podcast – Page 5 – Grow Mindfulness

Mindfulness in Everyday Life

Rachel Kable – author, podcaster, blogger and mindfulness coach from Victoria in Australia – recently participated in a podcast interview with Dr. Justin Puder. In the course of the interview, she explained that when she first started out practising mindfulness in the more formal way of meditating (e.g. focusing on her breath), she had great difficulty and did not like it at all. At the time she lived very much in the past and the future, not the present. She would review past performance and prepare to-do lists for future activities to the point where she would lie awake at night, not being able to quiet her mind. To sit still and focus on the moment was a real challenge and counter-intuitive.

However, Rachel persisted with formal practice because she had heard of the benefits of meditation and mindfulness and wanted to experience them for herself and to share them with others. As she persisted in her more formal efforts, she found that mindfulness practice increased her ability to focus and concentrate, enabled her to sleep more restfully and fully, enhanced her relationships (e.g. through being present to the person speaking and listening actively, not distractedly) and improving her capacity to be creative in her career endeavours.

Rachel also discovered that she could bring mindfulness to everyday life and the things she already did each day, e.g. cleaning the house, washing the dishes, preparing the meal, driving the car, eating her meals, or sitting on her deck (which provided the opportunity for engaging in “natural awareness”, taking in the sounds, sights, and smells already present to her). Consequently, she decided that the focus of her mindfulness coaching would be on helping people to bring mindfulness to the activities of everyday life. To this end, she has developed her blog covering things like self-care, meditation techniques, and simple living. Rachel’s podcast series, which at the time of writing has 322 episodes, provides lots of practical advice on how to be mindful in everyday life, dealing with issues such as challenging emotions, expectations, stress, decision making and negative self-evaluation.

Rachel has also written a book, The Mindful Kind Book, wherein she provides practical advice and tools to manage overwhelm and stress, enjoy life more, improve resilience to handle setbacks and to practise mindfulness as a form of self-care when engaging in everyday activities, including work. Her interview is one of many conducted by Dr. Justin Puder who has developed the podcast series, Drop In with Dr. J.

Reflection

Tennis is a very important part of my life and my exercise activity and has been since I was in Primary School (about 10 years of age). Rachel’s podcast interview reminded me that I need to bring mindfulness more to the fore when playing tennis. I have certainly used reflection-on-action in the past when looking at how I play tennis. Through reflection, I have become more conscious of the importance of savouring the moment when playing tennis; addressing my “habit loop” (and related reward system) when experiencing blockages to trying out new tennis strokes; being able to constructively manage mistakes when playing social tennis; and identifying the behavioural and cognitive blind spots that are impeding my tennis performance.

I am often conscious of the technical aspects of playing tennis, e.g. keeping your eyes on the ball, preparing for a tennis shot, choosing the right shot, deciding the stance and position to receive a serve, and identifying the gaps in which to play a shot. I can become more conscious of when my attention strays to what is happening on one of the other eleven occupied courts and bring my attention back to my own tennis game.

What Rachel’s comments remind me to do is to face my emotions in the moment when playing tennis (e.g. anxiety, fear), name them and decide how to manage them – rather than ignore or suppress them. It also means acknowledging to myself (and challenging) my self-imposed expectations that impede my performance and enjoyment of the game.

Rachel reminds us that mindfulness can be practised in every aspect of our life, even having lunch. For me, for example, that means eating my lunch mindfully, savouring the taste, texture and aroma of what I am eating – not processing emails or planning my day as I eat.

As we grow in mindfulness through formal processes such as meditation, Tai Chi, or yoga, we can more readily bring mindfulness to our everyday life whether that is driving a car in traffic, sitting on our back deck, working in our garden or just taking a walk. Mindfulness can accompany us wherever we go and whatever we do – if we only let ourselves drop into present moment awareness.

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Image by Peter H 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.

Authentic Connection and Friendship through Vulnerability

In a previous post, I discussed Hugh Van Cuylenburg’s book, Let Go: It’s time to let go of shame, expectation and our addiction to social media. In that discussion, I highlighted Hugh’s very strong conviction that vulnerability leads to authentic connections, which are essential for positive mental health. This conviction led to the creation, with his brother Josh and Ryan Shelton, of a podcast titled The Imperfects. Interestingly, the first episode of the podcast involved an extended interview with Missy Higgins.

Hugh chose Missy Higgins for this first episode because he had noticed on her Instagram that she was reading Johann Hari’s book, Lost Connections: Uncovering the Real Causes of Depression. This choice proved a masterstroke as it set the foundation for subsequent episodes where people were encouraged to share their vulnerabilities and struggles. Missy Higgins proved to be disarmingly honest, open and highly vulnerable.

Missy Higgins – disclosing vulnerabilities

There were a number of key areas of her life that Missy Higgins explored with Hugh in the podcast (August, 2019), which was titled, Quitting Music, Depression & Connection. Here are some of the vulnerabilities she discussed:

Depression – Missy Higgins explained that she had suffered from depression, on and off, for most of her life – she started seeing a therapist in year 11 after she became paralysed by overwhelm and collapsed. This led to her medically-prescribed use of anti-depressants which she needs to go back to occasionally. Missy Higgins explained that the medication enabled her to continue to do things that are good for her health such as practising mindfulness, exercising and connecting with friends and family (rather than isolating herself, a tendency reinforced by her introverted personality). Johann Hari reinforced the value of connections and showed that there are seven social factors that exist today that represent lost connections and lead to depression and anxiety.
The images portrayed in magazines and social media – Missy Higgins found that the messages from social media, such as “you are not good enough”, contributed to her depression. She indicated that women are particularly prone to these messages that communicate unrealistic and contradictory expectations, such as “you must be fit, curvy and thin”. She felt under incredible pressure to “look good” all the time, stay thin and avoid going grey as she aged. Missy Higgins referred to the absence of authentic role models to counteract the influence of perfect women portrayed through filters and “Photoshop”, which enables subscribers to “retouch and remix pics”.
Journalists’ pressure to expose her sexuality – Missy Higgins is an introvert and by nature a very private person. However, journalists insisted on her disclosing her sexual preferences which was detrimental to her mental health and quite traumatic at a time when she was trying to work out her sexuality herself. She noted that they were trying to “squeeze this vulnerable, personal information out of her”. The constant harassment by journalists took its toll on her mental health. Eventually, when she was ready, she disclosed that she was “bisexual”. In a recent interview with Anh Do she stated that discussing her sexuality now was “really easy for me, because I don’t have anything to hide”.
Parenting challenge – In a follow-up podcast interview (June, 2021) Missy Higgins spoke earnestly about how “emotionally exhausting” parenting two children was for herself and her husband, Dan. She admitted that her children don’t like the food she cooks and hate to hear her sing at home (her source of sanity and happiness in the house!). Her son dislikes her favourite song, Special Two, and does everything possible to disturb and distract her when she is trying to compose songs on the piano. Missy Higgins noted that “you don’t get much back” in “appreciation and reciprocity” from children, especially when they are young. She stated that the difficulties with children and their behaviour are compounded when parents bring different “parenting styles” to a marriage so much so that she and Dan “can’t stand to be around each other” when the children are playing up. Missy Higgins also observed that the “emotional overload” of parenting was exacerbated by the pandemic lockdown in Melbourne, leading to what has been described as “emotional inflammation”.

