Coming to Our Senses – Grow Mindfulness

Life After Death and Spirit Communication

Mark Anthony, JD, has written a landmark book covering life after death and spirit communication. The book draws on his research, personal experience, stories of other people and quantum physics. The stories that Mark reports in detail are drawn from people who recount their Near death Experience (NDE) or their Shared Death Experience (SDE) as well as the stories that arise in his work as a “spirit medium”. Mark is described as a “psychic explorer” and is known as the Psychic Lawyer®, being an experienced, Oxford-educated trial lawyer.

He conducts “spirit communication sessions” face-to-face around the world and live on television and radio. His goal is to enable people who have lost a loved one to better manage their grief through receiving assurances from the person’s spirit on the Other Side. Mark’s book incorporating the latest science and illustrative stories is titled, The Afterlife Frequency: The Scientific Proof of Spiritual Contact and How That Awareness Will Change Your Life.

Life after death – the survival of consciousness

Quantum physics has demonstrated that everything in our world, including our blood cells and beach sand, are made up of quanta, “subatomic particles of electromagnetic energy”. Einstein maintained that “everything is energy”. The Law of the Conservation of Energy states that “energy can neither be created or destroyed”. Since everything is made up of quanta, Mark contends that “everything is energetically connected”.

Consciousness, often referred to as the “soul” (our individuality shaped by our experiences, personality, knowledge and other attributes) is described by physicists as “the quantum electromagnetic field within the brain”. In his Afterlife Frequency book, Mark explains how he developed the concept of the electromagnetic soul, drawing on history ranging from 4,000 years old Hindu beliefs, through Leonardo Da Vinci’s scientific research, Buddhism beliefs, the work of Sir Isaac Newton and the present-day research of Dr. Gary Schwartz of the University of Arizona.

Given that energy cannot be destroyed but only “transformed from one form to another”, Mark and world leading scientists, contend that as we are energetic beings, “the energy of life transcends physical death”. The electromagnetic soul thus lives on after death and exists in another dimension at a higher energy frequency, no longer constrained by the limitations of the human body. Mark affirms that the electromagnetic soul is neither created by the brain nor extinguished on its death. He draws on an analogy developed by Professor Hans-Peter Durr of Germany’s Max Planck Institute for Nuclear Physics to argue that “at death the electromagnetic soul is uploaded to a higher frequency” and joins what he terms “collective consciousness”.

Spirit Communication

Mark makes the significant point that spirit communication does not come in a direct form like text messaging. Sometimes the message is received in the form of metaphors, feelings, images or symbols. This means that interpretation of the message may not be immediately available to the medium or to the person for whom the message is intended. Mark explains that the understanding of the message by the intended recipient may take hours, days or even years. Eventually, at an appropriate time, the meaning in the message becomes clear as the associations connected to the message are identified and understood. Mark gives examples of this time lapse in understanding by people for whom he has performed “readings”.

Mark contends that despite the fact that we are not all mediums like him (who is a fourth-generation medium), we are each able to communicate with spirits. He explains that the pineal gland in the body, also called the “psychic gland”, enables us to receive higher frequency transmissions. As Mark explains because we all have the same “physical apparatus”, “everybody has the ability to have a psychic experience”.

Barriers to spirit communication

In a chapter titled The No, No, No, Syndrome, Mark identifies a number of barriers that people create that effectively block spirit communication. He draws on many examples experienced during his spirit communication workshops or phone calls to explain the nature and impact of these barriers. For example, people may be so anxious or fearful that their thinking becomes clouded; they may be so emotive (wanting a communication desperately and subsumed by grief) that their emotional state acts as a “deflector” of the spirit communication; or they may overthink or “hyper-analyse” the message during the communication. Mark argues that feeling should predominate during the communication, analysis should come after the message is received. He suggests that inviting not demanding, and feeling not analysing, is the way to effectively receive spirit communication. Spirit communication also requires patience because messages received can have multiple levels of meaning.

How to become receptive to spirit communication

Mark maintains that we can each develop what he calls spiritual situation awareness so that we are “capable of getting in sync with afterlife frequency”. This awareness enables us to detect spirit communication in the form of “signs” and be able to interpret and act on them.

He suggests that one of the easiest ways to develop the requisite awareness is to begin by paying attention to our immediate world through our senses, what Jon Zabat-Kinn calls Coming to Our Senses. We can start by listening to sounds in our immediate environment and then expand our attention to take in sights, smells, tastes and touch. Through this process we can eventually develop natural awareness and what Mark calls situation awareness, a trait highly developed by emergency services personnel.

