mindfulness – Page 6 – Grow Mindfulness

Being Mindful of Breathing

The upgrade version of the Nature Summit provides a number of meditation podcasts that offer a range of guided meditations. In one of these, Mark Coleman – meditation teacher, coach, and therapist – leads a guided meditation on the Mindfulness of Breathing. This is one of three meditations that he offers as an upgrade bonus that normally make up his CD meditation series, The Art of Mindfulness: Meditations for Awareness, Insight, Relaxation and Peace. Mark is a co-founder of The Mindfulness Training Institute and the Nature Summit.

A guided meditation on the mindfulness of breathing

Mark’s meditation on breathing begins with encouraging you to adopt a comfortable position and become conscious of the pressure of your feet on the floor.

He then provides a series of mindfulness activities designed to heighten awareness of breathing and its beneficial effects on mind and body. His instructions for this mindful breathing practice are below:

Begin with a light body scan checking for, and releasing, any point of tension. You can scan the more common places of tension – your shoulders, neck muscles, face and eye muscles, feet and ankles. I find that typically my shoulders are raised and tense, so I have to learn to let go at this stage of the meditation.
You can now focus on an area of your body where you can sense your breathing – it could be the flow of air in and out of your nose, the undulation of your chest or the rise and fall of your abdomen. Try to pay attention to your breath and how you are experiencing it – fast or slow, deep or shallow, long or short. The idea is not to try to control your breath but just observe how it is for you.
Mark suggests that once you have been able to focus on a location of your experience of breathing that you take time to pay full attention to the in-breath and then the out-breath – just focusing on how they are occurring.
You can then move on to observing the gap or silence between your in-breath and your out-breath – lengthening the gap if you desire. Mark notes that during this stage of the breathing meditation (or one of the earlier stages) it is normal to be beset with distractions from your focus on breathing – images, emotions, planning, questioning, going over the past or thinking about the future. He suggests that when you notice a distraction, name it for what it is without self-criticism and return to your focus. He maintains that noticing the distraction and its nature in the moment is actually an act of mindfulness (paying attention on purpose in the present moment and doing so non-judgmentally). By naming the type of distraction, you may actually observe a pattern in your distracted thinking (mine is typically “planning”).
If strong bodily sensations arise, you can put attention on breath in the background while you deal with the sensation such as pain, tingling or soreness. Similarly, if a strong emotion occurs, you can temporarily focus on it, name the emotion, and explore its bodily manifestation. Mark suggests that you avoid letting your thinking about the emotion take over but stick with its actual physical manifestation. Thoughts can reinforce an emotion, embed it more deeply and make it difficult to return to your focus on breathing.

Variations on the theme of mindfulness of breathing

Richard Wolf, author of In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness, discusses the practice of “rhythmic breathing” when exploring the interplay between music and mindfulness. He also offers several breathing practices that involve breathing in-time to music beats such as 4/4 or ¾ time. He suggests that you can develop this further by adopting what he calls the “four-bar sequence” – basically alternating inhalation and exhalation with holding your breath and doing each aspect for the equivalent of four bars.

Richard encourages us to not only observe our breathing closely but notice its sonic qualities as well. He maintains that the process of conscious breathing is a meditative practice that builds mindfulness. He argues that regular practice of breathing meditation linked to music can help us to develop “deep listening”, a skill that underpins quality relationships.

Reflection

Our breath is with us in every moment and by paying attention to our breathing in the ways suggested, we can become more grounded in the present and less disturbed by ups and downs of life. As we grow in self-awareness through breathing meditations, we can deepen our self-awareness and emotional regulation and being more fully present to others through improved concentration and deep listening.

Mark extends the practice of mindful breathing and deep listening beyond our room to outside in nature and the wild. He offers free daily nature meditations as well as Awake in the Wild Teacher Training. He is the author of A Walk in the Wild: A Buddhist Walk through Nature – Meditations, Reflections and Practices.

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group, and the resources to support the blog.

Gaining Support in Difficult Times through Mindfulness

Allyson Pimentel offers a meditation podcast on the topic of “Mindfulness as Support”. In the guided meditation, presented as a teacher at the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), Allyson reminds us of the power of mindfulness to provide a refuge in challenging times, whether the source of difficulty is at home or at work. She suggests that mindfulness, being in the present moment and accepting what is, enables us to navigate troubled waters by helping us to access our inner peace and equanimity and providing the opportunity to experience a wider perspective than a total focus on the present troubles or pain.

Mindfulness as nourishment for carers

Carers have a particularly challenging time as they not only have to deal with their own difficulties but also the suffering and difficulties of others such as Alzheimer’s Disease experienced by a loved on. There is not only the challenge of seeing someone else suffer but also the need to manage the emotional contamination of another’s pain and personal distress.

Allyson reminds us that mindfulness enables us to broaden our perspective beyond the immediate, perceived suffering to other things that are good in our lives and that of others. We can pay attention to the broader environment of sounds and laughter, open our minds to all that we have received in life and that another person has received. This “wider aperture” brings with it appreciation that beyond immediate difficulties and suffering is relief. Allyson likens it to going from the centre of a dark wood to coming to the edge where light streams in and lush green plains open before us.

