compassionate action – Page 3

Using Mindfulness to Help Ourselves and Others

Tara Brach was recently interviewed about her course, Integrating Meditation and Psychotherapy, and the interview, Holding a Healing Space, is available as a free webinar at Sounds True. While Tara introduces elements of the course for psychotherapists in her interview, she also provides sound advice and processes that we can use to help ourselves and others (even if we are not trained in psychotherapy). She explains how meditation and awareness practices can reduce our reactivity and help us to develop calmness. Tara also provides a short practice of her R.A.I.N. process that can be used by anybody anywhere.

Dr. Tara Brach is a highly regarded author, psychologist and meditation teacher with her own psychotherapy practice. She is a significant member of the Inner MBA faculty and co-creator and facilitator with Jack Kornfield of the online Power of Awareness Course. Tara explained that she was conscious of the upsurge in the need for psychotherapy in these challenging times of the COVID-19 pandemic and this motivated her to re-offer her course looking at ways to integrate meditation and psychotherapy.

Tara stressed that in these turbulent and traumatic times, we need to be able to engage in meditation and other awareness practices “to calm the nervous system”. When using these attention-developing approaches in psychotherapy, it empowers the patient to take control of their own lives and gives them a sense of agency – personal control over their inner and outer environment. Mindfulness and self-compassion have been shown also to build and strengthen resilience.

Reducing reactivity

A key outcome of mindfulness developed through meditation and reflective practices is reduction in reactivity – through developing both self-awareness and self-regulation. If we are aware of our harmful response to specific negative stimuli, we are better able to self-manage. In reducing reactivity and inappropriate responses to stimuli, we can also reduce our sense of shame associated with our hurtful words and actions. Self-awareness needs to be supported by self-compassion, otherwise we can activate our inner critic through solely focusing on negative self-evaluation.

The R.A.I.N. Process

The R.A.I.N. process, refined over time by Tara, brings self-awareness and self-compassion together. It is a process that is accessible to anyone at anytime and does not require psychotherapy training to use it to help ourselves or others. In the video interview, Tara leads a guided meditation using the four steps of the R.A.I.N. process:

Recognize – Once you have adopted a comfortable position and focused on introspection rather than visual distractions, you can begin the process by taking a number of deep breaths, using the outbreath to let go of pent-up tension. This can be complemented by a body scan designed to identify and release any physical tension in areas such as your forehead, shoulders, arms or stomach. Try then to capture a recent interaction in detail that you are feeling unease about. Recognize any complex emotions that emerge such as resentment, envy or anger. You can give recognition to these emotions by naming them accurately (even in a whisper) – in a way that Karla McLaren describes as granular. Naming your feelings as accurately as possible helps you to acknowledge their depth and intensity and gives you a greater sense of control over them – it enables you to tame them.
Allow – This is letting that emotion be, not denying it or pushing it away. It’s facing the emotion in all its rawness and strength – with whatever courage you can muster. Honesty about your emotions is itself an act of courage.
Investigate – The investigation is not a cognitive process but a somatic experience – feeling the emotion in all its intensity in your body. It involves identifying how and where in your body that emotion is manifested – Tara describes this process as “feeling into your body”. You can also access your beliefs about yourself and others involved in the precipitating interaction. This stage can leave you feeling vulnerable, open to shame and disappointed in yourself. However, the next step of “nurture” conjures up self-compassion as a powerful form of self-healing.
Nurture – Your nurturing can begin by a light touch on that part of your body where you sense your complex emotion the most, e.g. your chest, throat or arms. Offer loving-kindness to that part of your body. You can also imagine kindness being expressed towards you by someone you respect or love.

Reflection

Tara’s video interview highlights the key elements incorporated in her course that focuses on embedding meditation and awareness practices in psychotherapy and reinforces the need for such an integration particularly in these challenging times when everyone is affected, including psychotherapists. Her explanation of the benefits of these mindfulness practices, also provides motivation for us as individuals to engage in self-care through these processes, especially the R.A.I.N. process.

When we adopt R.A.I.N. with openness and honesty, we can achieve a new sense of presence and calmness in our lives that, in turn, can impact positively the lives of others. People can experience our calmness and peace and we can feel a strong desire to take compassionate action towards others.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, reflection and mindfulness practices such as R.A.I.N., we can gain a deeper understanding of ourselves, a greater degree of self-regulation and increased empathy and compassion for others. We come to recognise that we are not “better than”, but the same – with our own faults, impatience, sensitivities, unfounded beliefs and unkind words and actions; all existing side-by-side with our thoughtfulness, generosity, loving-kindness, gratitude and our inner richness.

__________________________________________

Image by Mammiya 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.

Moving from Separation to Connection

Allyson Pimentel, a teacher at the Mindful Awareness Research Centre (MARC), provided a guided meditation podcast on the theme, From Separation to Connection, Silence to Speaking Truth, Stillness to Action. Allyson’s emphasis was on the power of meditation to increase our sense of connection, build our capacity to speak truthfully with courage and to take compassionate action. Her meditation focus was on developing groundedness and stability through breath and formed part of the weekly, mindfulness awareness podcasts provided by MARC, UCLA.