Mark contends that we can take our awareness to a higher level moving beyond awareness of our physical environment to awareness of “what is happening around us energetically”, what he terms spirit situational awareness. He proposes a 4-part technique that builds spiritual situational awareness over time. The technique he describes in his Afterlife Frequency book is called the RAFT Technique:

Recognize
Accept
Feel
Trust

Mark maintains that with practice we can develop unconscious competence in recognizing, accepting, feeling and trusting the signs and messages received through spirit communication. We can also progressively remove the blockages that would otherwise interfere with the communication and our understanding of what is being communicated. Mark explains that practice is necessary because we can unwittingly block the “energetic impulse” communicated by a spirit which would, without the blockage, create a connection to the electromagnetic field of our brain.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness, we can develop our natural awareness, our spirit situational awareness and our receptivity to spirit communication if we choose to do so. Mindfulness with its focus on paying attention purposefully, can enrich our lives on many dimensions – physical, psychological and spiritual. The benefits of mindfulness are far-reaching and encompass the totality of human experience.

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Image by Đức Tình Ngô 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 and the resources to support the blog.

Developing a Reciprocal Relationship with Nature – Nurture and Stewardship

In the recent Nature Summit, Roshi Joan Halifax –writer, teacher, artist and activist – stressed the need for a reciprocal relationship with nature. She suggests that too often mindfulness practitioners focus only on the nurture that they can obtain from nature but overlook the “imperative to steward where we are’ – to look after, and care for, nature in our immediate environment. Joan contends that this reciprocal relationship is critical in our current challenging times when we are confronted by the devastation of climate change simultaneously with the ongoing global erosion of mental health.

Experiencing nurture in nature

Joan mentioned that she is “restored in the natural world” but not in the “constructed world” of cities. However, she counsels against despising or devaluing the constructed world. Nature surrounds us wherever we are. Joan mentioned seeing a hawk nesting on the edge of a building in New York and visiting Central Park. While these experiences of nature in the built environment are part of restoring our spirit, the depth of nurture achieved through immersion in the natural environment is of a different order and more pervasive and lasting.

Joan explains that in nature we can recapture the silence that the busy world of today has taken from us – we can access the power of stillness and silence to cultivate our creativity and our resilience. Joan describes her mindful practice in the mountains of “just sitting in choiceless awareness” and gaining the restorative benefits of nature through this goal-less approach. She explains how she sees mountains as “places of meditation’ and has learned to value “solitude in nature”.

Joan discussed how her work through the Nomads Clinic (a form of socially engaged Buddhism she established in 1980) brought her into contact not only with the Himalayas but also the people of remote places such as Nepal and Tibet. She describes the Himalayan mountains as “very raw, very tough, very dangerous” and the people of these remote communities as “fantastic people, very robust, with a wonderful sense of humour”. She acknowledges that the mountains and the mountain people have taught her much about “humour and resilience”.

Many mindfulness authors such as Louie Schwartzberg highlight the power of nature to stimulate wonder and awe in us. Louie, in his Wonder & Awe podcast, shares the recent research of Michelle Shiota, that demonstrates that we become “better thinkers when we are feeling awe”. In his talks and films, Louie stresses that nature induces healing and helps us to develop a sense of gratitude and appreciation that lead to happiness, health and profound joy.

Pamela Anderson, in her memoir Love, Pamela, describes nature as her friend and teacher. She states that she is “always curious and wants to know what nature is trying to teach” because to her “everything is a clue or a sign”. Nature had always been a part of her life growing up on Vancouver Island and for her birthday each year she asked her two boys to volunteer with her at the California Wildlife Center – which involved cleaning birdcages and feeding birds and squirrels. In line with this work Pamela and her family cared for a possum as well as pelicans and seals, even undertaking a marine mammal rescue course together.

At one stage in her performing career she was exhausted in “mind, body and soul” and decided to spend a month reconnecting with her adult sons in Malibu and with nature. She found that connecting with nature (including during her five-mile daily walks), along with Pilates, enabled her to reconnect with her body and detox both physically and emotionally. When she was at Café Sénéquier at Port de Saint Tropez in France (where she went to recover from an abusive relationship), she watched the sunrises and yachts in the harbour, while “luxuriating in my own blossoming life” – nature again elicits gratitude and appreciation.

There are many ways to engage the nurturing power of nature, to understand and appreciate our interconnectedness with nature and deepen our relationship with nature. Louie Schwartzberg reminds us that we are able to widen and deepen our perspective on nature beyond our unique childhood experience and understanding. One way to do this is to adopt the mindset of stewardship of nature.

Stewardship of nature

Joan Halifax stressed the “moral responsibility” to undertake stewardship of our immediate natural environment – in her words, “to steward, protect and restore”. She argues that it is important to plant diverse species because diversity is “essential for the health of any ecosystem or social system”. Her interviewer and founder of the Nature Summit, Mark Coleman, stated that we are currently experiencing “a painful time of degradation, loss of species and places that we love”.