Extending beyond ourselves

In the guided meditation, Allyson encourages us to think about others beyond our immediate sphere who might be experiencing suffering and personal difficulties, whether that involves pandemic-induced illness, addiction, loss of job or home, disconnection from family and friends, mental illness, or financial difficulties. She suggests that we try to encompass others by focusing on them and their needs and wishing them peace, tranquility, and ease. We can also envisage them offering us empathetic support in return.

Mindfulness as support for business owners

The Smiling Mind organisation reminds us that small business owners can gain support from mindfulness particularly in these difficult times of the pandemic and associated economic difficulties. Small business owners have to deal with the daily challenges of managing their cash flow, engaging and retaining staff, dealing with business uncertainties and political changes, managing multiple demands on their time and skills and establishing a work-life balance. On top of this is the ever-present challenge of maintaining quality relationships at home with partners and children while their minds are full of business-related information and endless to-do lists.

Mindfulness enables small business owners to manage stress more effectively, achieve increased self-awareness and awareness of others, build their powers of concentration and cultivate their creativity. It provides a refuge from daily turbulent waves and a place to recuperate and restore perspective. Mindfulness also helps small business owners to develop resilience, to improve their deep listening skills and their relationships, and to realise much-needed, regenerative sleep.

Smiling Mind, in association with MYOB, offers a free mindfulness app with a special Small Business Program within the “At Work” section of the app. They also have specific blog posts dedicated to how mindfulness can support business owners manage their day-to-day challenges.

Mindfulness as support for people with addictions

In a previous post I discussed how mindfulness through growing self-awareness can break down the “trigger-reward” cycle involved in addiction. I also discussed the barriers to undertake and sustain mindfulness practice to overcome addiction and offered a four-step mindfulness practice to overcome these barriers. In cases of serious addiction, mindfulness can support and reinforce therapies offered by professionals such as psychiatrists, psychotherapists, and psychologists. Just as with trauma healing, people with addictions may need the support of professionals to overcome self-destructive behaviours.

The COVID-19 pandemic while providing some people with relief from time and work pressures and the unsustainable pace of life, has also led to increased alcohol and drug addiction, especially amongst older people such as “Baby-Boomers”. In an interview podcast, Stanford psychiatrist Anna Lembke discussed the adverse impact of the pandemic on mental health as well as increased levels of addiction. She explained that pandemic-related isolation is compounding difficulties for people with mental health issues and addiction and this is in addition to other new life stressors generated by the pandemic, e.g., uncertainties concerning employment and personal health, fear of infection of themselves and loved ones, financial difficulties, the breaking down of established life patterns and thwarting of future plans.

In recognition of the pandemic-induced growth in addiction of all forms, organisations such as ARK Behavioral Health provide a range of services as well as Covid-19 Mental Health and Addiction Resources. Their insight into the adverse impact of alcohol abuse on immunity and vulnerability to COVID-19 infection is illuminating. The pandemic resources provided are comprehensive as are the levels of care that ARK Behavioral Health professionals provide.

DetoxRehabs.net is a resource centre that provides accurate, supportive information and a directory of treatment facilities and rehabilitation services and programs. They also help addicted people and their impacted loved ones to develop awareness about mental health issues through their mental health guide.

Reflection

Destructive emotions such as anger and resentment and related behaviours such as addiction can be injurious to the mental health and happiness of anyone as well as to that of their partners and children. As people grow in mindfulness through regular mindfulness practices, they can experience support to address destructive emotions and addictive behaviours. Mindfulness develops self-awareness and emotion regulation and cultivates conscious choice and wise action. Mindfulness can also provide support and reinforcement for situations where professional help is required to overcome addiction or heal from trauma.

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Image by Rebecca Tregear from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

A Meditation: Valuing the Environment

Diana Winston of MARC, UCLA presented a guided meditation podcast, Earth Day Meditation, to celebrate the environment. Her meditation podcast on Earth Day, April 22 2021, focused on appreciating and valuing the environment through our reflections and actions. She reminded us that mindfulness involves present moment awareness which is often stimulated by nature when we go for a walk in a rainforest, swim in the ocean, spend time near a river or just enjoy our garden – the trees, plants, fresh air and sounds of birds. Mindfulness is enhanced when we develop a sense of wonder and awe in the presence of the beauty of nature.

At one stage in the meditation, Diana asks us to remember the indigenous people who, through their stewardship of the land, preserved what we have to share and experience today. Wynnum in Brisbane, the area in which I live, was named by the local Aboriginal people after the Pandanus Palm or breadfruit tree. The local islands, such as Stradbroke Island, have a rich history of Aboriginal life, closeness to nature and caring for the land and bay. Stradbroke Island is one of my favourite places to visit and relax in its relatively undeveloped beauty. Part of valuing our environment is exploring our local environment history with openness and curiosity.

