Neuroscience has highlighted the multiple benefits of mindfulness practice. These include the capacity to pay attention, sustain task-focus and regulate our emotions. Mindfulness can contribute to our overall happiness by enabling us to be in the present moment (rather than the past or future), to sustain positive emotions and recover from perceived adverse events. Mindfulness enhances our capacity in a work situation by enabling us to handle abstract ideas, to be reflective and to strengthen the communication between the hemispheres of the brain. Nadine Cherry who teaches meditation and other mindfulness practices to corporate organisations around the world, maintains that meditation can also develop clarity and calm.
In a 12-Minute Meditation podcast (25 April 2024), Nadine facilitated a session on the theme, Meditation to Cultivate Calm and Clarity. In that session, she introduced two mindfulness practices that she contends can be used in the workplace or when working at home. They are short and can be undertaken anywhere:
1. H.A.L.T. Practice
In this process we can explore the bodily sensations and our thoughts associated with hunger, agitation, loneliness and tiredness. It involves stopping for a brief period to focus on each of these states and how they are affecting us in the present moment. It requires tuning into our bodies and our thoughts to assess where we are at in terms of these four human conditions. It also involves reorienting ourselves when we find that we are being impeded by what is going on both in our bodies and our minds. Nadine maintains that this mindfulness practice can contribute “to inner peace and outer performance at work”. It can be very useful as a prelude to a potentially tense meeting, a formal presentation or a challenging conversation.
2. Vagal Toning
Vagus nerves are a critical component of our parasympathetic nervous system and are responsible for creating signals between our brain, heart and digestive systems. Before challenging activities at work, we can experience tightening of our throat or chest. Vagal Toning involves deep breathing and exhaling with a particular sound that relaxes the vagal nerves. The process requires deep inhaling through the nose and then exhaling while making a “v” sound. This action expands the chest and calms the body, enabling clarity of thought and decision-making. Vagal toning helps us to become more grounded and connected to ourselves, enabling us to relax and to achieve optimal performance in the moment.
Nadine asserts that these two mindfulness practices facilitate “authentic expression” and enable us to overcome “overwhelm” when working. By helping us to become more connected to ourselves, they assist us to become clear about what we want to do and say in a work situation.
Reflection
While listening to Nadine’s podcast and participating in the mindfulness practices she described, I recalled another calming benefit of mindfulness that has personal relevance to my health situation. I had been watching Dr. Darin Ingles’ Q & A video presentation on the Inflammatory Auto-Immune Response where he mentioned strategies to manage Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) – a condition that I am currently experiencing.
Mast cells release chemicals that produce an inflammatory response to a “perceived invader” – something the body may misperceive as harmful (e.g. a particular protein found in gluten or milk). The activation of the mast cells can range on a spectrum from mild to severe. Darin maintains that in addition to medication, natural processes such as bodywork “can be helpful in resetting your autonomous nervous system and getting it back under control”. He mentions explicitly bodywork such as meditation, Tai Chi, acupuncture, vagal toning, yoga and deep breathing as being especially helpful in toning down the body’s “hyper-active” immune response.
The calming influence of Tai Chi on MCAS provides an added motivation for me to practise Tai Chi regularly. I have previously developed a mnemonic, FRAICHE, to remind me of other potential benefits of this mindfulness practice – flexibility, reflexes, awareness, intention, concentration and coordination, heart health and energy. So, as we grow in mindfulness through practices such as H.A.L.T. , vagal toning and Tai Chi we can calm our body and mind and develop clarity in our thinking and decision-making.
This post is provided for information purposes only and is not intended to replace personal medical advice provided by a trained medical practitioner. Please seek advice from a qualified professional before deciding on treatments for yourself or other members of your family.
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.
In the May Creative Meetup, sponsored by the Health Story Collaborative, we focused on the theme of “surrender”. The discussion proved to be both inspiring and insightful with participants freely sharing their wisdom born of their lived experience of dealing with chronic illness or disability. One area we looked at was the act of “letting go” of what is holding us back – our old beliefs, self-doubts, negative self-stories, fears, and expectations of ourselves and others. Associated with surrender, too, is the possibility of shedding an identity that no longer works for us.
Another sub-theme was that of “giving up” as Lily Tomlin comments, “to give up all hope of a better past”. It also means accepting ourselves “as we are” with all our foibles, mistakes, deficiencies, hurts, disappointments, losses and limitations. It involves accepting that we are not perfect and, in the process, opening ourselves to life’s challenges and vicissitudes. It is about achieving equanimity through acknowledging the fragility of the human condition. Our facilitator for the Meetup, Jennifer Harris, shared a passage from Jeff Brown in which he encourages us “to celebrate how far we have come”, noting that the “river doesn’t ask itself why it is not an ocean”.
Negative self-talk – an impediment to creativity
In their book, What Happened to You?, Dr. Bruce Perry and Winfrey Oprah point out that personal trauma can lead to a distorted worldview, sensitivity to cues (triggers) and negative self-messages. In reflecting as part of the Creative Meetup process, I realised that my adverse childhood experiences contributed to my sense that I was “not good enough” and, at times, that I was actually an “impostor”.
Seth Godin, best-selling author of 21 books, maintains that this kind of negative self-talk is an impediment to creativity and the realisation of our potential. There were times in my life when I was full of self-doubt and beset with “fear of failure’ or inability to achieve my desired outcomes. I also felt discouraged by resistance to organisational changes or innovations I was trying to create.
Seth Godin contends that uncertainty about outcomes is integral to the concept of creativity – we “go out on a limb” or “leap into the unknown” when we attempt to develop something new or introduce a change to the way things are done. For Seth, the chance of failure is always present when you are being creative. He argues that focusing on process rather than outcomes can free us from fear and enable us to explore new opportunities unimpeded by uncertainty.
Seth reinterprets the concept of “impostor” to acknowledge that whenever we are being creative the outcomes are uncertain. In that sense, we will feel that we are “fake” or not the “real thing” because we cannot guarantee the outcome – a natural sensation in the face of uncertainty. The ”impostor syndrome” can occur whether we are engaged in writing, facilitating, managing people or undertaking some other creative activity.
Gratitude for social support
Social support can take many forms and may involve groups or individuals. Sometimes it is being supported by a group, such as the Creative Meetups, where you share your stories, challenges and insights. At other times it may involve emotional and intellectual support from someone who helps you overcome fear of failure. When I reflected on the theme of surrender, I became acutely aware of the many people who have helped me during my life to achieve significant outcomes despite my ingrained self-doubts – to help me “let go” of the fear and embrace the creative challenge. This reflection, in turn, engendered a strong sense of gratitude towards all of these individuals who have had a positive influence in my life by believing in me and my capabilities. Some outstanding examples include:
My Mother, a devout Catholic, who supported my education at a private school and believed that I was destined to be a priest and was capable of successfully undertaking the relevant study and training. To that end, I joined a Contemplative Order and completed five of the six years required for ordination as a priest. However, I left before my final year owing to illness and external factors. During my training, I excelled in my studies, was exposed to the emerging fields of Existentialism and Phenomenology, enjoyed the practice of silence and learnt to meditate and sing Gregorian Chant. It was a life of incredible richness and balance – with strong group social support, challenging learning, daily prayer and meditation, sport and recreation and work on the farm owned by the Order.
Charlie Venning, my boss and mentor in the Brisbane Taxation Office, who believed in me to the point of promoting me to be Chief Internal Auditor, Manager of 90 staff engaged in collecting AUD700 Million of taxpayer revenue and, eventually, an Executive Director.
Peter Sullivan, a visionary Executive who worked in the Canberra Head Office of the Australian Taxation Office. Peter had such a strong belief in my capabilities that he engaged me over a number of years to work on three significant national projects involving the organisation-wide development of the Taxation Office. Peter always believed that I was capable of achieving more than I ever dreamed was possible.
