bodily sensations – Grow Mindfulness

Changing How We Deal with Emotions

Hilary Jacobs Kendel, psychotherapist, author and activist, contends that we learn many things in school that we never use but do not learn about emotions that affect every aspect of our daily lives. She strongly advocates for education about emotions though her videos, blog posts, presentations, interviews, newspaper articles and clinical practice. Hilary is the author of It’s Not Always About Depression: Listen to the Body, Discover Core Emotions and Rediscover Your Authentic Self.

The Change Triangle®

Hilary educates people about emotions and how to change the way we deal with them through what she calls the Change Triangle®. This is a visual representation in the form of an inverted triangle of the different types of emotions we all experience. At the base are what Hilary calls the core emotions that are calls to action designed to help us negotiate our environment. To the right at the top are inhibiting emotions which impede us experiencing core emotions in their true form. These, in turn, often lead us to adopt defenses which we employ to avoid being aware of, or experiencing, our feelings.

Hilary acknowledges that her own understanding of emotions was developed through attending a presentation by Dr. Diana Fosha, Director and Founder of Accelerated Experiential Dynamic Psychotherapy (AEDP)™ which is a treatment model adopted by Hilary that was developed to help adults experiencing difficulties as a result of childhood attachment trauma and abuse. This transformational model focuses on healing and flourishing despite the experience of emotional suffering and draws heavily on neuroscience, brain plasticity and research on mother-infant development. Diana advocates strongly for a healing approach (transformation) instead of the traditional psychotherapy approach of a focus on pathology. In this respect, she addresses the question What Happened to You?, not What’s Wrong With You? – a healing approach also adopted in the book by Oprah Winfrey and Dr. Bruce Perry. Diana wrote the Forward for Hilary’s book.

Core Emotions

Core emotions have been identified as early as Charles Darwin and their impact on the brain is now able to be identified through brain imaging. Hilary identifies the core emotions as fear, joy, anger, excitement, sadness, sexual excitement and disgust. These emotions are beyond conscious control as they are triggered by our everyday experience and serve as a survival mechanism, activating our flight or fight response, our approach or avoidance stance. Where real danger exists, this can be life-saving. Fear, for example, can make us aware of a real, impending danger, e.g., a house fire. However, through trauma and adverse childhood experiences, the core emotions can be triggered by seemingly harmless activities or events, such as conscious breathing, a smell or a sound. The core emotions “ready our body for action” as they appear with a lot of biological energy – ready for activation.

Inhibiting Emotions

Hilary identifies three emotions that she describes as “inhibiting emotions” – anxiety, shame and guilt. These emotions often arise from the “shoulds” “and “should-not” messaging that we are all exposed to, especially in our childhood. Deborah Feldman illustrates this very well in her book, Unorthodox: The Scandalous Rejection of My Hasidic Roots. She talks of the shame she felt in reading books written in English rather than Yiddish (because of the constant paternal messaging) and the guilt she experienced eating cakes when she felt hungry from the very restrictive traditional diet. Hilary explains that “shame” is designed to inhibit out impulses and ensure conformity to the norms of our reference group – e.g., family, community or religion. She differentiates healthy shame from toxic shame – the former brings us safety through inclusion, protection and support. The latter generates a toxic environment in that it is built on negative self-talk that reinforces negative beliefs about oneself generated by bullying (online or offline), abuse, neglect or alcoholic parents. Hilary explains that the road to healing is employing the Change Triangle® to unearth the core emotions that lie underneath the shame. She provides a roadmap through her blog post, 5 Ways to Work the Change Triangle as a Beginner, and offers multiple examples of this transformation process in operation within her book, It’s Not Always About Depression.

Defenses

Hilary explains that defenses are a form of emotional protection in that they are multiple ways “we all avoid painful, uncomfortable or conflicting emotions”. She identifies the more common ways to avoid emotions in one of her blog posts, including sarcasm, superior conceit, constant apologizing, procrastination, eating disorders and addiction. She describes some of the more surface level defenses as moving away, rolling your eyes or judging others. Defenses can be healthy and serve our needs in particular situations such as in a professional environment. However, unhealthy defenses prevent us from experiencing either inhibiting or core emotions and effectively lead to disconnection from our authentic self. We hide away from the pain of our deepest feelings by finding a way to deflect them.