Turning points in Missy Higgin’s life

In the podcast, Missy Higgins described a number of key turning points in her life when she was at her lowest level of energy and mental health:

Touring in the US: Missy Higgins toured America for two and a half years in her early twenties to promote her songs on behalf of her record label at the time, Warner Brothers. The experience, which included performing 260 concerts in a year, left her miserable and lonely. Her loneliness resulted from loss of connection to family and friends in Australia and the pressures from her recording agent who were focused on achieving higher rankings for her songs on the music record charts and resultant increased revenue. Added to this, was the pressure to write songs that were not true to her preferred type of music with its authenticity and openness.
Missy Higgins returned to Melbourne but found she was ill-at-ease in her home town. She needed to escape from “prying eyes” and the artificiality of her life in America. In 2006, Missy Higgins moved to Broome in Western Australia, the gateway to the Kimberley considered one of the great wildernesses of the world. Broome is noted for its multiculturalism, camel rides on the beach at sunset, thriving foodie scene, natural wonders and a pearl farm. Missy Higgins found that people in Broome were non-judgmental, treated each other “as humans” and were very linked to nature through their language and behaviour. She stated that the constant exposure to the elements, such as monsoons, made you realise “how small your are”. She was able to nourish herself through pursuits such as camping, bushwalking and “sitting on the beach under stars”. After 8 months, she was able to return to Melbourne.
Experiencing writer’s block: After returning from Broome to Melbourne, Missy Higgins hired a flat and set up her piano and guitars to concentrate on writing songs. She had experienced writer’s block and was trying to find a way to regain inspiration and energy for writing. So she adopted the approach of people like Nicholas Cage and dressed for work each morning and worked a nine to five day on her writing. However, this approach did not work for her. She told her manager that she could no longer compose songs and that he was not to bring performance offers to her. However, after 12 months of this imposed silence, he took the risk to present her with an offer that was too good to refuse.
Missy Higgins had received an offer from Sarah McLachlan to join her on a resurrected “Lilith Fair” tour in the US in mid-2010. The Lilith Fair tours were a massive hit from 1997-1999, involving all-female festival performers and generating millions of dollars for charities. Missy Higgins decided to join the tour and found that her positive feelings about composing songs came back to her. She had dismissed writing songs and singing as a selfish pursuit that did nothing to make a difference in the world. However, her fans reaction to her performances with Sarah in the US, provided endless “gratitude stories” and appreciation for how her songs over the years had made such a difference in their lives. Missy Higgins realised then and there that her life purpose and contribution to the world flowed from writing and performing songs that communicated down-to-earth, honest feelings.
Avoiding criticism on social media – Missy Higgins admitted that she has always been sensitive to criticism. There was a period before she went to Broome where she would spend a lot of time on social media and become obsessed about people leaving negative comments about her band, its composition and related decisions. She became overwhelmed by the negativity because she tended to ignore the compliments and focus only on the negative (our brains have a negative bias). Missy Higgins was so devastated by the negativity towards her that she did not leave the house. Her manager, however, insisted that she had to get away from social media and stop looking for negative criticism. He told her, “You are going to keeping reading until you find something negative” and reinforced the view that she had a tendency to hold onto the negative. Missy Higgins stated in the podcast interview that she has “never read anything since” and this commitment was reinforced through her time in Broome.

Reflection

Missy Higgins contended “it’s a very radical act to show yourself and to love yourself” in the current social climate where everything and everyone is curated to show their “best self”. She stated that as a performer she still has a “persona” that she puts forward in her performances. Hugh suggested that the lyrics of her songs expressed vulnerability. Missy Higgins responded by saying that “there is a huge difference between vulnerable in your lyrics and being vulnerable in person”. She commented that lyrics can be shrouded in metaphor, mystery and abstraction.

Missy Higgins suggested that over time you can develop a mindset of “I have nothing to be ashamed of”, which opens the way to mutual sharing of vulnerability with another person. She maintains that mutual vulnerability results in a “beautiful communion where both of you are recognising that you are just human” – thus acknowledging the shared human condition, vulnerability and the inability to keep everything together all the time. Her friendship with Hugh is one example of this “beautiful communion”. I found that being exposed to her vulnerability through The Imperfects motivated me to listen more often to her songs. I started with the video of her live performance on the forecourt of the Sydney Opera House in 2019. I immediately found that her songs, performance and commentary had new meaning and significance for me – a new level of communion and understanding between artist and fan.

People have commented that one of the things that appeals about The Imperfects podcast is the deep friendship that is evident between Hugh, Josh and Ryan. This comment reinforced Hugh’s conviction that vulnerability builds authentic connection and friendship. Each of the key hosts of the podcast series have individually shared their own vulnerability in addition to adding self-disclosure to the interview responses of guests. Hugh strongly encourages anyone to find someone to share their vulnerability with – a friend, family member, colleague, therapist – whoever they can trust with this precious, personal sharing. Missy Higgins stated that being personally vulnerable overcomes the exhausting task of avoiding disclosing anything personal.

We can increase our self disclosure and vulnerability as we grow in mindfulness because we are able to develop a balanced perspective that recognises that we all share a vulnerable human condition that is uncertain and somewhat frightening. Missy Higgins wrote a song about this common condition and the fact that everything is going so fast. In introducing the song We Run So Fast during a TED× Talk, she advocated “just sitting still” and “letting time envelop you”.

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Image by Terri Sharp 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.

Letting Go: Breaking Free of the Ties That Bind Us

In his earlier book, The Resilience Project, Hugh Van Cuylenburg discussed his search for the way to develop resilience to meet the demands of these challenging times. In a previous post, I explained Hugh’s GEM pathway to resilience – gratitude, empathy and mindfulness. This book proved to be a bestseller and Hugh has gone on to present talks to 1,500 schools, elite Australian sports teams and clubs (covering cricket, soccer, AFL and Rugby League) as well as presentations to numerous businesses and organisations.