Emeritus Professor Ortrun Zuber-Skerritt, author/co-author of 50 books, who first engaged me in 1989 to be the Government representative on the First International Symposium on Action Research in Higher Education, Government and Industry held in Brisbane. In 1991, Ortrun and I were founding executive members of the Action Learning and Action Research Association which continues today and has had a significant role in promoting action learning and action research on a global basis through World Congresses, international conferences, publications and speaking engagements. I was President of the Association for five years from 1992. Ortrun proved to be my mentor, PhD supervisor and friend of more than 30 years. When I doubted my capacity to do a PhD, she encouraged me strongly and provided me with ongoing support. I have become one of her international “critical friends” for her book writing and provided concept editing for some of her books as well as book reviews. I have also contributed chapters to four of her books and a chapter, The Practical Visionary, to the book produced to honour her lifelong contribution to action learning and action research. Ortrun is a visionary who has enviable tenacity, resilience and resourcefulness – part of her German inheritance.
Reg Revans, Father of Action Learning, I met Reg Revans in 1990 when he was a Keynote Speaker at the First World Congress on Action Learning and Action Research. Ortrun was Convenor of the Congress and had invited Reg. I picked up Reg from the airport when he arrived in Brisbane from the UK and took him to his motel opposite Griffith University. Reg asked if I could show him the QE11 Stadium, the site for the 1982 Commonwealth Games which was adjacent to the University. In 1930, Reg had represented Britain at the Commonwealth Games and won a silver medal in the triple jump and long jump. After taking him on a car tour of the site, I joined Reg for dinner at his motel and his charisma was evident to all in the restaurant – he was a great storyteller. Reg inspired everyone at the Congress and his work continues to inspire me today. I completed my action learning PhD in 1996 drawing heavily on Reg’s work and his book, The Origins and Growth of Action Learning. My colleague, Julie Cork, and I have conducted over 70 longitudinal, action learning programs for managers over the last 16 years (involving more than 2,000 managers). We are currently co-authoring an action learning book for managers based on our experience in our manager development programs. Julie, too, has been a very positive influence on me through her belief in my facilitations skills, my understanding of action learning, and my knowledge of manager and organisation development, as well as her willingness to explore the unknown and to collaborate on creating innovative programs.
Dr. Bob Dick taught me about organisation development and facilitation skills at the University of Queensland in the 1980’s when I undertook my MBA majoring in training and development. Bob had an acknowledged, unique, participative style of teaching. I have modelled my facilitation/co-facilitation of more than 1,000 workshops on his style. Bob also provided mentorship for me when I was engaged in organisation development activities in the Taxation Office over a number of years. We have also worked together to promote action learning and action research and to co-author a book on this topic. I highly value our 40 years of friendship and collaboration.
Selva and Param Abraham who had an unshakeable belief in my action learning expertise and sound knowledge of the Tertiary Education Sector. They are founding owners and now co-owners of the Australian Institute of Business (AIB) – accredited to doctoral level and the largest provider of MBA’s in Australia. During my 32 years working in an adjunct capacity at AIB (1985-2017), I designed postgraduate courses, was a member of the Academic Board and eventually, Chair of the Research Committee. I also contributed substantially to the organisation’s ongoing accreditation within the Australian Higher Education System. In my final year when I retired as a Professor of Management, I was honoured with the award of Emeritus Professor.
My State Director in the Federal Government Department of Social Security who appointed me as HRM Director as an external applicant (against the trend of internal promotions) and, subsequently, Director, Corporate Services, with responsibility for training and development, human resource management, staffing levels and pay for 3,000 staff in 30 locations across Queensland. He eventually recommended me for secondment to Griffith University where I spent 11 years as an academic.
Emeritus Professor Fals Borda of the Bogota University who believed in my capacity to co-convene a World Congress on Action Learning and Action Research, held in Cartagena, Colombia (South America) in 1997. The Congress was attended by 1,800 people from 61 countries. I arranged seeding money for the Invitations to Present; participated as a member of the International Planning Committee as well as an Expert Panel Member; acted as Coordinator of the Organisational Development Stream; and officially opened the Congress with Orlando. The occasion led me to conduct an impromptu workshop on action learning and organisational change with a group of postgraduate students who were Spanish-speaking. One of their number acted as interpreter as I progressively explained a major action learning, organisational development project that was the subject of my PhD.
Seth Godin, among other things, was the creator of the social media platform, Squidoo (2005). The platform enabled people to create Squidoo Lenes (effectively individual, modular websites) on any topic – a very strong encouragement to write and share knowledge and understanding. Revenue from the site, generated through affiliate links/modules, was shared with authors and charities. Squidoo was also an active community of writers from across the world and became the source of two of my long-standing friendships with my German counterparts, Anne Corcino and Achim Thiemermann, who were resident in America. Together we collaborated in 2011 with two resident German programmers, Hans Braxmeier and Simon Steinberger, to build the Wizzley social media site – an online community of writers still operating today. Seth and Squidoo proved to be a great inspiration for my writing and I became a “leader’ in the platform with more than 100 Squidoo lens. I then went on to create a 6-month social media training program and developed a blog and e-book on Squidoo Marketing Strategies. Seth provided personal encouragement when he featured my biographical Squidoo lens in his monograph, For the Love of Squidoo, commenting positively on my interesting career and humourous article, An Ethnographical Study of Cartagena Taxi Drivers. Unfortunately, Squidoo became one of the dead websites after a very successful run and was sold to HubPages – which proved to be a sad day for Squidoo advocates. Seth, a globally acknowledged marketing guru, has a blog on which he writes daily posts. Seth’s blog has been a long-standing inspiration for my own blog on mindfulness. I started writing posts daily too but this became too much when I had to conduct workshops in multiple locations across the State. However, since 2016, I have created in excess of 750 posts on this Grow Mindfulness blog.
I am conscious that, owing to time and space, I have not done justice to the level of influence that these people have had on my career and life. I am also conscious that I have omitted other people who strongly influenced me in a positive way such as Emeritus Professors David Limerick and Richard Bawden.
Reflection
It is clear to me that social support is critical for personal development and the realisation of a person’s potential. It also has a significant healing power. The social support, both individual and group support, that I have enjoyed over many years has enabled me to overcome some of the residual effects of adverse childhood experiences. Social support enables us to surrender – to let go of negative self-stories, to build self-efficacy, open new horizons and go beyond where we have travelled before. I can relate strongly to the metaphor, Standing on the Shoulders of Giants – an allusion to achieving intellectual and emotional progress by building on the ground-breaking understanding of those who have gone before.
In reflecting on the social support provided by the individuals who helped me to let go of my self-doubts and fear, I am filled with gratitude for their positive contributions to my career and life. Surrendering by “letting go” thus provides a pathway to gratitude.
As we grow in mindfulness through reflection on our life journey and appreciation of all who have helped us on our way, we can gain renewed strength to move forward and contribute to a better society. The Creative Meetups sponsored by the Health Story Collaborative have a key role in this endeavour by enabling writing, reflection and storytelling for health and personal development.
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.
Since I started participating in the Creative Meetups organised by the Health Story Collaborative I have been writing poems. It’s as if there are feelings inside me that need to get out. It reminds me of my PhD supervisor who told me at one stage of my extended procrastination, “You have a doctorate inside you, unless you let it out, it will undermine whatever you are doing.” Once I wrote the PhD, it released a whole new world of opportunity.
Over time, our disposition to forgive and our capacity to offer forgiveness to others and ourself will develop almost invisibly if we grow in mindfulness through appropriate practices, such as forgiveness meditations. The following poem grew out of my mindfulness practices and Meetup reflections:
Paternal Forgiveness
I didn’t forgive you while you were alive. I didn’t even forgive myself. Now I don’t know how to say sorry to someone who has passed.
You served in the army during World War 2 before I was born. You spent four years in Changi and worked on the Burma Railway. Shortly after your army discharge, you reenlisted.