In a New York Times Article, It’s Not Always Depression, Sometimes its Shame, Hilary describes her AEDP therapeutic work with a client named Brain. He had presented with what appeared to be chronic depression and had failed to respond to multiple forms of therapy and medication. He appeared to be in a comatose state – unable to connect, express his feelings or communicate effectively. His defenses, in the form of withdrawal enabled him to protect himself form the pain of “emotional aloneness” and toxic shame – induced by a lack of emotional bonding from his parents. His father was preoccupied with earning a living and his mother drank to excess – resulting in “emotional neglect” for Brian.

Hilary employed a range of techniques over the four years of her therapeutic intervention, including throwing cushions to Brian just to engage him in some way. In his second year of treatment, he learned to name his emotions, validate them and “safely connect to the emotion he felt in his body”. On the conclusion of his therapy Brian “felt alive again”, developed more friends, undertook meaningful work and learned to assert his needs. In the process, he dissipated the toxic shame he had been experiencing.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness we gain increased self-awareness and are better able to identify our triggers, our habituated defenses, the inhibiting emotions and our underlying core emotions (often, there is more than one at play). We can also learn to access our emotions through our bodily sensations – a major focus of Hilary’s approach.

In her video presentation of the Change Triangle® to a group, Hilary begins with a meditation – participants are asked to close their eyes, become grounded, get in touch with their breath, and undertake a body scan. The first part of the scan focuses in on a place in the body where we can feel calm and warmth. The second part of the scan involves identifying a place of tension or pain in the body. This is followed by a process of breathing into that place and imagining that we are able to move it aside even for a little bit to locate the emotion that is under there, “pushing up for experiencing and validation”.

As Bessel van der Kolk maintains, The Body Keeps the Score. In this book, he explains the role of the brain and body in the transformation of trauma. As Hilary points out, through her Change Triangle®, healing and transformation ultimately lead us to our Authentic Self which enables us to achieve clarity, calm, courage, creativity, compassion and connectedness.

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

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

Moving from Trauma in a Relationship to Trust

Dr. Aimie Apigian recently offered a Trauma to Trust Masterclass in which she discussed the body’s response to trauma, ways to recognise if a relationship is causing trauma and ways to move from trauma in a relationship to trust. Aimie is a Preventative Medicine physician with Masters in Public Health and Biochemistry. She specialises as an addiction, trauma and attachment physician – a career that resulted from her desire to heal from own traumatic life experiences and attachment issues and to help other people to achieve healing and recovery. She shares her career story and her work with Guy Macpherson on the Trauma Therapist Project podcast. Her experience with foster-parenting led to her consuming interest in helping children experiencing pain and suffering from trauma.

On her YouTube© channel, Aimie provides videos where she discusses topics like addiction, trauma, nervous system, negative thinking, inflammation and emotional regulation. She draws heavily on her personal experience of adopting a son from her foster care – a child who was traumatised by his insecurity, constant mobility and uncertain future. She found that love and nurture and time together by themselves did not help to heal him – the manifestations of love themselves became a trigger for his trauma response.

The day Aimie’s six-year old adopted son told her that he would kill her the following day was the catalyst for a lifetime of study, research and specialisation in helping children and adults recover from trauma. To help her son, she researched multiple modalities including nutrition, somatic experiencing (developed by Dr. Peter Levine), and Neuro-Affective Touch. For other parents in a similar situation with a traumatised child, she created the not-for-profit organisation, Family Challenge Camps, that are designed to help families deal with trauma and attachment issues.

3 steps to the trauma response

Aimie drew on her training in the Instinctual Trauma Response Model to explain how the body responds to trauma. Initially when the body experiences a perceived threat (including a “trigger”), it goes into a startle response (envisage a deer in the wild hearing or smelling the presence of a lion). This is followed by the stress response which energises the fight/flight response.

When the stressor(s) are perceived as overwhelm (we sense we are unable to cope), the body adopts the freeze response which constitutes the “lowest energy state” (in comparison to the “high energy state” of the fight/flight response).