A guided meditation on the environment

Diana presents a guided meditation focused on the earth and its amazing features and places. She suggests at the outset that we become grounded and pay attention to the sensations in our feet. We might be experiencing tingling, warmth, heaviness, or other sensation. By paying attention to our bodily sensations, particularly in our feet, we can experience a deepening connection to the earth. We can feel the earth’s physical support which enables us to experience the richness of our life and our environment.

Meditating on place

Diana suggests later in the meditation that we focus on a place that is special to us, that engenders positive feelings. We first picture the place and its physical characteristics – the terrain, bird and animal life, significant features, the presence or absence of water. Moving on from capturing the physical aspects of the place that we are paying attention to in our minds, we are asked to capture some of the feelings that this place generates in us.

I found at this stage of the meditation that I focused on our local environment and particularly the Esplanade along the bay where I often walk with my wife. I was able to experience wonder and awe, peace and ease, relaxation and happiness as I pictured myself walking in company along the bayside paths through the trees, adjacent to the marina. I recall the dolphins I saw in the marina and their playful nature. I also felt a sense of connectedness to nature and people as I pictured the natural beauty of the place and people strolling happily along with their dogs, their children, and partners or by themselves. I also felt energised by the images as I mentally explored my immediate environment and felt the energy that surrounded me both in nature itself and the people enjoying the bayside walk.

Reflection

This meditation enriched my appreciation of the environment that I have to experience daily. It made me more aware of the richness of what surrounds me and the connection that I have to others who actively seek out the beauty of our bayside environment. Diana asks us, in the spirit of Earth Day, to commit to one or more micro-gestures to care for our environment as we experience our sense of gratitude.

We often take our environment for granted but it will deteriorate if we do not value it and actively care for it. As we grow in mindfulness through meditating on our natural environment and all that it offers in terms of healing, tranquility, and connection, we can become more grateful for what we have at our doorstep and commit to caring for it.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Turning Your Life Around – a Buddhist Perspective

In her book Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, Tina Turner identifies a number of ways to achieve our full potential and realise happiness in our lives. In a previous post I discussed how she chanted the Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo mantra as a way to tap into her fundamental Buddha nature which releases “limitless courage, wisdom and compassion” to overcome any obstacle or challenge in life. However, along the way she encountered the pull down to a lower life condition created by negative self-stories.

Tina experienced negative self-talk that saw her as not beautiful, not talented, or too fat. These messages were reinforced by her interpretation of her mother’s behaviour – her neglect and desertion as well as her preferential treatment of her sister. We can each develop specific negative self-talk through our experiences of the words and behaviour of our parents, our “friends”, classmates, teachers, or the community generally.

When we entertain these thoughts, they begin to have a life of their own and can be a powerful pull away from the realisation of our potential and our happiness. The strength of these negative thoughts, as in Tina’s case, can be reinforced by the press and/or social media which can be particularly unkind, hurtful, and damaging to self-esteem.

Overcoming the negative self-talk

Tina’s Buddhist beliefs enabled her to see the good in everyone, including herself – to understand the inherent Buddha nature of everyone. This strong belief in the core value and worth of everyone, which can have its origins in any philosophy or religion, can be a strong antidote to negative self-talk.

A key strategy that Tina employed and that is advocated by mindfulness experts such as Jon Kabat-Zin is to assert that “we are not our thoughts” – that we are much more than our limiting self-talk. This recognition and constant affirmation are powerful ways to break free from the holds of negative self-perception.

Tina reaffirms the positive energy and self-talk that is generated by chanting the powerful Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo mantra or other forms of mantra singing. The vibrational energy and resultant healing in mantra singing are confirmed by neuroscientists. Tina maintains that we can each have our own preferred way of tapping into positive energy whether that be singing, listening to music, observing nature, walking or exercising. The important process is to find a way to replace the disabling energy of negative self-talk with the powerful energy of whatever stimulates positive energy and resonance for us.

Reframing our difficulties and challenges

Despite our best efforts to generate positive energy, we can be thrown off balance by life-changing difficulties or challenges such as illnesses, loss of a job, death in the family, deterioration of another family member or other forms of emotional overload. Workload and the challenges of being a carer can add to the tendency to lose our balance and develop negativity.

Tina draws on the work of Nichiren and his restatement of the Buddhist concept of “changing poison into medicine” – turning challenges and setbacks as opportunities for learning and to grow stronger, enhancing our “courage, wisdom and compassion”. When she was about to perform after a night of celebrating the close of a very successful music tour, she was low in energy and high in reticence but found the strength to do her chanting and remind herself that hidden treasures lie in life’s challenges. She went on stage to conduct a highly successful event. She did not let old habits and negative self-talk destroy her positive energy but overcame them through chanting and waking up to the beauty in her life, including the pleasure on people’s faces when they heard her sing.

Reflection

Tina presents a positive approach to dealing with negative self-talk and life’s challenges and setbacks and demonstrates in her own life how to turn your life around, develop resilience and achieve sustainable happiness. There is a general consensus that chanting mindfully is itself a form of meditation that can enhance our capacity to be present in the moment, enrich our inner landscape and increase our inner strength. As we grow in mindfulness, we can experience the ease of wellness, the energy of connectedness and the insight to pursue out life’s purpose and passion.