When reading The Resilience Project and/or hearing Hugh speak, you could be forgiven for thinking that he was one person who “had it all together”, that he was “on top of things” in his life. However, in his follow-up book, Let Go, he exposes his own vulnerabilities and weaknesses and argues that “it’s time to let go of shame, expectations and our addiction to social media”. Let Go could be subtitled, “The 101 Ways I have Stuffed Up in My life” or alternatively, “How My Human Foibles Have Undermined My Resilience”. This is a disarmingly honest account of his personal vulnerabilities and how they have played out in his life.

Hugh covers a range of topics that highlight his vulnerabilities and offers suggestions on how we can address our own vulnerabilities and learn to “let go”. Throughout the book, he generously shares what he has learnt from his therapy with Anita and discussions with Ben Crowe (famous mindset coach of people like Ash Barty). Hugh covers topics that are natural human reactions to the fragility and uncertainty of the human condition. His key topics include the following that most people can relate to:

Shame: feelings of shame can arise from things we have done or failed to do, from negative self-talk (generated in childhood or later in adulthood) or from perceptions of what other people think or feel about us. Hugh illustrates this by his own inaction in relation to his sister, Georgia, who suffered from mental health issues and the “shame stories” he told himself. He reminds us that shame and associated guilt have been clinically linked to all kinds of psychological problems. Hugh argues that we need to understand the nature of the shame that we feel and learn new, healthy ways to respond to it. He offers a three-step process to address our shame, including sharing our shame with someone (as the hiding of shame, rather than the shame itself, causes us psychological problems).
Expectations: Hugh shares stories of how his own “unreasonable expectations” caused him stress and worry in his life. The expectations that we place on ourselves can cover any or all aspects of our life – our physical fitness, weight, academic achievements, professional life, home roles, house care or contributions to society. We can create a living hell through these expectations that are self-fabricated and their effects can impact on others. Hugh speaks with honesty and openness about instances in his professional speaking life where his unreasonable expectations almost derailed him. One of the ways he was able to manage the situations was to share his vulnerability at the time and encouraged others to do likewise. He drew strength from Frou Frou’s rendition of the song, “Let Go” and particularly the lyric, “There’s beauty in the breakdown”. Hugh also discusses how we can become captive to the expectations of others and the freedom we can enjoy when we break free of what others have called “the tyranny of expectations”. He offers a series of questions to address the expectations of others and the suggestion to write down the answers and then challenge the truth or otherwise of these recorded expectations.
Perfectionism: while Hugh provides a serious discussion of perfectionism and the “inner dialogue” that can plague us in every area of our life, he illustrates the hold of perfectionism by sharing a hilarious anecdote about “one (not so) perfect day”. The story relates to an invitation to Missy Higgins and family to join his family for a meal. He had established a friendship with Missy Higgins who wrote the forward to his earlier book, The Resilience Project. He was so anxious to make everything right for the day that he ended up creating a “disaster” where everything went wrong, Including his artificial grass catching fire. He encourages us to overcome perfectionism through self-compassion and the honest exploration of all the areas of our life where our “perfectionism rules” and to challenge ourselves about “what would happen if these things weren’t perfect”.
Fear of Failure – Hugh illustrates this “phobia” with a humorous description of an embarrassing encounter with Hamish Blake at a café. Hugh admired Hamish immensely and had been a long-term fan and so wanted the encounter to go well. However, his “fear of failure” left him tongue-tied resulting in an embarrassing interaction (for both Hugh and Hamish). Hugh goes on to discuss “atychiphobia” which he describes as “the abnormal, unwarranted and persistent fear of failure” which can result in all kinds of emotional and physical symptoms, including panic attacks. He makes the point that some level of fear of failure can be healthy because it inspires sound preparation and conscious performance. However, an unhealthy level of fear of failure can lead us to procrastinate, avoid making an effort or miss the opportunity to pursue our life goals and make a contribution to the wellness of others. Hugh offers an exercise on “how to let go of fear of failure”.

Reflection

One of the most profound things that Hugh asserts is that our vulnerabilities can build authentic connections. We begin to realise that we all share the same fragility even though it may have different manifestations in each of us. Throughout his Let Go book, Hugh explains his developing relationship with Hamish and Ryan Shelton. It was the realisation that each of them experienced the struggle with “shame, expectation and the fear of failure” that led to the development of the podcast, The Imperfects in 2019. Hugh and his colleagues (brother Josh and Ryan Shelton) also developed a sub-group of The Imperfect podcasts that they titled The Vulnerabilitea House which was designed to enable people to share, over a cup of tea, “something honest and a little vulnerable”. Vulnerabilitea House interviewees included Peter Helliar, Martin Heppell and Missy Higgins, as well as Hugh, Josh and Ryan.

As we grow in mindfulness, we can become aware of what is holding us back in terms of shame, expectations, perfectionism and fear of failure. This self-awareness, along with self-compassion, provides the motivation to face our frailties and the courage and persistence “to do the inside work” necessary to “let go” and break free from the ties that bind us.

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Image by Сергей Корчанов 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.

Anxiety Management with Mindfulness

Diana Winston offers a mindfulness meditation podcast, Working with Anxiety, as one of the weekly meditations conducted by the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), UCLA. As Director of Mindfulness Education for MARC, Diana frequently leads these weekly meditations. She stresses that mindfulness enables us to be more fully in the present moment and to accept what is in our life (including anxiety) with curiosity and openness.

Diana maintains that mindfulness helps us to work effectively with anxiety because it, (1) enables us to be present in the moment, rather than absorbed in the past or the future; (2) facilitates reframing of our experience, and (3) provides a place of rest and ease from the turbulence and waves of daily life. As Diana asserts, anxiety is part and parcel of daily life, given the human condition and the uncertainty of the world around us today. The world situation with the global pandemic and devastating conflict between Russia and Ukraine add to anxiety-producing situations we experience on the home and local front. In consequence, there is an increase in mental health issues along with restricted resources to deal with explosive demand.

Guided meditation for working with anxiety

Diana’s approach is consistent with trauma-sensitive mindfulness in that she allows a choice of posture, meditation anchor and overall focus. She encourages us to find a posture that is comfortable with eyes closed or open (ideally, looking down). At the beginning of the meditation, she has us focus on something that gives us a sense of being grounded and supported by something of strength, e.g. our feet on the ground/floor or back against the chair. It is important to tap into something that enables us to slow our minds and calm our feelings

Diana then suggests that we focus on our breath as a neutral experience of the present moment. For some people, breath may not be a neutral aspect and could in fact trigger a trauma response. So, she offers an alternative focus such as sounds in the environment, the room tone or rhythm in some music. Whatever we choose as an anchor, we can return to it whenever we notice our thoughts distracting us and leading to anxiety-producing images, recollections or anticipations.

