challenges – Grow Mindfulness

Healing through Storytelling

A challenging medical diagnosis can turn your life upside down, make you question your self-image and increase feelings of isolation, particularly if it prevents you from actively engaging with your social or sporting network. Dr. Annie Brewster M.D., who experienced these challenges when she was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis in 2001, found that medical practitioners lacked understanding and compassion for her situation – they were ill-equipped to help her deal with the internal fallout that accompanies a chronic illness diagnosis. Annie is now Assistant Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School while actively engaged as a practicing physician in Boston at the Massachusetts General Hospital.

Annie, who had been quite athletic, found that her sense of identity was challenged by her diagnosis. She discovered that by storytelling – writing her own story addressing her identity confusion, accompanying anxiety and resultant trauma – she was able to move towards recovery reframing her identity, restoring her own power in the healing process and building resilience to handle uncertainty and fear. She recounts her story, and offers storytelling techniques with co-storyteller and journalist Rachel Zimmerman, in their book, The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma and Loss.

Healing through storytelling

Through her book, Annie helps chronic sufferers to process their challenging emotions, create their own healing story, reframe their identity narrative and reconnect with people close to them as well as the wider supportive community. She encourages us to utilise whatever medium we are comfortable with – whether art, music audio, video or writing – to share our healing journey and accompanying story. The techniques she and Rachel offer can help us in that process.

Inspired by her own positive experience of healing through storytelling, Annie created the Health Story Collaborative which acts as a platform for people to share their stories of health challenges and recovery. The Collaborative offers a medium for overcoming the isolation of chronic illness and is “patient-centered and research based”, drawing on the research providing evidence of the therapeutic power of storytelling. The Health Story Collaborative enables people to share their stories of illness and healing and offers multiple modes for doing so. There are videotaped Healing Stories Sessions (accessible to anyone), as well as Audio Stories (available for public consumption). You are encouraged to share your story of illness and recovery and the options also include music, art, poems, written stories or alternative media. Some of the more helpful stories are featured on the collaborative blog.

Storytelling about my own diagnosis of a chronic disability

I have recently started writing my memoir, inspired by Jeff Brown’s online course, Writing Your Way Home. One of my motivations has been the opportunity provided by storytelling to work through my personal experience of trauma. Almost simultaneously, I have received a diagnosis of spinal degeneration resulting from “wear and tear” over my 76+ years. A contributing factor was a serious car accident when I was 12 years old, with the undiagnosed injury aggravated by playing competitive and social tennis over 65 years.

I am now confronted by the challenge of rehabilitation and the loss of my capacity to play tennis, cutting me off from the game I love and my social tennis network (one of my few social activities). I can relate especially to what Annie calls the need to “integrate a traumatic health event into a new and evolving identity”. I have to reframe my identity from my self-image of a fit, competent tennis player, which has been an integral part of my life to date.

Reflection

Ash Barty has provided me with inspiration and encouragement through her own life story. She has also made me realise again why I loved the game of tennis. I’ve been reading Ash’s memoir, My Dream Time – A Memoir of Tennis and Teamwork, which could alternatively be called Developing Resilience through Adversity (as she documents her multiple injuries, mental health challenges and recovery strategies). Ash, the smiling assassin, who achieved World Number 1 WTA singles ranking for 114 weeks, shares openly her battle with negative self-messages, including the inexplicable negative self-talk about “not being good enough”.

I can relate deeply to what Ash describes as the pleasure she developed in playing tennis – enjoying the game for its own sake and finding “love in the marriage of movement and timing and speed and strength and guile and nerve” (the willingness “to go for your shots”). I found sheer enjoyment in my competence at tennis and my ability, even in my seventies, to surprise my opponents with unpredictable shots (such as a backhand half volley drop shot, a shot down the line or a half volley backhand lob). I would often mentally record the competent shots that I played and still to this day can replay some of them mentally as if on videotape. I undertook this process of recall and replay of my best tennis shots to build my sense of self-efficacy in playing tennis.