Recognising trauma created in a relationship

Aimie provides three ways to recognise if a relationship (that we are part of) is a source of trauma for us. At the foundational level, the early indicators relate to a lack of energy. So the first step is to check our bodily sensations – is the relationship energising or depleting us? This can be an early indicator of trauma in an emerging Controlling Relationship.

On the second level, is exploration of our thoughts about our relationship. Do we perceive that being in the relationship is too much and beyond us? Do we feel safe and supported? Are we wondering why we have built up a dependency in the relationship to make up for some personal deficiency?

The third indicator is how we feel health wise – are we constantly feeling sick in the relationship? Does the relationship “make us sick” (with worry, anxiety or fear, for example). Aimie reminds us that sometimes we can delude ourselves when our mind says “I love them” but our body gives us away through constant sickness.

3 step approach to releasing stored trauma

Aimie has developed a 3 step approach to assist people to release stored trauma. She argues that the release process requires certain actions completed in the right order. In fact, from her own experience and research, she has found that the order of the required steps is the reverse of the trauma creation process described in the previous section (startle, fight/flight/, freeze).

Aimie argues that the trauma release process involves (1) developing a personal sense of safety, (2) building a sense of support and (3) expansion where we begin to lead “the life we’ve always wanted”. She provides an explanation of the 3 step process in her publication, The Essential Sequence Guide: How to release stored trauma, that is available as a free e-book from her website, Trauma Healing Accelerated™.

Aimie offers specialised training for individuals who want to deal with trauma in a relationship in the form of a 21 Day Journey that provides a somatically-based process of addressing stored trauma in the body. Each of the three steps of trauma release are addressed by providing seven somatic exercises for each step (safety, support, expansion). Aimie and an online community provide the supportive relationships necessary to enable people to heal and recover. During the Trauma to Trust Masterclass, Aimie provided an experience of one of the somatic exercises designed to develop a sense of safety. It involved linking the stomach to the heart by placing one hand on each body part and exploring the nature of the felt connection (e.g., rejection, resistance, warmth, welcoming, disrupted, undulating).

Aimie provides other experiential and educational workshops, a certification program for practitioners and one-on-one coaching by a certified trauma-informed health coach. She is also the Creator and Host of the Biology of Trauma Summit.

Reflection

Each of us have had our own experience of personal trauma from challenging life events – whether a car accident; death of a child, spouse or parent; a relationship breakdown/breakup and/or divorce; loss of work through redundancy; chronic illness or cancer; loss of a home through fire or flood; adverse childhood experiences or a combination of these (or any other traumatising event).

Aimie and her colleagues provide a clear pathway for trauma release by focusing on the body and providing somatic healing. Her dedication to releasing trauma in others (whether parents, children or professionals) is a lifetime and whole-hearted commitment. She offers insights from her own traumatic life journey and in-depth study and research.

As we grow in mindfulness through somatic experiencing, meditation, connecting with nature and other mindfulness practices, we can develop greater self-awareness, a stronger sense of safety and support and build the confidence and creativity to explore our potential and life purpose.

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

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

Relational Resilience through Bodily Awareness

Christina Dohr presented on the topic of “Relational Resilience” during the recent Embodiment Festival. Christina is a qualified somatic educator and embodiment coach, who aims to help people through bodily awareness (of breath, sensations, posture and movement) to achieve self-awareness and authentic connection and relationships. She is a strong advocate of movement as a way to tap into the mind-body connection and emotions – her background includes dance, improvisation and a black belt in Aikido.

Relational resilience is a concept typically employed in research literature especially in relation to the development of girls and women and often refers to the capacity to bounce back in the face of trauma, difficulties and health issues. The concept is also employed in the context of parenting and dependent child development. In her presentation, Christina used the idea of relational resilience to refer to any relationship, intimate or friendship relationship. She focused on sustainability of relationships in the face of life challenges and the role of deepening connection to facilitate mutual growth. Christina also reinforced the research-based evidence that demonstrates the key role that supportive relationships play in healing from trauma and coping with personal difficulties.