Stewardship can involve many different environmental caring actions such as:

Composting
Planting trees
Caring for pot plans (both exterior and interior plants)
Growing herbs
Planting native trees that attract birds and bees
Providing shelter for birds and possums
Creating gardens of diverse species
Trimming dead leaves or branches
Enriching our soil
Cultivating worm farms
Conscious consumption.

Costa Georgiadis in his book, Costa’s World, suggests that we take up gardening “for the soil, the soul and the suburbs” – in his view, nurture through nature and stewardship of nature are not discrete activities, they occur together. He encourages us to be mindful of our immediate environment and get to know our microenvironment.

Pamela Anderson stressed her sense of being responsible for stewardship of nature in her home environment. She luxuriates in her garden developed when she returned to Vancouver Island in her latter years. Her first garden involving “five thousand feet of roses and vegetables” (planted by seed by herself) grew impressively. She developed solar energy, a sustainable water management system and set about “re-wilding” her property – a concept involving complementing the natural environment and protecting what already exists. She immersed herself in her “Garden of Eden” and the “salty, earthy fragrance” of the sea. Pamela attests to Costa’s perspective that nurture and stewardship go hand in hand and complement and reinforce each other.

Reflection

In his book, Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness, Jon Kabat-Zin urges us to develop mindfulness through our senses. He talks of the immediacy of our external environment – the soundscape, the touchscape, the tastescape, the smellscape and the sightscape. Joan Halifax reminds us that nature provides the whole sensory experience – we can hear birds, touch plants, smell aromas from trees, taste native fruits, see the beauty and wonders of nature and feel the strength of the wind and the pressure on our bodies.

By spending time in nature and stewarding our immediate natural environment, we can grow in mindfulness and experience happiness and joy, peace and tranquility, gratitude and resilience. Nature has many gifts to offer but it needs to be visited and cared for. Micah Mortali offers ways to connect with nature in his book, Rewilding: Meditations, Practices and Skills for Awakening in Nature.

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Image by AndreasAux 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.

Pathways to Gratitude and Joy

Neuroscience research has demonstrated that gratitude is a source of wellness and joy if we choose to practise it on a regular basis. Louie Schwartzberg in his latest film, Gratitude Revealed, identifies a number of pathways that can develop gratitude and appreciation in our lives and lead to health, happiness and lasting joy. Louie – time-lapse photographer, director and producer – takes us on a journey through nature, the eyes of children and lives of insightful people. He comments in a subsequent panel Q & A video that the Gratitude Revealed film contains many wise “one-liners” from inspiring people as well as some stunning cinematography. The music for the film is provided by Lisbeth Scott – singer, songwriter and composer – who Louie interviewed as part of his podcast series.

Pathways to gratitude

Throughout Gratitude Revealed Louie explores different pathways to gratitude with his guests and provides illuminating comments about each pathway, some of which I explore in the following:

Curiosity – is a basic human attribute that leads us to explore the world around us, the people in our lives and the concepts we encounter in our reading, discussions and games. How often have we seen a toddler pick up a leaf or a stone and examine it, look underneath some branches to see what lies beneath, gaze into pools of water at the seaside to see if there are any living creatures there, or feel the texture of the grass or the ground to judge its softness or hardness? Unfortunately, as we grow older we can lose the art of being inquisitive and curious about things. However, if we can cultivate curiosity, we open ourselves to marvel at the intricacies of things in our environment, the power of our subconscious, the expansiveness of knowledge and the inexhaustible complexity of the human body (including the emerging understanding of the “brain-gut connection” and the heart’s intelligence). Curiosity leads us to explore the ineffable, to seek to understand the mystery of life and to explore relationships with people we encounter. Ultimately, curiosity leads us to appreciate what is and to be grateful for our discoveries as well as our capacity for exploration. Albert Einstein was a strong advocate for curiosity and acknowledged that it lay at the root of his knowledge and wisdom – “The important thing is to never stop questioning. Never lose a holy curiosity”.
Nature – is a source of wonder and awe which leads us to be grateful that we can perceive its beauty, complexity and interconnectedness through our five senses – what Jon Kabat-Zinn describes in his book, Coming to Our Senses, as our sightscape, soundscape, touchscape, smellscape, and tastescape. Louie encourages us to develop an intimate relationship with nature because nature, and nature imagery, can be incredibly healing and can develop a deep appreciation and gratitude for our interconnectedness and interdependence. Louie’s Wonder and Awe Podcastexplores the intersection of science and art (the “why” of art and the ”how” of science). There are multiple ways to engage with nature including gardening, walking in a rainforest or on a beach and mindful photography – we just have to form the intention to make the most of our natural environment that surrounds us daily.
Music – cultivates wonder and awe, healing and creativity. Louie highlighted the power of music to transport us beyond the present moment concerns and anxieties and to still the mind. Music taps into our positive emotions and stimulates gratitude for the beauty, variety and nuances of sound. Sound therapy can heal us from trauma and depression and help us to appreciate what we have that is positive in our lives. Mantra meditations can promote calm, peace and stillness of mind and, in the process, open our hearts and minds to the power and energy of the present moment. Music deepens our spirit and helps us to value our lives while expressing gratitude for all that we have.
Mindfulness – by definition, it involves being fully in the present moment and paying attention to something or someone with openness, curiosity and acceptance of what is. Michael Beckwith reminds us in the movie that we should be “grateful for the challenges in our life” because they help us to realise our potential and develop resilience. Louie suggests that mindfulness “is being present like the film itself” – open to wonder and able to “relish the mysteries of life” that are revealed by paying focused attention in the “now”.

