Month: September 2021

Trauma Sensitive Mindfulness: Accessibility for People with Disabilities

David Treleaven, author of Trauma-Sensitive Mindfulness: Practices for Safe and Transformative Healing, organised an online Meet-Up to explore how to provide accessibility for people with disabilities.  While many of us experience psychological disabilities or hindrances because of trauma and adverse early childhood experiences, the focus on this Meet-Up session was on facilitating access for people with physical disabilities.  The insights and suggestions are relevant to facilitators of any group of people, not only those seeking to engage in trauma-sensitive mindfulness training or facilitation.

Awareness of disabilities

To increase awareness of the nature and range of physical disabilities for facilitators/trainers, David introduced the topic of accessibility by highlighting the “massive and complex” area of people who have a physical disability or impairment.  He stressed that as trainers/facilitators we are not aware of the different impairments of participants and the impacts on their ability to access what we are sharing in a group environment.  He emphasised the need to undertake an “accessibility check-in” early when facilitating a group to ascertain the particular needs of people in the group.  

Given the interactivity and diversity of physical impairments, it is not possible to anticipate all the access needs of everyone – so a check-in is essential.   David helped the Meet-Up group increase their awareness of the complexity of disabilities and their impacts by having three people with lived experience of disability (and experience in advocacy for people with disabilities), who told their stories in a moving, disarming way.  Among other things, their presentations highlighted the prevalence and unique combinations of impairments that people do experience.

For instance, each of the three presenters identified that they experienced hypermobility – pain in joints (e.g. knees, fingers, hips) that typically extend beyond the normal range.  It can manifest in diverse ways including the inability to stand, sit upright or walk for any length of time and can vary over time or on any given day.  A specific form of the hypermobility spectrum, known as the Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, can be particularly debilitating and limit the capacity of an individual to engage in the normal range of mindfulness activities such as mindful walking, adopting an upright sitting position or standing.  The Ehlers-Danlos Society provides a wide range of community resources for people suffering from this syndrome and others who wish to learn about its manifestations and impacts.

Different manifestations of disabilities and their impacts

Each of the three presenters reinforced the benefits of mindfulness meditation for people experiencing disability and/or chronic pain.  However, they drew on their lived experience of disability and pain to share their stories of experiencing difficulties in effectively participating in meditation groups because of a lack of awareness of facilitators/trainers and willingness to make adaptions to their meditation process to enable full access for people experiencing disability. 

Heather Boyes spoke about her chronic pain from hypermobility and her environmental sensitivity and, in particular, her sensitivity to fragrances – an impairment exacerbated by the ubiquitous presence of fragrant hand sanitisers and cleaning products as a result of COVID -19 in the community.  Her allergic response can range from swollen lips to a “series of stroke-like headaches” and anaphylaxis.  She has found that mask wearing brought on by COVID-19 restrictions does not help her as pointed out that we have “olfactory receptors” in every organ, especially the skin.

Heather’s sensitivities extend to touching things like mould, experiencing a lack of airflow and transitioning from inside to outside (changing to a different environment which includes temperature differences).  

Heather also explained that public places could result in allergic-type reactions due to sensitivity to lighting, “blue light” from computers and other digital devices and sunlight.  All of her senses are heightened  by her condition, so that she is even affected by phone transmission.

Heather’s suggestions to make a meditation space accessible to her and others include:

  • Ensure people are aware of fragrance sensitivity and advise participants in advance not to wear strong fragrances to the meditation sessions
  • Ensure there is ready access to clean airflow
  • Be conscious of potential industry smells from nearby factories/workplaces
  • Have all mobile phones on flight mode before switching them off
  • Be aware of a person’s emergency contacts and whether they use medication or an EpiPen for emergencies (such as anaphylaxis)
  • Don’t assume that products branded safe (such as essential oils) are safe for everyone.