Allyson explained that we are all connected in so many ways. This sense of connection is heightened by the global pandemic and global social activity to redress injustice and inequality, epitomised by the Black Lives Matter movement. This movement against violence towards black people has reverberated around the world with protest marches in many countries to show solidarity with those fighting against injustice.

Sports teams are conducting public rituals to show solidarity and those who continue to promote hate and racism are being excluded from media forums that would otherwise give voice to their divisive comments. Allyson noted that division and violence on racial grounds derives from a distorted sense of “separateness”, not recognizing our underlying connection to all other humans. A focus on separateness can breed “superior conceit”, a need to demonstrate that someone is “better than” another person.

Allyson’s professional work is focused on bringing mindfulness to bear on mental health issues and treatment. She discussed mindfulness as paying attention to the present moment with kindness, curiosity and a sense of connection. She stressed that breath meditation can help us to develop a strong sense of stability, self-compassion and compassion towards others. She encouraged people participating in her presentation on Zoom to focus on one other individual participating in the global mindfulness awareness meditation and notice their face, their name, and their “place” and wish them protection, safety from harm, wellness and ease. This process can deepen our sense of connection.

A breath meditation

During her Zoom drop-in session, Allyson offered a 20 minute breath meditation. Her process involved a strong focus on our in-breath and out-breath and the space in between. Allyson began the meditation by having all participants take a deep in-breath and let out an elongated out-breath while picturing their connection with others in the session doing the same thing – to create a sense of connection by breathing “as one”. She suggested that people view the in-breath as self-compassion and the out-breath as compassion towards others, alternating between receiving and giving.

After this initial exercise during the guided meditation, Allyson encouraged participants to focus on their bodily sensations to become grounded fully in the moment – sensing their feet on the floor or ground and feeling the pressure of their body against their chair. She suggested that if mental or emotional distractions intervened, returning to our bodily sensations is a way to refocus back on the breath. A way to regain focus is to feel the breath moving the body (e.g. the in and out sensation of the diaphragm) and to feel the breath moving through the body – while recognising that many people around the world are experiencing constricted breathing through illness and/or inequity.

Allyson maintains that breath meditation and entering into silence fortifies us, provides stability and groundedness and enables us “to act for the good of others and to speak truth from our power”. She suggests that meditation practice builds the personal resources to “speak wisely, truly and compassionately” in the face of unconscionable inequity.

Reflection

During the meditation session, Allyson quoted the One Breath poem written by Mark Arthur – a very moving reflection on connectedness and “collective social suffering”. Mark exhorts us not to turn away but to turn towards the “deep, deep wound” as a way to express self-compassion. Then with loving kindness, “speak and act from the heart” with awareness that there is no separation between them and us, only connection through birth, breathing, living and death.

The space that lies between our in-breath and out-breath can be a place of rest and tranquillity and a source of spaciousness. As we grow in mindfulness through breath meditation and exploring our connectedness to all human beings, we can access this spaciousness and learn to extend our thoughts and actions compassionately towards others.

______________________________________

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.

Using Meditation to Let the Light In

Lynne Goldberg presented at the 2020 Mindfulness & Compassion Global Summit on the theme of Leonard Cohen’s words, The Crack is Where the Light Gets In. Lynne spoke of her life experience where meditation enabled her to find joy, happiness and holistic success after a dark period of pain, grief, and anxiety. The “crack” was the fracture of her external, projected veneer as the perfect wife, mother and businesswoman (Vice-President of a retail store). Lynne epitomised what Harriet Braiker called The Type E Woman who had to be “everything to everybody”.

Lynne’s world fell apart when she lost her mother through cancer, her marriage through divorce and her twin daughters who died two days after their birth (after she had tried to conceive for six years). Despite the turmoil in her life, Lynne tried to keep it together and be the perfect executive but lost her position. Lynne numbed herself to the physical, emotional and mental pain she was experiencing. It was only through meditation and improved nutrition that she was able to restore her equilibrium and find peace and happiness. Up until then, she was full of self-loathing and self-recrimination. She had to acknowledge to herself that “position and possessions” do not guarantee happiness – they were only the external trappings of “success”. Meditation enabled Lynne to loosen the hold of false beliefs and let in the light of self-belief and self-esteem.

Meditation to let the light in

Through meditation and nutrition Lynne found her balance and love for life and others. She became a certified meditation teacher and described her odyssey in her book, Get Balanced, Get Blessed: Nourishment for Body, Mind, and Soul – a life journey that shares strategies and tools to overcome the stress of trying to be perfect and “control the uncontrollable”. Lynne is also a co-creator of the Breethe app.