Reflection

None of the pathways I discussed above are discrete – they are overlapping, reinforcing and compounding in nature. Together, these pathways engender appreciation and gratitude and stimulate happiness and joy. Louie and his presenters on Gratitude Revealed highlight the fact that “busyness” in our lives can create a block to gratitude and blind us to what is happening within and around us. In contrast, gratitude blocks out envy and self-absorption. As Louie comments, “Focusing on what we do have, leaves little in your heart for what we don’t have”.

In the film, Brother David Steindl-Rast, developer of gratefulness.org, distinguishes between appreciation and gratitude. He states that appreciation is an in-the-moment experience while gratitude is “what we remember that opens our hearts”. Interestingly, when I am playing tennis, I often internally express appreciation for being able to participate and play a good shot or two. However, after watching Gratitude Revealed, I experienced a real sense of gratitude based on my memory of all the events and experiences that enable me to play social tennis at the age of 76.

In particular, I am grateful for:

the opportunity to be coached in my teens by a tennis player who had been selected for the Australian Davis Cup Team
having practised tennis drills and played games of tennis with my brothers and my niece
having played competitive tennis over 5 years with a team drawn from members of my extended family
being trained as a sprinter in a GPS school (improved my capacity to move around the tennis court)
the opportunity to play tennis for my school, for Brisbane ((against Gympie) and for the Queensland Tax Office (in the annual Taxation Intestate Tennis Carnivals)
being able to play social tennis with a closed group of six quality players over a period in excess of 10 years
the opportunity to play tennis on different surfaces including bitumen, ant-bed, grass, clay and flexipave
being able to play socially in Port Moresby, Auckland, Lake Annecy (France) and Boroughbridge (Yorkshire, UK)
developing a wide range of shots through tennis coaching, practice and competitions, e.g., slice, topspin, back spin, under spin, side spin (out-swinger & in-swinger), volley, one-handed and two-handed backhand, half volley, drive volley, drop shot, lob, smash and, recently, half-volley drop shot
being able to play social tennis with an open group in my 50’s, 60’s and 70’s (now)
discovering the benefits of Tai Chi and how it improves my tennis game.

As we grow in mindfulness and gratitude, we enrich our lives, deepen our happiness and joy and build our resilience and capacity for creative endeavour. Music and nature can inspire us if we are fully present to experiencing them and our natural curiosity can open our hearts to appreciating whatever we experience.

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Image by allPhoto Bangkok 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.

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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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

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

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

Developing a Sense of Belonging through Mindfulness

In this era of widespread depression, loneliness and disconnection, it becomes critically important to rediscover and enhance our sense of connection. Allyson Pimentel, in one of the UCLA guided meditation podcasts, reminds us that mindfulness can ignite our sense of belonging to ourselves, other people and the earth. Mindfulness is a pathway to reaffirming our connectedness to everything. In the podcast, Allyson draws on the book by Sebene Selassie, You Belong: A Call to Connection. Selene makes a profound case for our connectedness, despite differences, when she writes, “although not one, not separate” and “although not separate, not the same”. She affirms that much of life is paradoxical, but to deny this is to turn a blind eye to the reality of our human existence on earth.

Allyson argues that the “delusion of separateness” contributes to depression and loneliness. She states that we all belong “in every moment and to everything” despite our traumas, injustice and racism in the world, differences in language – culture – philosophy, the presence of hate and division, and the pervasive sense of disconnection and meaninglessness. Building a sense of connection and belonging heals wounds and divisions, contributes to positive mental health and enriches our lived experience through joy, wonder, relatedness and consciously “being with”. Mindfulness, with its focus on what is happening now and doing so with openness, curiosity and acceptance, intensifies our sense of belonging. Paradoxically, being still and silent leads us to compassionate action towards others through recognition of our connectedness.

