Category: Mindfulness Practice

Exploring the Spectrum of Awareness through Fish in an Aquarium

Diana Winston previously introduced the concept of the spectrum of awareness – moving from a narrow lens through a wide lens to a panoramic view.  In a recent guided meditation podcast, Diana illustrated how to practice these different types of awareness through meditating with fish in an aquarium.   She suggested that observing fish in an aquarium with varying focus enables us to develop our understanding of the different ways we can pay attention – from a very narrow and sustained focus to a totally open awareness that takes in all that is occurring in our range of vision as well as what is happening internally.  Diana used the Aquarium of the Pacific webcam to enable participants to practice these different types of awareness.

Adopting a narrow awareness

Diana progressively introduced a range of awareness practices after having participants relax and adopt a comfortable, upright (if possible) position.  This can be preceded by slow, deep breathing to bring awareness to the present moment.  In the narrow awareness stage, Diana suggests that you focus on a plant at the bottom of the aquarium where there are a number of bright, green plants.  The chosen plant serves as an anchor throughout the meditation with the fish.  Once you have chosen a plant, she suggests that you maintain your focus on this particular plant and, if distractions occur, return your focus to the plant.  This practice of returning to your anchor builds your awareness muscle.  It is natural for your attention to wander, particularly where you have a lot of movement in front of you as in the aquarium.  A brightly coloured fish, a ghostly stingray or a sleek shark may pull your attention away – you can then just restore your focus to your chosen plant.

Widening awareness to movement of particular fish

Diana explained that this form of widened awareness can be activated by an investigative stance – e.g. exploring the movement of a fish as it passes in front of you from bottom to top, diagonally from corner to corner or from side to side, eventually disappearing from view.  Sometimes this widened focus can take in the synchronised swimming of a group of fish, moving artistically in pairs or threes.  Diana encourages you after following the movement of a particular fish or group of fish to return to your plant focus, again strengthening your capacity for paying attention and concentrating on a particular object.

Taking a panoramic view

Diana recommends that before expanding your awareness, you allow your body to soften and settle back to facilitate taking in the full screen, taking in everything that is happening in front of you in the aquarium.  As you observe the totality of the scene in front of you, you can notice the different colours of the fish (ranging from black to a bight orange), different shaped bodies and heads, varying speed of movement (from fast to very slow).   You can take in the ease and smoothness of movement of the different species in the aquarium, including varying movement of fins and tails.  You can extend your awareness further to take in the water itself, including the disturbance of the surface of the water as the continuous movement causes motion in the water itself.   Diana suggests that if at any time the scene and broader focus becomes overwhelming, you can return your focus to your plant anchor within the aquarium (e.g. some people may experience a sensation of giddiness with all the movement, colour, and glistening scales).

An addendum to this panoramic focus is to notice what is going on inside you, your own throughs and feelings.  This is in line with the definition of mindfulness used by MARC in their online and drop-in meditation sessions – paying attention in the moment with openness, curiosity and acceptance of what is occurring for you.  Your emotions may include calmness and peace, a sense of wonder and awe, or appreciation and gratitude. You can also check in with your associated bodily sensations at the time.  Diana encourages you, too, to become conscious of “who is noticing” being aware of your awareness – a uniquely human property as illustrated by clinical psychologist Noam Shpancer in his book, The Good Psychologist, when he compares the capacities of a human being to that of a zebra .

Reflection

I had become aware of the spectrum of awareness through a previous post I had written based on one of Diana’s earlier guided meditations.  Coincidentally, I recalled this practice when I was having my lunch on the deck at my home.  When I finished my lunch (which I did not eat very mindfully!), I decided to take a panoramic view of what I could see from the deck, including the far away waters of Moreton Bay.  I noticed the trees and plants, the different shaped leaves, varying movement with the wind in the trees, newly formed and colourful spring growth and the sounds and movement of birds penetrating my visual space.  This process of widened awareness was very calming and peaceful.

As we grow in mindfulness through observation, meditation, reflection and other mindfulness practices, we can build our capacity to focus and concentrate, to appreciate and savour what is around us and to get in touch with the healing power of nature.

___________________________________________

Image by Rudy and Peter Skitterians 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.

On the Frontline During COVID – Self Caring for the Carers

Professor Cynda Hylton Rushton and Rheanna Hoffmann recently engaged in a moving video podcast conversation that highlighted the scars and distress of what it means to be a frontline nurse during the COVID pandemic.  They covered not only the impact on nurses physical and mental health but also explored strategies that could be adopted by nurses to manage their distress.  Cynda will be a key presenter at the free, online Healing Healthcare Summit in early February 2022. 

Cynda is incredibly well-informed about nurses experiences during the pandemic, being a nurse herself and working with nurses to develop what she calls “moral resilience” – the ability of an individual to “restore or sustain” integrity in the face of the onslaught of challenges to their inner harmony and capacity to align their words and actions with their values and deep commitments.

Cynda, whose focus includes clinical ethics and contemplative practice, brings to the conversation penetrating insight and deep caring and compassion – characteristics that are manifested in her faculty work with the clinicians training program, Being with Dying.  Cynda is the author of Moral Resilience: Transforming Moral Suffering in Healthcare.