In a recent interview with Beau Henderson discussing meditation’s role in challenging times, Lynne offered five steps to help us overcome fear and anxiety and achieve mindfulness and serenity:

Set your intention – be very clear about why you want to develop a meditation practice and find ways to remind yourself of this intention. Clarity of intention energises the discipline to maintain practice.
Stay present – avoid wandering into the past and the uncertain future and practise restoring your focus to the present. Some simple mindfulness practices such as mindful walking, focusing on the sensation of your fingers joined together or deep listening, can be helpful here. You can also monitor your own words, e.g. when you say, “I can’t wait till the weekend!” or “I wish it was Friday”.
Practice non-judgment – be with what is happening rather than judging it to be good or bad, e.g. the weather.
Let go of control – give up on trying to “manage the unmanageable” but do what you can to the best of your ability, given limited resources, time and understanding.
Go from “me” to “we” – help other and in the process help yourself to overcome fear and self-absorption. Compassionate listening in times of anxiety and uncertainty is a bridge to self-compassion and compassionate action towards others.

Lynne offers a 5-minute meditation that can be used at any time during your day to let the light in and bring peace and tranquillity to your life.

Reflection

There are many simple meditation practices that can help us to become grounded and to rest in equanimity. The starting point is a clear intention to undertake a core meditation practice on a daily basis. Starting small enables us to build the discipline of consistency. The core practice, even five minutes a day, can be supplemented by other mindfulness practices to build and sustain the momentum.

Revisiting the benefits of our meditation and mindfulness practices helps to reinforce our intention and reward our discipline. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and mindfulness practice, we can overcome false beliefs, experience serenity, access our creativity and achieve holistic success.

_______________________________________

Image by Mabel Amber 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.

Strategies for Couples to Cope While Working at Home during Quarantine

In a previous post I discussed Rick Hanson’s ideas about the intrapersonal and interpersonal challenges facing couples working from home during the quarantine conditions brought on by the Coronavirus. In his podcast, Coping with Quarantine, Rick also explored strategies for couples to cope with these challenges. His suggested strategies focused strongly on connection, contribution, control (inner and outer) and compassion.

Strategies for couples to cope with the challenges of working together at home during social isolation

Connection with others: the fundamental principle underpinning physical distancing is avoidance rather than contact and connection. However, this does not prevent us from connecting with each other as a couple, with our family and friends or with colleagues. All of the remote communication strategies are available to us – online video calls, telephone, social media and email. There can be a tendency to let the physical distancing principles impact the rest of our behaviour. However, now is the time to reconnect with others who are also feeling socially isolated. As a couple, connection can take the form of increased hugs, considerateness, words of love and appreciation and thoughtful touch – all of which builds the relationship. It also involves avoiding the temptation to escalate an argument or conflict to prove you are right or to assuage your pride. Fundamental to connection with your partner is listening for understanding, not interrupting but being open and vulnerable to the thoughts and feelings of your partner. As Rick points out, listening provides you with the time to deeply connect with the other person and enables them to experience calm and clarity. He reiterates Dan Siegel’s view that deep listening enables the communicator to “feel felt by the other person”.
Connection to nature: we are connected to nature on multiple levels and it is possible through mindfulness practices, including mantra meditation, to experience this connection at a deep level. When we experience our deep connection to nature, we can feel inspired, energised, positive and calm. The very act of breathing and walking in nature regenerates our physical systems, clears our mind and helps us to reduce the power of our negative emotions. Nature has its own healing capacity which we can tap into in multiple ways – if only we would stop long enough to let it happen.
Contribution: there are so many people in need as a result of the pandemic. There are also endless ways to contribute and help others, to draw on our creativity and resourcefulness. For example, despite the lockdown in the Northern Territory in Australia, Arnhem Land artists are offering a series of free online concerts to lift people’s spirits and reinforce their connection to the land and the resilience of nature. Thirty of Australia’s top singing stars have also collaborated to provide an online concert from their homes, Music From The Home Front, that is dedicated to people who are in the frontline of the fight against the Coronavirus. Another exemplar of contribution in adversity is Nkosi Johnson who was born with HIV in South Africa and died at the age of 12. In his short life, he dedicated himself to fighting, locally and globally, for the rights of HIV affected people in South Africa and beyond. Nkosi is quoted as saying, “Do all you can with what you have in the time you have in the place you are”.
Controlling yourself and your environment: in times of crisis it is important to develop a sense of control over our difficult emotions and our immediate environment. There is a growing pool of advice on managing anxiety and achieving mental and emotional balance during these times of uncertainty and social isolation. In times of uncertainty we can achieve a sense of agency by controlling aspects of our immediate environment – whether that be tidying or renewing our garden, removing clutter from our workspace, developing new skills or getting our finances and accounts in order.
Compassionate thoughts and action: in the section above on contribution, I stressed the importance of finding ways to help and to take compassionate action. However, action is not always possible because of our personal circumstances, including being confined to home as a high-risk person. This is particularly where loving kindness meditation can be used to experience compassion towards others who are suffering and/or experiencing grief. Everyday there are stories of individuals and families experiencing heart-breaking situations brought on by the Coronavirus. We can keep these people in our thoughts and prayers and feel with them.