Bodily Awareness

Christina, being an embodiment coach, offered bodily awareness as a way into relational resilience. She highlighted the fact that the way we visualise and use our bodies impacts our relationships. Throughout her presentation she introduced a range of embodiment practices designed to build bodily awareness and the messages we communicate in our interactions. We can concur with Bessel van der Kolk’s concept that The Body Keeps the Score – not only in relation to traumatic experiences but also everyday interactions.

Christina focused on a number of areas that either sustain or dimmish relationships such as listening. She suggests that we explore how we listen and whether or not we bring openness, curiosity and genuine interest to our intimate relationships. Christina offered an embodiment practice to look at the relative give and take in a relationship – a key determinant of sustainability and resilience. She suggested that participants in the Zoom workshop joined their hands together and visualise the balance occurring in their relationship by moving their joined hands towards themselves or away from themselves. At the same time, participants were encouraged to tap into their bodily sensations as they experienced this movement to or away from themselves.

Another key area that Christina covered is “ownership” in a relationship – the degree to which we own our words and action and their outcomes, intended and unintended. She stressed the need “to take responsibility” and not deflect or deny when we make a mistake or “stuff up” in a relationship. This could mean simply acknowledging that we didn’t listen properly or that we were not paying attention. This genuineness and honesty contribute to trustworthiness which, in turn, develops relational resilience. We can notice our bodily reactions/sensations when confronted with the challenge to “own responsibility” for our words, actions, inactions or omissions in a relationship.

Christina indicated that there are times when we tend to own responsibility when its is not appropriate – we might overcompensate, overdo giving (trying to anticipate a partner’s every need) or try to read another person’s mind. She offered a simple embodiment exercise to illustrate this point. If your shape your hands “to hug a tree”, the inner circle (or the imaginary tree) represents your area of responsibility – outside the circle is someone else’s responsibility. She suggests that you can also embody this concept of responsibility boundaries (and experience it through accompanying bodily sensations) by facing one palm in towards yourself (your responsibility) and the other palm facing away from you (the other person’s responsibility). Being conscious of how you feel as you do this can increase your bodily and emotional awareness.

Reflection

Christina encourages us to use our body as a mirror to our “inner landscape”. There is so much we can overlook or ignore, but our bodies are registering everything – the way others look at us, avoid us or attend to what we say. Our bodies are continuously sensing and reacting, often at an unconscious level. One of Christina’s goals is to assist us to “uncover unconscious embodiment patterns” and help us to change what no longer serves our relationships and its resilience. To this end she offers embodiment coaching and workshops to help people gain bodily awareness and develop mature and resilient relationships.

We can grow in mindfulness and self-awareness as we explore embodiment practices and pay attention to our bodily sensations and reactions in our daily interactions. Christina’s presentation gives us some relationship areas to think about, focus on and experience bodily. Other presentations at the Embodiment Festival can advance our personal insight by offering a variety of embodiment practices.

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

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

The Simplicity of Meditation

Marvin Belzer, PhD, provided a guided meditation podcast emphasising the simplicity of the process and the fact that its eminently “doable” – even if we have to fit it into a busy life by dedicating 3-5 minutes to focused attention on the present moment and our bodily sensations. He emphasised that it does not have to be difficult or challenging but does require effort and regular practice. He emphasised the need to avoid setting a goal that we pursued through meditation – this can create stress and distraction. His emphasis is on keeping it simple while paying attention to some aspect of our everyday life.

Marvin indicated that he has practised meditation for more than 30 years and has taught mindfulness for 20 years. He offered the meditation as part of the free weekly guided meditations provided by MARC, UCLA. His role in UCLA is that of Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences. He has taught mindfulness to many groups including semester-length courses for university students and courses for teens. We can gain some insight into Marvin’s mindfulness orientation by listening to his interview with Bob O’Haver on Bob’s “Why Meditate?” Podcast – the interview provides some insight into Marvin’s approach to meditation, mindful living, and the cultivation of compassion in our lives.