Rheanna is an emergency nurse who is also a meditation practitioner and teacher with extensive experience in mindfulness and its benefits.  During the worst of the pandemic in the US, she volunteered to work in New York City.  Her personal recollections of this experience can be found in an interview where she shares an intimate insight into what happened for herself and others during the overwhelming crisis.  Her presentation is part of the Mindful Healthcare Speaker Series which is readily available as a “resource for challenging times”. 

In her discussion with Cynda, Rheanna provided an expose of her emergency nursing experience during COVID that is raw and vulnerable but manifests her openness and courage.  I have previously reported on Rheanna’s interview about death and the dying process with Frank Ostaseski, Founder of the Zen Hospice Project.  Rheanna herself is the Founder of The Whole Practitioner designed to help nurses “to rediscover health, balance and their core values” after experiencing burnout, exhaustion and deeply personal frustration.

The distress of frontline COVID nurses

Rheanna recounted in telling detail the nature and extent of distress experienced by COVID nurses, especially those who were engaged in emergency wards.   She spoke emotively about the following experiences and sensations:

  • Reaching the limit of effectiveness of personal resources – whether that be yoga, friends or colleagues
  • Experiencing isolation and loneliness – tendency to withdraw physically and mentally to deal with the overwhelm
  • Feeling incredibly bare and vulnerable – the challenge of people dying and grief (that of relatives/friends and your own grief)
  • Physical exhaustion – tired beyond belief and suffering from lack of sleep, resulting from replaying adverse incidences
  • Feeling chronic hopelessness and helplessness – the challenges were beyond the capacity of individuals and the health system itself; exposure to personal limitations in the face of so much death and suffering.  Associated with this sense of helplessness are nightmares, flashbacks, randomly crying and insomnia.
  • Separation from self – the natural consequence of traumatic experiences.
  • Loss of a sense of balance –  impacting how time, health and relationships are valued or devalued (because of lack of time allocated to them)
  • Burnout – on physical, psychological and moral levels.  Rheanna described this as “acute burnout” reducing the energy for self-care and potentially leading to thoughts of suicide.

Rheanna pointed out that nurses, including herself, were normally able to “compartmentalise” their  adverse experiences and do so in a way that was healthy,  However, the adverse experiences from the pandemic were “unrelenting”, leading to chronic distress.  Part of the frustration was the inability of frontline nurses to help others at times when they were feeling so “fragile”.

Self-caring strategies for frontline COVID nurses

Cynda offered several self-care strategies for COVID nurses during her conversation with Rheanna.  Some covered ways of addressing negative self-talk while others focused on adopting a changed perspective and mindset or instituting a mindfulness practice: 

  • Mindfulness practice: Cynda offered a mindfulness practice that could be used by COVID nurses experiencing distress and burnout.  This focused initially on the breath with the out-breath being viewed as a release of stress.  In the exercise, the exhale stage was lengthened to accentuate and support release.  Participants were encouraged to rest in the gap between the in-breath and out-breath and, where possible, extend this gap between breaths.  A slow body scan was the next step with emphasis on identifying and releasing points of tension.  Participants were encouraged to focus on an anchor of choice to stop their minds addressing their extended to-do list or diverting into worrying.   Cynda suggested that nurse participants become conscious of how many miles their feet have travelled in pursuit of their daily caring and the level of support that their feet  have provided.  Lastly, she encouraged the nurses to employ statements such as:
    • May I trust the wisdom of this moment consciously and fully.
    • May I have the courage, honesty and openness to see things clearly and without judgment.
    • May I be willing to let go of what impedes me rather than helps me.
    • May I encounter a wise mentor to assist me to deal with these challenges.
  • Confronting your own limitations: Rheanna pointed out the sense of guilt and shame that she experienced that were driven , in part, by her self-talk – “you could have done more”, “if only you had acted faster”, “if you had paid attention more fully you could have saved more people”, “if only you had been able to convince people to make different decisions”, etc.  Our minds are very creative when it comes to self-denigration and negative self-evaluations.  It is important to acknowledge that no one could have handled the challenges for nursing presented by the pandemic and not experience their debilitating effects.  Cynda suggests that nurses need to “turn towards their limitations” and do so “with as much compassion “ as they extend to others.  There is scope here for loving-kindness meditation for oneself.
  • Changing your perspective: Cynda stated that the tendency in these crisis situations is to think that you are carrying the load by yourself because there is a natural tendency to turn inwards to cope with what is happening.   She argues that what is required is a change in perspective.  For example, she asked Rheanna to think about “Who else is carrying the load of the pandemic? “Who has your back? (e.g. friends, family, colleagues local and abroad & mentors).
  • Separate effort from outcomes: Cynda maintained that a form of self-care is to acknowledge that  the health outcomes are often beyond the control of a nurse.  She stated that In her own work she does the best she can in the circumstances to meet an identified need but recognises that the specific outcomes are not in her control – there are too many intervening aspects impacting the final outcome.  Cynda maintains that freeing yourself from expectations and outcomes is crucial for a nurses’ welfare.  In the pandemic, COVID nurses such as Rheanna attempted to “fix unsolvable problems”.  Nurses’ health outcomes were not the result of lack of effort or smarts but because the pandemic situation exceeded the capacity of individuals and the health system itself.  
  • Savour achievements – Cynda reinforces the view that the brain has a natural negative bias and is more likely to “mull over” what did not go well rather than “honour what we are able to do in the moment”, given the circumstances thrust upon us.  She stated that nurses need to focus on how they made a difference in people’s lives, e.g., holding someone’s hands as they were dying, gasping for breath or having a tube inserted to enable them to breathe.  This thought expressed kindly by Cynda precipitated a chain reaction from Rheanna who began to identify numerous moments when she “deeply showed up with people” and , in the process,  rediscovered “what it means to be a nurse” and gained insight into the very core of her being and who she was.  The other aspect that Rheanna savoured was her deep connection with people who were suffering – in spite of what was happening around her independently of her best efforts.