The next stage of the guided meditation involves focus on some source of anxiety and exploring the bodily sensations associated with it. Diana suggests that if we are new to meditation we should focus on a minor source of anxiety rather than a major issue. Whatever our focal anxiety source, the idea is to notice what is happening in our body, e.g. tightness around our neck and shoulders, quickening or unevenness of our breath or pain in our back. By bringing our consciousness to these bodily sensations, we can work to release the tension involved and restore some level of equanimity.

Diana suggests that at any stage we could use imagery as a way to achieve an anchor that gives us strength and/or a sense of peace. The image could be of a tall mountain withstanding the buffeting of strong winds and rain or a still lake reflecting surrounding trees and supporting the smooth gliding of swans or ducks. Imagery can take us out of our anxiety-producing imagination and transport us to a place of strength and/or peace.

In the final stage of the meditation, Diana encourages us to offer ourselves loving-kindness, acknowledging that we are only human after all and that the world is anxiety-producing. She urges us to extend positive thoughts towards ourselves, rather then beat ourselves up for our fragility. We could focus on times when we have demonstrated resilience to overcome difficulties, extended compassionate action to those in need or expressed gratitude for all that we have.

Reflection

There are many tools to help us work with, and manage, anxiety. These include chanting and/or mantra meditations such as the calming mantra produced by Lulu & Mischka, Stillness in Motion – Sailing and Singing with whales. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, chanting, mantras or other mindfulness practices, we can learn to be more fully present in the moment, to manage our anxiety-producing thoughts, regulate our emotions and find the peace and ease that lie within.

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Image by Patrik Houštecký 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.

Under the influence of Thich Nhat Hanh

In a prelude to a guided meditation podcast, Remembering Thich Nhat Hanh, Diana Winston spoke with reverence about the life of Thich Nhat Hanh and his global influence. Nhat Hanh, who died aged ninety-five in Vietnam on January 22 2022, was a Zen Master, peace activist, poet and author of over 100 books focused mainly on mindfulness and peace. He established multiple Buddhist communities around the world and is considered the “Father of Western mindfulness”. He exerted a global influence throughout his teaching life conducting numerous retreats and speaking with influencers such as the World Bank, Google and the U.S. Congress.

During the Vietnam war Nhat Hanh introduced the concept of “Engaged Buddhism” and led Buddhist monks in actions designed to help people of Vietnam who were suffering from the drastic effects of the extended conflict and regular bombing. He argued that mindfulness increases our capacity to “see” but that this insight needs to be translated into compassionate action. Nhat Hanh established the Plum Village in France, the largest Buddhist community in the world and an international practice center for followers of his mindfulness approach. The influence of Thich Nhat Hanh is so pervasive that it is not possible to do its credit in this short blog post. However, his teachings and meditations are readily accessible via Plum Village videos on YouTube and his full life history on the Plum Village website.

Guided meditation

Diana Winston, at the outset of her podcast meditation, acknowledged the profound influence that Nhat Hanh had over her mindfulness practice and that of numerous other mindfulness teachers and practitioners around the world. She stressed Nhat Hanh’s influence over the practice of bringing mindfulness into everyday life and emphasised the benefits of mindfulness meditation in terms of stress reduction, overcoming anxiety and depression, managing pain, improving mood and developing a positive mindset and emotions.

After suggesting a comfortable, focused posture, Diana begins the meditation with the encouragement to take a couple of deep breaths, recalling the words of Nhat Hanh “Breathing in, I calm the breath; breathing out, I smile”. She reminds us to identify any points of tension in our body and to soften those points to release the tension.

Next Diana asks us to focus on our breath – the process of breathing, whether the awareness is through the movement of air through our nose or the undulations of our chest or abdomen. This is a passive observation, not trying to control the breath, but following it as it happens naturally in our body.

She then suggests that we focus on the sounds that surround us – again passively, allowing the sounds to reach us without attempting interpretation or evaluation (in terms of pleasant or unpleasant).

Diana maintains that it is only natural for thoughts and feelings to intrude and distract us from our chosen focus. However, she recommends that we use our breath or sounds as our anchor to bring us back to our focus. An alternative is to focus on bodily sensations such as those of our feet on the ground or our fingers touching each other causing tingling, warmth or a sensation of flow. I like to use fingers touching as my anchor and I find that when I am waiting for something (e.g. a traffic light) I can touch my fingers and immediately drop into a breath consciousness that is calming.

Diana observes that there are times when strong feelings will emerge, depending on what is going on in our lives at the time. She suggests that we face these feelings and allow them to manifest without staying absorbed in them. I noted that at one point in the meditation, I experienced a profound sense of sadness precipitated by the distressing events in Ukraine. I was able to stay with the sadness for a time and then restore the focus on my anchor, the sensations in my joined fingers. The period of ten minutes silence at the end of the meditation podcast enabled me to deepen my focus.

Reflection

In her meditation podcast, Diana recalls Thich Nhat Hanh’s comments about death and dying. In his video podcast on the topic, Where do we go when we die?, Nhat Hanh reminds us that cells in our body are dying all the time and new cells are being born – so, death and birth are part of every moment of our life. He maintains that the disintegration of our body at death does not mean we cease to exist. In his view, our words and actions continue to influence others – so, after we die, we continue in all the people who have come under our influence (or will come under our influence in the future). He indicated that when he died he would continue in the lives of many thousands of people through the books he has written, the videos he has created and the podcasts that live on after him.

Sounds True provides a video of Nhat Hanh, the artist, as he engages in calligraphy as a form of mindfulness, using the in-breath and out-breath. In one calligraphy, he likens the continuation of our lives in different forms to a cloud that never dies.

Diana states that the global mindfulness movement represents in many ways the continuation of the life of Nhat Hanh. She asks us, “How are you going to enable the continuation of Nhat Hanh’s life in your own life?”. As we grow in mindfulness, we are continuing the life and tradition of Nhat Hanh and gaining access to the benefits of mindfulness including calmness, emotion regulation, insight, resilience and the courage to take compassionate action.

Thich Nhat Hahn made a hugely significant contribution to the global mindfulness movement and world peace (he was nominated by Martin Luther King for the Nobel Peace Prize). Nhat Hanh left us a huge store of resources to enable us to plumb the depths of his teachings and his indomitable spirit, and to continue his life’s work to create a “beloved community”. In all his life, throughout the challenges of suffering, grief and disappointment, he “practised a lot of breathing, coming back to himself”. Mindful breathing provided his grounding during all phases of his life, especially in the face of violence against the Vietnamese people, his followers and social workers.

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Image by Karl Egger 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.