Tina’s book is enlightening, engaging and enriching. It’s readability and attractiveness is created by her rich story-telling, her openness and her vulnerability.

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Image by Kanenori from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Adversity, Resilience and Happiness: A Chanting and Meditation Pathway

Tina Turner experienced an incredible amount of adversity – an abusive marital relationship, stalled singing career, severe illness (including a stroke and kidney failure), all preceded by adverse childhood experiences (including parents who constantly fought, divorced and abandoned her). At age 34, still in her destructive relationship, Tina discovered Buddhist chanting and meditation and this eventually changed her life, giving her the courage to break off her damaging relationship and launch her solo career. Tina explains her journey in her new book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good.

The chant that changed her life

Tina explains how she discovered the power of the Daimoku – the chanting of the Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. This mantra is central to Buddhist practice and millions of people around the world practise it every day. Orlando Bloom, the English actor, is also a strong advocate and practitioner of this mantra.

Tina maintains that chanting the Buddhist mantra generates vibrational energy and positive Karma in a person’s life. She explains “Karma” as “the sum of all your actions – thoughts, words and deeds” and suggests that it is like a “balance sheet” reflecting the net balance of the positive and negative actions of your life. Karma “determines our dominant life condition”.

Tina maintains that chanting the mantra is doing a workout for your spirit and likens it to a physical workout that conditions you for physical exertion and sporting activities. She suggests that the time spent in daily chanting should be influenced by the level of your karma limitations (excess negative over positive energy), your life condition and the magnitude of your dreams.

Tina writes that she spent many hours a day chanting when she was in a karmic low and experiencing adverse life conditions while still holding onto very big dreams. She found that the very positive results she achieved with her chanting acted as reinforcement to maintain her daily practice. She was, however, able to modify the time spent on chanting as her life became more balanced. Tina suggests that even 15 minutes chanting the Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo mantra each day, can be beneficial for your life condition and the achievement of your dreams.

Buddhist wisdom – the Ten Worlds

In her book, Tina introduces the “Ten Worlds” of Buddhism that describe our “life condition” and likens them to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. She explains that our life condition encompasses our thoughts, moods, and our overall wellbeing which, in turn, influence how we view ourselves and others, our emotional disposition, our decisions and actions. Tina compares the lower levels of the Ten Worlds to the lower levels of the hierarchy of needs such as physiological needs, safety, need for belonging and self-esteem.

In Tina’s view, the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy, self-actualization, accords with elements of the top four Buddhist Worlds, namely Learning, Realization, Compassion, and Buddhahood (complete freedom, endless courage, wholeness, a sense of connection to the “life force” of the universe). Both Learning and Realization are developed through learning and reflecting on our own experiences and insights and that of others.

Tina found that one of the attractions of the Buddhist concept of Ten Worlds was the idea that you can progress directly from the bottom level to the top levels through concerted inner work, working daily on enriching your inner landscape. Her pathway was that of Buddhist chanting and meditation. She maintains that we each have to find our own pathway to live more fully.

Reflection

Tina has demonstrated throughout her life the capacity to bounce back from physical, emotional and relationship challenges – she has shown resilience in the face of adversity. In the process, she has been able to achieve deep happiness. As she points out, we all seek happiness but it is invariably “elusive”. Sustaining a state of happiness is a challenge.

Tina was able to grow in mindfulness and awareness through Buddhist chanting and meditation and found that her daily practice enabled her to rise above challenging emotions and circumstances, enrich her life, and achieve her wildest dreams. For each of us there is a potential pathway to resilience and happiness and the realisation of our dreams and life purpose.

As Tina states in her book Happiness Becomes You:

Each of us is born, I believe, with a

unique mission, a purpose in life that

only we can fulfill.

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Image by Наталья Данильченко from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Let the Energy of the Seasons Into Your Life

America is beginning to enjoy the warmth of Spring. Mitra Manesh, meditation teacher with MARC UCLA, encourages us to align ourselves with the energetic influence of the seasons. In her meditation podcast, An Invitation to Spring, she invites us to shed the hibernation and energy saving of Winter and embrace the new beginnings and new life of Spring. With Spring we begin to hear the urgent cries of new-born baby birds as their parents frantically search for food; we see buds appearing and flowers emerging and opening as captured by the Moving Art of Louie Schwartzberg; we start to smell the aroma from new blossoms; and feel the vibrancy of new life as the warmth of lengthening days and light engender new beginnings on our sensory palate.

Attuning with nature is both energising and healing. As we absorb the light and energy of Spring, we can begin to envisage new beginnings for ourselves. Mitra encourages us at the outset of her meditation to take several deep breaths to breathe in the energy that surrounds us and to begin to imagine a new beginning.