Reflection

Much of what Cynda proposed as strategies to help nurses deal with the extraordinary level of stress of frontline work during the pandemic can be incredibly useful for all of us to manage stress and resultant distress in our daily lives.  As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, reflection and other mindfulness practices we can reshape our perspective and expectations, savour the positive in our lives (including being alive), confront our grief and limitations and achieve the freedom of separating outcomes from effort in our chosen endeavours.

___________________________________________

Image by Gerd Altmann 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.

Savouring Your Subconscious Mind

Paul McCartney in an interview for BBC Radio stated that the melody for the Beatles famous song Yesterday” came to him in a dream.  He literally heard the melody while asleep and when he woke he could not work out where the tune had come from.  He checked with his contacts and friends who had a comprehensive knowledge of songs that had been published and none of them recognised it.  While he had the tune in his head he made up some lyrics so he would not lose the song.  He indicated it was rare for him to use nonsense lyrics to memorise a song but on this occasion, he used the words, “Scrambled eggs, oh my baby….”   

It was a short time later after the dream that he was in Portugal on a car trip which took about three hours that the lyrics started to come to him, “Yesterday, suddenly…”  By the time he had finished the car trip, he had the complete song in terms of melody and lyrics. 

This story of Paul’s experience highlights the power of the subconscious mind, working away below consciousness to solve a problem, complete a song or piece of music, finish an unfinished manuscript or locate a missing object. 

How often have we given up looking for something and found some time later that the item “turns up” when we were not consciously looking for it but doing something else.  Meanwhile, the subconscious mind has created a new significance and a heightened level of awareness for the item so that when you accidently come into contact with the item, you become suddenly, consciously aware that “this is what I was looking for!” – all very amazing.

Reflection

I had been working on my PhD for about five years mentoring a change team in the University of Queensland and co-facilitating an action learning change program, when I got stuck trying to write up the mountains of data I had gathered through workshop processes, observations, submissions and multiple interviews.  At this time, we had planned a family holiday on Stradbroke Island.  It was while we were enjoying a day at Brown Lake on North Stradbroke Island that I had a breakthrough for my thesis,  I was sitting on the shore watching our children play in the shallow part of the lake when a model “came into my head” that integrated my research and insights. 

I had not taken any of my research material with me and was not consciously seeking to solve my writer’s block.   Yet an organisational change model “came to me” that integrated my data, a model for individual motivation at work and the nature of innovation.  I immediately recorded the model using charcoal sticks from a barbecue and pieces of butcher’s paper that I had in my car.   It was only later that I was able to articulate the full meaning of the model and complete my PhD thesis. 

There are times when we need to use sleep, peace and quiet, or stillness and silence to honour our unconscious mind and let it do its work.  I found on another occasion that I had difficulty writing the conclusion to a PhD chapter.  However, like Paul McCartney, it was during a long car trip (again about three hours) that the conclusion “fell out” and I was able to write it down when I reached my destination which was Lismore at the time.

In writing this blog, I will often listen to a podcast, undertake a meditation and/or read an article and make notes.  I will then “sleep on it” and when I wake up the following morning, the structure of a blog post, carved out of my notes, will “come to me”.  Again, it is the subconscious mind at work.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, connecting with nature, experiencing stillness or silence, listening to music, chanting or participating in mantra meditations, we can gain greater access to our subconscious mind and the integrative power and creativity that lies within.  We can continuously savour our subconscious mind through mindfulness practices. 

___________________________________________

Image by holdosi 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.

Understanding the Pain Beneath Trauma and Addiction

Dr. Gabor Maté encourages us to look beyond trauma and addiction to the unfulfilled needs and pain that lie beneath.   He maintains that the traumatic events and adverse childhood experiences are not the trauma but the catalyst for the trauma that is created within an individual.  This traumatised inner landscape reflects the pain of unfulfilled needs experienced by the individual and manifested in addictive behaviours, that are often self-destructive.  The internal trauma involves disassociation from one’s true self and distortion of internal and external perception.

Gabor offers compassionate inquiry as a way to help a client access their inner pain and distorted self-beliefs.  His approach is confronting but compassionate, penetrating but respectful, persistent but with a healing intent.  He is intent on helping an individual come to his own truth and to understand the connection between their trauma experiences and their addictive behaviour.   He makes the point that addiction is not just about drugs but people can be addicted to anything – to work, sex, “the need to please”, money, food, shopping, or anything else that holds them captive in compulsive behaviour that is injurious to the individual physically, mentally or intellectually.

One way we can understand the pain that lies beneath other people’s addiction and our own is to hear Gabor talk about examples and/or see him work with someone in his compassionate way.  By observing him unravel the threads that link a traumatic event or developmental experience to the self-talk that underlies addictive behaviour is enlightening and a motivation for compassion for others and self-compassion.