Guided meditation

In the guided meditation, Marvin maintains that by keeping the process simple, we can more readily access the calming effect of meditation and not be so readily distracted by complex or abstract thoughts. The focus is on the present moment awareness as we are experiencing it. His starting point is deep breathing to help us to ground ourselves – with a sigh on the out-breath. Marvin offers a choice of anchors – bodily sensations, surrounding sounds or our breath. He encourages us to sustain our attention on one of these anchors so that we can experience a sense of calm, peace and stability. Marvin emphasises that this simple approach to meditation can be a refuge in busy or turbulent times, if we make it a regular practice.

In his view, meditation enables us to pay attention to what is real in our life, not what we wished it would be. Marvin encourages us to persist with paying attention even when thoughts, emotions or sensations distract us from our focal anchor. He suggests that we adopt a playful approach to meditation not chiding ourselves, but noting something like, “There I go again, planning my day as if my life depended on it”. He recommends that even in this busy time of the year, with Christmas approaching, we can adopt the habit of brief meditations – a process I employ when “waiting” for someone or something, especially traffic lights.

Marvin encourages us to be non- judgmental towards ourselves but to “show up as we can”, given our commitments, health and family situation. This is sound advice as I often find myself, when I am unwell or have an injury, being critical of myself for not doing my Tai Chi mindfulness practice. His overall approach with his focus on simplicity and regularity is very encouraging.

Marvin also notes that sometimes we can be bored during meditation (I can relate to this!) but that boredom can be an important antidote to the endless stimulation provided by social media and invasive advertising. Our capacity to pay attention is continuously eroded by the “firehose of information” – a term used by Johann Hari in his book, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention. If we persist with meditation despite our sense of boredom, we can reap the fruits of developing our awareness muscle and deepening our capacity to concentrate. It is critical for our mental health and the health of our minds to protect our attention.

Reflection

Marvin, like accomplished practitioners in many fields, is able to make complex concepts and processes simple. His approach encourages us to persist with meditation, no matter what is happening in our lives. He suggests, for example, that if we are anxious, we can pay attention to the bodily sensations of our anxiety – we can release any tension we locate or stay with the sensation in a softening, calming way through a compassionate body scan. As we grow in mindfulness through regular mindfulness practices such as meditation, we can access our inner landscape, enjoy tranquility, and gain clarity and insight.

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

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

Guided Mindful Movement Meditation

Tom Heah, a highly accredited mindfulness teacher, provides a guided meditation podcast on mindful movement, his particular area of expertise. Tom was an Occupational Therapist in Vancouver Canada until 2021 when he switched to offering mindfulness training to the Vancouver Center which focused on mental health and substance abuse. Tom has conducted many mindfulness training courses, including Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPs). He offers free access to guided audio versions of mindfulness practices incorporated in these courses – they are available for streaming and/or download. His recent mindful movement meditation was offered as the last of the 2022 weekly, UCLA online meditations. From 12 January 2023, the weekly meditations will resume as in-person, face-to-face sessions at the Hammer Museum with live streaming. The guided meditations will continue to be available in audio podcast form after the resumption.

Tom discusses the nature of mindfulness in terms of focusing on the internal and external sensations of the present moment. He suggests that this involves openness, interest and curiosity about our current reality, both internal and external. By focusing on the present moment, we resist the natural urge to ruminate about the past (experiences, mistakes, losses) or to worry about the future. Tom maintains that cultivated present moment awareness enables us to show up in the various arenas of our lives.

Tom highlights the fact that despite the festivities of the Christmas season, many people will be experiencing sadness through loss, isolation, loneliness, illness or conflict with relatives. He observes that people often cannot sit still when they are stressed – so he focuses on mindful movement in his guided meditation.

Guided mindful movement meditation

From the outset of the mindful movement meditation, Tom stresses the need to stay within our own physical limits, engaging in the suggested movements only to the extent that they do not cause pain. The fundamental idea of mindful movement is to move parts of our body while breathing in a controlled way. The aim then is to focus on the bodily sensations experienced with each form of movement. Guided movements can be undertaken either standing or sitting, allowing for variations for the chosen posture.

In the guided movement meditation, Tom skilfully directs our movements while guiding our breathing – all the time reminding us not to stop breathing. Some of the movements involve raising both arms, moving our arms sideways and slowly moving the neck in a number of directions. It is important to follow the guidance provided so that we can remain focused on our bodily sensations, without thinking about the next step.