Throughout her guided meditation podcast, Mitra employs intentional imagination. The focus of our imagination initially is drawn to our internal reality, not the emergent world around us. Mitra encourages us to begin to progressively imagine comfort in a part of our body, calmness in our mind and contentment in our heart. As we engender these feelings through intentional imagination, we can feel an infusion of energy and begin to imagine new beginnings in our life – whether that be overcoming addiction, breaking free of negative self-stories, opening to love, clearing clutter from our lives, bringing creativity to our work or any other endeavour that opens up a new world of possibilities. Mitra suggests that we capture the essence of our envisaged new beginning by making a wish.

The energy of new beginnings

Napoleon Hill reminds us that “Whatever the mind can conceive and believe, the mind can achieve”. The power of imagining a better future is brought home to us by the work of Nancy McGirr, former wartime photographer, who used her imagination and talents to envisage and create a better future for children in Guatemala who survived by scavenging for recyclable materials in the dump. To realise her vision, Nancy established a not-for-profit organisation now called Fotokids. Her mission is “to help small groups of Central American young people from the poorest of barrios develop useful, employable skills as a means to self-exploration, expression, and discovery.”

Nancy’s photography project has helped young children and their families emerge from the depths of poverty to improve their lives and financial situation. Children involved in the project(s) learn photographic skills, creative writing and how to use computers. The initial six children helped by the project through the generous support of Konica Japan has grown to more than a thousand children and 500 families. Nancy realised very early on through a photographic project undertaken as an employee of Reuters that she needed to do more than just observe the plight of these children, she had to take compassionate action.

Nancy has been able to align her core skills, developed over many years and photographic assignments in multiple countries, to her life purpose and bring hope and joy to impoverished children. Her success is attested to by the many products the children’s photography generates such as cards, prints, Christmas ornaments and books, including the award-winning book, Out of the Dump Writings and Photographs by Children from Guatemala. Profits from the book and photographic products go towards the children’s education, welfare, and the photography project itself. The quality of the photographs is attested to by the exhibitions that have appeared around the world in places like Tokyo, Paris, California, London, and Amsterdam.

Reflection

Nancy has demonstrated the power of imagination and envisaging a new beginning for herself and others. She left the security of a well-paid job with international travel and fame to work in the obscurity and insecurity of a freelance photographer in Guatemala. She has been able to capture her dream and the dreams of the children involved through a new publication, To Capture Dreams, that shares the experiences and output of 20 years of Fotokids.

As we grow in mindfulness through our meditations and the inspiration of people like Nancy McGirr, we can gain the insight, courage, and creativity to discover and pursue our own life purpose that will bring happiness and fulfilment as we align our core skills with needs beyond ourselves. If we let the energy of the seasons into our lives through nature meditation, we can begin this lifetime journey that will bring connection to others and every living thing.

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By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Valuing the Present Moment

Allyson Pimentel provides a meditation podcast on the topic, The Beauty of the Present Moment. People from around the world participated in the live, online event which was conducted and recorded via Zoom. During the podcast, Allyson stated that mindfulness involves “paying attention with intention” to the present moment in a way that involves openness, curiosity and acceptance of what is, whether pleasure or pain, happiness or sadness, understanding or confusion. She suggested that as we develop the capacity to attend to each moment with heightened awareness, we can develop a deeper appreciation of beauty, compassion (towards ourselves and others) and a “love for the moment”. If we are always consumed by thoughts of the past or the future, we will miss the richness and power of now. As Alan Watts comments, “Life exists at this moment”.

Awareness of beauty

Allyson introduces a brief process to raise our awareness of the beauty that surrounds us in the present moment. She asks that we pay attention to something we consider beautiful, however momentarily. If we are inside a dwelling, we could look at a pleasing painting, observe the clear sky through our window, listen to the early morning songs of birds or touch something that is smooth or rough as we appreciate its texture.

If we are outside, we could listen to the wind rustling in the trees, smell the aroma from freshly opening flowers, feel the softness of the grass beneath our feet or admire the shape and stature of the trees in the mist. Beauty as they say is in the “eye [and other senses] of the beholder”.

Allyson reminds us that beauty is around us all the time and by tapping into the present moment, we can learn to be aware of beauty and to increase our capacity to cope with life challenges, whether they be illness, grief, loss, confusion, or the slow decline of a parent through Alzheimer’s Disease who is becoming disconnected from the present..

A present moment meditation using body scan

One way into appreciating the present moment in all its import is to undertake a body scan meditation. Allyson provides a guided meditation in her podcast as a way to do this. She begins by having us take a deep breath and exhale deeply to clear any bodily tensions and to bring us more fully into the present moment.

She then provides a progressive body scan beginning with your feet and moving through all parts of your body, noting any points of tension. As we become grounded in bodily sensations, we become more attuned to our thoughts and feelings as they arise spontaneously. Allyson encourages us to accept whatever is our human condition at this point in time and to show ourselves compassion. From this base of self-compassion, we can extend empathy to others and offer them loving-kindness. Attunement to, and acceptance of, our current reality strengthens our connection to the world and to others.