It is interesting that Ash talks about her slice backhand as her competitive advantage. In her words, the slice backhand produces “ an unpredictable low bounce” and is created by hitting the ball “with enough angle and speed to generate a fade”. Ash, through her slice, changed women’s tennis game at the elite level. In the mid 1970’s, I used to employ a slice backhand as my main attacking shot when playing competitive tennis … and I would follow it in to the net to complete an attacking volley as my opponent would have to hit the ball up to clear the net. However, over time while playing social tennis, after my competitive tennis days were over, I stopped using my slice backhand – for unknown reasons at the time. On reflection, I discovered that what had got in the way of my using this particular shot was a form of cognitive blind spot – I had unconsciously begun to view it as “not a real shot”. Ash’s resurrection of the slice in women’s tennis made me realise that I had unwittingly discontinued a shot that gave me a competitive advantage.

Ash at one stage in her book talks about “acceptance” – everyone is imperfect and “we’re all unique, all fallible and all with our own foibles”. It is the nature of being human that we are prone to making mistakes and subject to life-changing mental and physical challenges. We need to acknowledge the fragility of the human condition, accept what we can’t control, and act on what we can change for the better. Mindfulness can help us to develop resilience in personally challenging times.

As I grow in mindfulness through reflection, meditation, writing and storytelling, I hope to develop a new narrative about my evolving identity, grow in self-awareness, and strengthen my courage to undertake the necessary, ongoing rehabilitation. Life’s challenges can “make or break us” – mindfulness can help us to remain grounded, develop resilience and explore creative options.

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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.

Showing Up for Community Care

Shelly Tygielski is an advocate for translating mindfulness practices and related self-care approaches into community action. Shelly herself epitomizes this translation, being a trauma counsellor for surviving victims of mass shootings in the US and for refugees from Ukraine in Poland. She advocates strongly for both self-care and community care and argues that you cannot do the latter without the support of the former, otherwise you will suffer “compassion fatigue” and burnout.

Shelly sees meditation and other mindfulness practices as central to self-care. She is a meditation teacher and herself practices meditation and what she calls “micro-practices”. These are brief mindfulness practices that can be employed by anybody throughout the day, particularly at times when you are time-poor and feeling stressed, distressed or anxious.

Shelly indicates that these micro-practices can be linked to some action you already undertake during the day, e.g. she employs the yogic technique of 4-7-8 breathing when washing her hands. This involves breathing in through the nose for four seconds, holding the breath for seven seconds and breathing out through the mouth for eight seconds (there are various combinations of these breathing processes, but basically the outbreath is longer than the in-breath or holding your breath). This breathing practice can be used when waiting for traffic lights or waiting for the jug to boil or food to cook on the stove. Richard Wolf in his book, In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness, offers alternative breathing practices that are linked to the different times in music, e.g. ¾ time. He also offers deep listening approaches that can be employed as micro-practices.

How to show up for community care

Shelly provides the answer to this question in her new 10-day online course, The Power of Showing Up. I recently purchased this course and I am very impressed with the way she has structured the course to literally “take you by the hand” and lead you to self-empowerment and the capacity to undertake community care. She is not only a very inspirational speaker but totally transparent, sharing her own struggles and ways she overcame them. It is not as if she immediately fell into the practice of community care. She herself had to overcome the scars of being kidnapped at the age of two and inheriting “intergenerational trauma”.

Shelly provides support for developing our inner landscape and overcoming negative thoughts such as “I am not good enough” or “I don’t know enough” or “I feel like an impostor” (“impostor syndrome”). She strongly encourages us to overcome these obstacles (that she herself has experienced and overcome) and offers knowledge and pathways to develop a community of care – epitomized by her own creation, Pandemic of Love, which has matched the needs of 2 million people with other people who can provide concrete help and support.

Shelly’s course offers ways to help others in need so that they feel valued and appreciated. In the process, she helps us to understand our own inner world and what is holding us back. She offers a way to live a more meaningful life, aligned to our values and utilising our core knowledge and skills for community care.