When I was four, you left to work in Sydney and Woomera. And served 18 months with the Occupation Forces in Japan. There you were an “enemy stranger” in a foreign land.
In your absence, Mum was seriously ill following the birth of Michael. You returned for two weeks to take Mum and my two brothers to Brisbane. While baby Michael spent time with your sister before getting ill himself.
My younger sister and I were separated and left with different relatives in Melbourne. Three month old Michael was eventually placed in a Founding Home. When Mum returned a month later to collect the three of us, you told her that Michael had died while she was in transit.
I spent 18 months in an orphanage at the age of four while you were away. Those were the months of my imprisonment and harsh treatment, shared by my younger sister. Though we were separated from each other by the Institution.
Mum was only allowed by the Institution to visit us monthly. It was only then that I saw my brothers and my sister, despite her being in the same Orphanage. I felt isolated and alone.
When you returned from Japan, you became an aggressive alcoholic. As a young child, I would freeze and dissociate when your rage flared. As I got older, I would take flight by riding my push bike into the night as fast as I could.
I didn’t understand PTSD – no one did at that time. I had not been where you had been or seen what you saw. I didn’t see the triggered images that tormented you.
The war, the explosion, hospitalisation, capture and prison life. You suffered the loss of mates killed in action or dying from cruelty or malnutrition while you were in Changi or working on the Burma railway. You experienced unimaginable horrors.
I understand now that alcohol was your way to drown your pain and sorrows. To block out the horrific images. I forgive you and forgive myself for my harsh judgments – I didn’t understand.
It was easy to take sides when you were drunk and wasting our income. While Mum slaved away at the local Woolies to keep us afloat. And vented her anger and frustrationat night.
As an adult, I had to take Mum away from your violence for her survival. I was fearful at the time that you would try to find us. As we took shelter in the small rooms at the back of a General Store.
The separation proved to be a godsend. You both improved your lives. With new partners eventually and a healthier way of life.
You even gave up alcohol and walked an hour every day. On Sundays you took Mum to Church. But we were not able to reconnect.
You had been a professional boxer, winning 20 of 22 fights. You won trophies for tennis and athletics. You became Player Coach of a Reserve Grade AFL team in Brisbane.
I am truly grateful that I inherited your genes. The fighting spirit, resilience, determination and fast reflexes. All of which have helped me in my tennis and my work and life.
I am sorry that I did not know what you were going through. That I saw myself, instead of you, as the victim. That I did not acknowledge your unbearable pain and unbelievable courage and tenacity.
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 and the resources to support the blog.
Creative Meetups are provided by the Health Story Collaborative (HSC) to enable participants to reflect, connect and gain support from other people who are also living with chronic illness or disability or are carers. The free Meetups, currently facilitated by Jennifer Harris on the Zoom platform, provide a stimulus for writing “to access and release emotions, personal stories and creative spirits”. They form an avenue for healing through the mechanism of narrative therapy.
Alice Morgan, author of What Is Narrative Therapy?, maintains that narrative therapy can take many forms. For instance, she suggests that it can involve “particular ways of talking with people about their lives and the problems they are experiencing”. In essence, it involves people sharing their stories orally and/or in writing to gain insight into the meanings they ascribe to events, experiences and current situations (such as a physical or mental health condition). Jodi Clarke points out that we carry multiple self-stories including those related to “self-esteem, abilities, relationships and work.” She maintains that the process of “putting your narrative together” (however, this is created) enables an individual “to find their voice” as they explore their life experiences and the meanings they attribute to them.
What is action learning?
Action learning can be described in simple terms as a cycle – planning, taking action and reflecting on the outcomes (intended and unintended). It is used worldwide in public, private and not-for profit organisations and communities to create positive change and empower people to be the best they can be. It can be undertaken by an individual by themselves (as I have done with my tennis playing over the years) or, more often, as part of a group or “action learning set”.
Creative Meetups and Action Learning
Creative Meetups and action learning have a core assumption in common. Alice Morgan expressed this well when she maintained that narrative therapy assumes that “people have many skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments and abilities” to resolve their own challenging situations – an assumption that underpins the process of Creative Meetups. This is also a fundamental assumption of action learning (AL).
Reg Revans, the “Father of Action Learning”, charged with improving the mining industry in the UK, got mining managers together to solve their “here and now problems” in the mines. He also got nurses in Intensive Care Units together to work on their challenging situations. In an action learning context, participants are often described as “personal scientists”. Some academics in universities, tied to the concept of universities as the sole repository of “expert knowledge”, had great difficulty accepting this core assumption and would actively oppose the uptake of action learning – it challenged their firmly held beliefs about knowledge creation and dissemination.
Creative Meetups and action learning have a number of other elements in common and, in the final analysis, both seek to create positive change in a situation (either individual or collective). Some of the shared elements are as follows:
Peer support – a fundamental principle is to treat each other as peers – with no acknowledged hierarchical difference. There is a recognition that we are “all in the same boat” – each facing challenging situations. Reg described this element as “comrades in adversity”; more recently, people have termed it “comrades in opportunity”. In essence, it involves providing mutual support irrespective of our work role, status, social position or experience level.
Collaboration – participants work together towards a common goal (e.g. health and healing or team improvement) and willingly share stores, resources, and insights for mutual benefit. People are unstinting in their sharing – often recommending or loaning books, highlighting helpful websites or identifying relevant expert people.
Don’t know mind – participants adopt a “don’t know mind”, not presuming to know and understand another person’s situation. Reg suggests that if you think you understand something fully, you are not only going to get yourself into trouble but other people as well. Adopting a don’t know mind – not jumping to conclusions or interrupting another’s story with your own (erroneously assuming they are same or similar) – enables a person to tell their story in an unfettered way, opening up the path to healing and recovery.
Honesty – the conscious exploration of what it means to be honest with oneself (owning up) and with others. This opens the way for improvement and change. The process of writing in Creative Meetups helps participants to identify false self-stories and unearth truer and richer stories that open up new avenues for their lives and their relationships. Action learning, too, enables the development of honesty. Reg, for example, recounts an action learning program involving industrial executives in Belgium who, after 18 months of action learning, identified “What is an honest man and what do I need to become one?” (they were all men) as the most significant question they wished they had asked at the start of the program. He maintained that the pathway to learning and change involves “admitting what you do not know”. Reg also maintained that if you are going to do “something significant about something imperative”, you will come up against how you define yourself and your role.
Reflection – reflection is assisted by writing and sharing. The more we reflect, the more it becomes a way of life. Frequent reflection-on-action can result in the ability to reflect-in-action. Reg suggests that reflection is best done in a group because when we reflect alone we can tend to reinforce our existing assumptions and maintain our blindspots. He argues for diversity in the reflective group – diversity of culture, nationality, profession and orientation (business/not-for-profit/community). The Creative Meetups provide a rich diversity in terms of location (participants are from different countries and cultures) and health/caring situation. Participants can gain insight gratuitously when others share their reflections from their different perspectives.
Questioning – the willingness and ability to ask “fresh question” to open upinsight into a challenging situation. Reg describes this as “questioning insight”. This approach involves “supportive challenge” – challenging assumptions to enable a person to be the best they can be. Alice Morgan highlights the role of questioning in narrative therapy because we can often develop negative self-stories. Both action learning and Creative Meetups (narrative therapy) cultivate curiosity.
Action taking – action learning involves learning through action undertaken with others where possible. Creative Meetups promote writing as taking action to become open to the healing power of storytelling. The writing can take any form, e.g. prose, poetry, dot points. Action is also reflected in the changes in behaviour undertaken by participants as a result of insights gained through writing and sharing.
Facilitation – to design and manage the process of sharing. In Creative Meetups, the facilitator provides stimulus material (e.g., a story, music or poem) to enable participants to write and share. In action learning, the facilitator guides the process of planning, acting, reflecting and sharing. In both situations, the facilitator is not a teacher. Their role is to create an environment that promotes safety, trust, openness and sharing – their metaprocess goal is to develop a learning community.