Allyson Pimentel holds up Tina Turner as a model of present moment awareness, acceptance of her condition and the capacity to take compassionate action towards others. In her documentary, for example, Tina reveals that in a period of five years she experienced cancer, a stroke and kidney failure. Despite having daily dialysis for four hours, she was not depressed but appreciative of the fact that she had more time to live. Tina encapsulated her philosophy on life in her book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good.

In Allyson’s view, Tina epitomises what Rumi describes as The Guest House – “being human is a guest house” for pain, meanness, joy, happiness, sorrow, and every other manifestation of the human condition. Rumi encourages us to appreciate whatever comes our way because each experience is a “guide”.

Reflection

The challenge of the present moment is also its power. If we can truly be with what is and accept what we cannot change, we can develop an appreciation of being alive, strength and resilience to meet life’s challenges and a deep-seated sense of ease and equanimity. As we grow in mindfulness though meditation and awareness of the present moment, we can tap into the power of now and the richness of a life fully lived.

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Image by Luca Finardi from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Mindfulness and Creativity in Our Life’s Work

In a recent presentation for The Contemplative Care Summit, Seth Godin spoke about, Mindfulness & Creativity at Work. He stressed the importance of being mindful about self-talk and taking intentional action if we are to be creative in our life’s work. Seth writes a daily post for his creative blog which he has been writing for more than a decade. He is the author of 20 world-wide best-selling books such as The Practice which is about creative work. He is also the initiator of many creative projects. You can find his videos on YouTube, including his five TED Talks.

Self-talk: a barrier to creativity

Seth has previously written about what he calls “the lizard brain” – the amygdala, the part of the brain driven by fear. He maintains that this is behind our negative self-talk and can be disabling if we let it control our thoughts. He challenges the myth of “writer’s block” and suggests that it is a blockage in our thinking created by our fear and perpetuated by self-stories. He suggests, like one of my early mentors, that a way forward is to write, write, write. Eventually, our not-so-good writing becomes good and then great – especially if we have a constructive, critical friend who is commenting on our writing out of understanding, comprehension, and good will, not out of ignorance or inanity.

Creative people such as Elizabeth Gilbert, author of Eat, Pray, Love, speak extensively about how fear and self-talk can block our creative genius. Clare Bowditch – singer, songwriter, and author of Your Own Kind of Girl – describes in detail (in this autobiography), the power and pervasiveness of our inner critic. Worrying about whether our creation, our work, our project, our song/performance or our presentation will be “good enough” sets in train a series of self-stories that can lead to procrastination. Tara Brach offers the R.A.I.N. meditation – incorporating the steps of recognise, accept, investigate and nurture – as a compassionate way to deal with our self-generated critic.

Seth talks extensively about a specific fear, the “fear of failure”. We tend to catastrophize the outcomes if something “goes wrong” or “does not work out”. He points out, however, that we do not have control over the outcomes and focusing solely on them leads to inertia and stifling of creative endeavour. Seth maintains that “failure” and creativity go hand-in-hand and he talks about his many failures. He argues that if you are doing something that you have never done before or that has not been done by anyone else, then the chances of failure are always present – this uncertainty about outcomes defines the essence of creativity and we capture this in our language, “going out on a limb”, “going outside our comfort zone”, “leaping into the unknown” or “exploring new terrain”.

Seth suggests that we need to stay in the present moment and enjoy the process of creating something new – of bringing our creation into the world for the benefit of others. Focusing on process in a mindful way creates freedom from fear, space to explore and openness to new ideas. He also argues that we can overcome the nagging concern that we are an “imposter” (posing as a good writer, performer or facilitator) by accepting that you will act as an imposter if you are being creative – you are taking action with uncertain outcomes, you cannot guarantee success, and you are hoping that it will “turn our well” without any “iron-clad guarantee” that it will do so.

Intentional action

Intention provides the impetus to initiate and sustain creative action. Diana Winston offers a meditation process to help us to bring mindfulness to our motivations and intentions so that we can achieve clarity of purpose, align our energy and strengthen our motivation in the face of obstacles. Leo Babauta offers a three-step process, incorporating clarifying intentions, that we can use to start doing the meaningful work that we have been avoiding. He also offers a daily practice to overcome the avoidance that we experience when confronted with difficult tasks.

Ricardo Semler, entrepreneur and author provides a more fundamental approach to access our underlying intentions. He suggests that we ask our selves “why” three times to get to the fundamental question, “What am I doing this for?” Unfortunately, our busyness becomes the greatest impediment to accessing our creativity and opening our selves to wisdom, clarity, and fulfillment. Taking time to be still and revisit our intentions can enable us to achieve alignment with our overall life purpose and access the resonance that this alignment brings. We can then begin to experience inspiration and intuition – the seeds of creativity.

Reflection

To fully access our creativity, we need to be aware of our negative self-stories, our fear of failure, and our imposter concerns. By not facing up to the self-critic and the “lizard brain”, we can numb ourselves into inaction and procrastination. As we grow in mindfulness, through meditation, reflection, and reframing, we can increase our self-awareness, develop self-compassion to deal with our negative thoughts and bring intention and alignment to our creative actions. The stillness and silence of mindfulness meditation acts an “incubator” for creativity and innovation.