Reflection

I was very inspired by Shelly’s presentation at the Self-Care Summit and since then have joined a community of care, ExtendaTouch (Caregivers Supporting Caregivers). I joined this community after receiving an invitation following publication of my blog post, Conscious Aging: Reframing for Health and Happiness.

As I participate in Shelly’s course, I am working on developing an online Community of Care that will involve people sharing their mindfulness practices, approaches to self-care and strategies for overcoming daily challenges. I hope to progress this community to a stage where we share our “self-care plan” and hold each other accountable for its implementation and ongoing refinement. As we grow in mindfulness together, we will be able to develop the necessary self-awareness, courage and creativity to overcome our life challenges and help others (in our online community and elsewhere) to do so.

Shelly also provides added inspiration and insight in her book, Sit Down to Rise Up: How Radical Self-Care Can Change the World.

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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.

Achieving the Benefits of Meditation Through Regular Practice

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

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

The benefits of regular meditation practice

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

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

Reflection

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

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

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

Meditation as a Process

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

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

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

Marvin’s guided meditation process

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

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

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

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

Reflection

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

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

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

What Does Success Mean for You?

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

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

Begin with the inside and the outside will follow

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

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

Reflection

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

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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.

Widening Awareness Through Meditation and Singing Bowls

Diana Winston introduced the use of singing bowls in meditation when she provided a guided meditation podcast with Master Tibetan musicians Michael and Jahna Perricone. Diana called her celebration with singing bowls Glimpses of Being and provided a way of developing “varying awareness” by moving from a narrow focus to a very wide focus of attention. She maintained that the singing bowls are conducive to meditation and can take us deeper into the meditative state.

Guided meditation to widen awareness

Diana begins her guided meditation by encouraging us to take deep breaths and employ the out-breath as a form of release from any tension spots in the body. She suggests that, besides grounding ourselves in our body (through deep breaths and sensing the groundedness of our feet), we consciously focus on our intention for the meditation – thus grounding both body and mind.

The next step involved mindful breathing – being aware of how our breathing affects our body. We can focus on where in our body we most experience our breath – through our nose, the undulations of our chest, or the in and out movement of our abdomen. Once we are grounded in the bodily sensation of breathing, we can then focus on the breath itself and its pattern – slow/fast, deep/shallow, heavy/light – without trying to control it.

The third stage of the meditation involved tuning into the Tibetan singing bowls and allowing the vibrations to penetrate our body. With practice we can align our bodily resonance to that of the singing bowls. Diana forewarns us that music and singing can unearth a wide range of emotions both positive and challenging. These emotions can range from elation, relief or joy to sadness, grief or anger. Being with the emotions without being overcome by them is a key to gaining equanimity. Denial leads to submerging and intensifying emotions while acceptance and openness lead to release and freedom. Diana maintains that it is important to experience the emotion as it is at the moment.

In the final stages of the guided meditation, Diana uses nature imagery to help us widen our awareness. She suggests that we look at the sky (or imagine it) and notice its openness and expansiveness. We can imagine the clouds passing by – sometimes light and fluffy and, at other times, wild and stormy. Diana encourages us to “rest in awareness” – to take in the expansiveness and unboundedness of the sky and the sounds emitted by the singing bowls and the accompanying Tibetan singing provided by Jahna Perricone. Diana maintains that despite the turbulence of the surface, beneath the waves lies stillness and silence – an analogy for our capacity to find refuge from troubling events through meditation and to build our resilience. Tina Turner, through her chanting, demonstrated the power of music and meditation to overcome personal adversity, develop resilience and experience happiness.

Reflection

Michael and Jahna Perricone describe their workshops as “sound baths” where Michael’s playing of the Tibetan bowls is accompanied by Jahna’s singing of Tibetan songs. I remember experiencing a sound bath when I participated in a singing residential retreat with Chris James. We had been formed into pods and members of each pod began toning over a volunteer participant lying on the floor, effectively soaking them in directed sound. The experience is very profound and moving – not only the sense of the loving kindness being extended towards you but also the resonance achieved in your body as the reverberations of the chanting flow over and through you. This is a special experience and it would be even more enhanced with singing accompanied by the skilful playing of Tibetan music bowls.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and tapping into the resonance of music, singing bowls, Tibetan singing or chanting, we can access the stillness and silence within – a source of resilience, insight, courage and happiness. Once we have discovered our own inner depths and expansiveness, we can revisit it at any time.