Cheryl Harris spoke about her connective tissue disorder that was diagnosed 19 years previously.  Her hypermobility manifests in difficulty in walking and standing and pain in her arms, hands and shoulders leading to migraines.  Associated with these disabilities is “visual impairment” and difficulty with computer screens.  Cheryl found that she experienced considerable difficulties during chronic pain meditation classes despite the trauma-sensitive approach adopted by the trainer.   Her physical impairments meant that the meditation sessions were relatively inaccessible for her.

While everyone in Cheryl’s meditation class had chronic pain, she was the only one with mobility limitations.  This meant she could not participate in standing meditations or mindful walking.  It left her watching and not participating.  She left her initial meditation class after 12 years because of the physical and emotional strain involved and joined another group that she was better able to engage with.

Cheryl’s suggestions for meditation trainers and facilitators include:

  • Recognise that you have the responsibility to find out students’ accessibility needs – it is not the students’ role to initiate this discussion
  • Establish access needs early on, e.g. “What would help you to feel welcome?” (she stated that the specific words do not matter – it is the awareness and sensitivity that really matter)
  • Recognise that students may have experienced stigma because of their disability
  • Don’t assume that people in pain have a disability or that all people with a disability are experiencing chronic pain
  • Use the language that the person in front of you uses (How do they describe their impairment? – textbook labels do not help because disability is a highly individualised and complex phenomenon)
  • Consider how intersectionality plays a role, e.g. in increasing the possibility of social isolation, for instance, for someone who has a disability, is a woman and an Aboriginal.

Cheryl provided an excellent resource titled, Adapting Mindful Practices to People Who Have Special Physical Needs.

Tara Beech explained that she suffers from fibromyalgia and hypermobility.  She indicated that chronic pain meditations are particularly difficult for her.  When she pays attention to her pain she experiences a burning sensation under her skin – resulting in the only pain-free area of her body being under her lips and her left eye. 

Tara has decided that she has to treat pain like trauma and adopt a pain-sensitive approach to meditation (not unlike trauma-sensitive mindfulness).   Her approach involves:

  • Cutting slack for herself through self-compassion
  • Meditating when she feels well
  • Lying down as the stress of sitting up triggers an allergic reaction
  • Avoid going beyond her “window of tolerance”.

Tara’s suggestions for facilitators include:

  • Helping people differentiate between “difficulty” and “distress”
  • Allow people a choice of anchors (and, where possible facilitate this choice through a session dedicated to choosing)
  • Encourage a change of posture where appropriate
  • Be aware that some anchors can cause stress, e.g. the increasing number of people who experience distress/trauma when using breath as an anchor because of personal experience with COVID-19 illness and/or asthma.
  • Encourage participants to savour something in their life, e.g. a person, an image, an experience, a skill-set or an achievement – this can provide a very pleasant and positive anchor and enable a person to focus on something other than their pain , loss or distress
  • Willingly explore the “space of disability” (Including neuro-divergence, auditory sensitivity and auditory impairment)
  • Be willing to explore “work arounds”, be patient, and be flexible (not static).

Understanding shame

Each of the presenters spoke about the shame they had experienced in certain meditation situations.  Shame was catalysed by being different, being the only one with a particular impairment, inability to fully participate, and/or divergent behaviour (e.g. having to lie on the floor which was considered “poor form”).  They experienced shame because they felt that they were creating a disruption, distraction or dislocation as a result of their unique set of needs arising from their diverse disabilities.   In the text chat during the Meet-Up, Dana Baron commented that shame is “stigma turned inwards” and that shame can impede/hinder a person from accessing necessary resources or adaptions/adjustments.

The presenters suggested that “shame will be in the room” and there is a constant need to be gentle. It will also require of the teacher/facilitator a willingness to “have a go”, to accept that you will “not know what to do” in some situations. Some impairments will be invisible (especially in an online environment), so it is important to offer choice and support (despite the inconvenience and the challenge to move outside your “comfort zone”).