Creative Meetups, in promoting writing and reflection, are helping participants to grow in mindfulness which is described by MARC (UCLA) as “paying attention to present moment experiences with openness, curiosity and a willingness to be with what is”. Both action learning and mindfulness contribute to positive mental health because they increase self-awareness and heighten a sense of agency (belief in the capacity to have some control over our inner and outer environment). In cultivating mindfulness, both approaches help people to develop resilience, compassion and creativity.
Reflection
I initially joined the Meetups with a view to writing my stories in prose but have found that the stimulus provided by the discussions and my recent reading of Kim Rosen’s book, Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words, has led me to write several poems about my health story and the process of the Meetups. Kim’s identification of the transformative elements of a poem continues to provide a pathway for my poetic expression. I used her elements to analyse a poem I had written called For the Love of Tennisthat enabled me to express my gratitude for being able to continue to play tennis despite a diagnosis of “multiple-level spinal degeneration”.
Following a recent Meetup, I unearthed my feelings about my chronic condition of food sensitivity/allergy resulting from Long Covid-induced Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. I was surprised about the intensity of my feelings of frustration and alienation that I had not previously given voice to. The poem, The Inflammatory Thread in My Life, provided a creative outlet and release for emotions I had kept “under wraps” and not expressed to anyone, including myself.
In a previous post, I shared a poem, Compassionate Listening, that I wrote following a Creative Meetup where the stimulus input included an excerpt from Joni Mitchell’s performance of Both Sides Now at the 2024 Grammy Awards. To me the poem reflects the stance of participants of the Creative Meetup in being able to engage in deep listening, provide active support of the storyteller and reflect back not only the feelings expressed but also the intensity of those feelings.
Compassionate listening strongly reflects the ethos of HSC where Healing Story Principals (such as Micheal Bischoff) sought to support people “to tell and listen to stories in ways that are healing, connected and empowering”. The support and connection underpinning Creative Meetups and action learning promote health and healing.
Reflecting on the process of Creative Meetups and my long-standing experience with action learning in multiple contexts, I was inspired to write the following poem:
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 and the resources to support the blog.
Previously, I discussed the pervasive impact of negative beliefs about aging and the life-enhancing benefits of positive age beliefs. In those posts, I drew on the mind-opening research of Professor Becca Levy, author of Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Will determine How Long and How Well You Live. In her book, Becca not only explores the potential negative or positive impacts of our beliefs about aging, she also offers multiple ways to develop a positive mindset that will enable us to live longer and with a better quality of life. She provides numerous examples of people in different fields who have achieved incredible things in their old age. Becca stresses the need for each of us to be proactive in building positive beliefs about aging to counteract the influence of ageism which is with us from the time we hear our earliest fairy tales until we experience palliative care.
The ABC approach to developing positive beliefs about aging
In her book, Becca introduces the ABC Method to liberate us from the socially-derived negative beliefs about aging and free our minds to realise the potential inherent in aging. Her ABC method incorporates three core elements – awareness, blame and challenge:
A – Awareness
Becca suggests that developing positive age beliefs begins with ourselves, increasing our awareness of our own thoughts and the way this impacts our words and actions. We can increasingly become conscious of how we speak to people in different age groups – how we positively recognise “age diversity” (rather than perpetuating “age blindness”). She recalls that on one occasion, she found herself talking in a childlike manner to older people (“elderspeak”) and immediately pulled herself up and changed the way she spoke to these people. Her newly adopted adult-to-adult communication was respectful of the wisdom and experience of the people she was addressing. This is an example of reflection-in-action, a skill we can develop by practising reflection on our actions as a habitual approach.
Our awareness can develop by building a “portfolio of positive images of aging”. We can do this by reading newspaper reports and articles about people who have excelled in various fields of endeavour. Another rich source of positive age images is memoirs written by people who describe their accomplishments in old age despite early childhood setbacks, including traumatic experiences. An incredible exemplar of this approach to developing positive beliefs is Maya Angelou. She not only broke new ground in writing memoirs but wrote her seventh memoir, Mom and Me and Mom, in her eighties. Her accomplishments in many fields such as poetry, writing, acting, film, singing and activism are memorialised in a website in her name. Becca cautions us, though, to avoid trying to model ourselves on a single, exceptional older person – she argues that a more attainable goal is to strengthen qualities in ourselves that “older role models” exhibit (such as Maya’s work ethic).
We only have to look around us for positive models of aging amongst our friends, relatives, colleagues, our medical carers and other professionals. This involves developing relationships with, and paying attention to, people who have aged and yet who continue to contribute positively to their career arena, the local community or society generally. We can also seek the company of elders. Nadine Cohen, author of the exquisite, debut novel, Everyone and Everything, actively seeks people of her mother’s and grandparents’ age and finds that she is “usually richer emotionally” because of their counsel and wisdom.
B – Blame
Becca argues that we should put the blame where it truly belongs – not our biology but the ageism that surrounds us in every facet of our life. This involves consciously developing awareness of our social environment in our everyday life. It means being able to identify “negative age stereotypes” perpetuated in education, the arts, medical professions, and in daily conversations with friends, colleagues and family members.
As we develop this external awareness, we can begin to identify the “upstream causes” impacting the health and wellness of the aged. Becca maintains that “age beliefs are an upstream predictor of health and well-being”. She contends that if we actively develop positive age beliefs we can change our health habits. This approach is in line with the research that shows that to create new behaviours, we need to challenge the assumptions that underlie old behaviours – it is not enough to practise new behaviours if we want sustainable change.
C- Challenge
Becca recommends challenging ageism in whatever form it takes. She points out the example of antiageism activist, Ashton Applewhite, author of This Chair Rocks: A Manifesto Against Ageism, and the blog Yo, Is This Ageist? Ashton is actively and publicly challenging the hidden negative beliefs as they are reflected in newspaper articles, headlines, advertisements, and elsewhere and educating readers by responding to their questions about ageism. She also has a YouTube channel incorporating her Talk at Google and other presentations addressing ageism. In her Ted Talk, Let’s End Ageism, she points out that ageism is “a prejudice that pits us against our future selves – and each other”.
While people like Ashton and celebrities such as Madonna and Robert De Niro are speaking out publicly against ageism, Becca contends that we can help to overcome ageism in society if we “call it out” when we encounter any form of ageist remark in the relationship circles in which we move, Becca recounts her discussion over coffee with Irene Trenholme who at 99 years of age ran the Secondhand Prose bookstore which donated all it profits to the local St. Johnsbury library. Irene proved to be an exemplar for challenging ageism. Whenever she encountered an ageist remark or action, she would firmly indicate that this was inappropriate, including challenging her doctor who spoke too loudly to her (assuming that, because of her age, she was “hard of hearing”).
Becca challenges many myths that surround aging and encourages us to take up the task of questioning firmly-held beliefs that have no scientific foundation. She provides an Appendix in her book which she describes as “ammunition to debunk negative age stereotypes”. She lists common negative age stereotypes and offers facts (proven by research) that can be used to debunk these stereotypes, including “cognition inevitably declines in old age” and “older persons are technologically challenged”. In relation to the latter myth, Becca points out that Mildred Dresselhaus innovated the field of nanotechnology in her seventies.