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

A Pathway to Resilience and Happiness

Hugh Van Cuylenburg has written a life-changing book which Missy Higgins describes as “hilarious, inspiring and heartbreakingly vulnerable”. Hugh is a great storyteller and his stories, provided both verbally and in writing, have changed the lives of thousands of people, from school children to elite sportspeople. His book, The Resilience Project: Finding Happiness through Gratitude, Empathy & Mindfulness, provides a very clear pathway to resilience and happiness. It is admirably digestible and eminently practical – which partly explains its amazing influence on so many lives.

Hugh summarises his pathway in the mnemonic, GEM, and the three powerful words that these letters represent – Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness. He developed his approach while in India working as a volunteer teacher in an incredibly poor village – where children often could not go to school, had no shoes, little food and no electricity or sanitation. He could not work out why the children at the school were so unbelievably happy despite their destitute conditions. He found the answer by observing the children and their practices closely and discovered that their resilience and happiness had its foundation in gratitude (appreciating what they do have), empathy (showing care and concern for others) and mindfulness (being mindful and developing this through meditation).

His message has been taken up not only by schools throughout Australia but also by elite sporting clubs such as the NRL team, Melbourne Storm and the AFL team, Collingwood. He tells the story, for example, of a Collingwood player who wrote a three-letter word on his wrist to remind himself during a game of the things that he is grateful for so that he could push aside negative thoughts and anxiety that arise when engaged in a highly competitive match.

Hugh’s pathway to happiness and resilience applies to each of us in our everyday life. The three elements of his approach are not new – we have covered many aspects of these in this blog as the result of the work of many other people. What Hugh presents in simple, digestible language and illustrative stories, is a very clear pathway integrating the three GEM elements that can be practised daily and that are mutually reinforcing – just like exercising, appropriate nutrition and yoga/ Tai Chi are mutually reinforcing, with each of these elements building on, and assisting us to achieve, the others.

The GEM pathway to happiness and resilience

Hugh refined his approach when he completed a Master of Education by focusing all his study and assignments on the mental health and wellness of adolescents. He was also able to learn about the neuroscience that underpinned his approach (he provides references to the scientific papers in his “Notes” at the end of the book).

What was a catalyst for Hugh’s passionate pursuit of the issue of resilience was his own traumatic experience as a teenager trying to cope with his younger sister’s anorexia nervosa. At the time, he did not understand what was happening to her and why she behaved the way she did, and did not show empathy for her plight. He failed to realise that she was mentally ill, not just suffering a physical malady, malnutrition, that could be overcome just by eating more. He became acutely aware as an adult of the “concentric circles of suffering” (for siblings, parents, friends, and teachers) that mental illness can create.

I will discuss each of the elements of GEM below:

Gratitude – Hugh suggests that this means appreciating what we have rather than focusing on what we lack. He tells the story of Stanzin, one of his students in India, who despite his impoverished circumstances was grateful for everything in his life – his gratitude was pervasive and continuous. Stanzin often pointed out to Hugh things that he was grateful for – his friends, being able to go to school, having shoes to wear and even receiving a plain bowl of rice for lunch. He was incredibly grateful for his rusted, broken-down play equipment (such as a swing) – something that in our Western society would initiate a complaint. Stanzin focused on what he had, not what he did not possess – avoiding negative emotions of discontent, resentment, or anger, and developing a positive mindset.

Hugh recommends a daily gratitude journal as a way to build resilience and happiness. This is a recommendation and practice of many people. In the previous post, I spoke of the twice-daily practice of gratitude journalling of Lindsey Stirling, the hugely successful songwriter, violinist, and dancer. Gwen Cherne, the first Commissioner for Veteran Family Advocacy, who agitates for veterans and their families battling mental stress, stated that she writes a gratitude journal every night (her story is featured in the Weekend Australian Magazine, March 6-7, 2021, pp.13-16). Hugh, Lindsey, and Gwen have each experienced considerable trauma in their lives and each has shown the resilience to be able to “bounce back” and experience happiness in pursuing their life purpose in contributing to the welfare and joy of others.

Empathy – being able to feel for others by consciously thinking about what they might be experiencing intellectually and emotionally. Hugh points to the neuroscience that reinforces the fact that practising empathy develops kindness and motivates compassionate action. Simon Sinek suggests that in a work situation an empathetic leader is “more concerned about the human being not their output”. The young boy Stanzin, who made a lasting impression on Hugh, was continuously empathetic – going out of his way to help others in need, e.g., sitting with children who were alone during the lunch hour. Hugh recalled that in contrast, he himself was not empathetic to his young sister as a teenager and was not able understand her suffering and feel with and for her. A key component of empathy is deep listening – openness to other’s stories and their perspectives.