Reflection

Creating connection, making a contribution, achieving self-control and control over our immediate environment and offering compassion and loving kindness are ways forward for individuals and couples restricted to working from home. Meditation, reflection and mindfulness practices will help us to grow in mindfulness and to develop the necessary self-awareness, awareness of others, self-regulation and presence of mind and body to bring these positive aspects into our lives as individuals and couples.

Chris James captures the essence of connection to nature in the songlet Tall Trees on his Enchant album:

Tall trees
Warm fire
Strong wind
Deep water
I feel it in my body
I feel it in my soul

Image by Andreas Danang Aprillianto 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 Resilience for Uncertain and Challenging Times

Danielle LaPorte – blogger, author, entrepreneur, podcaster and inspirational speaker – was recently interviewed by Tami Simon on the topic, Resilience in Challenging Times. When asked how she is coping in the current Coronavirus crisis, she explained that in the main she is “feeling resilient” but sometimes drops out from her centre and experiences intense feelings of pain and sorrow. For her, resilience is “coming home” to your true centre and your life as it is. Danielle reinforced the need to fully face our fear and anxiety, rather than deny the reality of what is happening for us. She reminds us that acceptance – accepting what is – is core to mindfulness, mental health and happiness.

Scenario thinking as a way to manage the uncertainties of life and business

Danielle drew on her role as a “social visionary” to recommend using scenario thinking as a way to manage through the uncertainties that confront us on every dimension of our lives today. For example, with the staff of her entrepreneurial business she explored potential scenarios as they move forward, including the “worst possible” scenario. Facing up to the worst possible scenario and exploring how you could cope gives you a sense of control over fear and anxiety – you have faced up to the thoughts that generate your fears and anxiety and diffused them by identifying ways to cope (rather than letting them whirl around in your head and disorientate you by pulling you away from your centre). Danielle indicated that she applied scenario thinking to her personal life as well, even facing up to the possibility of her own death through Coronavirus infection.

In line with her scenario thinking and her role as a social futurist, Danielle suggested that the Coronavirus will bring out the best and worst in people. We have seen this already, on the one hand, in panic buying and profiteering by hoarding and selling scare resources at exorbitant prices; on the other hand, the growing prevalence of kindness, thoughtfulness, generous sharing and compassionate action. Danielle drew on Barbara Marx Hubbard’s analogy of the “crisis of birth” to talk about the pain of establishing a new world order where there is increasing integration of the scientific, social, economic and spiritual capacities of the human race through a process of “conscious evolution”.

The growth of heart-centred leadership

Danielle maintained that the current crisis creates a situation where heart-centred leadership becomes the new norm. Leaders and managers of people working remotely as a result of enforced physical isolation are confronted with the need to be empathetic to the adverse situations experienced by many of their staff – some with ill parents, school-aged children at home, inadequate space, lack of necessary technical resources or inexperience in operating within a working from home environment. Heart-centred leadership requires the development of compassion, a perception of leadership as resonance and the capacity to build leadership agility.

Danielle herself demonstrated heart-centred leadership when she spoke of “bothness” – the capacity to not only see and face your own suffering but also to recognise that others are suffering too, often experiencing much worse conditions and life circumstances than you are. For example, she explained that the experience of a short supply of a particular grocery item bears no comparison to someone else’s situation where they have no food or any likelihood of obtaining anything that is nourishing. Danielle suggests that her own pain and suffering is connecting her with “someone else with more pain”. In the mutual experience of crisis, lies the energy of connectedness.

Reflection

The current Coronavirus crisis precipitates the development of self-intimacy rather than self-denial, the promotion of compassionate action over self-absorption, the growth of heart-centred leadership over narcissistic leadership and the emergence of a greater sense of connectedness, rather than disconnection. As we grow in mindfulness – deep awareness of our self and others – through mindfulness practices, reflection and scenario thinking, we can maintain a positive mindset and contribute, however painfully, to the growth of a new, integrated world order.

____________________________________________

Image by Leslin_Liu 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.

Stillness of Mind and Body through Mantra Meditations

Lulu & Mischka recorded the final day of their 6-day online journey into mantra meditation that brought together hundreds of people around the world at this time of anxiety and uncertainty brought on by the Coronavirus. Their chanting and accompanying music on the guitar and harmonium provided a haven in these turbulent times. Their harmonies are enriched by Lulu’s operatically trained voice that transports you into another reality – beyond fear and anxiety.

In today’s recorded session, Lulu & Mischka focused on the mantra, Jaya Ganesha, which they translate to mean:

Ease and flow wherever we go, open to the mystery each day. Calling for protection on our journey, guidance and blessings on our way. Bless away the obstacles, open to the miracles.

Inherent in the mantra is acceptance of what is and letting go of the resistance that aggravates the suffering of the present moment. Their mantra meditations can bring “openness of the heart, quietness of the mind and comfort of the body” in times of enforced lockdowns, social distancing and social isolation. They have designed an online mantra meditation course to enable their global audience to continue their journey into inner peace.