Underlying the assumption that older people are technologically challenged is a foundational ageist myth that I call the “blank slate myth”. People often assume that those who are older lack any related knowledge, skill or experience in a particular area, e.g. technology. They forget that the technology they enjoy today was pioneered and developed commercially (long before some were born) by people who are now in their later years. I am now 77 years of age (2024), but I have a long history of involvement in the development and application of technology in education and the workplace in the 1970’s, 1980’s, 1990’s and early 2000’s:
National Project Team – the design and implementation of the first online, national, accounting and management information system in the Australian Taxation Office (1973 -1977);
National Project Team – the introduction of word processing and personal computers in the Australian Taxation Office;
Role of Director, Computer Operations, Australian Taxation Office, Queensland and the Northern Territory;
Sensitive National projects associated with physical computer security and deterrence and detection of computer fraud;
Role of National Change Manager for the implementation of online learning and teaching in the Technical and Further Education Institutes across Australia (2000-2004);
Role of a Leader in Squidoo – a social media platform developed by Seth Godin (2007-2014);
Creator of a 6-month, online Social Media Marketing Course – 24 weekly PDF’s (2010);
Creator of e-books on internet marketing, social media marketing and Squidoo marketing strategies (2009-2012);
Creator of blogs on affiliate marketing (2005-2012) and small business marketing (2011-2012);
Co-Creator with colleagues in Germany and America of the article-based, social media platform, Wizzley.com (2011);
Sole author of my current Grow Mindfulness blog (2016 – present; 745 posts).
I spend very little time on social media platforms these days, not because I’m “technologically challenged” but because I have other priorities. My priorities at the moment are to write my mindfulness blog (1,000 word post per week); co-author a book on “managing people”; and write a memoir.
The “blank slate myth” not only applies to technology but also many other areas of endeavour. I found that it applies even in social activities. I still play social tennis in my late seventies and I am often confronted with the manifestation of this myth in our social tennis games. For example, I recently played with a younger partner who shouted out to me not to hit a shot that was clearly going out (by at least 2 metres), assuming that, through lack of experience (or loss of memory/faculties), I had not been able to judge that the ball would be out. Having played more than 10,000 sets of tennis (including competitive tennis at an A-Grade level) over more than 60 years, I have a fairly advanced awareness of what shots are going to go out – it’s embedded in my body memory. I can, for instance, when lobbed by an opposition tennis player, chase down the tennis ball and hit it back over my head and land it in the court (the secret is to face parallel to the back fence of the court so your body knows where it is in relation to the court outline). To me, the “blank slate myth” defies logic and denies the richness of skills, intuition, insight and reflexes developed over many years.
Reflection
In thinking about the impact of negative and positive age beliefs, I became very conscious that, despite social conditioning, what we believe about aging is up to us – and our beliefs determine our actions. I incorporated this reflection in the following poem that I wrote recently;
The Choices You Make About Aging
If you are positive, you open up your potential –
life’s joys and pleasures are yours to gain.
If you look, you will see what is possible –
aging models of achievement are everywhere.
If you challenge the myths, your mind is freed,
you can pursue your goals without constraint.
If you remember what you have achieved
you can draw on your sense of agency.
If you exercise your mind and body
you can restore your acuity and strength.
As you grow in mindfulness
through reading, research and reflection,
you can become more self-aware
and free of stereotypes, assumptions and insipidness.
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 and the resources to support the blog.
In a previous post, I discussed the pervasive impact of negative beliefs about aging. Highlighted in that discussion is the research evidence that negative age beliefs can impact every aspect of our aging process and our quality of life. In that discussion, I drew on the work of Dr. Becca Levy, a pioneer in the area of successful aging and a world-renowned researcher and Yale Professor. In her book, Breaking the Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Will Determine How Long and Well You Live, she contends that it is critical that we address ageism in our society both as individuals and as a collective.
Becca has a section in the book where she identifies the widespread influence of ageism and calls for “an end to structural ageism” in education, Governmental systems, medicine, mental health, advertising and media, science and the arts. Ageism prevents people from effectively adapting to the aging process, from taking proactive action to maintain their quality of life, from achieving their potential both mentally and physically, and from realising the benefits that can accrue with age.
The benefits of positive beliefs about aging
In her book, Becca draws on her own research and that of researchers worldwide to demonstrate the numerous benefits of positive age beliefs and illustrates these benefits with stories of outstanding achievements by numerous people in multiple fields of endeavour. Ageism is based on the assumption that all people who are old experience decline in mental and physical capacity at the same rate and that this decline is inevitable. Becca’s research and stories of individual achievements demonstrate that each of us can arrest decline, or at least reduce the rate of decline, in our capabilities as we age. Our beliefs about aging are a key determinant of the choices we make and how long and well we live.
In providing research-based claims about the benefits of positive age beliefs, Becca identifies a number of findings that challenge prevailing myths about the aging process. Her research demonstrates the following benefits of this positivity:
Indigenous knowledge and memories held by elders in Indigenous communities that have been passed down in communities around the world to ensure the health and continuity of these communities such as in the Indigenous Australian culture. This aspect of Indigenous aging was documented by anthropologist Margaret Mead in her book, Culture and Commitment: A Study of the Generation Gap.
Functional health is enhanced by positive aging beliefs. Becca demonstrates that her research and that of her colleagues disprove the assumption of the “stereotype of debility and decline” as the natural outcome of the aging process. She draws on the example of Sister Madonna Buder, who at the age of 52 undertook her first triathlon with borrowed running shoes – now, at over 90 years old, she continues to compete and has completed in excess of 350 triathlons. Sister Madonna’s view of aging is that it represents “wisdom and grace” and “opportunity”.
Irreplaceable knowledge and understanding can accrue to anyone in a specialised field with experience developed as they age. Becca illustrates this by discussing the experience of a 75-year-old paediatrician called Jonas who had retired from clinical practice “when he was most skilled”. A young colleague asked him for his opinion on what was ailing a baby because he could not work it out. Jonas figured it out “right away”. His young colleague had an instant insight and asked, “Teach me Doc, how’d you do that?” Jonas now teaches “medical diagnosis” at a university and participates in group diagnoses of patients in a teaching hospital. Jonas’s career transition highlights the opportunity for older people to make a significant contribution to society even after retirement – all that it requires is a positive view of aging and a willingness to make adaptions in their career role. Jonas has also acquired new interests and hobbies such as cultivating rare orchards, French cooking, close-up photography and amateur aviation.
Mental health growth – during a placement at a psychiatric hospital, Becca found (contrary to her expectations) that more younger, adult patients suffered from mental illness than older patients and that the latter “can be successfully treated”. Her own research, confirmed by others around the world, also showed that age beliefs heavily impact the nature and quantity of stressors experienced psychosomatically. She found that positive age beliefs helped to mitigate the impact of stressors (even in PTSD cases), while negative age beliefs acted as a “barrier to mental health”.
Longevity – in a significant research study, Becca found that participants who held positive age beliefs “lived an average of 7.5 years longer” than those who held negative age beliefs. ` Other research has demonstrated that non-biological factors such as age beliefs (and social/cultural environments) “determine as much as 75% of our longevity”.
Creativity – contrary to the prevailing stereotype, “creativity often continues and even increases in later life”. Throughout the book, Becca mentions people who achieved “their most creative work at an older age”, e.g., Matisse, Hitchcock, Einstein, Picasso, Bernstein, Lerman and Dickens. She also noted that 65 is the average age of a Nobel Prize winner. Becca also reported the comment of actress Doris Roberts that actresses/actors “get better and better in their craft as they get older”. Michael Caine CBE is just one example. Starring in 160 films over 8 decades, he produced an outstanding performance at age 90 in his last film before retirement, The Great Escaper.
In the above discussion of the benefits of positive beliefs about aging, I have only “scratched the surface” of Becca’s research and findings. However, it is very clear that positive age beliefs can impact us in multiple, beneficial ways – opening up opportunity and the realisation of our true potential.
Reflection
I can relate to Jonas’s experience (recounted above) when applied to a recreational context rather than a professional one. I have continued to play social tennis in my late seventies and recently I played a half-volley, drop shot that left my much younger partner “gobsmacked”. He responded, “Wow, how did you do that? Can you teach me to do that shot?” At the time, I just shrugged but felt like saying:
I can’t teach you as I have never learnt to do that shot – it was purely instinctive, as I was caught “in no man’s land”. When you have achieved in tennis what I have done – played 10,000 sets of tennis over more than 60 years, practised Tai Chi for years (for balance and coordination), and spent numerous hours doing tennis drills – you, too, will be able to do instinctive tennis shots that surprise others (as well as yourself).
