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.

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

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

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

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

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.”

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.

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.