At any point in time, we can sense our connection to the community of people throughout the world who are meditating, doing Tai Chi or engaging in some other mindfulness practice; or experiencing chronic pain; or dealing with the impacts of adverse childhood experiences or other trauma; or trying to manage grief; or attempting to overcome an addiction or craving; or are experiencing anxiety and depression; or any other manifestation of the human condition. We can also become more conscious of our connection to every other living being as well as our connection with nature.

Guided meditation on belonging

At the beginning of her guided meditation, Allyson encourages us to take a number of deep breaths so that we can feel the connection with the air and our surrounds as well as begin to become more grounded and connected to ourselves. At this point, I was reminded of Lulu & Mischka’s mantra meditation, Rainbow Light and the words:

When I breathe into my heart

I breathe into the heart of all beings

After this initial grounding, Allyson encourages us to connect with our breath, sounds in the room and beyond or our bodily sensations. In connecting to the sounds surrounding us, we can become conscious of what Jon Kabat-Zinn describes as the soundscape in his book, Coming to Our Senses. Allyson reminds us to just absorb the sounds, not try to identify or interpret them or create a story about them – just be with sounds, another form of connection and belonging. We can extend our awareness to our other senses or what Jon describes as the “lightscape”, “touchscape”, “smellscape, “tastescape” and, ultimately, our “mindscape” – “the vast empty spaciousness that is awareness itself”.

Allyson suggests that another way to feel connected and belonging is to focus on our bodily sensations related to being supported by our chair, cushion, bed or floor – whatever is connecting our bodies to something solid and unmoving. Being with these sensations reinforces our supported connectedness and sense of belonging.

Reflection

In the final analysis, we can choose to focus on our differences and what separates us or, alternatively, to increase our consciousness about our connection and belongingness. As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, meditation, mantras, and daily mindfulness practices, we can gain an increased sense of connection and belonging and draw support and positive emotions from this growing awareness.

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Image by Eddie K from Pixabay

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

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

Understanding and Developing AWE

Jason Silva maintains that whatever we find that is awe-inspiring extends our “perceptual frameworks” , expands our comfort zones and builds compassion and creativity. When we experience wonder and awe, our “mental maps” are challenged and our mind is expanded to accommodate “land beyond the maps” that we have in our head. We encounter boundarylessness, mystery, and the majesty of creation. Through his Shots of Awe video podcasts, he encourages us to move beyond the “banality” and disengagement of our lives, to open to emotional and aesthetic experiences and to awaken to awe. He suggests that, in the final analysis, we have a “responsibility to awe”. Jason offers ways to understand and develop awe through his free video, Find Your Awe.

Developing awe through nature

Louie Schwartzberg, time-lapse photographer and filmmaker, presented a TEDx Talk that focused on Wonder, awe and the intelligence of nature. Louie explains that he often makes the invisible visible through his slow motion photography. He opens us up to a sense of awe in the light of the ineffable beauty, power and interconnectedness of nature. He maintains that nature takes us beyond ourself and our limited, self-absorbed focus and develops gratitude, compassion and wellness. He argues that our sense of awe and wonder is heightened when we develop an intimate relationship with nature.

Louie, through his awe-inspiring, time-lapse photography, brings us visual sources of wonder by capturing the beauty, intricacy, expansiveness and grandeur of nature. His photography unearths the incredible cooperation and coordination between plants and trees and the mind-boggling cycle of life. He captures in slowed-motion the pollination of plants by birds, bees and bats; the development and emergence of fruit (such as strawberries); and the incredible internet-like network of fungi beneath the earth (captured in Louie’s film, Fantastic Fungi). The wonder and awe experienced by people viewing his photography is clearly illustrated on the faces of people seeing his time-lapse photography projected onto St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican.

Developing awe through sound and sight

Louie captures other sources of awe through his Wonder and Awe Podcast. Some of these podcasts focus on auditory sources of wonder and awe, e.g., the wonderful compositions and singing of Lisbeth Scott; the soaring, healing sounds of violinist Lindsey Stirling; and the productions of Cosmo Sheldrake, musician and composer, who reinforces the “power of sound in nature”.

Rebecca Elson, dedicated poet and astronomer, left a legacy not only of scientific discoveries but also her poems and personal notes/musings captured in her book, A Responsibility to Awe. One of her poems, Antidotes to Fear of Death, is shared publicly through readings by different people and captured visually by the accompanying deep space photography of Scott Denning.

Louie also interviewed Anna Bjurstam as part of his series of podcasts and explored energy science beyond the immediate realm of visibility. Anna is a pioneer of wellness through Six Senses Spas of which she is Vice-President. These luxury resorts stimulate the senses through the incredible beauty of nature and experiences that are meaningful, empathetic and enhance well-being. Anna mentioned her near-death experience which led her to understand “how beautiful, amazing and what a gift this life is”.