Reflection

At the time of listening to the Meet-Up, I was spending most of my days with my feet elevated as I was suffering from an infected ankle – I could relate to the pain associated with walking and standing when you have a disability.  It reminded me of the time when a disc in my back collapsed and I spent 18 months in continuous sciatic pain (along with pneumonia in the early stages) – a condition resulting from the trauma of my mother dying and an arduous flight to and from Cartagena in South America (36 hours each way) as well as the cultural shock.

Listening to the presenters, I also became aware that I have some form of environmental sensitivity (which I had not named before) – I experience “exercise asthma” when playing tennis in cold environments and sweating at night when the humidity is very high (over 80%) and the wind speed is low (below 10 kph).

As we grow in mindfulness we can become more aware of what other people are experiencing, more sensitive to their needs and more courageous in taking appropriate, compassionate action.

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Image by Jackson David 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.

Managing the Natural Ripples of Life

Michael Singer provided a podcast discussion on the topic, Ceasing to be Caught in the Waters of the Mind. He uses the analogy of a bird floating on the waters of a lake, enjoying the smoothness and serenity of its existence.  When the wind whips up waves, the bird needs to ride them out, not fighting them nor imagining that they can control all the forces that create the waves.  So it is with us, Michael suggests that we need to relax in the face of the ripples of life when confronted with disappointments, setbacks, hurts over personal slights and grief over the loss of a loved one.  He argues that if we try to fight these ripples by suppressing the natural reactions of our mind and heart, we will temporarily suppress them and their effects, only to have them resurface in a more damaging way later on.   

Primary versus secondary ripples

Primary ripples are a natural part of the order of things and a natural consequence of our human condition.  We do experience disturbing thoughts in the face of the natural ripples of life but the major problem arises when we create secondary ripples by being caught up in anger, resentment, denial or any other emotion that takes us away from experiencing the primary ripple that set our response, of mind and heart, in motion.  Michael asserts that the real damage to our peace and tranquility is not caused by the primary ripples but by the secondary ripples that we create.  We can even become angry about our anger, resentful about our resentment or indulge in any other consequential emotion that denies the impact of the primary ripple and enables us to avoid our discomfiture.  Michael provides a guided journal for writing practices to enable us to experience the freedom of journeying beyond ourselves and our tendency to create secondary ripples.

Seeking comfort

When we are disturbed by the natural ripples of life, rather than resting quietly and relaxing so that the ripples pass by, we often seek out comforts that are designed to avoid the pain of our disturbance.  We can turn to food or drink, seek to have people say nice things about us, pursue our thirst for acquisitions, seek a better job or leave a relationship because the other party does not conform to our expectations.  We try to control our world, avoid the pain and hurt and seek relief in what makes us feel comfortable – all the while denying the reality of the primary ripples and their effects on our mind and heart.  We try to stop the ripples rather than riding them out and acknowledging that they will eventually pass.  Even grief or boredom too will pass if we accept the reality of loss or the momentary absence of stimulation.

Trying to manipulate the outside world to avoid discomfort

We can indulge in complaining; self-protective stories like, “Why me…what have I done to deserve this!’; wanting other people to change to conform to our expectations; or taking inappropriate action that aggravates the situation (e.g. road rage, harbouring hurt and resentment).   A recent example of trying to manipulate the outside world to restore comfort in the face of an uncomfortable situation was highlighted by Dr. Grant, an emergency department doctor in Victoria, Australia.

Dr. Grant wrote about the sense of entitlement driving construction workers to obstruct traffic in Victoria because they were now prevented from using their “tea rooms” because of concerns about potential transmission of COVID-19 infection.  She pointed out with a graphic photo of herself at the end of a day’s work, the physical toll and emotional drain of working with COVID-19 patents – causing personal deprivations for more than two years, including having no formal place to eat lunch.  The construction workers are trying to manipulate the outside world so that they do not have to experience the discomfort of losing their tea rooms. 