After completing the movement meditation, Tom guides us on a silent, still meditation where we can focus on an anchor of our choice to enable us to return to our focus when we become distracted by thinking or planning. The anchor could be our breathing, sounds that surround us or some form of bodily sensation such as our fingers touching.

Reflection

The guided meditation provided by Tom is one of the many meditations that involve mindful movement. Others include Tai Chi and Yoga. As we grow in mindfulness through mindful movement meditations, we can develop new perspectives on old problems, respond to triggers in a more skilful way and experience greater ease and restfulness. Our increased bodily awareness can help us to better access the wisdom of the body and develop openness to our intuition.

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

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

Accessing Doorways to the Present Moment

Vy Le, international meditation teacher, provided a guided meditation podcast on Doorways to the Present Moment as part of the weekly meditation series offered by the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), UCLA. Vy is the Founder and Managing Director of the In Wave Group dedicated to developing a culture of well-being and resilience in organisations through mindfulness practices.

In her MARC guided meditation Vy mentioned that she had qualifications in maths and computers and was heavily engaged in left-brain activities until she realised that she was “not really embodying her experiences” – being engaged in mental activity and not being aware of the present moment and all that it communicated. She reinforced Diane Winston’s definition of mindfulness as paying attention in the present moment not only with curiosity and openness but also with acceptance of what is.

Vy explained that our breath, five senses and our body provide ready access and the doorway to the present moment – if only we pay attention to them. We are so trained from our school days to pay attention to external sources, at the expense of “listening to ourselves”. We need to tune into what is going on in our inner landscape – incorporating our sensescape, bodyscape, heartscape and breathscape. Jon Kabat-Zinn in his book Coming to Our Senses teaches us ways to access our senses.

Vy makes the point that at any moment we are breathing, experiencing the world through our senses, having bodily sensations, and feeling emotions. If we just stop and focus on one of these doorways we can gain access to the numerous benefits of mindfulness, including calmness, ease and equanimity.

Guided meditation – exploring the doorways to the present moment

Through her guided meditation, Vy introduces us to each of the doorways to the present moment – breath, senses, bodily sensations and feelings:

Breath – Vy begins with encouraging us to take a number of deep breaths and release our breath and related bodily tension through extended out-breaths. During the meditation, she explains how to tap into our breathing by focusing on the undulations in our chest or abdomen or consciously experiencing our in-breath and out-breath through our nose. She notes that at anytime or anywhere, we can access the natural flow of our breath through our body – always occurring in the present moment.
Senses – as the meditation progresses, Vy encourages us first to tune into her voice then the sounds in our room and external sounds (our soundscape). She moves on progressively to focusing on our sense of smell, sight, touch and taste – the latter may involve sensing the taste of a recent coffee or elements of a meal. We so often overlook the sense of taste when we are eating – fixated as we often are on our thoughts and plans. Mindful eating can be one way to utilise the sense of taste to stay in the present moment rather than focus on the past or future.
Bodily sensations – Vy encourages us to feel the sensations in our feet such as warmth, connectedness to the floor or earth, or a sense of solidity/security through groundedness. She then has us explore sensations in our own bodies – in our arms and legs (including the pressure of the chair on the back of our thighs), our chest and abdomen, and our face and forehead (releasing any frown or tightness). She suggests that we note any areas of tension or ease as we go. Vy also points out that by joining our fingers together we can sense the aliveness in our bodies through the resultant warmth, tingling and vibrations. This practice can also help us to tune into our breath simultaneously and assist us to increase our awareness at times of waiting (for example, when waiting for traffic lights).
Heartscape – towards the end of the guided meditation, Vy encourages us to focus on our feelings, what is going on inside us. We may become aware of sadness, joy, disappointment, gratitude, resentment and even grief – emotions that have become clouded by the flurry of everyday life.

Reflection

Vy’s guided meditation offers practical ways to access the present moment through the doorways provided by our breath, senses, bodily sensations and feelings. We can grow in mindfulness by daily accessing these doorways to the present moment. This will require developing a mindset about the value and benefits of mindfulness and engaging in micro-practices on a regular basis so that we can develop the habit of being fully present to our experiences.