Reflection

Jon Kabat-Zinn encourages us to develop wonder and awe through our senses. His book Coming to Our Senses, e.g., ways to fully enjoy our “tastescape”, “touchscape” or “soundscape”. He suggests that mindfulness meditation creates the doorway to be consciously in the present moment in a non-judgmental and open way.

Being curious about what we are experiencing in all its dimensions opens the way to develop wonder and awe in our lives. As we grow in mindfulness, we become more aware, increasingly focused on the present, and more attuned to nature and the world around us. Jason Silva maintains that we often forgo the present for the future and we need to reverse this tendency if we are to awaken to wonder and awe.

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Image by finix8 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.

Mindfulness Meditation with Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and meditation teacher and practitioner for over 40 years, is offering an online course in mindfulness meditation which he calls, Opening to Our Lives. Jon is the author of several books on mindfulness and the one that had the greatest impression on me is Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness. Jon explains that the title is intended to be interpreted both literally (e.g., learning how to access our “tastescape”) and metaphorically (that is waking up to the wonder of our senses and the world they give us access to).

In his 8-week online course, covering both video and audio offerings as well as resource material, Jon provides insights, practices, and encouragement to be in the present moment rather than being preoccupied with doing or lost in thought about the past or the future. He argues that we miss out on much of the richness of our life, both our inner landscape and outer world, because we are not fully present most of the time.

Jon explores key aspects of mindfulness in his course (which provides life-time access on purchase):

Mindfulness explained – Jon draws on his definition of mindfulness which emphasises being consciously and purposely present in the moment while doing so in a non-judgmental way. He addresses our tendency to be self-critical and to develop negative stories about ourselves. Jon highlights the healing power of mindfulness and its capacity to enrich relationships. He also provides a guided sitting meditation.
Mindful Breathing – we are so often unaware of our breath and its power to relax us, open us to what is happening to us and to ground us in turbulent times. Jon provides a mindful breathing practice that deepens our experience of ourselves and our world.
Developing a meditation practice: Jon stresses that establishing and sustaining a meditation practice requires clear and focused intention as well as the discipline of daily practice. Maintaining motivation is a key issue and is reinforced through continuous awareness of the benefits of meditation practice.
Body awareness – Jon stresses the importance of being grounded in our body and offers a body scan meditation to enable us to be fully aware of our own “embodiment” – being fully present to our own bodies, our senses, and bodily sensations.
Movement meditation – Jon explains the power of Tai Chi and yoga as mindfulness-in-action and their role in helping us to reduce stress. He emphasises the mind-body connection and the capacity of mindfulness to heal both the mind and body.
Relationship to the world – Jon makes the point that through self-awareness and self-regulation developed through mindfulness, we can be a positive force in the world by bringing joy, appreciation, and respect for diversity in our daily interactions. He stresses the capacity of mindfulness to build our resilience in times that are challenging.

Jon also offers two live Q & A sessions where he addresses questions about content covered in the course and offers ways to address difficulties with establishing and maintaining meditation practice.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and learning from experienced teachers and practitioners like Jon Kabat-Zinn, we can enrich our own lives and those of people we interact with. We can progressively achieve some clarity about our life purpose and how we can make a difference in the world, especially during these challenging times.

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Image by OLEKSII ALIEKSIEIEV 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.

Enhancing Receptivity through Mindfulness

Jamie Bristow and Rosie Bell maintain from their research that mindfulness enhances our receptivity thus enabling us to reclaim our attention and sense of agency – our sense of the ability to positively influence our relationships and our external environment. According to their research, mindfulness increases our receptivity in a number of ways – widening the “bandwidth of perception”, overcoming unhelpful habituated responses, reducing our distorted perceptions, improving our relationships, and developing our “don’t know mind”.

Widening the bandwidth of perception

Mindfulness increases our capacity to take in information through its emphasis on acceptance of “what is”, consciously noticing bodily sensations and heightened development of our senses. Acceptance is a precondition for action, not inaction – if we cannot accept what is happening to us (e.g. through internal dialogue such as “Why me?”, “What have I done to deserve this?” or “This can’t be happening to me”), then we cannot move forward and take constructive action to redress our situation.

Mindfulness meditation often focuses on our bodily sensations – we are encouraged to notice what is happening in us bodily when we experience difficult emotions. By noticing our bodily sensations, we are better able to name our emotions and tame them. Our bodies are windows to our feelings – by paying attention to them we widen the bandwidth of our perception and gain better access to our inner landscape.

