies to prevent them from escalating.
Meditating at night allows you to release all of the thoughts and impressions of what has occurred during the day. This can help you relax and rebalance from the highs and lows experienced that day.
Mindfulness for Boosting Focus and Improving Symptoms
A 2017 systematic review of Mindfulness-Based Treatment for Bipolar found that Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has had meaningful impact on individuals experiencing bipolar disorder. Specifically, the review of the 13 research studies has shown that mindfulness could be a promising treatment alongside pharmacotherapy.
Of the adults studied, they found that mindfulness is associated with improved cognitive functioning, improved emotional regulation, and a reduction in symptoms associated with both depressive and manic symptoms. Further, these treatment gains were maintained at 12 months, and in one study, for up to three years when mindfulness was practiced for at least 3 days per week.
Practicing Mindfulness for Improved Well Being
Mindfulness is the practice of constantly grooming your mind of negative thoughts and emotions. It encourages you to watch your mind, stay rooted in the present moment, and constantly hold positive thoughts that serve your well-being. It is choosing to be positive about life at every moment.
Practicing mindfulness eventually leads to the mastery of the mind. This means that you can learn to control the darker, harmful tendencies that might arise in depression, and also temper and balance the highs and anxiety associated with manic symptoms – reducing anxiety and preventing depressive episodes. It means, as we watch our minds, to only hold the brightest and most expansive and grounded thoughts in any difficult, mundane, or anxious situation. Choosing to practice mindfulness is acknowledging that you can notice the thought patterns in your mind and direct them to happier or more balanced thoughts and experiences of well-being.
Practicing mindfulness starts with having a positive awareness of all of your thought patterns. And when something negative happens or we feel depressed – it is remaining balanced and positive. For example, if you were crippled in a car accident and bound to a wheelchair for life, it would be silly to think “Ok, I’ll be on my feet and running next week!”. Instead, in practicing mindfulness, you can see the reality of the situation. And then be positive about finding the best path forward. For example, one can direct their thoughts to think, “I’m lucky to be alive. Although I can no longer walk, there are so many things I can do. I can paint, or learn a new skill at work, and still be active and live a fulfilling life.”
As the Buddha said, “As the fletcher whittles and makes straight his arrows, so the master directs his straying thoughts.” Mindfulness helps you face reality with a true perspective and find the best and brightest path forward that supports your life and well being.
Our minds are not in any particular fixed state – but are malleable and take whatever form you put it in to. By practicing these techniques, mindfulness can serve as a valuable tool for healing and managing bipolar disorder and promoting emotional stability in everyday life.
Supportive Community
The final observation of spiritual balance involves the importance of joining a spiritual community to aid in the healing process of bipolar disorder. It is helpful to have a strong network of positive friends to better support you through your symptoms.
Being part of a community of spiritually like-minded individuals also provides essential emotional support and a sense of belonging. When dealing with bipolar disorder, one often faces isolation, stigma, and feelings of being misunderstood. Joining a spiritual community offers a safe space where you can share your experiences and receive encouragement. This sense of community helps reduce feelings of loneliness and alienation, which can trigger depressive episodes. By connecting with others who are also striving for emotional balance and spiritual growth, you can find solace, strength, and shared wisdom to effectively manage your condition.
Chakra Healing Meditation
Let’s conclude with meditation. This meditation focuses on healing benefits for alleviating symptoms of and improving cognitive function for those who have bipolar disorder. This meditation channels healing light and energy through the heart chakra. By practicing this meditation regularly, you can promote emotional stability and inner balance.
Steps:
1. Find a quiet and comfortable space to sit. Close your eyes and take a few deep breaths to relax.
2. Focus your attention on the heart chakra, located in the center of your chest.
3. Visualize a vibrant green light at the heart chakra, radiating warmth and healing energy.
4. With each inhale, imagine this green light expanding and growing brighter, filling your entire chest area.
5. As you exhale, release any tension or negativity stored within your heart chakra, allowing it to dissolve into the light.
6. Continue this visualization for several minutes, breathing deeply and evenly.
7. Now, repeat the affirmation: “I am emotionally balanced and at peace. My symptom are healed.”
8. Visualize any emotional imbalances or mood swings being replaced by a sense of calm and positive stability.
9. Imagine this healing energy spreading throughout your entire body, bringing harmony to your emotions.
10. Stay in this meditative state for as long as you feel comfortable, focusing on the affirmation and the healing green light.
11. When you are ready to finish, take a few deep breaths and open your eyes.
Regular practice of this Chakra Healing Meditation can support you in managing bipolar disorder by promoting emotional equilibrium and fostering inner peace.
In conclusion, the principles of spiritual balance: mindfulness, meditation, and community emphasize the importance of harmonizing spirituality and positively dealing with the stresses of the modern world for bipolar disorder wellness.
Thanks for reading!
Be well,
Ahjan Samvara
Dear reader, if you enjoyed this article and meditation, I’d like to invite you to explore my YouTube channel. I have more content tailored to facilitate healing for those with mental illness and challenges.
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