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

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

Natural Awareness through Nature

Natural awareness is often contrasted with meditation focused on numbers, the breath, sounds or particular sensations or feelings. Natural awareness is not goal-focused – it is more about being aware of awareness itself, noticing that you are noticing. So much of what we do in life is goal-focused – natural awareness provides a desirable shift that can lead to less stress, more openness and a greater sense of calm. Rachelle Calvert encourages us to take our mindfulness practice outside so that we can feel more connected to the world around us and not be totally absorbed in having to “try” or “do”. She draws on research results that demonstrate that “practicing mindfulness in nature”, leads to many benefits including improved heart health, concentration, relaxation and stress reduction. Mark Coleman reminds us that a natural outcome of being mindful in nature is a sense of gratitude as well as wonder and awe inspired by nature’s beauty and resilience.

By developing natural awareness in nature through observation and listening, we can become more grounded, experience tranquility and begin to notice minute aspects of our natural environment that we have previously overlooked. Diana Winston in her book, The Little Book of Being, identifies practices we can use to develop natural awareness and offers what she calls “markers” to test whether or not we have experienced “natural awareness”. These include feelings of timelessness and ease; noticing that you are noticing; completely aware with all your senses open to your environment; and a restful mind that is open to what is passing by.

An experience of natural awareness

I was recently strolling along the Mooloolaba Beach Boardwalk noticing the people passing by – couples of all ages out for a walk, men and women pushing prams, individuals leading dogs on a leash and the perennial runners, both individuals and groups. Occasionally, a bush turkey would cross my path on its way to greener pastures. While being aware of these movements, I was totally unaware of the vegetation beside the Boardwalk. Once I realised this lack of awareness, I began to scan the vegetation either side of the path. I became aware of tiny wildflowers partially hidden amongst the trees and grasses, trees twisted sideways turning towards the sun and all different kinds of leaves (broad and large, thin and small). This cultivated, natural awareness enabled me to broaden the horizon of my awareness and instilled a greater sense of calm as I walked mindfully along the Boardwalk.

Diana Winston offers an exercise to experience what she calls, “the spectrum of awareness” – moving from a very narrow focus to a more panoramic, natural awareness view. She uses fish in an aquarium for this exercise, moving from focus on a single plant, to movement of an individual fish and, finally, to a panoramic view taking in the fish, the aquarium and the surrounding environment. As she observes as part of this exercise, natural awareness includes noticing our own bodily sensations and feelings in the present moment as we are experiencing the world around us with openness and curiosity.

Reflection

We can develop natural awareness through our everyday activities if we adopt a mindset that involves consciously noticing what we are doing and seeing, as well as what we are experiencing internally. Diana Winston suggests that we can develop natural awareness even when doing the dishes; when we expertly handle a distraction while meditating; when consciously avoid foods that lead to inflammation or when we monitor how we spend our time.

Focused meditation helps to develop natural awareness as we become increasing able to concentrate and pay attention with openness and curiosity. As we grow in mindfulness through developing our capacity for natural awareness and engaging in formal meditation, we can experience a greater sense of tranquility, freedom from anxiety and a more complete alignment of our words and actions with our values and life purpose.

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

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

Manage Emotions through Savoring Life

Allyson Pimentel in a recent meditation podcast reminds us to savour life and the opportunities it presents to experience positive emotions such as joy, appreciation and love. Allyson describes “savoring” as a form of mindfulness with a specific focus and purpose – in savoring we pay attention to the things that we enjoy and relish, lingering on the positive feelings that emerge spontaneously when we focus on what is good in our life. While savoring is pleasurable, it does not deny the reality of what is difficult in our life such as challenging emotions. However, this practice enables us to bring positivity to our life by paying attention to “what feels good, what provides relief”.

There are very clear benefits of savoring, including increased happiness, improved physical and mental health and better performance. Research has shown that both older people and younger students experience greater happiness through savoring, not only from savoring what is present in their life at the moment but also what they have experienced in the past. Savoring can lead to optimism about the future, improved self-esteem and greater resilience in the face of stress. People who savour life bring appreciation and positivity to their relationships, enhance their performance through clearer focus and concentration, and gain greater access to their intuition and creativity – partly because they are not burdened or blinded by negative thoughts and an inherently, human negative bias.