The negative self-stories that lie beneath addictive behaviour

We are very impressionable in early childhood and are forever trying to make meaning out of events in our life and experiences that flow from these.  Gabor states that children are basically “narcissists in the developmental sense” – everything is personal to them.   When parents, for example, are unhappy, fearful or sad because bad things are happening, then the child thinks “it must be about me” and develops low self-belief and negative self-talk accordingly.

Gabor talks about his own addiction to his work as a family medical practitioner as a way of fulfilling an unmet need.  His adverse childhood experiences during the Holocaust led him to believe that he “was not wanted in the world”.  His workaholic behaviour, negatively impacting his family and his clients, was designed to enable him to feel as though he was wanted and needed.  However, the continuous positive reinforcement of his role led to entrenchment of his addiction to work.  Beneath the workaholic behavior was an attempt to address the self-talk that reflected the pain of an unfulfilled need – the need to be wanted and protected (a basic attachment need).

In his interview podcast with Joe Polish, Gabor explored what Joe described as his sex addiction earlier on his life.  He had been molested in childhood over two years and his parents, who themselves were traumatised at the time, did not protect him.  His negative self-talk then was  around “I am only valued for my body” – thus leading to addiction to sex to fulfill his unmet need to be wanted and needed.  Gabor stated that acknowledging and confronting this unmet need is painful but essential for healing.  Addiction is often an escape to avoid facing up to a deep pain that seems bottomless.

Developmental trauma and worldview

In the interview with Joe Polish, Gabor maintained that there is another form of trauma that is not derived from a specific traumatic event.  He described developmental trauma as a disconnection from self that arises through a defective developmental childhood, resulting in a distorted worldview.  He instanced the different developmental traumas that can arise with parents who fail (for whatever reason) to provide a balanced environment for a developing child.  If, for example, the father was highly competitive, aggressive, domineering and “raging” at times, the child learned that the world “is a horrible place” and the way to survive is to be aggressive, grandiose and defensive. 

If, on the other hand, a child experienced an early childhood environment where she was bullied by her peers and informed by her mother that she should get out there and face them for “there is no room for cowardice”.  In Gabor’s interpretation, the message would be “to suck it up” – put up with whatever is happening, even if it is abusive and bullying.  Gabor commented that this worldview would lead to passive behaviour, even where someone is abusive and aggressively invading your personal space.

So our early developmental experiences can lead to aggressivity or passivity, depending on the nature of these experiences.  In both the early childhood experiences described above, there was an unmet need for protection and warmth.  The pain of this deficit was hidden beneath the individual’s distorted worldviews and consequent “habituated behavioural patterns”.

Reflection

Gabor maintains that “recovery” from trauma and addiction involves “reconnection with yourself” – being in touch with your feelings, intuition and insight.  It also involves replacing distorted perceptions of the world and self with compassionate understanding of the fragility and complexity of the human condition.

When I think of my early childhood, I recall the 18 months I spent in an orphanage separated from my younger sister and parents when I was four years old, as well as the 12 months boarding 100 kilometres from home when I was seven years old.  My negative self-talk, in line with Gabor’s experience, would have been “I am not wanted by my mother” (even though she was suffering serious illness at the time and could not take care of me while my father was on army duty overseas).  These early adverse childhood experiences may have translated, after completing secondary school, to my pursuit of study for the priesthood  – a very strong desire of my mother.  Thus I could have been trying to fulfill that unmet need to be valued by my mother – and during the five years of my religious life I certainly gained reinforcement of how much my mother valued me in that role.  I left the religious life more than 50 years ago because I decided “it was not for me”.

On reflection, I can see that my distorted perspective of what I perceived as a lack of care and concern for me by my mother was derived from my narcissistic orientation as a child (in reality, my mother was incredibly thoughtful, kind, generous and courageous – at the time of my separation she was not only very seriously ill, but grieving for the death of my four month old brother that occurred just before I was sent to the orphanage).

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection and meditation, we can gain insight into the antecedents for our behaviours and come to understand the source of our negative self-talk.  We can also renew our sense of wonder and awe, not only about nature but human life as well.

___________________________________________

Image by Carina Chen 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.

How Trauma Impacts Our Behaviour

Dr. Gabor Maté, world authority on trauma and addiction, has produced a film titled The Wisdom of Trauma.  In the film, he draws on his research, his own experience of trauma as a child of the Holocaust and the addiction and trauma stories of others.  Through this wealth of evidence, he challenges several prevailing myths about the nature of trauma and addiction.  For instance, he maintains that addiction is not just an inherited illness nor is it a basis for blaming an individual.  He takes a more compassionate approach and suggests that we need to understand the true nature of trauma and addiction.

In essence, Gabor maintains that trauma is not external catalytic events such as adverse childhood experiences or adult traumatic events.  In his view, trauma is what happens internally, not externally.  Fundamentally, trauma is the “resultant dissociation from self” that occurs for the individual.  Gabor describes this as a “loss of authenticity” in that the traumatised individual can no longer access their intuition or gut feeling and as a consequence tend to engage in self-destructive behaviours such as addictions in different forms including alcoholism, drug addiction, workaholic behaviour, or addiction to sex or shopping.  These injurious behaviours are a form of escape designed to avoid personal feelings that are too painful to face.

The traumatised person loses the capacity to deal with their emotions and seeks diversions that they hope will bring freedom, a renewed self-esteem, a sense of completion or aliveness – which are all legitimate pursuits of healthy humans.  So the addiction is a way of solving their fundamental problem – a basic disconnection from their real feelings.  The addictions do not bring freedom or wholeness but serve as an imprisonment and deepen the feelings of hollowness and meaninglessness.

