PHILOSOPHY
Mind Anchor Counseling, PLLC was created by Jon Lears to provide psychotherapeutic services for anybody who wants to explore and get to know themselves with the intention of psychological and emotional healing. We as human beings often suffer from mental and emotional pain. We do not particularly enjoy our state of mind in any given moment. We find ourselves perseverating on pessimistic thoughts and getting stuck in negative emotions, sometimes so much that we feel as if we have no ground to stand on while we are blindly navigating our thoughts and emotions. Therefore, it is helpful to anchor our minds to things, or reference points, that help us uncover and reconnect to the ground of stability which already exists within us. These reference points help us reorient to our sanity, our compassion, and our gentle nature, or what the Buddhists call basic goodness.
In some sense, anchoring the mind is a bit of a paradox because there is nothing tangible to anchor the mind to. We anchor our minds to concepts and ideas, but these concepts and ideas only exist within the mind. However, we can find reference points that consist of concepts and ideas that foster acceptance, letting go, and compassion toward self and other. These reference points might be different and unique for each individual, and they may change in time for each individual. Therefore, anchoring the mind is a continuous process and practice.
Though these reference points may vary from person to person and from time to time, here are a few examples of some reference points that can be of help along the way: genuine expression of thoughts and emotions, a core belief in that we as human beings have a gentle nature and are basically good, impermanence of moods and states of mind (that is, all things pass in time, including thoughts, emotions, and moods), and practices that develop an awareness of breath, body, and mind. Not only is the therapeutic relationship a place to explore individualized reference points, but the therapeutic relationship itself can be a reference point that reconnects us to the ground of stability that anchors the mind in fostering acceptance, letting go, and compassion toward self and others.
The therapeutic relationship can be viewed as a healing relationship in which the client, with the therapist, can explore all thoughts and emotions in a safe and confidential atmosphere (please see exceptions to confidentiality in the Disclosure Statement). With practice, time, and trust in the therapeutic relationship, the client begins to feel more and more safe in sharing and exploring these thoughts and emotions, which promotes the development of self-acceptance and self-compassion. This acceptance and compassion extend toward all of the negative thoughts and emotions that we tend to not want to experience, let alone look at. When we are able to develop a sense of acceptance and compassion toward our thoughts and emotions, we can then begin to let go of the judgments that we have toward ourselves… our judgments that we tend to tell ourselves and carry with us throughout our days.
We practice accepting ourselves in any given moment, in any state of mind. This can be a very difficult practice to do, as self-aggression often tends to pervade our minds. But this gives us all the more reason to practice this. We practice being kind to ourselves by allowing ourselves to be however we are in any given moment. The therapeutic relationship can help diffuse this attitude of self-aggression into a presence of softness, gentleness, and kindness toward self and others.