Incorporating yoga breathing

At the beginning of their mantra meditation sessions, Lulu & Mischka incorporate yoga breathing and often finish with this practice. Lulu describes this process as deep breathing, as if drawing breath through a straw – the inbreath moving from the lower abdomen, expanding the lungs and filling the chest. The outbreath reverses this process and enables release of tension, stress and resentment.

The deep breathing enhances the calming influence of the chanting and movement that forms part of their daily ritual that they share with others through their recorded music such as the Enchanted CD which is available as a download. Lulu and Mischka are strong supporters of the charity, A Sound Life, that helps people in need to improve their wellbeing through yoga, meditation and music.

Reflection

There is something about Lulu & Mischka and their approach to mantra meditation that is engaging and effortless and appeals to people around the world. Their international festival appearances attest to this appeal. The combination of chanting accompanied by deep breathing and musical instruments (the harmonium and guitar) act as a form of music therapy that is capable of transporting us beyond the pain and preoccupations of the present to a place of calm and equanimity. As we grow in mindfulness through mantra meditation, we can find an inner peace, a strengthened resolve and a willingness to extend compassionate action to others.

____________________________________________

Image by S. Hermann & F. Richter 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.

Managing Yourself in Times of Crisis

Susan David was recently interviewed as part the Ted Connects© series of talks. Susan spoke on the topic, How to be Your Best Self in Times of Crisis. She maintained that “life’s beauty is inseparable from it’s fragility” and provided a number of ways to manage yourself in times of crisis. She emphasised the importance of facing our difficult emotions, naming our feelings, being curious about what our emotions are telling us, developing our sense of agency and finding ways to help other people. Susan stressed that underpinning her approach is the concept of “emotional agility” – the core of which involves “radical acceptance” of our emotions and self-compassion.

The fragility of life

Susan reminds us that the Coronavirus highlights the fragility of life. This fragility, however, is part of our everyday life experience. We love someone then lose them, we enjoy good health then experience illness, we savour time with our children only to watch them grow up and leave home. The problem for us is that our social narrative, the stories we tell ourselves as a society, is so focused on the importance of always achieving, being fit and happy and appearing to be always in control. There is an inherent denial of the reality of death and the fragility of life – we have to appear to be strong and deny our difficult emotions.

Facing our difficult emotions

Susan stressed the importance of overcoming our habituated way of responding to difficult emotions. We typically deny them, turn away from them and, yet, end up stuck in them or “marinating in it” as Rick Hanson, in his Being Well Podcast, describes the resultant state of self-absorption. Susan maintains the critical importance of facing our emotions and owning them, not letting them own us. This involves naming our feelings not in a broad way such as “I’m feeling stressed” but in what she calls a “granular” way or fine-grained identification of exactly what we are feeling, e.g. disappointment, resentment, anger, fear or anxiety. It is only by truly facing and naming our difficult feelings that we can tame them, stop them from owning us. Susan points out that this self-regulation is a key facet of mindfulness.

Being curious about our difficult emotions

This is a form of self-observation and self-exploration. It’s being curious about what our difficult emotions are telling us about ourselves and what we value. Strong emotions are indicators of what is important to us but, at the time, perceived as lacking in our personal situation. Loneliness, for example, is experienced as disconnection from others and tells us how much we value relationships and connection. Social distancing and social isolation, as a result of the Coronavirus, have compounded our feelings of loneliness. So, it’s important to move towards ways of re-connecting, if not face-to face, by phone and online communication.

Developing our sense of agency

Susan argues that in these times when everything seems out of control, it is important to develop “pockets of control” to enable us to develop our sense of agency – our capacity to control some aspect of our life and our immediate environment. These arenas of control can be minute things like deciding what three things you want to do today, developing a menu plan for the week, setting up a daily routine (especially when you are working at home with children present) or changing the way you normally do things to adapt to changing circumstances. It may be that you decide to master the skill of online communication – developing new capacities as well as gaining control. Some people look to regain control and appreciation over their own yard or garden. My wife and I have recently bought a coffee-making machine so that we can better control our expenditure on coffee, increase our control over how our cappuccinos or Piccolos are made and limit our time and social exposure by avoiding having to go out and queue up for a take-way coffee.

Sense of agency can extend to appreciating what we have and savouring it. The Coronavirus attacks our respiratory system, quite literally taking our breath away. We can begin to really value our breathing through various forms of meditation which can ground us in our body in these times of uncertainty and anxiety. As we learn to control our breathing through meditation, we can develop ways to calm ourselves in times of crisis and stress. Our calmness is reflected in our breathing, as is our agitation.

Helping others in need

Besides showing compassion towards ourselves (in owning and accepting our emotions and what they tell us about ourselves), it is important to move beyond self-absorption to thinking of others and undertaking compassionate action towards them. This may mean a simple phone call to an elderly relative who is in lock-down in a retirement village or contacting someone you have not spoken to for a while. Everyday we hear about people showing random acts of kindness and generosity towards others.