Gabor contends that for the traumatised person, their healthy orientation has never been expressed in life through meaningful relationships.  He argues that we have to see addiction as a response to trauma and look beyond its external manifestations and “see the wound that is right inside that person”.   Gabor encourages us to look beyond “what is wrong with a person” to what has happened to them in their life, including their early childhood.  His compassionate approach is spellbindingly expressed in his book, In the Realm of Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction. 

Recovery from trauma and addiction

Gabor illustrates through his film and books, amazing stories of recovery from addiction. He shows that the wisdom that lies in trauma is awareness of how our response to everyday interactions throws light on our fundamental traumatised thinking such as “I am not worthy of respect” or “I am not lovable”.  Gabor asserts that recovery from trauma and addiction requires “compassionate inquiry” that enables a person to face their fear, let the truth inside themselves out into the light of day, and gain insight into the drivers of their behaviour, including their distorted worldview.

He illustrates how addiction and healing were manifested in his own life.  His trauma experience as a child during the Holocaust, hiding with his mother and being passed over to others for safe keeping, led to his belief that “the world doesn’t want me”.  He realised with the help of the compassionate assistance of his wife, that his workaholic behaviour as a specialist medical doctor was designed to “to make himself needed”.  The continuous affirmation of his contribution to peoples’ health and wellness served as personal validation and cemented his addictive behaviour.

Reflection

Gabor demonstrates that if we do not address the fundamental problem of dissociation from our feelings, we will not be able to achieve recovery from our trauma and associated addiction.  Trauma has a way of surfacing in distorted perceptions and inappropriate, sometimes high risk-taking, behaviours.

Gabor suggests that each of us examine situations where our response to some stimulus leads to an over=reaction on our part,  e.g. when a waitress tells us we cannot change a menu item or a tradesperson does not turn up when they promised.  He encourages us to look beyond our reaction to the personal belief that is being played out, e.g. “I am not good enough for people to pay attention to my needs”.  He would encourage us then to explore what traumatic event(s) led to this fundamental self-belief.  In the film, he illustrates this process by sharing part of his podcast interview with Tim Ferriss where he explores Tim’s self-belief (“I am not worthy of respect”) deriving from adverse childhood experiences.

 As we reflect on our life and our responses to everyday events, we can grow in mindfulness and develop increased self-awareness, insight and self-compassion.  We can also enhance our empathy for others who are addicted and develop the courage to take compassionate action, inspired by the work of people like Gabor, who with Vicky Dulai, founded the Compassion for Addiction group.

___________________________________________

Image by Jubair Bin Hasan 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.

Calmfidence: Developing Calm Confidence to Face Life’s Challenges

In the interview podcast with Tami Simon of Sounds True, Patricia Stark discussed some of the exercises and tools covered in her book that provide ways to develop Calmfidence – calm confidence in the face of life’s challenges. Patricia’s book Calmfidence addresses  barriers to confidence including personal past history, perfectionism and the issue of negative self-talk (or the “inner critic” as she calls it). 

Her book tracks her own journey to achieving calm confidence as well as provides very practical approaches to creating Calmfidence in our own life. The focus of her book is on situations where we are placed in the limelight such as public speaking, presentations, being interviewed for a job or performing in a public arena.  While these situations are the primary catalyst for her book, the principles and practices she shares are relevant to challenges in everyday life.  Fundamentally, in her view, you cannot have genuine and sustainable confidence without inner calm.

Exercises and tools to develop calm confidence

Patricia discussed several exercises and practices that could be used in a variety of situations to be able to approach the inherent challenges with calm confidence.  Some of these are:

Managing nerves – Patricia like many other authors and commentators contends that nerves help you be more aware and to prepare properly so as to reduce (but not eliminate) the unknown and unpredictable.  Nerves indicate that you care and care enough to be worried about the outcome for the people you are helping.  When we are not nervous, we may have stopped caring which may be the result of ”compassion fatigue”.  Even highly accomplished professionals become nervous before an event.  Alfie Langer, an Australian Rugby League legend, used to become quite nervous and nauseous before a match, even in his latter playing days.

So the challenge Is to manage your nerves, not eliminate them altogether. Patricia recounts the comment of a professional performer who told her that “our job is to get the butterflies flying in formation”, not to do away with them.   Patricia maintains that what is necessary is to have the courage to reflect on the uncomfortable feelings and what they say to you and about you.  She suggests that failure to address the fear and discomfort will “work against you”.  In her words, you have to “start to feel the butterflies” which can help you to become “desensitised” to their presence.

Simultaneously, with facing your nervousness and its bodily manifestation, it is important to reaffirm why you are undertaking the public activity and what people can gain from it.  You can reinforce this positive thinking by being grateful for the experience of helping others through utilising your unique mix of experiences, acquired skills and resources. 

Snow Globe exercise – during the podcast, Patricia led listeners in this exercise.  Basically it involves envisaging your mind as a snow globe and viewing your troubled thoughts as the snow flakes descending slowly to the bottom so that they appear as “fallen snow”.    This can be accompanied by taking a deep breath and holding it briefly and releasing it in time with the falling snow and the settling of your troubled thoughts.  Patricia asserts from her own experience, that this exercise can clear your mind and slow your heart rate so that you can “think straight” and respond to challenges more appropriately.