Reframing Menopause: Making Sense of the Transition

Maria Shriver, creator of the Radically Reframing Aging Summit, identified aspects of our life that need reframing such as the aging narrative, retirement, life transitions and death and dying. She also mentioned explicitly the negative narrative around menopause and the need to reframe it as “a different stage of life” leading to blossoming, rather than decline. This theme of post-menopausal empowerment is taken up in Susan Willson’s book, Making Sense of Menopause: Harnessing the Power and Potency of Your Wisdom Years. In a podcastinterview with Tami Simon, Susan spoke energetically and insightfully about the disempowerment of the current narrative about menopause.

Salient messages in Making Sense of Menopause

In her interview, Susan covered many aspects of menopause including the physical, psychological and cultural dimensions. Some of the key messages introduced in her interview podcast and detailed in her book are identified below.

The negative narrative – the prevailing narrative around menopause focuses on what can be lost, e.g. looks, sexual drive and physical prowess. This narrative can be disempowering so that some women view menopause as a period of decline rather than the transition to a new phase of life that can be enriching, rewarding and a source of creativity and shared wisdom. She sees her role as helping women to change the narrative and to see menopause in a new lights that leads to proactive action and empowerment.
Physical changes – Susan stresses that the body is forever working in the best interests of the individual, by integrating its functions, accessing its intelligence and continuously adapting to its environment. She argues that women need to understand what the body is trying to achieve and to work with it rather than against it. She suggests that women can move beyond the symptomatic level and their conditioning arising through being “marinated” in the pharmaceutical solution to everything. Susan explains too that part of the hormonal changes occurring in menopause actually “trigger the creative centers of the brain”.
The sharing of wisdom – Susan argues that what is needed is a new narrative about menopause that recognises it as a time for “thriving” and for women to access their creativity and wisdom. She identifies the post-menopausal wise woman as someone who has worked on their “inner landscape” so that she “really knows who she is” and is comfortable enough in herself to own her self-identity without being dependent on the opinions of others. The wise woman too, in her view, who takes the “long view” – being present in the moment but not captured by it, and being able to see beyond limiting ideologies, narrow worldviews and short-term time horizons. The long view includes consciousness of community and a desire to make a contribution drawing on a woman’s innate gifts and wisdom accumulated through life experiences.
Role models of the wise woman – Susan suggested that there are increasing examples of the post-menopausal wise women, some of whom will be presenting at the Radically Reframing Aging Summit. She also mentioned Hazel McCallion as a model of a wise women – a woman who became a Mayor in Ontario in her 60’s and retired at 95, after focusing on building community and the welfare of people she served. Another example that comes to mind is Edith Eger who at 92 wrote The Gift: 12 Lessons to Save Your Life– a reflection on lessons learned in her time in Auschwitz and, subsequently, as a world-renowned and highly accredited trauma counsellor.
Need for ritual – Susan maintains that there is a need for ritual “to bring menopause to a conscious place”. In the podcast and her book, she describes her own ritual for menopause as a point of transition to a new and fulfilling phase in her life. She makes the point that in Western Society, unlike many other cultures, we do not have established rituals to celebrate rites of passage such as puberty and menopause. Susan strongly suggests that women can use their creativity to design their own ”cloning ceremony” that celebrates their post-menopausal transition to a “Wise Woman”. She explains that such a ritual has four key elements – acknowledging what has been left behind, acknowledging the gifts brought forward, a commitment to a new phase of life through engaging creativity and sharing wisdom and a number of witnesses drawn from friends or the broader community (that makes the commitment public). She suggests that women need to overcome the reticence experienced in the West to talk about life transitions affecting them and engage friends and family in conversation about what is happening for them.
Lifestyle choices – Susan suggests that women need to develop a ritual around eating, sleeping and exercising. This establishes a “body rhythm” and enables the body to provide the necessary amount of energy when required. She notes that many women live on adrenaline pushing themselves to the limit and causing their body to be in a continuous state of fight or flight – which runs down energy and causes the adrenals to continuously make adjustments to manage blood sugar levels.
Intimate relationships – Susan notes that while some women report that their sex drive diminishes with menopause, other women report that their post-menopausal stage represents “the best years ever in terms of sex”. She contends that a key factor in these differences is a woman’s sense of connection with their partner – a feeling of connection enhanced through communication about present moment feelings and bodily disposition, as well as about shared future goals.

Susan provides further ideas and resources to help women navigate the menopausal life transition through her website, Making Sense of Menopause – where she provides further podcast interviews she has been involved in (or will be in the future) and also her blog posts.

Reflection

Menopause, like other life transitions, impact women on multiple levels – physical, psychological, cultural and emotional levels. Susan and Maria both strongly support the idea of changing the narrative about menopause from one of loss and depletion to one of women gaining empowerment. They stress the gift of menopause lies in greater access to creativity and wisdom for women and the positive energy and sense of achievement that comes from creatively sharing their wisdom with others in the form of teaching, managing, writing, performing, painting, counselling or any other endeavour that utilises their knowledge, skills and life experience.

As women grow in mindfulness and self-awareness, they are better able to make the transition to post-menopausal life. They develop a deeper sense of who they are, what they are capable of, and how they can contribute to the quality of life for other people.

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Image by silviarita 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.

Conscious Aging: Reframing for Health and Happiness

Maria Shriver – author, journalist and activist for healthy aging – recently spoke to Tami Simon about the Radically Reframing Aging Summit that they are collaborating on to promote a balanced view of aging. Maria is the founder of Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM) which she established after her mother died of Alzheimer’s and following her awareness that two thirds of people living with Alzheimer’s or Dementia in America are women and the same percentage of carers for these sufferers are also women. Maria was conscious that there was a lack of research and education about women’s Alzheimer’s and she set out to address this deficiency by funding research and education about Alzheimer’s management and prevention through the Movement which also engages in advocacy.

In the interview podcast with Tami Simon, Maria discussed several topics that will be covered in the Summit and explained some of the background to bringing together a range of “groundbreakers” drawn from many fields including performers, neuroscientists, medical professionals, psychologists, and entrepreneurs – all of whom have broken through the mythical “age barrier” to achieve outstanding results in work and life in their later years.

Fundamental to the Summit is the realisation that there are lots of myths about aging and unhelpful “narratives” that disempower people from achieving a healthy and productive life as they grow old. While numerous narratives exist for early life up to and including age 40 (e.g. establishing a career, getting married and having children), there is very little in terms of positive narratives about aging and the later years of life. One of Maria’s goals is to establish new “aging narratives” through the words and example of “groundbreakers”, some of whom are presenters at the Summit.