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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 Meditation to Develop the Awareness Muscle

Allyson Pimentel provided a guided meditation podcast through MARC UCLA titled, Begin Again – a process designed to develop concentration and build the “awareness muscle”. This meditation builds increased awareness of the present moment because it requires us to pay attention as the meditation unfolds – in particular, noticing when our mind wanders away from our primary focus. Allyson suggests that we need to be “curious about being curious” – that we approach the challenge of paying attention with openness, a sense of wonder, curiosity and exploration.

Allyson emphasises the point that our minds are designed to think, imagine, envision and dream. It is natural for us to “wander off”, lose focus and entertain the “blur of the past” or the anticipation of the future. She suggests that no matter what the level of our experience with meditation is, we can alternate between “wakefulness and sleepiness” – which can be interpreted both literally and metaphorically.

Allyson reminds us that the meaning of the word “begin” is “to come into being”. She suggests that we are so focused on “doing” that we lose sight of “being” – of appreciating and valuing our present moment experience. Her guided meditation encourages wakefulness – being fully aware of the present moment and noticing when our attention wanders. The process of continually returning to our focus – restoring our attention – builds our awareness muscle. Developing this skill is particularly critical in the digital age which is becoming characterised by the “loss of attention, consciousness and awareness” through online marketing and the role of social media and social influencers.

One of the key things to be aware of during this meditation is the tendency to judge ourselves for our “failure to concentrate” or “stay in the moment”. We can become critical of our performance, disappointed and angry with ourselves, and frustrated with our lack of progress. Our current “performance culture” tends to cultivate this judgmental stance. Allyson stresses the need for loving kindness towards ourselves to overcome these negative thoughts and assessments.

Guided meditation for developing the awareness muscle

Allyson’s guided meditation (which begins at 9 minutes, 20 seconds) has a number of stages that can be followed in sequence or changed to suit your situation:

Posture – after taking and releasing a few deep breaths, the aim is to adopt a posture that is conducive to wakefulness to the present moment. This may entail closing your eyes (to avoid distraction) and adopting an upright posture (as Allyson suggests, as if a sturdy, straight, “big oak tree is behind your back”). She maintains that this is a way to achieve an “embodied sense of wakefulness”, so that your body posture reflects what you are seeking to achieve in your meditation. Noticing your posture throughout the meditation can enhance your wakefulness – and may require you to correct a slouch if that occurs.
Focus on sounds – one way to achieve an anchor focused on the present moment is to pay attention to sounds both internal and external to your room. It is important to let the sounds come and go and not entertain them by trying to work out their source. For some people, sounds themselves may be distracting and this step could be omitted.
Focus on breathing – here it is important to become conscious of your breathing – its strength, speed, evenness and regularity – without trying to control it. As you drop into your breath, you can experience calmness, expansiveness and energy as you open to the life that is within you.
Notice the “tone of your mind” – throughout the meditation you are encouraged to notice what is happening in your mind. You might find yourself engaged in self-criticism for wandering off – a state that can be overcome by loving kindness and patience. It also pays to remind yourself that having to “begin again” to re-focus, is progressively building your awareness muscle – which will enrich your life in all its spheres. No matter how many times you have to start over, you are building towards awareness and its inherent richness.

Reflection

This meditation can be challenging, especially in our early stages of adopting meditation practice or if we are feeling agitated about something that is happening to us or others who are close to us (or to others who we know are experiencing terror elsewhere). The real benefits of this meditation can readily flow over into our daily life and help us to achieve calmness and equanimity in the face of life’s challenges.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and beginning again when our minds wander, we can begin to discern patterns in our wandering – e.g., planning our day, preparing a shopping list, indulging resentment or stressing about possible, future challenges. This increased self-awareness can help us to develop specific strategies to strengthen our capacity to concentrate and focus our energy.