Visualising Success – this is not success in materialistic terms but with regard to achieving what you set out to do in terms of helping people.  Patricia suggests that you start with deep breathing and as you breathe in envisage absorbing calmness and confidence and as you breathe out envisage letting go anxiety and stress.  The next step is to visualise your public activity going really well and people providing feedback that is very positive and affirming.  She suggests too that you envisage our voluntary audience as ”allies” who are “eager to learn” rather than uninvolved critics with nothing better to do than critique your offering and/or performance.

Sack of potatoes exercise – with this exercise you envisage your body as a “sack of potatoes” with each lumpy potato (uncomfortable feeling) confined by the sack (the mind) that holds them together and contains them.  The next step is to envisage taking a pair of scissors and cutting open the lower part of the sack so that the potatoes (uncomfortable feelings) fall out “one by one”.  Then you can envisage the sack of potatoes crumpled in a corner, empty of its ingredients.  Tami from Sounds True reinforced the value of this exercise by sharing her own experience of undertaking the “sack of potatoes” practice.

Retreating when you hit a rough patch – Patricia describes a period during the pandemic where she was feeling overwhelmed by the book commitments/deadlines and the need to “protect herself and her family”.  She decided that she would “have to retreat” in order to “keep her head above water”.  She consciously made the choice to give herself some slack and “do nothing”.  Patricia was then able to emerge from this period with renewed energy and heightened insight.

Reflection

I have found in the past that what helped me to calm my nerves before a public activity such as a presentation or a workshop, was to revisit a successful prior event and recapture the positive feelings and audience response and use that as an anchor for a forthcoming event.  This taps into your sense of self-efficacy – your belief, based on experience, that you are capable of competently undertaking a specific task.

I also found when I was writing my PhD dissertation that I needed to take a break from it in the latter stages.  I achieved this by going away to Stradbroke Island with my family for a few weeks.  It was while I was sitting on the bank of Brown Lake, watching the boys play in the water, that I gained new insights in to a model that would effectively integrate the focus and findings of my doctoral research.  There are times when we need to take a break, change our focus (from self-absorption to other-focused) and absorb the calmness and healing power of nature.

Patricia’s book contains many personal stories of how “Calmfidence” has played out in her life and offers other exercises and tools besides those mentioned here.  If you access her book’s sales page, you can view and download the first 10 pages of her book (in PDF format) where she explains six “Calmfidence Boosters” to help you develop the calm confidence needed to manage life’s challenges.

As we grow in mindfulness through nature, meditation, reflection or other mindfulness practices, we can achieve a calm confidence, gain increased understanding and insight and manage life’s challenges more effectively.

___________________________________________

Image by Ana_J 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.

Barriers to Communicating with Confidence

In a Sounds True interview podcast, Tami Simon interviewed Patricia Stark about confidence in public communication situations such as speeches, presentations, workshops, job interviews and various forms of artistic performance.   Patricia is an acclaimed executive coach and an expert in body language as well as having substantial experience as a presenter and producer on radio and TV.  She spoke extensively about her book, Calmfidence: How to Trust Yourself, Tame Your Inner Critic, and Shine in Any Spotlight. 

Patricia explained that she coined the word Calmfidence to highlight what her experience in communicating in the public arena has taught her – you cannot have confidence without inner calm.  She argues that an external show of confidence is not enough – you can be disarmed if something does not go the way you expect.  Under the pressure of the moment, you can easily lose track of what you want to say or experience an inability to “think straight”.  Physiologically, you can experience the shakes, blanking out, headaches or pain in various parts of your body.  Inner calm enables you to manage both your psychological and physical response.  It facilitates emotional regulation and provides ways to dampen your physiological response.

Patricia explained that calmness underpinned confidence and involved trusting yourself and having a very clear idea of who you are and want to be.  This enables you to develop less reactivity in situations that do not turn out as you expect and to communicate with genuineness and authenticity.

Barriers to confidence

We each have barriers that prevent us from communicating confidently and these barriers are highly individual in origin and intensity.  Some of these barriers relate to past experiences while others are generated by the circumstances arising at the time of communicating publicly:

Past history – we each bring to a situation our experiences from the past that can create issues for us in terms of our confidence.  We could have been bullied at school or work, made fun of by our peers face-to-face or on social media, made embarrassing mistakes or observed someone experiencing vicarious trauma during a confronting workshop.  These negative experiences can make us prone to fearing an unsuccessful outcome when undertaking a public speaking endeavour and can even cause us to freeze during a job interview. I recall interviewing a manager for a job and at one stage he was unable to speak and actually had difficulty breathing.  Through pacing, I was able to help him begin to breathe slowly and deeply and settle down for the rest of the interview.  Patricia suggests that these past bad experiences need to be explored through “inner work” to bring them more into consciousness so that you can be aware of how they are playing out in your public interactions. She also suggests that you remind yourself why you are communicating with others and what benefit can accrue for them.