For example, our weekend newspaper reported about the wife of a doctor on the frontline of the fight against the Coronavirus. He has decided to live apart from the family for six months to protect them from contracting the virus. Despite her resultant loneliness, his wife is creating homemade meals for him and his fellow health workers and enlisting the support of neighbours, friends and anyone else to do likewise so that these frontline workers don’t have to rely on unhealthy take-aways to sustain them during their very long hours of courageously caring for others. Susan challenges each of us with the question, “How can we help in little and big ways?” – how can we demonstrate being part of a community and being “values-connected”?

Reflection

In times like the present with the Coronavirus impacting every facet of our lives, we begin to wonder how we will all cope. Susan expresses great optimism that the crisis will enable people to be their “best self” and daily we see evidence of this. Susan points to the history of people handling crises with courage, wisdom, compassion and mutual kindness (witness the recent wildfires in Australia). As we grow in mindfulness and learn to face our difficult emotions through meditation and reflection, we can understand better what our emotions are telling us, regain our sense of agency and begin to show compassionate action towards others in need. Mindfulness helps us to be calm, resilient and hopeful.

________________________________________

Image by ShonEjai 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 Practices to Develop Mental Health and Wellbeing

In these times of uncertainty and anxiety, mindfulness meditation can be an effective way to restore balance to our mental and emotional state. These structured approaches can be readily reinforced by mindfulness practices that are more flexible and adaptable to our personal circumstances and preferences.

Through mindfulness practices embedded in our daily life and routine, we can progressively achieve the situation where mindfulness is not just something we do, but the way we are in the world. This enables us to show up in a mindful and compassionate way and have a positive influence on the people we interact with in our daily life.

Mindfulness practices that you can use to develop mental health and wellbeing

There are a wide range of mindfulness practices described in this blog and in other mindfulness resources. Some of these could prove useful for you in this time of stress and uncertainty:

Mindful walking – consciously walking slowly and being aware of the pressure of your toes and soles on the ground. There are a range of videos on mindful walking on YouTube©.
Mindful eating – eating slowly while being conscious of presentation (how it looks), taste, texture, aroma and touch.
Engaging with nature – Nature is a proven source of emotional healing and mental health. There are a number of ways to experience the benefits of nature.
Exercising – There are endless books and articles on the benefits of exercise, and it is considered one of the antidotes for depression. Some people prefer yoga as their form of exercise and Jill Satterfield has her own YouTube© Channel dedicated to ways to combine yoga with somatic awareness.
Tai Chi – often called “mindfulness-in-action”. Harvard Medical School recently published the results of extensive research into the benefits of Tai Chi and provided an explanation and exercises for each benefit in its publication, The Harvard Medical School Guide to Tai Chi. The benefits of Tai Chi include less stress, a healthier heart, positive mood and a clearer mind as well as better balance and coordination and reduced physical pain.
Taking compassionate action – going beyond self-absorption to helping others in need. An interesting new development is the Adopt a Grandparent Campaign (given the increased isolation of the elderly because of the Coronavirus). Taking compassionate action can have numerous forms and is limited only by your awareness and creativity. Compassionate action includes being aware of, and communicating with, a friend or family member who may be experiencing loneliness.
Use waiting time to develop awareness – our typical default when we have to wait for something is to grab for our phone. We could use waiting time instead to develop our natural awareness.
Expressing gratitude – neuroscience has shown the benefits of gratitude for mental health and wellbeing, not only for the recipient of the expression of appreciation but also the giver. However, you don’t even have to express appreciation to others to gain a health benefit from being grateful. There are many ways to develop gratitude and reap its benefits.
Tuning into sounds – you can adopt a natural awareness approach by tuning into sounds around you (both your immediate surrounds and your external environment). Alternatively, you can be more goal-focused in your awareness, e.g. focusing on the “room tone”.
Establishing a mindfulness reminder – we can use something that occurs frequently throughout our day to be reminded of the need to be mindful. People have used a wide range of things as reminders, e.g. when the phone rings or when they boil the jug/make a cup of coffee, they take a few mindful breaths or steps. All it takes, according to Chade-Meng Tan, author of Search Inside Yourself, is “one mindful breath a day”.

Create small habits to build sustainability

Clearly you can’t do it all and if you attempt to do too much, your new habit will not be sustainable. Start small – Dr. V.J. Fogg suggests that you create tiny habits, breaking larger habits down to their “smallest accessible practice”. Do something that fits with you personally – you don’t have to achieve what others are doing. Be prepared to adopt a trial-and-error approach and change your habit(s) where appropriate – there is no one approach that suits everybody.

Building and maintaining a positive mindset

You can enhance your positive mindset by listening to presentations that are uplifting. These can take the form of podcasts, videos or other sources of positively oriented communications. TED Talks©, for example, offer “ideas worth sharing” and include inspirational stories, innovations and creative problem solving.