Reflection

Michaels’s core message is the “world is unfolding in front of us” and there is a lot of things and forces that we have no control over.  Instead of suppressing our discomfort, he suggests that we “become comfortable” with the different states we experience, both in our mind and heart, when we encounter the ripples of life.  This accords with the exhortation by Karla McLaren to understand and experience the wisdom of difficult emotions.

Michael encourages us not to be caught up in the waters of our mind – not to be caught up in turbulence of our own making, the secondary ripples that we can create through our own efforts to replace disturbance in our mind and heart with feelings of comfort that we create artificially.  He offers an online course, Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action, that incorporates journalling for self-reflection and training videos.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and mindfulness practices such as journalling, we will be better able to rest and relax in the face of disturbance caused by primary ripples, gain insight into how we personally create secondary ripples and become comfortable with the different natural states of our mind and heart.

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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.

Growth through Mindfulness in the Moment

n a recent interview podcast, Tami Simon of Sounds True interviewed Michael Singer, author of The Untethered Soul Guided Journal: Writing Practices to Journey Beyond Yourself and The Surrender Experiment: My Journey into Life’s Perfection.  Michael made his teachings available in the form of a series of podcasts covering his perspective on spirituality and being in the moment.  The podcast I want to focus on in this post is one Michael titled, Giving Meaning to the Time Between Your Birth and Your Death.  Michael offers several insights that can enable us to experience the moment, live life fully and joyfully and realise what he terms “spiritual growth”.  His insights revolve around our “acquisitions”, our conditional “okay inside” mindset and our tendency to be “bothering” about life instead of experiencing it.

Our tendency to want to acquire

Michael’s salient point here is that whatever we acquire with our short life on this planet, we cannot take with us at our death – whether it be our house, money, car, marriage, status or personal looks.  Yet we spend so much of our lives trying to acquire more.  We look to have a bigger house in a better location with more comforts; to make more money to be able to purchase the things that we desire to own; to have a newer car with more comforts and features.   As Michael points out, these desired “acquisitions” do little to resolve the issue that we are “not okay inside” – they do not provide lasting satisfaction or happiness.  The reality is that we spend much of our life in fruitless pursuit of what we want to acquire – none of which we can take with us when we inevitably die.

Our conditional “okay inside” mindset

Often we believe that we will be “okay inside” if our life was different to what it is.  If we were someone who was brighter, more educated, better looking or married to someone who was eminently flexible and available.  We are not okay because we cannot accept “what is”.  He points out that we carry a lot of “garbage inside” that impacts our experience of the world.  Some of this is related to our expectations and our perception of the expectations of others. Part of it relates to a false belief about what brings happiness and fulfillment.  He makes the humbling point that we are fortunate to live on earth with all its richness in nature, people, places and beauty– even though it is a speck of dust in a vast universe that is mind-boggling in its magnitude. 

Being “bothered” by life instead of experiencing it

Michael maintains that a lot of our ”not-okayness” relates to the fact that we let a lot of life “bother us”.  We are bothered by the slowness of the car in front of us, by the lack of our favourite dessert in the supermarket, by the annoying habits of our partner, by the lack of comfort of a chair, by the fact that a restaurant meal did not turn out as well as expected, by…  Because of our “bothered” frame of mind, we do experience life as it is.  Michael maintains that each experience has personal growth potential – we can learn and grow through every experience, no matter how small. 

We just need to “work on ourself” and recognise that we are bringing to each situation a pre-set idea of how it should be.  We seek to have others be like we want them to be so we don’t have to change the way we are.  We become locked into our way of doing things and stay like we are, unwilling to evolve and be what we are capable of being.

Experience, according to Michael, is a teacher but often we do not want to learn the lesson that experience brings. He argues that “every moment is designed for our growth” and part of the meaning of life is to realise this growth by “getting rid of why we are not okay”.  Often current experience can be a catalyst for memories of past bad experiences that we linger over and sometimes build resentment about.   Michael argues that these can leave a “scar” unless we learn to let them go – so much of what he suggested related to “letting go”.  If we can let go of the “garbage inside”, we can truly experience joy in the moment and free ourselves to feel the beauty that surrounds us and our own openness to life and living.