Some lessons from the groundbreakers

In the course of the podcast interview, Maria highlighted some of the key insights and lessons gleaned from the groundbreakers and she identified Tami Simon as one of them [Tami established her multimedia company Sounds True in 1985 to promote mindfulness, mental health and spirituality in business and now has over 600 podcast interviews with leaders in these fields]. The insights and lessons cover areas such as the following:

Reframing the aging narrative – the problem with the mainstream aging narrative is that it induces fear and prevents proactive actions to live later years in a meaningful, healthful and optimum way. The focus on deterioration with aging, instead of potentiality, induces fear about the future and the possibility of chronic ill-health, Alzheimer’s and loneliness. People become fixed in their ways, lacking initiative in dealing with their health and happiness. Maria is determined to promote positive stories about aging and change the dominant narrative. She points out that the groundbreakers presenting in the Summit proactively work on their mind, their body and their overall frame of mind. They age consciously – reframing aging so that they experience health and happiness. They work to achieve a designer future.
Reframing retirement – the old narrative about retirement involved finishing a career and engaging in some hobbies while leading a relatively sedentary life. Reframing the retirement narrative involves a change in mindset that views the best years of life ahead, rather than behind. Groundbreakers live a life that inspires themselves and others. They choose to work on what matters to them (something that they are passionate about); what “speaks to them” at the time (given their life experience, skill set and lessons learned); and what brings them joy, happiness and fulfillment. They are able to flourish, enrich their life and deepen their life experience. Pursuing a purpose that energizes them and enables them to tap into their creativity. My brother Pat was an example of this when in his early 70’s (until he was 81), he started “virtual walking” (covering more than 25,000 kilometres) to raise funds for his aged care centre, Sinnamon Village. Maria also shares the story of a woman who was retired by her law firm (because she was 60!) and went on to become a full-time art instructor at an Art School (a long-held dream of hers). We are able to rewire and, like super-agers, pursue a life energised by a purpose and mission, access our creativity by challenging ourselves and adopt a mindset that sees ourselves as active and healthy. The principle of changing the retirement narrative is also captured in Bob Bradshaw’s book, Don’t Retire to Expire: “Once you wake up, everything else is optional”.
Alzheimer’s prevention – given her family history, Maria was very determined to prevent Alzheimer’s, not only for herself, but also for the wider community through her Women’s Alzheimer’s Movement (WAM). She recognised that the presence of Alzheimer’s in your parents is not a major determinant of whether you will experience Alzheimer’s or not – there are other factors such as the way you live that have a greater influence. The Harvard Medical School in their report, Alzheimer’s Disease: A guide to diagnosis, treatment and caregiving, confirms the view that the major determinant of Alzheimer’s is lifestyle, not family history. In the podcast, Maria shared what she does personally to ward off Alzheimer’s in line with current research into Alzheimer’s prevention and what is beneficial for a healthy brain and heart. She explained, for example, that she exercises, tries to get adequate and quality sleep, reduces stress in her life (where possible), sets about learning new things and watches her diet and nutrition (no longer for weight-loss reasons but for the health of her mind and body).
Reframing life transitions – Maria highlighted the constant need for adaption in life as we experience periods of transition, e.g. marriage breakup, loss of a job, children leaving home, extended marriages or establishing a new relationship in later life. Many of these transitions involve reframing one’s identity (e.g., identity changes because you are no longer a carer, paid employee of an organisation, or a provider of a home for your own children). There can be a feeling of loneliness with the “empty nest” or a sense that you are “not needed anymore”. The feelings of loneliness can be compounded by the death of a partner, close relative or friend. Maria suggests that to make the transition we need to respect our feelings and face them while trying progressively to figure out a way forward for ourself. She maintains that grief is a real challenge as we age because we lose people and, as a result, grief is an inevitable accompaniment of the aging process. Jenée Johnson provides some sound advice on coping with grief.
Reframing death and dying – as we age and get closer to our death,it is natural to fear dying and to avoid conversations about this inevitable experience. However, many mindfulness experts encourage meditating on death as a preparation for dying. Maria informs herself about the dying process through her journalistic stories on near death experiences and the Hospice Movement. She maintains that it is an ongoing challenge for all of us to work out “how to live well and how to die well”. Maria contends that regrets are normal when we die and that we should die with as few regrets as possible through feeling that we have made the most of our life and used our gifts to enhance our own life and that of others. Franks Ostaseski, an expert in the process of dying and death, suggests that we go one step further when thinking about past regrets. He argues that we should replace regret with remorse so that we are motivated to do, and say things, differently when we reflect on what we have done or said, or failed to do or say.

Reflection

Maria points out tha t different cultures (such as African Americans) have a much more positive view of aging than Western society and respect the wisdom of their elders and, accordingly, treat older people with much deference and a wholesome respect. I found even in Italy, for example, that older people were highly respected (to my surprise, having men and women of all ages offering their seat to me on a tram, even when they were sitting further away from me on the tram – I was in my early 70’s at the time).

Maria suggests that it is critical that we have the conversation in public about aging and its attendant challenges and opportunities. People in Western society have suffered in silence in the past and been subjected to the limiting, prevailing mindset about aging. For example, Maria’s interviewer, Tami, mentioned the challenge of going grey as a woman and the pressures to die her hair a different colour (which she resisted, being a groundbreaker in lots of ways). Maria also encourages us to write about our fears, to get them outside our head and onto paper. She has found that this serves to reduce the fear and related stress and enables her to take appropriate action.

People in chronic pain have additional challenges as they age. Maria expressed empathy and compassion for people in this situation. She stressed the need to express gratitude at each stage of life for what we have and are able to do. In being grateful for our current capabilities, both mental and physical, we are more likely to care for them and develop them, rather than take them for granted. We are also more likely to be compassionate towards others who lack our capabilities because of some form of disability.

Maria shares her own life experiences, lessons and meditation practices in her book, I’ve Been Thinking…:Reflections, Prayers and Meditations for a Meaningful Life. She also expands on the book’s insights through a regular podcast, Meaningful Conversations, where she interviews people she admires and explores life’s challenges and the “art of self-invention”.

As we grow in mindfulness through listening to podcasts, reflecting on our own life and engaging in meditation and other mindfulness practices, we can become more aware of our limiting narratives, be more proactive as we age and tap into our creative energy to pursue a meaningful and fulfilling life purpose.

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Image by annayozman 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.

Cultivating Curiosity and Openness

Frank Ostaseski in his presentations during the Healing Healthcare Summit focused on openness and curiosity. In the process, he revisited two of the key lessons of living and dying that he had previously written about – (1) welcome everything, push nothing away and (2) cultivate a don’t know mind.