Becca’s comment that creativity can increase in later years also resonates strongly with me. I started this blog in 2016 (at the age of 70) and have now written more than 740 posts on this blog alone (my fifth blog). I have reduced my output from three posts per week to one post to enable space and time to conduct manager development workshops (hybrid mode) and to co-author a book with my colleague of 16 years (as our legacy to younger managers and organisational consultants). I am finding that connections and patterns come to me more rapidly and profusely as I read and write and I now write an average of 1,000 words per post (compared to the 300 words per post, I started with in 2016).
In her book, Becca recounts the comments of 69 year old creative dancer Liz Lerman who observed that as we grow old we “don’t need to make major life change to activate creativity’. In her view, “expanding our connections to people” can create life changes for us and spark renewed creativity. I have certainly found this with my active participation in the Creative Meetups hosted by the Health Story Collaborative.
Additionally, I am finding (in terms of creativity) that, as I age and reflect, I am writing more poems that are longer and more complex in structure and scope. In three days, inspired by Kim Rosen’s book Saved by a Poem, I have written three poems – previously I wrote four short poems over five years. One of my recent poems relates to the theme of this blog post and its predecessor about negative age beliefs:
Beliefs About Aging
To be positive, is to see opportunities
To be negative, is to deny potentiality.
Positive age beliefs open new horizons
Negative beliefs hold us captive and inert.
Positivity is openness to reality
Negativity is a closed mindset.
In being positive
Our full potential is possible.
With a grateful heart
I live my positive beliefs.
Reflecting and writing poetry enables us to grow in mindfulness. We come to realise that negative beliefs hold us back. Through mindfulness practices, we can grow in self-awareness, concentration, creativity and resourcefulness – we can become increasingly aware of what is around us each day and what it is possible to achieve.
Photo Credit: The photo incorporated in this post was by Steve Buissinne, aged 74, from South Africa. He joined Pixabay in 2014 and has had 556 photos accepted, 148 of which have been singled out as “Editor’s Choice” – a sign of excellence. His photos have been viewed 32.83 million times, resulting in 19.39 million downloads. Steve’s comment on his Pixabay site demonstrates his mindful awareness of the beauty that surrounds us:
Everything has beauty – photography teaches you to see it
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 and the resources to support the blog.
In a previous post I discussed the transformative power of poetry. In that post, I drew on Kim Rosen’s book, Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words, to illustrate personal transformations that have occurred through poetry, including that of the author and Maya Angelou. Poetry has a special power to transcend our analytical mind and capture our deeper inner landscape. It has a unique capacity to move people out of darkness into light, out of depression into contentment, out of loneliness into connection. In a section of her book, The Anatomy of A Poem (Chapter 5), Kim explains the elements of a poem that generate this transformative power. She links her discussion of the poetic elements to their psychophysical impact on an individual, while acknowledging that each person reacts to a poem differently and may change their reaction over time – rejection can turn into admiration.
The anatomy of a poem
In discussing the elements of a poem that may contribute to personal transformation, Kim identifies four aspects that can influence our reaction – (1) breath, (2) drumbeat, (3) song, and (4) image. These are discussed below to offer a sense of what they may look like and feel like:
Breath – our breathing can be impacted by the pattern and pace developed in a poem through rhythm, line length and phrasing. Rhythm, for example, can create calmness or a sense of urgency. Line length can be slow and ponderous or fast and staccato-like. Phrasing can be regular or irregular with disruption to an established pattern by short statements or punctuation. Surprise and challenge can change breathing patterns because they can pull us up from our habituated behaviours.
Drumbeat – the sense of a drum beating can flow from accentuated syllables followed by softer syllables or broken with pauses. The rhythm of a poem can create a sound experience similar to that of a drumbeat.
Song – a sense of singing can be generated through repetition, rhyme, or rhythm or alliteration as in the repeated “r’s” in this sentence. Words themselves can conjure sounds and their own sound can be a reminder of a song or singing. Resonance in a poem has a unique quality that can reverberate in the listener’s mind and body. Kim also maintains that “rhythm creates entrainment” and entrainment, in turn, “creates passion and movement” – the whole person synchronizes with the poem’s rhythm.
Image – can be created by word-pictures, metaphor, exploring ambiguity or opposites, and challenging linearity or expectations. Kim argues that “the body feels the images” – images that create sensations arising from both left-brain and right-brain activation.
While each component of an element (such as repetition, rhyme, or metaphor) can create an effect, it’s the unique combination of elements in a poem that can generate a transformational impact. In a New Dimensions Radio podcast, Kim discusses her concept of the “anatomy of a poem” and describes poetry, in all its many forms, as medicine for the soul.
Reflection: A poem about tennis
My poem below was inspired by Kim’s discussion of the “anatomy of a poem”. In writing the poem I was conscious of the transformative elements that Kim describes. I did not actively try to incorporate all the elements but became aware as I wrote how Kim’s discussion and illustrations were influencing the shape of my poem, For the Love of Tennis:
For the Love of Tennis
I’m grateful to play tennis again
The slice, the serve, the stroke, the sound.
A different goal
Not to win every point
To play with appreciation
And create surprise.
I’m grateful I can run, bend, stretch and strain
So much I’ve taken for granted.
No longer annoyed at my mistakes
Gratitude that I have the chance to make them.
There are many components of the elements that Kim describes incorporated in my poem. What immediately comes to mind is the alliteration achieved through the number of “s” letters/sounds present – slice, serve, stroke, sound, surprise, stretch, strain. The word “sound” has its own resonance and each type of tennis stroke (e.g. slice or serve) conjures up a different sound. The “strokes” together with “run, bend, stretch and strain” evoke images and conjure up a sense of movement.
There are components of challenge as well as surprise in the poem. There are challenges to expectations (to play to win; being grateful for the chance to make mistakes) along with “surprise” that is reinforced by the word itself. The goal of surprise arose from my need to change my own expectations of what I am able to achieve on a tennis court in my late 70’s. To this day I am able to create shots that surprise my partners and/or opponents (e.g., a backhand, half-volley drop shot; a topspin lob from corner to corner; an unplayable backhand slice; or a half-volley, backhand lob) – so this element of surprise is an achievable goal for me (since I have lost a lot of my strength, speed of reflexes and movement around the court). Surprise, too, is present in the sudden change in line length and equally sudden return to a longer line – eliciting the sense of a “drumbeat”.
Permeating the poem is a strong sense of gratitude – that I am able to play tennis again (after a period of rehabilitation); that I have access to a tennis court, social tennis partners and the equipment and funds to play; that I have been coached, had practice partners and played numerous games of tennis with different players; that I can move (run, bend, stretch and strain); that I can play many different tennis shots and associated spins; that I have played tennis on different surfaces and on overseas courts in France, Port Moresby, England and New Zealand. Finally, there is the personal challenge not to take these things for granted.
Tennis to me, like writing poetry, is one of the many ways to grow in mindfulness. Through tennis, I develop my powers of concentration and my gratitude, creativity, resilience and resourcefulness. I also become more able to “be-in-the-moment”.
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 and the resources to support the blog.
I have just been reading Kim Rosen’s brilliant book, Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words. I found it enlightening, stimulating and inspirational – opening up new areas for personal exploration. Kim is a world-renowned poet, activist, an award-winning “spoken-word artist, and a teacher of self-inquiry. She brings a rare openness, insight and compassion to her writing and numerous individual and community engagements. Kim collaborated with cellist Jami Seber to create Feast of Losses, a unique merging of music and poetry. The collaborative endeavour reflects the ambiguity of everyday life in today’s world – life and death, grief and joy, loss and gratitude.
Saved by a poem
In her book, Kim describes situations in her own life and that of significant other people where a poem has proved to be a source of insight, healing, support, and rescue from depression and/or suicide ideation. At the age of 15, Kim experienced an awakening from what she describes as her insular life characterised by “distance, intelligence, and control”. The poem, “somewhere I have never travelled, gladly beyond” by E.E.Cummings, broke through her protective shell – a remarkable unfolding occurred through the “waves of sensation, emotion, and imagery” she experienced when reading the poem aloud.
