In this module I want you to think about bridging exactly the same as a bridge in real life. A bridge is designed to take you over a body of water or a roadway or basically anything that you don’t want to walk on. A bridge is designed to connect two different things that are normally not connectable. In the mindfulness world, I use bridges to teach concepts of mindful thinking.

A very common one out there is something called mindfulness coloring. In this exercise there’s a multitude of coloring books or different sheets you can search online that just allow you to color different shapes or pictures, some of them very intricate and some of them not. If you Google mindfulness coloring a plethora of images will bombard your monitor. Now coloring a picture is not going to make you mindful, but it does start allowing you to use that headspace to see what pops up and it gives you a chance to practice it within a safe environment to be present for those thoughts and emotions and to have them rather than run from them. In this exercise you are asked to color a picture however you choose, and you are asked while you’re coloring to pay attention to your mind and your emotional body and recognize and notice the things that pop up, be it in your mind or in your body. This gives you an opportunity to see and acknowledge them and if you choose you can have a notepad beside your coloring activity to jot down a few notes of why those things are showing up for you and then to move back into the coloring and carry on until the next thought pops up. The hope within this exercise is to see the thought or emotion, acknowledge the thought or emotion, but not engage with the thought or emotion. For many the anxiety of the initial thought coming up in the first place is enough for them to lean into the distraction or try to mute it out or cover it up and in this exercise or bridge we are creating a safe place for you to allow yourself to have the thought and emotion and not be burdened by it. It’s also one of the easiest ways to bring oneself to the present moment when we’re coloring or when we’re focusing on the current moment. We are not stuck within our past or obsessing about the future. We are merely coloring in the color of a cartoon pair of shorts.