Openness – welcome everything

Frank suggests that we need to be able to meet whatever our life circumstances bring our way and do so in a way that we are open to the full range of thoughts and emotions involved. He reminds us that life is a series of constant changes, e.g. loss of a job, death of a close family member, change In financial circumstances or location. He encourages us to meet these changes as if welcoming a familiar person at our front door. He draws on James Baldwin’s insightful comment for his rationale – “Nothing can be changed, if it is not first faced”.

Frank reminds us that denial or ignoring unpleasant experiences does not create freedom, only servitude. He encourages “fearless receptivity” – awareness of fear without imprisonment by it. He maintains that mindfulness involves moment to moment awareness of everything we are experiencing – bodily sensations, thoughts and emotions. In this openness lies true freedom – because we are fully aware of what is happening to us and conscious of our habituated responses and yet able to regulate our emotions and explore alternative ways of responding.

Frank suggests that sometimes mindfulness practices involving “precise attention” to a single thing, e.g. a word or our breathing can create something of a struggle or tension in our minds and somewhat defeat the purpose of the practice. He contends that the practice of “open boundless awareness”, sometimes called “natural awareness”, can be more liberating when we feel constrained by a focused meditation practice. He offers awareness of the sky and its vastness as an example. He also provides a mini-practice that can help to engender this sense of boundlessness.

In the mini-practice, Frank encourages us first to become grounded and relaxed so that we can focus on the meditation. He then encourages us to take in the space above us, to our left, then to our right, followed by the space below and in front of us. An alternative to this, is to focus on the sounds that surround us, progressively shifting our focus onto the soundscape in the directions that Frank mentions above. Frank suggests that we treat distracting thoughts like birds flying past, not landing or hovering above.

Becoming more curious and less critical

This topic was the theme of his second presentation during the Summit and aligns with his exhortation to “cultivate a don’t know mind”. Frank argues that mindfulness is not about searching for some future enlightenment goal but becoming “up close and personal” with ourselves. He contends that our aim is to become “intimate” with ourselves and every aspect of our lives, pleasant and unpleasant. He explains that this is the path to true liberation and reinforces the view that “the path is right beneath your feet”.

In cultivating intimacy with ourselves we will become aware of parts of ourselves that we do not like. In Frank’s view, the inherent challenge is to be able to “tolerate intimacy” – be able to fully face up to who we are really, warts and all. In his podcast interview with Whit Missildine, Frank addressed the question, “What if you witnessed a thousand deaths?” – a question that was based on his personal experience as End-of-Life Teacher, Founding Director of the Zen Hospice Project and Director of the Metta Institute. Frank maintained that the ways we define ourselves will be stripped away in the process of dying and death. He contends that throughout life we live a delusion about ourselves – we project an image that is not our real self, but our imagined or idealised self. He has witnessed numerous people expressing regret as they lay dying – regrets about what they have done of failed to do. In dying, we are confronted with who we really are.

Frank maintains that when people are dying they have no interest in, or energy for, maintaining an illusion of who they are and cease to be concerned about what others think about them. He suggests that it behoves us during life to express remorse rather than regret – because remorse confronts the unpleasant side of ourselves and motivates us to avoid similar actions or omissions in the future. As we grow in intimacy with ourselves through meditation, we can progressively strip away the illusions about who we are through a process of loving kindness and forgiveness towards ourselves, avoiding harsh self-criticism.

Frank argues that In developing intimacy with ourselves, we become acutely aware that we are not separate but connected to everyone. He maintains that in this deep learning about ourselves, we develop a “deep sense of belonging” – an acute recognition of our interdependence and a strong desire to move beyond our limiting self-centredness. He suggests that a simple practice is to just “pause” throughout our day, taking a break from the busyness of life, and to focus on our experience as it is occurring. Frank contends that “mindfulness emerges from a relaxed heart and mind”.

Reflection

Frank has learned so much through observing the process of dying and death and willingly shares the lessons he has learned. He explains that he learns from the dying as they learn from him – there is a reciprocity about his engagement with them. He is humbled and amazed by what he learns and yet he recognises that he still harbours a fear of death because of its uncertainty. Frank has detailed his lessons learned in his book, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.

Regrets are a natural response in the event of someone dying who is close to us (or not as close as they should have been). I can certainly acknowledge that I had regrets on the recent death of my brother Pat. However, as Frank suggests, remorse is a better option. With remorse we can revisit what we have said and done or failed to say and do, give ourselves forgiveness and express the intention to do better in the future. We can reflect on our individual regrets and ask ourselves:

What will I do more of in the future?
What will I do less of?
What will I stop doing?
What will I start doing?

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, meditation and other mindfulness practices, we can develop intimacy with ourselves, recognise our connectedness, deepen our connection with others and learn the profound lessons from death and dying.

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Image by Tommy_Rau 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.

Overcoming Conditioning: The Road to Sobriety

Veronica Valli and Chip Somers, psychotherapists and sobriety coaches, provide a video podcast which focuses on, “How to stop drinking without feeling like you are missing out”. Both have recovered from extended substance abuse and share their knowledge, skills and life stories to help others experience recovery. Throughout the video they explore the false beliefs that lead us to maintain our level of alcohol drinking and that serve to entrench our habituated behaviour. They explore the outside influences that reinforce our false beliefs and unhelpful/unhealthy habits. Veronica and Chip offer a way forward for anyone who wants to overcome their conditioning and achieve sobriety – a road to recovery that they have used to help many hundreds of people recover and achieve a truly successful life. They also offer a Soberful podcast with more than 150 episodes incorporating success stories to help people sustain their efforts to achieve sobriety.

The power of false beliefs

Chip and Veronica point out that underpinning our habituated drinking behaviour is a set of false beliefs that influence our thoughts and emotions on a daily (even hourly) basis. These false beliefs relate to the nature of the rewards offered by alcohol drinking and the fear of exclusion through living a boring life if not drinking. The fundamental false belief is that alcohol is the passport to a promised land – the land of fun, excitement, relaxation, a sense of connection and belonging, sex and romance. The power of this belief is fuelled by our conviction that this is the desired land – the place we want to be. Associated with that is the fear that if we stop, or even reduce, our alcohol drinking we will be seen as boring and be excluded from the desired land of personal fulfillment.

External influences reinforcing false beliefs

Television advertising with its ability to create colourful and exciting scenarios portray a culture where drinking is the road to inclusion and fun. The images portrayed in advertisements entice us to sit back and relax with a drink or to party on with others who are having a good time. Some ads even focus on the pain of exclusion for those who are not part of the drinking set. Wine and beer advertising through social media, text messages and email is continuous and unrelenting, promising the ”good life” if you participate and partake. Newspapers offer special advertisements that encourage you to sign up for weekly/monthly shipments of alcohol at special discounted prices. If you happen to join a wine club, they are very ready to make you “one-off offers” that are “specially designed for you” – and they can make this very targeted by tracking your frequent purchases. A culture of drinking permeates our society and it is very difficult to break the hold of this cultural entanglement.