Kim explains that the healing from poetry occurred for her not from writing poems but from “taking a poem deeply” into her heart and life and speaking it aloud. She contends that the language of poetry is not a purely intellectual exercise but involves a holistic approach – engaging the whole person, their thoughts, emotions, spirit and body. Poetry enables personal integration, reinforcing the mind-body connection, exposing our inner reality and its embodiment in our physical sensations. It creates a sense of being vulnerable before a deeply profound truth that is difficult to deny.
Developing a relationship with a poem
Kim explains that sometimes we can seek out a poem for strength and support in a time of crisis – at other times a poem can seek us out. We may initially resist a poem’s message but eventually if we persist, especially in reading it aloud, it will penetrate our defences. She suggests that to take a poem into our life requires allowing the words to ignite our true essence – achieving an alignment of our “thoughts, words, and deeds with our heart’s wisdom and longing”.
Kim tells the story of when she lost all her investments and savings in a scam that left her unable to pay rent. A friend offered her somewhere to stay and together they continuously read aloud the poem Kindness, created by Naomi Shihab Nye. The poem seemed to find each of them independently before they shared lodging for a while. Kim recounts how, after memorising the poem and repeatedly saying it aloud, she came to understand that the kindness referred to in the poem is not about kindness to others but the kindness others offer you when you have lost everything. The opening words of the poem resonated deeply with her – Before you know what kindness is, you must lose things. Kim experienced an incredible outpouring of kindness from others when she lost everything – offers of accommodation or financial support and many gifts (even a year’s supply of lattes).
Kim suggests that choosing to learn a poem by heart can be influenced by curiosity, desire for pleasure, love or a personal need arising from a crisis. She also talks of the challenge from what she calls “the yoga of poetry”. We might be attracted initially to a poem but its inherent challenge, intellectually and/or emotionally, may be off-putting. The focal poem requires a degree of stretch, moving beyond our comfort zone or opening ourselves to new insights about ourself and/or others. This yoga-like stretch can be achieved progressively by persisting with the poem, reading it aloud, committing it to memory and, where possible, sharing it with others.
Opening up to poetry
Kim describes the habit she developed of recording poems in a diary, both those she has written and poems by others. She describes the resultant record as an Autobiography in Poems. She explains how each group of poems addressed a need at a particular point in her life, e.g. to challenge her “idealized image” of herself; facing chaotic feelings; and finding herself and her life purpose.
Kim argues that we can access the transformative power of poetry by writing or reading poetry, joining a poetry writing group, reading poems aloud by ourself or in public presentations, reading poems with a group and/or recording poems that appeal to us in a diary (or on digital voice media). She encourages us to explore poetry as a way of opening ourselves to the richness of our inner life, as well as our inhibitions.
Reflection
In her book, Kim describes how poetry saved Maya Angelou, after she had been raped by her mother’s boyfriend (at the age of seven) who was jailed and subsequently murdered. Maya, feeling guilty for exposing her attacker and contributing to his death, became mute for six years. During her silence, she memorised poems that appealed to her, including 60 Shakespearean sonnets. Her school teacher (when Maya was 12 years of age) was aware that Maya was mute and loved poetry, so she challenged her by saying, “in order to love poetry, you must speak it”. This led to Maya reciting a sonnet from Shakespeare – her first spoken words in six years. Maya went on to become a world-famous author, poet and activist. She also pioneered a unique autobiographical style in her book, I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings.
Kim observes that poems “seemed to know me better than I knew myself” and often “reflected my deepest feelings more intimately than words alone can touch” – because what touches us through a poem Is “between and beyond” the actual words. She maintains that poems can give voice to supressed feelings and longings that may be hidden from ourselves. I found this personally when I wrote a poem called The Inflammatory Thread in My life after hearing William Stafford’s poem, The Way It Is, provided as a stimulus piece for our writer’s meetup group with the Health Story Collaborative. Until I wrote the poem, I had not realised the extent of my frustration with my allergies and food sensitivities that were impacting what I could eat and drink and negatively affecting my relationships.
Writing, reading, speaking or sharing poetry can help us to grow in mindfulness because these activities can develop deep insight, expose our inner landscape and strengthen our resolve and courage, along with inspiring us to emulate the compassionate action of others.
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 and the resources to support the blog.
Mark Anthony, JD, has written a landmark book covering life after death and spirit communication. The book draws on his research, personal experience, stories of other people and quantum physics. The stories that Mark reports in detail are drawn from people who recount their Near death Experience (NDE) or their Shared Death Experience (SDE) as well as the stories that arise in his work as a “spirit medium”. Mark is described as a “psychic explorer” and is known as the Psychic Lawyer®, being an experienced, Oxford-educated trial lawyer.
He conducts “spirit communication sessions” face-to-face around the world and live on television and radio. His goal is to enable people who have lost a loved one to better manage their grief through receiving assurances from the person’s spirit on the Other Side. Mark’s book incorporating the latest science and illustrative stories is titled, The Afterlife Frequency: The Scientific Proof of Spiritual Contact and How That Awareness Will Change Your Life.
Life after death – the survival of consciousness
Quantum physics has demonstrated that everything in our world, including our blood cells and beach sand, are made up of quanta, “subatomic particles of electromagnetic energy”. Einstein maintained that “everything is energy”. The Law of the Conservation of Energy states that “energy can neither be created or destroyed”. Since everything is made up of quanta, Mark contends that “everything is energetically connected”.
Consciousness, often referred to as the “soul” (our individuality shaped by our experiences, personality, knowledge and other attributes) is described by physicists as “the quantum electromagnetic field within the brain”. In his Afterlife Frequency book, Mark explains how he developed the concept of the electromagnetic soul, drawing on history ranging from 4,000 years old Hindu beliefs, through Leonardo Da Vinci’s scientific research, Buddhism beliefs, the work of Sir Isaac Newton and the present-day research of Dr. Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona.
Given that energy cannot be destroyed but only “transformed from one form to another”, Mark and world leading scientists, contend that as we are energetic beings, “the energy of life transcends physical death”. The electromagnetic soul thus lives on after death and exists in another dimension at a higher energy frequency, no longer constrained by the limitations of the human body. Mark affirms that the electromagnetic soul is neither created by the brain nor extinguished on its death. He draws on an analogy developed by Professor Hans-Peter Durr of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics to argue that “at death the electromagnetic soul is uploaded to a higher frequency” and joins what he terms “collective consciousness”.
Spirit Communication
Mark makes the significant point that spirit communication does not come in a direct form like text messaging. Sometimes the message is received in the form of metaphors, feelings, images or symbols. This means that interpretation of the message may not be immediately available to the medium or to the person for whom the message is intended. Mark explains that the understanding of the message by the intended recipient may take hours, days or even years. Eventually, at an appropriate time, the meaning in the message becomes clear as the associations connected to the message are identified and understood. Mark gives examples of this time lapse in understanding by people for whom he has performed “readings”.
Mark contends that despite the fact that we are not all mediums like him (who is a fourth-generation medium), we are each able to communicate with spirits. He explains that the pineal gland in the body, also called the “psychic gland”, enables us to receive higher frequency transmissions. As Mark explains because we all have the same “physical apparatus”, “everybody has the ability to have a psychic experience”.
Barriers to spirit communication
In a chapter titled The No, No, No, Syndrome, Mark identifies a number of barriers that people create that effectively block spirit communication. He draws on many examples experienced during his spirit communication workshops or phone calls to explain the nature and impact of these barriers. For example, people may be so anxious or fearful that their thinking becomes clouded; they may be so emotive (wanting a communication desperately and subsumed by grief) that their emotional state acts as a “deflector” of the spirit communication; or they may overthink or “hyper-analyse” the message during the communication. Mark argues that feeling should predominate during the communication, analysis should come after the message is received. He suggests that inviting not demanding, and feeling not analysing, is the way to effectively receive spirit communication. Spirit communication also requires patience because messages received can have multiple levels of meaning.