Allyson suggests that we take to heart Carl Jung’s comment:

Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside awakes.

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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.

Body Scan Meditation – Being Present to Yourself

Gloria Kamler, stress-reduction expert and meditation teacher, provides a body scan meditation as one of the many UCLA weekly meditation podcasts. Gloria has been a meditation practitioner for more than 30 years and talks enthusiastically about the many benefits of mindfulness meditation. In the introduction to this guided meditation, she maintains that a body scan meditation can help us slow down, wake up to life and gain clarity about our purpose. She suggests that instead of floating like a balloon on the winds of life, we can choose how we want to live and be able to “show up for your life”.

Gloria argues that focusing on the body via a scan helps you to develop “moment by moment awareness” that can lead to equanimity. She maintains that our minds can lead us astray and delude us, while our body “always speaks the truth” if only we tap into it and pay attention to what we are sensing. Through a body scan, we can access a different part of our brain, develop self-caring and caring for others and build emotional regulation.

Body scan meditation

In her guided body scan meditation Gloria helps us to work progressively from our head to our feet dwelling on different parts of the body as we scan for tension, e.g. tightness in our neck, pain in our back, a tight furrowed brow, aching ankles or soreness in our knees. Recognising these sensations puts us in touch with our own bodies – it makes us present to ourselves and grounds us in the present moment as we experience it. Progressive releasing of tension as we bring our attention to different parts of our body, can create a sense of calmness and control. It can lift our spirits and help us to be ready for the day’s challenges and opportunities.

Awareness of positive sensations as we undertake the body scan can heighten our mood, develop confidence to move forward and strengthen our resolve. We could feel the firmness and solidity of our feet on the ground, energetic tingling in our fingers and arms and a calmness in our breathing – all of which portend and support our ability to surf the waves of life and make a real contribution to the lives of others, whether that is a simple smile, a random act of kindness, or compassionate action. In caring for ourselves through our body scan, we can be open to caring about, and caring for, others.

We can begin to realise that everyone is at some time experiencing some form of pain – mental and/or physical. We can feel connected to others just as we sense the deep interconnectedness of the parts of our body. The process of the body scan, like that of Tai Chi, helps us to appreciate the mind-body connection – if we are not at one with our body, we can be “all at sea” with our thoughts and emotions.

Reflection

A body scan meditation can really help us if our mind is racing or we are distracted by anxious thoughts. Becoming grounded in our body is the fastest route to being grounded in the present because our body is always present to us at every moment of every day – we just have to tune into it. As we grow in mindfulness through body scan meditations, we can access our capacity for conscious choice, emotional regulation and equanimity. We can approach life’s challenges with calmness, insight and openness to what is.

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

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Managing Chronic Pain with Mindfulness

Christiane Wolf , MD, PhD, provided an encouraging meditation podcast on the topic of employing mindfulness to manage chronic pain and the mind’s activity that exacerbates our feelings of pain. In her guided meditation, The Past and the Future Pain Story: Working with Pain in the Present Moment, shespoke of the role that rehashing the past and/or rehearsing the future plays in our experience of pain and offered ways to reduce the mind’s influence over our pain experience. Christiane is the author of Outsmart Your Pain – Mindfulness and Self-Compassion to Help You Leave Chronic Pain Behind, and is a meditation teacher who offers audio meditations and mindfulness videos on her website.

Guided meditation on mindfulness for managing chronic pain

Christiane begins her guided meditation with ensuring your posture is comfortable and well-grounded (whether in a chair, couch or on the ground). To help with grounding, she suggests that you focus on the solid sensation of your feet on whatever surface you are on. Closing your eyes for the sake of strengthening your focus on your meditation is offered as an optional extra. Christiane recommends some bodily movement, such as turning your neck or rolling your shoulders, as a way to improve your comfort level when undertaking the meditation.