Mindfulness expert Jon Kabat-Zinn, in his book, Coming to Our Senses, shows us how to access all our senses – e.g., our seeing, touchscape, soundscape, smellscape, tastescape – to enable us to heal ourselves and act positively on our world. Being open to our senses enhances the depth and width of our perception and increases our sense of connection with nature – developing a sense of empowerment and resulting in healing ourselves.

Overcoming unhelpful habituated responses

As we come to understand our inner landscape through mindfulness, we gain insight into our negative triggers and their origins. This leads to awareness of our reactivity and habituated responses. Often, we are triggered by our distorted perceptions that arise because of our bias, projections, prejudice, and unfounded assumptions. As we unearth these distortions in perception through mindfulness meditation, we are better able to understand their influence over us and what we perceive, and to exercise control over our reactions.

Improving our relationships

Through mindfulness, we not only reduce our perceptual distortions but also emotional baggage that can destroy relationships. We are able to bring to the relationship increased self-awareness and self-regulation. For example, by reflecting on any resentment we carry towards another person, we can come to see their side of the story, understand where they are coming from and reduce our self-absorption and hurt – thus healing our relationship. Through mindfulness we can also bring to the relationship an increased consciousness of our inner landscape, a sense of personal empowerment (not disabling dependence) and a growing capacity to feel and express empathy. We are better able to engage in active listening because we can be present in the moment of the conversation, attentive to non-verbal cues and less defensive and self-protective. Mantra meditations, as one form of mindfulness, can increase our capacity for deep listening.

Developing our “don’t know mind”

Jamie and Rosie write about the “beginner’s mind” developed through openness and curiosity – which are hallmarks of mindfulness according to the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC). In discussing the lessons from death and dying, Frank Ostaseski encourages us to develop what he calls, the “don’t know mind” which has the same characteristics of openness and curiosity and he suggests that these characteristics can be developed through mindfulness meditation. The result is that we are able to enter conversations with others not trying to be “interesting” but demonstrating being “interested in” the other person – a stance that enhances trust and relationships. Mindfulness enables us to listen for understanding rather than attempting to always persuade others to our point of view – in the process, developing our influence and strengthening our relationships.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness, we can strengthen our sense of agency by developing our receptivity – to information and to others. We can gain better awareness of our distorted perceptions and their impacts, develop greater self-control over our reactions to negative triggers, improve our relationships and grow our influence through our curiosity and openness. Our enhanced perceptual bandwidth developed through paying attention to our senses gives us uncluttered access to our inner landscape and the healing power and sense of empowerment of our natural landscape.

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Image by yamabon 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.

Grounding Yourself in Your Body in Times of Uncertainty

On the 5^th March this year, Jill Satterfield conducted a meditation podcast as part of the series of weekly podcasts offered by The Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), UCLA. Her presentation was titled, Facilitating Ease: Breath as a Restorative Practice in These Times. Jill’s presentation reflected her lifetime pursuit of mindfulness and somatic awareness. She has meditated for most of her life (having been taught to meditate by her mother at the age of four). She has participated in 150 silent retreats and is very well place to conduct personal coaching and training in “embodied mind” – how to be present and aware in our own bodies.

Jill has struggled with chronic pain for most of her life, undergoing multiple surgeries (including heart surgery). Her somatic meditation has helped her overcome her physical pain but, as she herself maintains, the longest journey for her is overcoming emotional and mental pain. Jill offers a form of “somatic practice” which integrates Indian yoga tradition with Buddhist meditation teaching. She sees her meditation teaching as offering “ways to know the body intimately as a reflection of the mind” and “to know and work with what is discovered both somatically and cognitively”.

Becoming grounded in your body in these uncertain times

In her podcast, Jill offers a somatic meditation that enables you to become grounded in your body in times of uncertainty – at a time when we are all physically, mentally, emotionally and medically challenged with the advent of the Coronavirus. Jill views mindfulness as “kindfulness”, a term developed by Ajahn Brahm. In her view, meditation needs to be internally kind and supportive of yourself, others and the community at large. She provides a guided meditation, a gentle “somatic practice”, that employs the following steps:

