ABOUT US

Mindfulness-based Counseling Since 2011

Since 2011, the Austin Mindfulness Center has been dedicated to mindfulness-based therapy and education. Everything we offer is designed to help you gain clarity, build practical skills, and live a life that feels fulfilling.

We offer individual, couples, and child and teen therapy to help you build a kinder view of yourself, form connected relationships, and move toward what matters to you. We accept many types of insurance to keep our services accessible — and if you don’t have insurance or are looking for affordable therapy, we have several options for you.

Our north office has been in the Arboretum area since 2011. We opened a second location in south Austin near the intersection of Mopac & Southwest Pkwy in January 2023. Read the announcement in Community Impact.

Wherever you are on your journey, our services are designed to help you gain clarity in your life, empower you with knowledge and skills, and support you in living a fulfilling life.

Facing difficulty is part of being human. Often the real struggle isn’t the problem itself, but the ways we have learned to respond to it. Trying to escape what hurts can make it loom larger, leaving us with quick fixes that don’t hold.

We believe mindfulness offers another way. When you can meet your experience — including difficult emotions — with steadiness and curiosity, what felt unmanageable begins to soften. It’s an approach that brings relief now and skills that last: a healthier way to move through life’s ups and downs.

Here are a few of the reasons that mindfulness works so well for mental health and healing:

• Increased Awareness: Mindfulness helps in developing a heightened awareness of one’s thoughts and feelings. This awareness enables individuals to recognize and understand their mental patterns, leading to better emotional regulation.
• Stress Reduction: Regular mindfulness practice has been shown to reduce stress and anxiety. By focusing on the present moment, mindfulness helps in alleviating the worry often associated with past or future events.
• Emotional Regulation: Mindfulness aids in managing emotions more effectively. It encourages acceptance of feelings without judgment, which can lead to more balanced and stable emotional responses.

This is wonderful news for all of us!

Still, changing how you relate to your thoughts, feelings, and perspectives is hard to do alone. Most of us have been responding in automatic, instinctual ways for a long time.

That’s where we come in. The therapists at Austin Mindfulness Center will come alongside you — helping you understand where you’re stuck, struggling, or suffering; teaching you mindfulness skills that can loosen the grip of whatever is holding you back; and walking with you as you weave those skills into your daily life.

We’re glad you found us. Reaching out is often the hardest step — and it’s a meaningful one.

Please reach out and schedule an appointment today.

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is paying attention to the present moment without judgment and with an open and curious intention. It is a way of cultivating a part of your brain that can observe without reactivity or the need to avoid or escape what is there in the present moment.

Most of us have been conditioned to operate in the “doing” mode of mind. It’s familiar, it gets things done, and it lets much of life run on autopilot. That isn’t always bad — but on autopilot, you may be functioning “okay” on the outside without really being present for your life. Your mind is off in the past or the future instead. And when the past holds regret or pain, and the future holds fear or anxiety, you experience those things as if they were happening right now. They aren’t. That gap is where a lot of suffering lives.

On the other hand, the “being” mode of mind simply observes, but also disengages the brain activity that elicit emotional reactivity, worry, panic, hopelessness, depression, and many other negative patterns of your mental life. By engaging the being mode of mind, you create psychological flexibility and thus, more options, and more freedom.

Benefits of Mindfulness

Regular mindfulness practice has been proven to provide the following benefits:

• Less stress
• Increased working memory
• Better focus and attention span
• Lower anxiety and depression
• Less emotional reactivity
• More cognitive flexibility
• Positive affect (good mood)
• Quicker recovery following fight/flight response
• Increased immune functioning
• Increased capacity for empathy