The next phase of the guided meditation entails focusing on your breath. Here, Christiane encourages you to really feel your breath by both deepening and lengthening your breathing. An alternative to using the breath as an anchor is to focus on sounds around you or the sensation in your feet or your hands. She maintains that a meditation anchor is based in the body and its senses to enable a focus other than being “lost in thought”. It’s a place to return to whenever thinking distracts you from the primary focus of your meditation.

How the brain exacerbates our feelings of pain

Christiane points out that our brain has a major role in how we experience pain whether the pain derives from chronic physical pain or enduring uncomfortable feelings, emotions, or thoughts. To build your awareness of the mind’s influence she suggests that firstly you explore the “past pain story” – what you are telling yourself about the origins of the pain (e.g., “outside my control”), how it was experienced in the past, or mistakes/poor decisions that led to your pain. She argues that the mind through recalling the past pain is trying to protect you from its recurrence or to prevent the same mistakes/poor decisions that may have occurred in your past. Sometimes the recollection of the previous intensity of the pain serves to strengthen your resolve to avoid the pain and/or the factors that contributed to it.

Once you have explored the past pain story, Christiane encourages you to explore the “future pain story” – what is it that you are anticipating will happen in the future as a result of your pain? (typically, we envisage the worst); how does your future story make you feel? (e.g., anxious, uncertain, fearful, resentful, or sad).

Christiane argues that the past and future pain stories are like baggage that you carry around that increases the load of your pain and exacerbates your feelings of pain. She uses imagery to help you reduce your pain – she suggests you view the past and future pain stories as a heavy suitcase, weighing you down. Her recommendation is that you view yourself putting the suitcase (of stories) down on the ground so you are relieved of its added weight and can gain clarity about the nature of your pain and role of your brain in rehashing past pain or anticipating future pain. It is important to reflect, at this stage, on what is left of your pain after the stories are removed or have been put away.

Widening the focus

Christiane recommends “widening the lens of your focus” at the end of the guided meditation. This entails initially focusing on people you know who are experiencing suffering or pain and wishing them strength and healing. She encourages you to then expand your focus to include people anywhere in the world who are experiencing pain or grief as a result of the COVID19 pandemic, a natural disaster, or the collapse of a building as in Miami recently. Her desire is that you extend loving kindness to these people.

Reflection

Christiane’s approach enables us to “unpack” the thoughts and feelings that accompany chronic pain – she puts the spotlight on the role of the brain in creating past and future pain stories to enable us to lighten the load. In the guided meditation, she suggests ways to lighten the load using mindfulness. In her book she provides additional exercises, meditations, and reflections to enable us to effectively manage chronic pain and suffering.

She encourages us to explore our pain with openness and curiosity to better understand and manage it. She suggests that we should not begin her mindfulness approach with a really difficult pain but ease into it gradually starting with some form of suffering that is not so complex or challenging.

When I followed the guided meditation, I decided to focus on the challenge I have with dermatitis and associated food intolerances. I had suffered dermatitis over the whole of my body in 2017. In recalling this event during the meditation, I realised that my “past pain story” focused on the extreme discomfort of the condition and the disappointment of having to limit severely what I ate and drank during a visit to Northern Italy – no wine, coffees, pasta, desserts, etc. However, my current experience of dermatitis is very limited compared to then but I do have a “future pain story” that anticipates what would happen if the inflammation blew out again. I found the guided meditation lightened the load of the past feelings of disappointment and the anticipatory feelings of anxiety and fear.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection, we can understand our pain better and learn ways to manage our chronic condition. We can also develop the strength to deal with the difficult emotions associated with chronic pain and suffering, including resentment.

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Image by JUNO KWON 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.

Solitude and Silence in Nature – A Pathway to Self-Awareness and Resilience

We can have an approach-avoidance attitude to solitude in nature – being alone in silence away from other people. It can at first generate fear and tap into all our negative associations with “being alone”. Solitude is different to loneliness because it involves choice – choosing to be by ourselves or to make the most of being “forced” to be alone. It involves developing a positive perspective on being alone – seeing it as an opportunity for increased self-awareness and empowerment rather than a deprivation of company.