How to become receptive to spirit communication
Mark maintains that we can each develop what he calls spiritual situation awareness so that we are “capable of getting in sync with afterlife frequency”. This awareness enables us to detect spirit communication in the form of “signs” and be able to interpret and act on them.
He suggests that one of the easiest ways to develop the requisite awareness is to begin by paying attention to our immediate world through our senses, what Jon Zabat-Kinn calls Coming to Our Senses. We can start by listening to sounds in our immediate environment and then expand our attention to take in sights, smells, tastes and touch. Through this process we can eventually develop natural awareness and what Mark calls situation awareness, a trait highly developed by emergency services personnel.
Mark contends that we can take our awareness to a higher level moving beyond awareness of our physical environment to awareness of “what is happening around us energetically”, what he terms spirit situational awareness. He proposes a 4-part technique that builds spiritual situational awareness over time. The technique he describes in his Afterlife Frequency book is called the RAFT Technique:
Recognize
Accept
Feel
Trust
Mark maintains that with practice we can develop unconscious competence in recognizing, accepting, feeling and trusting the signs and messages received through spirit communication. We can also progressively remove the blockages that would otherwise interfere with the communication and our understanding of what is being communicated. Mark explains that practice is necessary because we can unwittingly block the “energetic impulse” communicated by a spirit which would, without the blockage, create a connection to the electromagnetic field of our brain.
Reflection
As we grow in mindfulness, we can develop our natural awareness, our spirit situational awareness and our receptivity to spirit communication if we choose to do so. Mindfulness with its focus on paying attention purposefully, can enrich our lives on many dimensions – physical, psychological and spiritual. The benefits of mindfulness are far-reaching and encompass the totality of human experience.
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 and the resources to support the blog.
Elise Esther Hearst, in her novel exposing the day-to-day reality of people experiencing inter-generational trauma, makes the unequivocal statement in the title of her book, One day we’re all going to die. This is an undeniable aspect of the human condition. Buddhists remind us of the impermanence of everything and the need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable reality of our dying and death. They strongly urge us to savour the preciousness of life and nature and to meditate on death.
The recent Death and Wisdom Summit offered free recently is now available on a paid, upgrade basis. During the Summit, a number of presenters addressed the issue of preparing for dying and death. They shared the lessons from their own research and work in the hospice arena and in providing grief counselling. One of the keynote speakers Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations: Discover What Death Can Teach Us About Living Life Fully, spoke of the similarities between dying and meditation.
Similarities between the dying process and meditation
In an interview with Steve Heilig, Frank shared his lessons about living from accompanying over 1,000 people in the dying process. In the Death and Wisdom Summit, he focused on sharing his personal insights into the similarities between the dying process and meditation or other spiritual practices such as retreats. Frank, himself, had been a meditation practitioner over many years.
Frank identified the following aspects as similarities between the dying process and meditation:
Withdrawal from daily life – there is a peeling back of identity and a re-focus on the present moment and experience. Roles and ego identity are stripped away – the face we present to the world is no longer needed or relevant. In dying, as with meditation, distractions are reduced, habituated responses removed and other parts of our life are left behind, including our wide circle of friends. We are either left alone or engage, sometimes silently, with an intimate few.
Breaking down of conventional boundaries – there is a move away from duality towards wholeness. Elements previously experienced as separate are gradually integrated – such as mind and body, I and others. On a different level, the barrier between persona (projected or perceived ideal image) and the shadow (the unconscious, emotional blind spot) is broken down. So someone who is normally gentle and soft-spoken can suddenly appear as aggressive and loud (or vice versa). The shadow can emerge from behind the mask as the unconscious seeps into conscious life.
Increasing silence and appreciation of being silent – there is new-found comfort with, and valuing of, silence. People can experience a coma-like state before dying and, as a result, savour the silence. Frank noted, for example, that one person who emerged from a brief coma before dying stated, “If I had known that quiet was so beautiful, I would have spent a lot more time in silence”. There is a gradual process of “turning down the noise” – both the external interactions and the internal dialogue. There is an emergent clarity about our inner landscape.
The realisation of ordinariness – the progressive acceptance that we are all subject to the human condition, there is awareness that there is a naturally occurring “unfolding” of causes and conditions. This leads to humility and a sense that we are “no better or worse than anyone else” – we are all conditioned by our humanity and its fragility, its foibles and its impermanence. It can lead to the breaking down of “constructed protection” that results in “self-limiting identity”, thus allowing a fuller, more humane identity to emerge.
Emergence of a state of “not knowing” – a recognition that our fixed ideas about ourself, other people and the world around us are limited and limiting. Not knowing frees us to embrace the unknown and the uncertainty of death. Frank notes that “we all carry stories about our death” and these not only “shape the way we die” but also can shape how we live and love. Self-stories can blind us and their progressive release in meditation and dying can create openness to emergent possibilities.
Surrender – flows from “not knowing” and often follows a state of exhaustion. Frank describes it as a form of expansion, moving beyond our limiting self-stories to a “kind of spaciousness”. It is beyond struggling, beyond fighting with ourselves and our death and beyond acceptance.
Frank was adamant that “surrender” was not the same as “acceptance” and was “infinitely deeper than acceptance”. He explained that having been mentored by Elisabeth Kubler Ross he was convinced that many people, including those working with the dying, misunderstood what she was talking about in her book, On Death and Dying, when she identified the “five states of dying” – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. He maintained, that contrary to popular belief, Elisabeth never saw the stages as linear or sequential, but sought to identify some of the defence mechanisms employed by people who were dying. Frank also explained that later in her life, Elisabeth mentioned to him that she had come to realise that the “five stages” did not represent the full picture of the dying process. Part of Frank’s unique contribution to our understanding of the dying process is his elaboration of the stage of “surrender”.
According to Frank, “acceptance” is a conscious act of “letting go” – removing attachment to, or constraint by, objects, people or false ideas. He suggests that, in contrast, surrender is an “effortless, easeful, non-doing” state that enables realisation of our basic nature without internal or external interference. He likens it to the experience of “time standing still” that some people experience in a car accident situation. In grappling to find the words to describe “surrender” fully, Frank resorted to telling the story of his near-death experience in a whirlpool while rafting in the Grand Canyon and how surrender followed exhaustion. He provides further elucidation of this elusive concept in his podcast, Surrendering to Death.
Frank maintained that we could develop qualities that enable us to be more ready to achieve the state of “surrender’ when dying. He suggests, for example, that a sense of wonder and awe, religious conviction, love or confidence in our acquired wisdom (achieved through mindfulness), can “engender surrender”. He further likens “surrender” to an initiation process involving prioritising the essential over the dispensable. Frank stated that our natural reaction is to resist and fight death through fear, but that “the essential is so magnetising, the surrender so compelling, that fear does not stop us”.
Reflection
Frank provides a very strong exhortation. He maintains that it is a “ridiculous gamble’ to assume that when dying “we will have the physical strength, emotional stability, the mental clarity to do the work of a lifetime”. He argues that NOW is the time for personal transformation – to grow in mindfulness through meditation, silence, developing wonder and awe, cultivating love and compassionate action and strengthening belief.
In the process we can let go of limiting self-stories, misconceptions about death and dying, attachment to externalities, and fear of losing control. We can develop a “not knowing” state, realise the reality of our human condition and our own ordinariness and increase our sense of connectedness to nature and others.
Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach provide a Power of Awareness Course online with 21 hours of teaching. The Course helps you to develop a daily practice of mindfulness mediation and provides ways for you to sustain this practice. It enables you to live life more fully, break free of self-limiting thoughts, increase your sense of wonder and joy and enrich your relationships at home and at work.
By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)
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