Reflection

Michael’s podcasts offer real insights into the ways that we block our own happiness and the realisation of our true growth and potential.  He offers an online course through Sounds True that inculcates his teachings and cultivates the mindset and habits that enable us to be “okay inside” so that we can experience the world as a place of growth and joy.  His course, Living from a Place of Surrender: The Untethered Soul in Action, incorporates video sessions and journalling for self-reflection.

Throughout his podcast, Michael illustrated his points by making frequent reference to tennis, my favourite sport.  He suggested that the experience of playing tennis has growth potential embedded in it.  If we make a mistake and hit the ball into the net, we could rail against the wind, the court conditions, the unpredictability of our opponent’s game or the tension of our racquet strings or become bothered by what others might think of us and our competence as a tennis player. 

Alternatively, we could experience gratitude for the opportunity to play tennis (which millions of people in the world do not have); appreciation that we can run and hit the ball (which many people in the world can’t do); acceptance that mistakes are an integral part of playing tennis (despite how competent we are at tennis);  wonder at the capacity of the human mind to rapidly process all the information required to execute a tennis shot;  and learning from what we did wrong in trying to play the shot (positioning, stroke choice, speed and direction of our tennis shot).

As we grow in mindfulness by working on ourselves through meditation, self-reflection and insight courses, we can be more open to experience and less bothered when things don’t turn out as we expect them to.  We can feel joy instead of disappointment, gratitude instead of envy and wonder instead of feeling uninspired.   

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Image by Antonio López 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.

Achieving the Benefits of Meditation Through Regular Practice

In his Mindful Monday podcast on the 9th of August, Marvin Belzer emphasised the importance of keeping meditation simple, especially when we are new to meditation – focusing on something that is simple and real such as our breath, ambient sounds, or bodily sensations.  He stressed that this simple focus enables us to experience what is happening now for us and leads to realising the many benefits of meditation such as calmness, clarity and concentration – each of which flows over into other areas of our lives such as family, work, sport and relationships.  He highlighted the need to relax into our meditation, not trying to force specific outcome.  The process of meditation that he described is similar to what I explained previously, though on this occasion there was more time devoted to silent meditation.

In a subsequent podcast on 16th of August, Marvin stressed the need for effort and patience to realise meditation’s benefits – we cannot rush the results.  He maintained that we are not aiming for perfection but need to recognise the nature of the human condition – a realisation that cultivates humility and the acceptance that we have very little control over much of our life.  However, what we can control is our ability to direct our attention – a skill that underpins much of success in life.  Controlling our attention is “doable” if we make the effort of regular meditation practice.  Marvin suggests that what helps here is humour as we recognise the frailty of our ability to concentrate for any sustained period of time without distractions.

The benefits of regular meditation practice

While sustained meditation practice can be difficult, the benefits that accrue are worth the effort and persistence involved.  These benefits include:

  • Creativity – we can develop creative solutions to our everyday problems and realise creativity in our work life.  Creativity is cultivated in an environment of stillness and silence – an environment where our mind is uncluttered and we are not overwhelmed by challenging emotions.
  • Clarity – meditation helps us to clear our minds and open ourselves to self-awareness and to insights into what we bring to a situation.  It also throws light on our life purpose – how we can utilise our life experience, skills, knowledge and values to create a better world, whether locally or globally.
  • Resilience – as we become more grounded through meditation, we can bounce back quicker and easier from setbacks and disappointments.  Meditation builds resilience because it helps us to clear false beliefs, regain perspective and overcome “emotional inflammation” that is prevalent in these challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Calmness and equanimity – as we become more grounded in our breath which is always with us while we are alive, we can experience calmness and face the vicissitudes of life with equanimity.  We can use symbolic actions, such as joining our fingers, at any time during the day to recapture this sense of calm and stability.
  • Compassion – as we come to accept our own frailty in the face of life’s challenges, we can become more empathetic towards others and more motivated to take compassionate action to alleviate the pain and suffering of others.