Mindfulness – being present in the moment while adopting an open, curious, accepting, and non-judgmental attitude. Hugh learned through his experience in India that practising mindfulness through meditation was a way of “taking greater control of your mind and, therefore, of your life”. The children in the village school where he taught began each day with a 30-minute meditation, At first, he was sceptical about the practice but soon found that he could focus so much more on the present moment, and not become absorbed by anxiety about the future or depression about the past. He found that Stanzin was a living example of the benefits of mindfulness meditation. The young boy would be constantly mindful of what where the positive things in his village life. Mindfulness develops both gratitude and empathy.

Developing the GEM pathway to happiness and resilience

In his book, The Resilience Project, Hugh provides a section at the back where he offers some exercises that can help us to develop gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness – some of which he has used in schools throughout Australia. The Coles Group have implemented a range of practices drawn from The Resilience Project.

Simon Sinek suggests that a simple way to practise empathy in everyday life is to let the person into traffic ahead of you if they are stuck in a side street or are attempting to cut in front of you. He argues that you never know why they are trying to enter the traffic or are in a hurry to get somewhere. They could, for example, be dealing with an emergency – a sick parent/child, an accident at home, someone dying in hospital, or anxiety about a child stranded at night at a lonely, dark railway station.

Reflection

Taken together the elements of the GEM pathway can lead to happiness and resilience. The stories Hugh tells, and the research he draws on, reinforce the benefits of his approach. The widespread adoption of the principles of The Resilience Project attests to its effectiveness.

Hugh also stresses the importance of connection and has exercises that can help us renew our connections given that they have been eroded through social media and the distancing created by the pandemic. He stresses that practising GEM is even more urgent in these challenging times. He maintains too that we must go beyond connection itself and take wise and compassionate action to redress the suffering and pain of others, e.g., asking “R U OK?”

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and practising gratitude and empathy, we can develop self-awareness, self-regulation and compassionate action and gain increasing insight into our life purpose. As Hugh observes, every challenge is an opportunity to realise our potential and our capacity to contribute positively to the lives of others.

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Image by billy cedeno from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Developing Wonder and Awe through Nature and Music

Louie Schwartzberg – author, time-lapse photographer, cinematographer, producer, and director – has developed a series of podcasts that bring science and nature together in a very personal way and opens our minds and hearts to nature’s beauty and power. His podcast series titled Wonder and Awe is available on his website, Spotify, and iTunes.

I first came across Louie Schwartzberg in 2016 when I heard his stunning TED Talk on Nature, Beauty, and Gratitude which featured his movie Gratitude. I was inspired by Louie’s capacity to engender wonder and awe through time-lapse photography of nature. He maintained that nature cultivates gratitude and mindfulness. Louie’s website, Moving Art, has a collection of his movies, mindfulness-based blog posts and other resources designed to develop appreciation of the beauty and invaluable resource that nature provides. You can view his videos that depict emotional states that are developed as we grow in mindfulness, e.g., courage, forgiveness, connection, patience, creativity, happiness, and gratitude. Louie argues that being fully present in nature can be healing and life changing.

Music and nature – developing wonder, awe, healing, and creativity

In a recent Wonder and Awe podcast Louie interviewed Lisbeth Scott – singer, composer, and songwriter – who is famous for her musical scores for movies such as Avatar and The Chronicles of Narnia as well as her singing and song writing featured on Spotify. In the far-ranging and enlightening interview Louie explored Lisbeth’s musical inspiration, her composition techniques and the exceptional breadth and depth of her musical knowledge, awareness, and sensitivity.

During the interview, Louie shared snippets of music compositions by Lisbeth, including music that they collaborated on such as the soundtrack for his film on Machu Picchu, one of his many films featured on the Netflix series, Moving Art, which is now in Season 3.

They discussed the healing power of music and its ability to release emotions and transport people into a world of wonder, awe, and joy. Lisbeth mentioned that she is inspired not only by nature itself, but also by images of nature, other images, and conversations – as she hears it all as music playing it in her head. In her compositions she attempts to track the visuals with matching music “to take people on a journey”. Both Lisbeth and Louie agreed that the creative process at some stage involves “letting go” – letting inspiration and intuition take over.

Lisbeth thought as a child that she could not sing – in fact, she used to hide in a cupboard to sing. Her rich and adaptive vocal capacity was discovered by a friend and was influential in her being engaged By Hans Zimmer to provide the vocals for a movie – and her music career and her association with movies began at that point. As Chris James points out we are all born with a musical instrument – our bodies as natural resonators – and a beautiful voice that needs to be uncovered and discovered.

Reflection

The power of nature and music to generate wonder and awe is enhanced when two people of the calibre of Lisbeth and Louie collaborate – a world famous composer and musician collaborating with the creative genius of an outstanding time-lapse photographer and filmmaker. Both sought out nature and its unique sounds, such as the sounds of river water, as children. Louie contends that his own intimacy with nature has convinced him that “immersion in nature increases our capacity for courage, creativity, kindness and compassion”.

Nature and music can enable us to grow in mindfulness and enrich our lives in every dimension. Lisbeth and Louie provide the medium for us to experience nature and music in a uniquely integrated way.

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Image by Susann Mielke from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.