There are numerous presenters who work in the mindfulness space and offer encouraging and supportive communications via videos and audio
podcasts. One particular example that comes to mind is Dr. Jud Brewer who has commenced producing short 5-minute videos on his YouTube
Channel© covering timely topics such as:

5 simple habits for good mental hygiene
Using kindness to create connection during a crisis
Working with uncertainty
How to spread connection instead of contagion
How fear and uncertainty lead to anxiety.

One of Jud’s videos focuses on “how to stop compulsively checking the news”. Even in the best of times, the news can be disturbing, disorienting and confusing, yet we are tempted to feast on the news. Cilla Murphy, a teacher who has just experienced 7 weeks in lockdown in China offers a number of very important learnings from her experience and her advice about the news is:

Try not to listen to/read/watch too much media. It WILL drive you crazy. There is [such] a thing as too much!

Reflection

There are so many options in terms of mindfulness practices that can help us in times of uncertainty and anxiety. We can become overwhelmed by the variety and endless choices. The secret to habit change is to start small and maintain the new habit for a reasonable time (to test it and embed it in our daily life).

One sustainable habit can lead to another…and another. We should not be discouraged by the magnitude of the changes we need to make – we can chip away at them progressively with the aid of meditation and mindfulness practice. It takes time to overcome our self-protective mechanisms if we are to achieve significant changes in our behaviour. As we grow in mindfulness, we can become increasingly self-aware, develop our focused intention and build resilience to overcome setbacks on the road to sustainable change.

________________________________________

Image by RÜŞTÜ BOZKUŞ 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.

What Does Love Mean?

In a previous post I explored ways to sustain an intimate relationship. But what does love mean? We use the word so loosely – referring to everything from a dessert to a location to an intimate friend. Mitra Manesh explores this question in her guided meditation podcast, Meaning of Love – one of the many weekly meditation podcasts from MARC, UCLA. Mitra is a mindfulness teacher with MARC, creator of the Inner Map app and provider of mindfulness teaching through her short videos on Vimeo©. She has worked extensively to bring mindfulness to the corporate world, combining Eastern and Western perspectives.

Guided meditation on the meaning of love

Mitra begins her guided meditation by suggesting that you first become grounded by using your hands as the anchor. She suggests that you can focus on the pressure of your hands on your lap, the touching of your fingers together or the up and down movement of your hands on your stomach as you breath in and out. Whatever hand anchor you choose, the idea is to gently bring your mind back to this anchor whenever your mind wanders.

Once you have become grounded, you can explore “love as connection”. Mitra’s guided meditation is based on the idea that the connection underpinning love occurs at four levels – the physical, intellectual, emotional and universal levels. The meditation follows a progression from a focus on the physical to universal connectedness and incorporates connection to self (experiencing self-love):

Physical connection – here the initial focus is on a pleasant body sensation such as the warmth of your fingers touching, the softness of the palm of your hand or the firmness of your feet on the floor. Once you have experienced this pleasant bodily sensation, you can extend your focus to the recollection of the pleasantness of a physical connection to another person such as a hug or a kiss. When you have achieved awareness of physical connection and experienced pleasant recollections, you can gently move on.
Intellectual connection – firstly focus on connecting to your own mind – what is going on in your head. Mitra suggests that you envisage your thoughts as clouds coming and going, merging and dissipating – blown by the winds of change. This is a pleasant change from other forms of meditation where you are discouraged from being distracted by your thoughts. Here the idea is to notice what is going on in the process of your thinking – how one idea leads to another, how ideas connect you to past experiences and how ideas flow through you endlessly. You can expand this intellectual focus to recollecting a recent experience where you felt a strong intellectual connection to a colleague, a family member or an intimate partner. You can then move on to the next level of connection.
Emotional connection – this is the level we often associate with love, but genuine love operates at all levels. Here you first focus on a pleasant emotion that you may be experiencing at this moment – enjoying the contentment, pleasure or happiness that arises through this mindful awareness. If your current emotion is experienced as unpleasant, Mitra suggests that you look inside yourself to see what unfilled need is giving rise to this negative experience. Again, if you wish to extend your sense of emotional connection to another person you can recollect a time when you were with someone, a friend or partner, where you had a real sense of emotional connection – whether the experience was one of joy, peace, safety, comfort or other positive feeling.
Universal or spiritual connection – this is not an aspect that Mitra dwells on in her guided meditation. However, we can focus on human connectedness and our connectedness to nature to gain a sense of the universality of our connection.

Tara Brach, in her brief talk on the meaning of love, discusses the “aliveness of connection” and the translation of this universal connection into compassionate action. To illustrate this connection to all living things, she tells the story of a prisoner who saved a pigeon from stoning by another prisoner by saying simply. “Don’t do that – that bird has my wings.” Tara argues that radical compassion has all the elements of love including caring, forgiving and appreciating. She illustrates the multiple meanings given to “love” by sharing stories of how 8 year old children described love. One child, for example, had this to say on the meaning of love:

When you tell someone something bad about yourself and you are frightened that they won’t love you anymore, but then you are surprised that they love you even more!