Reflection

Meditation requires effort but multiple benefits accrue if we can sustain regular practice.  If we are not too hard on ourselves – not seeking perfection in meditation practice – we can more readily sustain the motivation to undertake regular practice, no matter how boring the process may feel at times.  As we grow in mindfulness, we can become more tolerant of ourselves and others, appreciate our life and live it more fully.

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Image by Iso Tuor 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.

Meditation as a Process

Marvin Belzer, meditation teacher and faculty member of the UCLA Department of Psychiatry, offers a guided meditation, Mindful Monday, as part of the regular guided meditation sessions provided by the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), UCLA.   In a recent Mindful Monday podcast, he focused on the process of meditation and as well as offering a guided silent meditation.

Marvin stressed that the process of meditation does not involve rush to get somewhere and is not about “doing” which is typical of our daily life as we seek to achieve things in family life, work and recreation.  While meditation does require “effort” it is a subtle process, unlike our exertions to achieve things in life.  To be effective in meditation we have to give ourselves permission not to aim for “getting things done”.

Marvin explained that the process of meditation involves directing attention to something specific that is occurring in our everyday life.  It can involve the sounds that surround us, our breath or our bodily sensations.  Marvin maintains that meditation cultivates concentration – a skill that can flow over to every area of our life and enhance our relationships, e.g. through deep listening.  Focusing on something that is neutral can be calming and provide clarity.  

Marvin’s guided meditation process

Marvin’s process began with several deep breaths to relax your body and ground yourself in the present moment.  It also helps at this stage to reaffirm your intention in meditating.  He followed this up with a focus on ambient sounds – the sounds that enter your awareness from outside your immediate location.  This can be difficult for some people because our natural tendency is to analyse sounds, identify their source and categorise them as good or bad, intrusive or relaxing, harmful or helpful.  In focusing on sounds, it is important to suspend intellectual activity and just experience the sounds as they are in the present moment.

Distractions such as planning the day’s activities or worrying about some future event are a natural part of the process.  Marvin stresses that the experience of meditation is a very personal thing that can be impacted by our emotions at the time, our intellectual preoccupations and our life conditioning.  There is no right way or perfect end result – there is a continuous process of focusing, being distracted, and returning to our focus – a cycle that builds our awareness muscle.  Jon Kabat-Zinn maintains that while mindfulness meditation involves “paying attention on purpose”, it also requires a non-judgmental frame of mind – not evaluating ourselves against some perfect model, process or way of “doing meditation”.

Marvin suggests that you do a light body scan at the outset to ascertain any points of tension and to notice your posture which should be relaxed but enable you to be alert to what is happening for you.  An alternative at this stage, particularly if you are feeling stressed, is to do a full body scan which can enable you to progressively release tension wherever it is experienced in your body.  Your body and specific bodily sensations can become the focus of your meditation, e.g. paying attention to the vibrations in your joined fingers or your feet on the floor or ground.  You can also tune into the physical sensation of experiencing fear, anxiety or sorrow – noticing where in your body a strong emotion is being manifested.  Marvin points out that this process of paying attention to the embodiment of an emotion can serve as a refuge from the disturbance of challenging emotions.

Another source of achieving calm that Marvin identifies is your breath.  He suggests that you can rest in your breathing – paying attention to where in your body you can experience your breath in the moment, e.g. the movement of your chest or abdomen or the flow of air through your nose.  This process does not involve controlling your breath but experiencing it as it is – slow or fast, light or deep, even or uneven.  We are always breathing as a natural process of being alive, so resting in your breath can serve as a refuge at any time throughout your day.  Through meditation practice, you can drop automatically into the calming influence of your breath – just as performers and elite athletes do when they are about to perform or compete. If you associate breath awareness with a bodily sensation such as vibrations when your fingers are joined during regular meditation practice, then the act of bringing your fingers together (e.g., when waiting for something or somebody) can activate breath consciousness and the calming influence of breathing.