Perfectionism – can prevent us from even starting a public communication endeavour for fear of making mistakes.  We will always be waiting for the right time which may never occur.  Perfectionism can cause us to question what we have done in a public communication situation and generate a continuous cycle of “shoulds” and “what if’s”, e.g. “I should have started another way”, “What if I had given more examples?”  We can beat up on ourselves for mistakes or alternatively see them as an opportunity to grow and develop our public speaking skills.  Patricia suggests that we adopt a “growth mindset” which involves seeking continuous self-improvement in our practice while viewing mistakes as a learning experience on the path to personal improvement.  She suggests that it is unrealistic to expect not to make mistakes because of our human limitations and noted that in the public media arena it is a given that you will sometimes make mistakes.  In her view, often “good enough” is what is required and perfectionism can cause us to “freeze”, prevent flexibility and impede our ability to get in the zone and experience “flow”.   Like Seth Godin, Patricia suggests that it is better to “start small” to develop the confidence and calmness required to communicate publicly than to not engage in public communication because the task we set ourselves is too big a challenge.

Negative self-talk – these are the thoughts that we are not good enough or that we have no right to put ourselves “out there”.  Tina Turner explained that these thoughts can prevent you from making your unique contribution to the world and to positive experiences of other people. Tina actively developed her “inner landscape” through chanting and meditation and this enabled her to move beyond her “comfort zone” and realise her potential in performing for thousands of people.  She was able to see the growth potential and “hidden treasures” that lie in life’s challenges, including public communication and performances.  Tina recognised that we are not our negative thoughts but have the capacity to let them go and replace them with positive thoughts and expectations of success.

Reflection

Patricia indicated that she had a “painfully shy childhood” – she experienced panic at school, had other people take her place in the line at the shop to buy her lunch and would be shaking whenever she had to do a public presentation at school or college.  She has developed many exercises and tools to develop a calm confidence which has helped her in her worklife and enabled her to help over 2,000 clients who have sought her assistance and guidance.  She provides these tools and exercises in her book which offers very practical approaches to overcoming fear and anxiety around public communication.

Most people experience fear and anxiety around public communication, even seasoned performers. such as Tina Turner. As we grow in mindfulness through deep reflection, meditation and other mindfulness activities we can gain the self-awareness, courage and emotional regulation to enable us to achieve “Calmfidence” when engaging in public communications.  Mindfulness activities assist us to expand our response ability.

___________________________________________

Image by Gerd Altmann 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.

Life After Grief

In a previous post, I discussed how Rosie Ayliffe converted her grief and anger after the murder of her daughter to the reform of the Australian visa system that was contributing to manipulation and abuse of overseas backpackers.  Evonne Madden, in her book Life After: A Testament to Human Resilience, recounts the stories of 60 Australians who have experienced grief after the loss of a loved one.  Their stories illustrate that grief is very individual and plays out in distinctive ways over time.  It also confirms the view that in most cases grief is not a straight-line experience – there are ebbs and flows often occasioned by trigger experiences, words or actions that lead to flashbacks and emotional pain.  

The stories in Evonne’s book reaffirm the resilience of the human spirit and confirm how many people who experience grief find healing by going outside themselves – their anger and pain – to help others in need through compassionate action.   Their grief becomes the driver of their energy to ensure that others do not experience their level of pain.   As Katherine Woodward notes, trauma can be a trigger for self-awareness and self-realisation.

Exemplars of compassionate action through grief

Evonne details the heart-breaking loss experienced by the people in her stories.  Their sadness and grief is palpable but relieved by their strength of character and resilience and by how they have managed their grief by turning to the needs of others.  There are too many stories to recount here, but the following exemplars give you some sense of the resilience and courage of the people involved and serves as a teaser to encourage you to explore Evonne’s book yourself.

  • Lushani Hewage (age 26) lost her parents and one of her sisters in the 2004 Boxing Day tsunami.  Her account of the day the tsunami dramatically changed her life, when the wall of water hit the bus they were travelling in, is very traumatic and heart-wrenching.  Lushani and her two surviving sisters were initially cared for by relatives in her local area in Sri Lanka.  However, she was subsequently sent with one of her sisters to live with an aunt in Melbourne.  So there was not only the loss of her parents and a sister whom she had a special relationship with, but also the subsequent separation from another sister and having to adapt to life in a totally different part of the world.  Lushani now lives in Melbourne with her partner Sankini and they are both social workers.  She makes the point that “getting over” the trauma is not really an option but life does get easier, although people become impatient with your grief and ongoing sadness.  Lushani was determined to do something good after her experience and is very committed to the idea of doing social work in the child protection area.
  • Ajak Kwai (age 51) experienced the loss of her ill mother when she was a child and as a young adult experienced the loss of many relatives who were murdered in Southern Sudan by militia.  The civil war also took her father, siblings and fiancé.  She finally moved to Australia as a refugee and is now a singer and musician and her soulful music is available on Spotify and YouTube.  She stresses the need for modern society to learn from the practice in Africa where everyone drops everything and visits the bereaved family to provide emotional support…and they don’t stop visiting.  She maintains that what the world needs today is for us to “go back to the basics of caring for one another”.  She argues that forgiveness is important because hatred and revenge not only harms other people but also yourself so that you pay a “double price”.  Ajak believes “life is incredible” and “life is a mystery” and she gives expression to these beliefs in her songs.  She is a supporter of many organisations catering for women’s rights and refugees. 
  • Gavin Blue (age 52) and his wife Kel experienced the pain and grief of losing a child to stillbirth at 33 weeks.   While the hospital staff were very caring and concerned, the photographer seemed to be going through the motions and produced photographs of the Gavin, Kel and their stillborn baby that were “very graphic and forensic” and added to the trauma of the loss of the baby, Alexandra.  Kel was not coping at all afterwards so Gavin threw himself into protecting her and getting everything done, including a video of Alexandra’s life.  Despite people unwittingly making hurtful comments, Gavin and Kel decided that they had to look beyond the words and “listen to people’s intentions” which were designed to be helpful.  Gavin found that the photos he took himself of Alexandra helped him and Kel and made people comfortable talking about the situation “which helps immensely in grief”.  This experience inspired him to start Heartfelt which involves volunteer photographers providing free photos for people who have lost a child through stillbirth or have children with very serious or life-threatening illness.