Begin by settling into your seat, comfortably – not strained or rigid. This first instruction reinforces Jill’s emphasis on bodily sensations.
Close your eyes or look down – either way she suggests that you loosen your vision so that you soften both the back of your eyes and the corners.
Now progressively notice the weight of your bones in various parts of your body – the lightness of your toes in your shoes, the thickness of your bones in your legs and the heaviness of your hip bones. Notice the support your bones provide as you sit in the chair.
Next sense your clothing on your skin – Jill suggests that you feel the difference in temperature between your skin covered by clothing and your uncovered skin exposed to the air.
Be with the gentleness of your breath at the entrance to your nostrils. Experience the softness and delicateness of the air flow through your nose.
Extend your inhalation by taking a deeper breath if is comfortable for you and notice the gentleness in the longer inhale.
Now extend the exhale gently – noticing the coolness of your breath and experience warmth throughout your body – in your chest, stomach and throat. A useful way to feel the sensation of warmth embracing your body is to join your fingers together and feel the tingling that occurs there.
Notice the pause at the top of your exhale motion – to focus on this pause wait a second or two before exhalation to experience the stillness.
Notice the pause before the inhale – extend this for a second or two to experience the quietness and ease of the inward breath.
As you complete these four-part “breath rounds” (pause-exhale-pause-inhale) over a couple of minutes, draw on the support and imagery of nature – the gentle breeze through the leaves of the trees; the slow, breaking waves; or the silence and calmness of the mountains.
Feel the power of loving kindness and forgiveness flowing from your tranquillity and restfulness.

When distractions arise in this meditation, return to sensing the weight of your body on the chair – restore your groundedness. As you slowly come to awareness at the end of the meditation, feel yourself coming to your senses more fully – take in the sights, sounds, smells, touch and taste that surround you as you feel more enlivened and relaxed.

Reflection

There is a certainty in our experience of our bodies in-the-moment and a tranquillity that arises from “resting in sensation”. It is through our bodies that we can become truly grounded in the present. As we grow in mindfulness, through somatic meditation and other somatic practices such as yoga, we can calm our “inner landscape”, still our mind and become increasingly open to our senses, our courage and creativity. We can employ Jill’s somatic practice anywhere at any time to restore our sense of groundedness and experience ease and tranquillity. Jon Kabat-Zinn reminds us that through mindfulness we can move from doing to being present to the power of now.

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Image by Lara-yin 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.

Finding Yourself Through Mindfulness – Start Small, Start Now

The music world and fans are mourning the death of Avicii, Swedish DJ, who died recently in Oman at the age of 28. Tim Bergling, known as Avicii, suffered ill-health for many years as a result of alcoholism and retired from touring in 2016 because life on the road did not agree with his introverted nature. He found he was so nervous before a performance that he would turn to alcohol to overcome his nervousness and to give him encouragement and confidence to perform. During his short life as a music producer, he inspired millions of other producers to explore their potentiality.

Two of his songs had a profound impact on me, not only because of their musicality, but also because of their lyrics. These songs are Wake Me Up When it’s Over and What Are You Waiting For? There are many interpretations of the lyrics of these songs, but recently I have come to interpret them in terms of mindfulness.

Wake me up when it’s all over

The lyrics of this song and the music are haunting and leave an indelible impact through the words, “All this time I was finding myself, and I
Didn’t know I was lost.”

So many of us have lost our way as the pressures of modern living close in on us. Mindfulness is very much about “finding myself” – getting to know your real self and not the narrative you carry in your head. So many people do not know that they are lost – that they have lost meaning in life because they are caught up with the unrelenting flow of expectations, their own and that of others.

Kabat-Zinn often quotes the words of James Joyce, “Mr. Duffy lived a short distance from his body”. Because our lives are taken up with thinking instead of being, we spend so much of our time in our heads, disconnected from our bodies and the world around us.

Kabat-Zinn urges us to “reinhabit our bodies” that we have become disconnected from. His book, Coming to Our Senses, stresses the need, both literally and metaphorically, to reconnect with our senses and the world around us by growing in awareness through mindfulness meditation. He reminds us that we have only one life to live and we are living it now in the present moment.

Somatic meditation – incorporating practices such as mindful walking, Tai Chi and body scan – enable us to become grounded in what Kabat-Zinn calls our “embodied presence“. Different forms of somatic meditation, for example, are used to help trauma victims to find themselves after the devastating and disorientating impact of the trauma experience.

What are you waiting for?

There is never a perfect time to start to grow in mindfulness and to reconnect with yourself. Avicii asks us the penetrating question in his song – You’re only livin’ once so tell me? What are you, what are you waiting for?

Seth Godin, marketing guru and renowned, innovative author, urges us to “start small, start now” with any new endeavour. There are many simple starting points to develop mindfulness that can lead to self-awareness and self-management and the associated benefits of calm, clarity and creativity.

Chade-Meng Tan, co-creator of Search Inside Yourself (Google’s course on mindfulness and emotional intelligence), urges us to “do less than we can imagine” but do it daily and consistently, even if it is only “one mindful breath a day”.

In the hectic pace of modern living and the constant intrusion of disruptive marketing, we are beginning to suffer from the inability to focus and bring our attention to the present moment. Neuroscience confirms the very lasting benefits for mental and physical health of growing in awareness of the present moment through mindfulness.

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

Image source: courtesy of vuongbibiptp on Pixabay

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.