Reflection

Meditation is a process, not a goal post.  Regular practice enables us to find calm in the midst of the waves of life.  It is important to remain non-judgmental.  As we grow in mindfulness through meditation in whatever form we choose, we can develop calmness and tranquility and have a genuine source of refuge when times become challenging or we begin to become overwhelmed by emotions.  Our constant focus during meditation serves as an anchor in life when we encounter the turbulence of challenging times.

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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.

What Does Success Mean for You?

When we read about success we often encounter only the materialistic dimension of personal wealth – manifested in flashy cars, large homes, fame and substantial assets.  However, as Debra Poneman points out, many of these things feel hollow without the development of an inner life.  You can have all the external trappings of success and still not find happiness or a sense of fulfillment.  Debra, creator of Yes To Success, maintains that success has two key dimensions, (1) a deep inner life and true self-love and (2) contribution to a better world based on your life purpose.  Recently, Debra encapsulated these principles in a series of online seminars, Living a New Paradigm of Success, which incorporated interviews with leading experts in the field of success.

In one of the interviews, she spoke to Katherine Woodward, relationship expert and author of Conscious Uncoupling, who maintained that trauma we experience in life acts as a catalyst for self-awareness and self-realisation.  It is through challenging us and forcing us outside our comfort zone that trauma enables us to tap into our inner resources and gain clarity about our contribution to the world.  Evonne Madden, author of Life After,  has documented the lives of people who have come to terms with grief resulting from the death of a loved one.   She describes how many of them have “rebounded to fuller lives than they once thought possible”.  Her stories not only portray real-life resilience in the face of horrific events but also the ability of some people in their “life after” to make a contribution to a better world through selfless service motivated and informed by their personal experience.

Begin with the inside and the outside will follow

In her free e-book, The 5 Secrets to a Life of True Success (available on her website), Debra asserts that “true success” derives from “inner stillness” and contentment that provide the foundation for “effortlessly manifesting” outer success whether that be in relationships, material possessions, business success or publishing.   Without thorough development of our “inner landscape”, we are so easily impacted by external events.  Once we have developed our inner freedom and inner success, the loss of external success is only a minor detour – our sense of self-worth is not dependent on external realities.

Debra’s first “success secret” is about creating silence and stillness through what she describes as “spiritual practices” which incorporate mindfulness.  Inner silence enables us to surf the waves and vicissitudes of life and to tap into our life purpose – we are not daunted or side-tracked by setbacks, “failures” or critics.  Debra suggests that practices such as meditation, yoga, prayer or breath-work help us to create the requisite inner silence and also serve as a way to enhance our physical and mental capacities.  If we are at peace with ourselves we manifest this to others and impact those around us, including those in a close relationship with us.  Regular practice enables us to sustain our inner silence and this can be further enhanced by courses, retreats or periods of extended silence.

Reflection

So much of life is spent striving for outer success, that it is so easy to overlook our inner development.  Debra and her transformational colleagues stress that the real foundation of lasting success and happiness is inner silence.  As we grow in mindfulness through our regular practice of meditation or other mindfulness practices, we can develop our inner landscape and achieve inner peace, stillness and tranquility – which will serve to enable us to not only face the challenges that confront us but also to create outer success that incorporates a conscious, positive contribution to a better world.

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Image by Big_Heart 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.

Managing Our Response to Uncertainty

In these challenging times, we often experience uncertainty and ambiguity which, in turn, leads to anxiety and depression.  At the very least, these conditions can make us feel uncomfortable, annoyed or ill at ease.  We normally want to be in control of our lives and have some certainty about our future.  We try to create some sense, order and meaningfulness for our future by developing our plans for our career, family interactions, travel and personal development.  In times of uncertainty like the present, we can become disoriented when these plans are disrupted, put on hold, deferred or cancelled altogether because of lockdowns, border closures, ill-health, international conflicts or major natural disasters.