The road to sobriety

Both Veronica and Chip stress that the road to sobriety can be a long journey where the early stages can be quite difficult as we try to break the hold of our false beliefs and the influence of family, friends and peer group that can hold us back – sometimes with the disarming comment, “Oh come on, don’t be a bore!”

One of the primary ways that Chip highlights to begin the road to recovery is a “reality check” or what is often called “a cost/benefit analysis”. Chip insists that we face the reality of the costs of drinking alcohol for us personally and don’t downplay or overlook the negative impact on family, friends, work output, social relationships, health and wellbeing and overall productivity. Facing the reality of our lack of sobriety can be painful and entails a thorough reassessment of the reward value that we consciously or unconsciously ascribe to drinking alcohol.

Veronica focused on the need for social support to reinforce our efforts to achieve recovery. She maintains that social support is necessary to reduce the likelihood of falling back into old habits or the stop/start pattern that can develop when we go it alone. To this end, Veronica offers a Soberful Facebook group and a paid online Soberful Life Program with monthly workshops, support meetings, training videos, and podcast discussions – all facilitated by professional experts and established authors in the field of sobriety.

In her latest book, Soberful: Uncover a Sustainable, Fulfilling Life Free of Alcohol,Veronica offers other ways to begin the journey to recovery and sustain a life of sobriety. She highlights the emotional skills needed to sustain our recovery efforts and identifies effective strategies to manage the difficult emotions that we often try to avoid or numb through alcohol. She discusses in detail what she describes as the Five Pillars of Sustainable Sobriety which she identifies as movement, connection balance, process and growth (this is also offered as a free Masterclass).

Reflection

The road to sobriety is very much an individual journey and both Chip and Veronica have travelled this road over many years in their earlier lives. They have experienced the challenges, the setbacks, pressures and the big and small victories. Veronica found that journalling and meditation (undertaken over more than 20 years) have helped her to sustain her sobriety and Chip highlighted the positive influence of “expressing gratitude for what he has” as a sustaining force.

One of the ways to recovery involves a process of reflection on what “messaging” we give ourselves on a particular occasion when we chose to drink alcohol. We can review, for example, whether our behaviour was motivated by a reward mindset – just one or two drinks to reward ourselves for overcoming a difficult situation, achieving a successful outcome, celebrating an anniversary or birthday. Bringing awareness to our personal messaging helps us to identify the specific motivators that underlie our habituated behaviours.

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, listening to podcasts, participating in workshops/programs or meditating, we can grow in self-awareness and identify the drivers behind our habits, including the habit of drinking alcohol, and develop the necessary emotional regulation to enable us to achieve a desired state of sobriety.

I have personal experience of the damaging effects of alcohol through my experience of an alcoholic father who lacked any support mechanism for his post-traumatic stress syndrome resulting from three and a half years as a prisoner-of-war in Changi. After a marriage breakup and a successful remarriage, he became a model of sobriety, giving up drinking alcohol completely, and keeping fit by walking for an hour every day.

This family history has motivated me to avoid alcoholism. However, I still feel the pressures, internal and external, to have a regular glass of wine (a variable regularity governed, to some degree, by my life circumstances at the time – such as the recent death of my brother Pat Passfield). My strategy to move towards my desired level of sobriety is to reflect on what motivates my behaviour in particular circumstances and to do a reality check covering the real cost of the occasional drink (e.g. on health and relationships).

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Image by pen_ash 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.

Being Mindful 0f Our Thoughts

Tom Heah presented a guided meditation podcast on Mindfulness of Thoughts through the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), UCLA. Tom reminds us that we are often lost in thought either about the past or the future – all of which detracts from fully experiencing the present moment. In relation to the past, we might be absorbed by regrets about what we have done or failed to do; disappointed that certain outcomes (sporting, academic or otherwise) did not meet our expectations; or depressed about a broken relationship or lack of achievement or advancement. In relation to the future, we might be worried about the unintended consequences of our words and/or actions; concerned about loss of physical/mental capacities; or anxious about our financial situation or the pervasiveness of the pandemic.

Tom Heah is an occupational therapist and an experienced meditation trainer and practitioner with many years’ experience training facilitators of programs such as MBSR (Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction) and MBCT (Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy). He has a low-key and reassuring way of facilitating meditations and provides strong encouragement to “have a go” and try different approaches.

Guided meditation

Tom begins the guided meditation by suggesting that we focus first on “arriving” – being really present in body, emotions and mind. He encourages us no matter what our posture is (e.g. sitting, standing, lying down or walking) to become very conscious of our bodily sensations – are we bringing any physical tension or tightness to the meditation? He suggests we welcome any feelings that we may have at the start and to acknowledge their existence without blame or concern to shift them. As part of this grounding process, Tom asks us to tune into sounds around us without interpreting them or seeking to evaluate them in terms of pleasant or unpleasant – acknowledging that these sounds just exist outside of ourself but within our soundscape.

Tom then uses our bodily sensations as an anchor before moving onto the potentially disarming and distracting element of our thoughts. He encourages us to feel the solidness beneath our feet (whether through sensing the floor or the earth). He switches our focus to our palms – firstly, placing our palms downturned on our lap, followed by having them in an upright position and becoming aware of the different sensations associated with these alternative positions (e.g. tightness, tingling or warmth). This process can be followed by a full body scan moving from the top of our head to the souls of our feet.

When we have achieved some level of groundedness and being present to what is, Tom suggests that we become aware of our thoughts – their content, focus and associated feelings. He draws on the work of Joseph Goldstein, author of Mindfulness: A Practical Guide to Awakening, to assert that thoughts lead to action that, in turn, lead to consequences. To change the consequences, we need to change our thoughts but the starting point is awareness of our thoughts, their patterns and their reactivity to negative triggers. Joseph maintains that awareness of our thoughts leads to an “opening of the mind”.

Associated with our thoughts are emotions that are manifest in our body. Tom encourages us to return to our anchor, bodily sensations, to tap into the embodiment of our thought-provoked emotions. Again, we can become aware of the bodily sensations associated with particular emotions (e.g. anger can be reflected in muscular spasms or tightness; depression may be experienced as inertia; and nonspecific anxiety can manifest as fibromyalgia).

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness and become more aware of our thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations through meditation and other mindfulness practices, we can learn to accept what is and achieve a level of groundedness and emotional control. Associated with these outcomes are increased resilience and heightened creativity in dealing with challenging situations and experiences.

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Image by Engin Akyurt 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.