Guided meditation

Allyson encourages us at the outset to make ourselves comfortable in whatever posture we choose as a prelude to the experience of pleasure through the savoring of sensations. She begins the meditation practice by encouraging us to focus on a part of the body that brings ease or pleasure at the moment. It could be the firmness of the feet on the ground and the attendant sense of security, the tingling and warmth in fingers that are joined together or the sensation of our thighs pressing against the chair. She also suggests that this savoring meditation can be taken outdoors and enhanced by the experience of nature – its beauty, sounds, diversity and smells.

Once we find a bodily focus for the experience of ease, Allyson encourages us to bathe in the positive sensations associated with the pleasurable feelings. This may mean, for instance, paying sustained attention to the tingling in our joined fingers while feeling the sense of relaxation and calm as our breathing itself slows and we become free from our continuous focus on our thoughts. This process is fundamentally becoming grounded in the here-and-now experience of our pleasurable bodily sensations and bringing full awareness to their impact on us and our sense of ease and pleasure.

Next, Allyson asks us to recall a recent event that we found pleasurable and a source of joy. It could be a recent interaction with someone new, an experience of competence when cooking or playing an instrument or any activity that we can recall as a source of pleasure. She suggests that we recapture the feelings of the moment of that activity and bathe in the feelings and attendant bodily sensations – did we find ourselves relaxing, appreciating what we have, sensing a connection, enjoying conversation or valuing someone’s company and friendship? I found for this activity that I recalled an interaction with someone I had not met before who was interested in what I do and have done, who shared some of their own story and rapidly built rapport through a communicated sense of curiosity, interest and shared common experiences. It left me with a sense of warmth, strengthened self-esteem and feelings of connectedness.

Allyson then asks us to choose another recent activity/event that was a source of pleasure and again recapture the feelings of joy and ease as we bring the activity/event into focus, bathing in our positive feelings and bodily sensations. For this second reflection, I recalled my recent experience of being able to play my tennis shots more consistently, to recapture shots I have been unable to play for a while and to feel more comfortable and at ease with my game. I bathed in my sense of restored competence, the unsolicited praise of my tennis partners, and the comments from my opponents expressing appreciation for the extended and challenging rallies. I recaptured my feelings of joy in being able to experience competence that has come from many years of playing and competing in tennis fixtures. This flowed into an overall appreciation of the ability to play tennis that has enabled me to play social games in France, England, New Zealand and New Guinea – a passport to engagement and connection with others wherever they reside.

Reflection

Savouring the people, events and things in our everyday life enables us in grow in mindfulness through being mindful of the many aspects of our life as they occur – it does not require formal meditation (although the capacity to savour can be enhanced by guided meditations such as that provided by Allyson).

Our everyday life is full of opportunities to appreciate, and express gratitude for, the things that bring us joy and a sense of pleasure and relief – savouring can serve as an oasis amidst the busyness and challenges of life. Over time, we can develop a growing awareness of the sources of pleasure in our lives and enhance their positive impact on us and our relationships.

There is so much we can savour – the development of our children, friendships, our achievements and rewards, the joy of others, and life itself. Allyson quotes Adrienne Maree Brown, author of Pleasure Activism: The Politics of Feeling Good, who argues that there is freedom in savoring pleasure and that it “feels good to do good” in the world. Blair Christie, in her TED Talk “The Simple Act of Marveling”, argues that this savoring activity can “take you on a journey that leads to action” that can change our world and the world at large. Marveling, she suggests, is a great source of grounding and stress release.

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Image by pen_ash from Pixabay

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

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

Under the influence of Thich Nhat Hanh

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

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

Guided meditation

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

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

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

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

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

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

Reflection

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

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

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

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

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Image by Karl Egger from Pixabay

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

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

Being Mindful 0f Our Thoughts

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

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

Guided meditation

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

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

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

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

Reflection

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

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Image by Engin Akyurt from Pixabay

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

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