According to my Personality Prof, Mindfulness is the opposite of experiential avoidance.

For those of you that aren't familiar with Experiential avoidance, it is defined as a psychological process whereby a person is unable or unwilling to tolerate particular private experiences such as memories, feelings, and thoughts.

So hypothetically speaking, if you are practicing mindfulness, you are trying to counteract this avoidance.

My question then is... can you avoid things while being mindful?

I'm taking a Mindfulness course right now, and for the most part, we're focusing on neutral stimuli as a means to hold our attention - i.e., breathing, body scans, etc. The counsellor who is running this group sometimes says that if we feel comfortable, we can focus on something that it meaningful to us. Now that could be a relationship, or an event... and it can be either positive or negative.

Also, in mindfulness, you're not suppose to let the "story build up" as you are supposed to simply be observing it without judgment.

So when I go to try and focus on something, I can't help but let the story unfold, and more times then not, it only makes things worse because I get into thinking about things again.

That being said, am I not then still experientially avoiding something while being Mindful? And if I can't even try and "work on" these problems through mindfulness, how can I possibly try and overcome them?