We need some strategies to help us cope with this uncertainty and ambiguity. Over time, we have to develop ways to tolerate these setbacks and anxiety-inducing conditions.  The reality is that uncertainty and ambiguity are part of the human condition and cannot be avoided.  Diana Winston offers one way of addressing this uncertainty and managing our response to challenging times.  In her guided meditation podcast, Opening to Uncertainty, she provides a mindfulness meditation approach which she describes as “advanced practice” – not only is it challenging but also requires repetition and practice to enable us to widen our window of tolerance in the face of ever-increasing uncertainty and ambiguity.

Guided meditation on managing our response to uncertainty

  • Diana begins the guided meditation with an initial focus on body posture which should be relaxed and comfortable but involve conscious choice that enables freedom of breathing.  She begins the meditation practice encouraging multiple deep breaths that facilitate release of built-up tension and stress.  Diana encourages us to “relax into the present moment” and become conscious of our bodily sensations – especially pockets or points of uptightness.  As we wind down, we can progressively release specific points of tension. 
  • The next phase involves choosing an anchor that truly grounds us in the present and is unlikely to act as a trigger for heightened negative emotions or a trauma response.  We each have our negative triggers and varying levels of tolerance to specific difficult situations.  Our meditation anchor enables us to return to a chosen focus when we notice our mind wandering or when we experience strong challenging emotions. 
  • When negative emotions take over, we have the choice to work with the difficult emotion and its intensity (if we are at an advanced stage of meditation practice) or to use our anchor as a way to return to being grounded in the present moment. 
  • After addressing emotions around experienced anxiety, Diana moves the meditation to another stage where she encourages us to recall an occasion when we successfully dealt with some level of anxiety and ambiguity.  Associated with this, is recalling the feeling of dealing positively with the stress – we can try to recapture those positive emotions to strengthen our belief in our own capacity to deal with current challenges.  I found this activity particularly useful, because it is so easy to overlook past successes in dealing with anxiety when you are feeling overwhelmed with present challenges.
  • The next stage of the meditation involved loving-kindness towards ourself.  To begin with it is important to acknowledge that it is natural to feel anxiety in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity.  Diana recommends that once we acknowledge this naturalness, we can express a positive desire such as, “May I meet uncertainty with grace and ease.”  This request can be repeated as a way to reinforce the belief that we are able to manage uncertainty in whatever form it takes.

Reflection

I undertook this meditation on the day that I was due to receive my first COVID-19 vaccine.  I was uncertain about what vaccine I was going to receive and concerned about the after effects, given that I suffer from a wide range of sensitivities and allergies.  There was ambiguity to deal with as well – surrounding the availability of the different vaccines, their relative effectiveness and their after effects.  However, I found that Diana’s guided meditation helped me to become grounded and prepared for most contingencies.

In her meditation, Diana encourages us to approach uncertainty and our response with openness and curiosity and a “willingness to be with that experience”.  She stated that life has its “ups and downs” and sometimes terrible things happen as well as wonderful things.  She maintained that it is illusionary to believe that life is an even, untroubled flow – we will be challenged at times and be able to cope to varying degrees with what confronts us.  

Diana asserted that as we grow in mindfulness through meditation, we will be better able to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity and manage our response to challenging stressors and associated emotions.  However, she asserted that managing our response to uncertainty is a long-term process. Her guided meditation can help in that regard. 

Diana mentioned the availability of other MARC meditation podcasts via the UCLA  Mindful App.  Previously I have identified activities to maintain a positive mindset in the times of uncertainty and anxiety.  In this blog, too, I have covered other meditation approaches to managing our response to uncertainty:

  • Jill Satterfield provided a meditation on using breath as a restorative process in challenging times.
  • Diana Winston offered an approach which focuses strongly on gratitude.
  • Kristin Neff and Chris Germer provided a range of self-compassion practices to enable us to manage in challenging times, including the pandemic.  
  • MARC meditations incorporate a range of other meditations that can reduce anxiety in times of uncertainty and challenge.

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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

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