by Joe Borders,
Therapist in Roseville, Ca

Mindfulness – Here Comes a Thought

My wife has been really into this tv show called Steven Universe for some time. It’s a pretty good show with a lot of valuable life lessons. Occasionally she listens to songs from it on YouTube. This particular one has stood out to me over the past couple of months. It’s a really good representation of mindfulness.

Mindfulness revolves around being in the moment and recognizing thoughts that arise as nothing more than thoughts, separating your emotional and physical existence from those thoughts. Sometimes we allow ourselves to be negatively affected by thoughts of the past or worry about the future. Mindfulness encourages us to recognize these thoughts as passing, temporary things that don’t have to have power over us. This video represents the fleeting, temporary nature of thoughts through depicting them as butterflies. Simple, passing things that we can give weight to and turn into big problems.

I also really like this video because it has a good message about couples relationships. In the world of Steven Universe two people can merge into one. The two people you see sitting together at the beginning of this video are two fusions; each a merging of a couple. When we allow ourselves to be consumed by worry and/or thoughts of the past we tend to become disconnected from our partners. In fact, that’s actually what happened in the story line around this video. One person involved in a fusion was really worried about something and so she couldn’t stay connected with her partner. This might seem a little abstract, but its a good analogy for the couples dynamic. When we are good we are close. When we worry and suffer we are vulnerable to ruptures in our relationships. EFT couples therapy helps with this by reestablishing connection and teaching us to recognize our emotions, communicate them, and lean towards each other in times of need. Just as in the video, we all need to hear from our partners “I’m here, I’m here, I’m here.”

For more about mindfulness check out my other posts on the subject: http://www.joeborders.com/entries/mindfulness

You can also see my other posts about couples here: http://www.joeborders.com/tags/entries/couples

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