Guest blog by Eli
I’m a 22-year-old studying Chemistry at the University of Bristol. Like many other students (and, I suspect, many non-students), I’ve often felt overwhelmed, stressed, and anxious. Although I still experience these emotions, mindfulness and the .begin course have given me the tools to deal with, understand and accept these feelings.
Although my memory of the time is fuzzy, my journey with mindfulness began in 2013 when my Dad began to practice, and eventually teach mindfulness. Throughout my childhood, I participated in various different activities including two family retreats, a young person’s retreat and MiSP’s own Paws b and .b programs. While it may seem that this consistent exposure would give me a bias towards mindfulness, I actually spent most of my life questioning its effectiveness and believing it was just another fad. It was only in September last year (2023) that I began practising and saw the true benefits that mindfulness can provide.
So what changed?
Last summer, part way through a trip around Europe, my parents informed me over the phone that my sister had an unidentified mass in her arm which could have been cancer. This instantly triggered a flood of anxieties and fears. Not only was I deeply worried about my sister, but a wave of repressed trauma from when my mum had cancer resurfaced.
This led to me cutting my trip short, flying home, and spending the next month shut away being consumed by anxiety and depression. By the time September arrived, and I had to return to Bristol for my third year, the combination of university stress, fear for my sister’s health and it taking three months to discover that it wasn’t cancer, and the resurgence of buried emotions led to me having what I can only describe as a breakdown. I felt powerless and unsure of how to regain control over my life. It was at this time that my Dad told me that there was space on a .begin course if I wanted to give mindfulness another shot. Despite my previous doubts I figured that I had nothing to lose, and as a last-ditch effort to pull myself out of a downward spiral, I joined the course.
I want to be clear here: the .begin course didn’t magically eliminate my anxiety and solve all of my problems. Instead, it gave me a toolkit to understand and deal with the negative thoughts and feelings I was experiencing. Throughout the course we were introduced to a variety of techniques, and while not all of them resonated with me, that was okay. We were consistently taught that not everything works for everyone, and to practice the techniques which work for you – whether it’s body scans, “pausing and stepping back exercises”, or reframing your thoughts. One particular concept that struck a chord for me was the idea of thinking about your life as a movie—where you step back and watch it unfold without getting lost in it. It might sound strange, but for me this simple idea provided a foundation that allowed me to begin pulling myself out of the downward spiral.
Since finishing the course I’ve found that being mindful has shifted my relationship with anxiety and stress. Rather than seeing these feelings as problems to solve, I now view them as part of my experience and find that I can manage them with patience and kindness toward myself. Moving forward, I’d like to deepen my practice. Although I haven’t yet fully committed to a daily formal practice, I know mindfulness will continue to be a valuable resource in my life.
The key takeaway for me is that mindfulness doesn’t provide a magical one-size-fits-all solution, but rather a flexible toolkit to approach life’s challenges with. If you’re considering the .begin course, I encourage you to give it a try. Even if you’re sceptical like I was, .begin offers an accessible introduction to mindfulness and there’s a good chance you’ll find something that resonates with you. Mindfulness won’t solve all your problems, but it can help you approach them with more clarity, acceptance, and patience—and that’s a powerful shift in itself.