Reflection

Love has multiple levels and is expressed in many different ways. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, reflection and compassionate action, we can learn to appreciate self-love and love for others that we experience at all levels – the physical, intellectual, emotional and universal levels. The essence of love is connection and mindfulness practices can help us to better understand and enhance these connections.

_____________________________________

Image by Annie Spratt 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.

Creating a Positive Future in a Climate-Changed World

Diana Winston recently provided a meditation podcast entitled, Envisioning a Positive Future in Our World. The podcast was timely given the devastating fires across Australia in the months preceding and following the presentation and the ongoing challenge of gaining control over fires that continue to rage. Diana’s guided meditation was a part of the weekly podcasts offered by MARC, UCLA. Diana emphasised the need to draw on mindfulness for strength and resilience, to envisage a better future and to collaborate to achieve a better world.

The immeasurable impact of the Australian bushfires

The devastating impact of the Australian bushfires and wildfires was brought into sharp relief by the ABC Four Corners© program, Black Summer, aired on 3^rd February 2020. The program incorporated video footage from various areas and stages of the fires along with discussions by people who had survived the fires and lost their homes and/or family members, firefighters who described what it was like to be in thick of the fires, evacuation centre volunteers and elected officials living in areas impacted by the fires.

Michael Pengilly, Mayor of Kangaroo Island in South Australia, summed up the extent of the physical devastation when he said:

So far this bushfire season, almost 12 million hectares have burned. At least a billion native animals have died. More than 3,000 homes have been destroyed and 33 people have lost their lives.

He pointed out that there were still bushfires creating havoc across Australia at the time of the TV program.

Firefighters and people who had lost their homes and loved ones spoke of the trauma resulting from the fires, the fear of losing their lives, the 48 hours of blackness and the suffocating smoke that burned into your throat and lungs. Aaron Salway, who lost his father and brother in the bushfires, spoke of the immeasurable impact on themselves and children who have experienced and survived the fires:

This fire I’ll never forget. I don’t think my kids will ever forget it. It’s something that’s going to be scarred into my brain. I don’t ever want to see it again.

When you see pictures of 60 metre high flames; raging fires driven by gale force winds (in excess of 80 kph); exhausted firefighters who have just heard that two of their colleagues had died in a fire truck rollover caused by a fallen tree; and flying embers moving at high speed horizontal to the ground, you understand that the emotional scars are deep and very real.

Some of the lessons from the Australian bushfires

The fires brought to the fore the courage and resilience of individuals and communities when confronted with a crisis of this scale. One such inspiring example was that of members of a Muslim Community who travelled for five hours to cook for exhausted firefighters in East Gippsland in Victoria and arranged five truckloads of donated goods to be delivered to people in fire-affected communities.

The firefighters (many of whom were volunteers) who risked their lives, and in some cases lost their lives, showed incredible commitment to helping others to deal with the frightening challenge of the fires raging out of control.

One of the key lessons of the fires was what people could achieve when they pulled together, pooled their resources, supported each other emotionally and concerned themselves with the safety of others. The questions and answers during the video episode highlighted some other key lessons:

The climate-changed world is a “new normal”
Unless people of different political persuasions can pull together and collaborate, there is no way that the situation can be redressed and the prognosis for the future be improved
Leaders at every level need to move beyond petty differences and demonstrate true leadership – marshalling committed followers to work towards creating a positive future
Australia must find ways to tap into the indigenous knowledge of landscape management – learning about and respecting the environment and related ecosystems.

Tackling climate change as individuals

In introducing her podcast, Diana highlighted an article by Emma Morris in the New York Times on January 10, 2020. In the article, titled How to Stop Freaking Out and Tackle Climate Change, Emma provides a sound five-point plan that individuals can pursue to move beyond paralysis by fear to constructive engagement:

Ditch the shame
Focus on the systems, not yourself
Join an effective group
Define your role
Know what you are fighting for, not just what you are fighting against.

The last point demands moving beyond blaming to collaborative endeavour. Emma’s plan shows what individuals can do to create a positive future for their children and grandchildren.

Diana draws on this discussion to incorporate a visioning exercise in her guided meditation. After an introductory period focused on becoming grounded, Diana suggests that people engaging in the meditation begin to envision what a renewed environment would look like in terms of flourishing trees, clean air, running water, clear skies, happy children, healthy and diverse wildlife, numerous birds and butterflies – a very different picture to one of darkened skies, dense and suffocating smoke, children distressed about their future environment, blackened trees and flora and burned/dead animals (many of them in danger of extinction). Diana maintains that the future is ours to create.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection, we can build our resilience; better appreciate our connectedness to others and our natural world; develop our motivation to collaborate and take compassionate action; overcome our biases and assumptions; and develop our personal role in helping to shape a positive future in our climate-changed world.

_____________________________________

Image by Johannes Plenio 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.