Reflection

I listened to Ajak’s soulful music while I wrote this blog.  It reminded me of the healing power of music.  So many people have expressed their pain and grief through song and instrumental music, including the great composers and modern day songwriters like Lindsey Stirling.  Gratitude journalling too plays a major role in the healing process and is a pathway to resilience and happiness as demonstrated by Lindsey’s daily journalling process.

Grief is a complex mix of emotions fluctuating constantly and expressed in very individual ways.  The depth of pain and sorrow described by Evonne can at times feel numbing but the resilience and hope demonstrated by her generous interviewees shines brightly and is overwhelmingly inspiring. 

Ajak’s song Love Not Bitterness illustrates the depth of character of these people and their commitment to life and peace.  Olivia Gilewski, who lost her mother in a train accident when she was 12 years old, advises us to choose our words and actions wisely because they will be always with us especially after a loved one dies.  Her advice is that “You’ve just got to make the best of every day.”  As we grow in mindfulness though music, meditation and reflection, we can experience healing, health and happiness and learn to appreciate the beauty of life and nature. 

___________________________________________

Image by riyan hidayat 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.

Compassionate Action through Grief

Rosie Ayliffe in her book, Far from Home, tells the story of how her grief after the murder of her 21 year old daughter, Mia, in a hostel in Queensland in 2016 energised her to fight for legislative reform for Australian backpackers.  She tracks the early life of her vivacious daughter who loved people and travel, shares the rawness of her grief and exposes the exploitation of backpackers who engage in the 88 days farm work requirement to qualify for a visa to stay in Australia for a second year.  Rosie describes her work to uncover the extent of the injustice towards backpackers and her campaign to redress the lack of registration and controls over the farm work scheme.

Rosie’s research fuelled by her grief and her fury over the widespread exploitation of backpackers from overseas came at considerable personal cost, not the least being reliving the nightmare of her daughter’s savage murder and that of Tom Jackson who tried to come to her aid.  In her quest to right the unspeakable wrongs, she left no stone unturned to seek justice for her daughter, Tom and the countless backpackers who had suffered as a participant in the scheme.  She met opposition from farmers, union officials, politicians and others with a vested interest in maintain the status quo.

Rosie, an experienced journalist who had travelled the world, was not put off by this opposition but was inspired by the love she had for Mia and the endless expressions of love and grief from Mia’s friends around the world.  Rosie built a network of support in Australia including the parents of Tom Jackson and organisations like the Salvation Army who had been working to support backpackers and redress the wrongs they experienced.  She also built alliances with people in England, her home country, where many people had agitated for, and achieved, a modern slavery act. 

Rosie Ayliffe on Australia Story

Rosie’s grief permeates her story and is never far from the surface.  She recounts the arduous task of creating Part 1 and Part 2 of Long Way from Home for the TV show Australia Story.  There were not only the exertions involved in filming and retakes but also the energy and effort for the additional research required and the unsettling visit to the hostel in North Queensland where Mia died.  Rosie was able to create the expose through the support of her friends, colleagues and the creators and film crew of Australis Story.   The TV show gave increased exposure to the issues for backpackers including the psychological, financial and sexual exploitation.  This, in turn, led Rosie to make a contribution to an inquiry underpinning moves for a modern slavery act in Australia.

Reform and Compassionate Action

Rosie’s efforts and determination contributed substantially to the development and promulgation of the Queensland State legislation known as the Labour Hire Licensing Act 2017 and the Federal Legislation, The Modern Slavery Act 2018.   Rosie’s story is one of love, loss and unrelenting courage written with the exemplary writing skill of a journalist, compassion of a mother, and resilience to unearth the adverse circumstances contributing to her daughter’s death.  Mia herself is never far from the surface nor is the rawness of Rosie’s grief.  As Rosie points out, grief and its expression are different for everyone and cannot be quantified or compared.  She maintains that grief for the loss of a  child is especially traumatic and enduring for a parent because there are “so many painful reminders, so many missed moments, so much wasted potential”.

Despite her grief and her anger, Rosie was able to rise above the debilitating effects of her loss, learn again to be grateful for life and show compassionate action towards the parents of the mentally ill person who murdered her daughter through her expressions of forgiveness and understanding and desire to build a relationship with them.  Therein lies the true character of Rosie, her love of others and deep, abiding compassion.

Reflection

Rosie’s story is moving, challenging and inspiring. It moves us to share the grief and sense of loss, it challenges us to take compassionate action towards others who may have hurt us and inspires us to appreciate life and the present moment, because the human condition is fragile and life is transitory.  As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, expressions of gratitude and reflection on our life and friendships, we can develop a deep sense of appreciation and the courage for compassionate action.

___________________________________________

Image by fotografierende 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.

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.

___________________________________________

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.