Ruth Allen, author of Grounded: How Connection with Nature Can Improve our Mental and Physical Wellbeing, maintains that when we are in nature we are never really alone – we are always in the presence of other living things that are around us that we often do not see. Our natural environment is teeming with life. When we choose solitude in nature, time away from other people, we can become more connected with nature and every living thing. We can be more open to the vibrancy and beauty that surrounds us.

Often, we can be fearful of being alone with ourselves – facing up to who we really are (rather than who we project to others). It means confronting those parts of ourselves that we may not like – it might be our character flaws or personal weaknesses, our past history of unkindness or thoughtlessness or our self-indulgence. Many of these traits can be hidden away from consciousness because they appear too painful to confront. The power of solitude in nature is the gift of silence and quiet reflection – time away from the distracting influence of noise and the pollution of expectations (our own and those of other people).

Gaining self-awareness and clarity

Solitude in nature offers us the opportunity to become increasingly self-aware – to understand who we really are and what we are truly capable of. In his TED Talk, photographer Benjamin Powell argues that solitude in nature gives “our inner voice the opportunity to speak” and reveals our life purpose to us because it unearths our “latent gifts and talents” and cultivates unselfishness. We can move from being self-absorbed to being absorbed in everything around us.

Often when we are experiencing challenges we say, “I need to go for a walk to clear my head”. Solitude in nature gives us the opportunity to develop clarity, restore perspective and find creative solutions to issues that are causing us stress. We can gain insight into our own way of perceiving the issues as well as develop an understanding from other people’s perspective. Reflection through solitude in nature can help us, for example, to understand residual resentment that we may carry after an interaction (even if that was a long time ago). It enables us to step back from the noise and clutter of a busy life and self-indulgence in hurt feelings and to find the insight to balance our perspective on the interaction, including understanding how our own sensitivity has contributed to our hurt feelings and appreciating the influences that contributed to the other person’s behaviour.

Strengthening relationships

When we return from solitude in nature, we are in a better place to engage with others, whether partners, family, friends, or colleague. We can be more self-aware (particularly of our sensitivities and our habituated behavioural patterns), more patient through absorption in the quietness and stillness of nature, more in control of our own emotions and more ready to appreciate others in our life through experiencing gratitude for nature and its freely-given gifts.

Building resilience and self-reliance

When we spend time alone in nature, in stillness and silence, we have to fall back on our resources and resourcefulness. We have to tap into our inner strength as we explore our “inner landscape” with openness and curiosity. Meeting this challenge head on builds our capacity to meet the challenges of everyday life and to learn the depth and breadth of our inner strength. Solitude in nature can provide us with an experience of bliss that flows over into our daily lives and strengthens us when we are confronted by adversity. We know, too, from experience of solitude that we can seek refuge in nature to restore our groundedness and self-belief.

Reflection

If we have an aversion for solitude in nature, we can explore the feelings we are experiencing to better understand the source of our fear. It might be that such solitude is a trigger for a traumatic reaction because of prior adverse experiences. It could be that we are very reluctant to look too closely at our lives and what we have done in the past. Sometimes, we may need professional support to engage with the challenge of solitude.

Ruth contends that we can train ourselves for solitude in nature and offers activities that we can undertake when alone in nature and ten strategies to employ when planning solitude in nature. She also cautions against trying to move too fast or too far when we are not used to spending time alone. Ruth points out, too, that we can progress from a short period to longer periods in solitude as we expand our comfort zone. She also recommends that we reflect on our solitude experience and learn what natural places are more conducive to wellness for us as well as what is an ideal amount of time for us to spend in nature alone.

As we grow in mindfulness through solitude in nature and the resultant self-reflection, we can grow in self-awareness, self-reliance, and resilience to face the challenges of life. We can also gain clarity about our life purpose and what we can contribute to helping others achieve wellness.

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Image by Antonio López from Pixabay

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

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