deep listening – Grow Mindfulness

Creative Meetups: Action Learning for Health and Healing

Creative Meetups are provided by the Health Story Collaborative (HSC) to enable participants to reflect, connect and gain support from other people who are also living with chronic illness or disability or are carers. The free Meetups, currently facilitated by Jennifer Harris on the Zoom platform, provide a stimulus for writing “to access and release emotions, personal stories and creative spirits”. They form an avenue for healing through the mechanism of narrative therapy.

Alice Morgan, author of What Is Narrative Therapy?, maintains that narrative therapy can take many forms. For instance, she suggests that it can involve “particular ways of talking with people about their lives and the problems they are experiencing”. In essence, it involves people sharing their stories orally and/or in writing to gain insight into the meanings they ascribe to events, experiences and current situations (such as a physical or mental health condition). Jodi Clarke points out that we carry multiple self-stories including those related to “self-esteem, abilities, relationships and work.” She maintains that the process of “putting your narrative together” (however, this is created) enables an individual “to find their voice” as they explore their life experiences and the meanings they attribute to them.

What is action learning?

Action learning can be described in simple terms as a cycle – planning, taking action and reflecting on the outcomes (intended and unintended). It is used worldwide in public, private and not-for profit organisations and communities to create positive change and empower people to be the best they can be. It can be undertaken by an individual by themselves (as I have done with my tennis playing over the years) or, more often, as part of a group or “action learning set”.

Creative Meetups and Action Learning

Creative Meetups and action learning have a core assumption in common. Alice Morgan expressed this well when she maintained that narrative therapy assumes that “people have many skills, competencies, beliefs, values, commitments and abilities” to resolve their own challenging situations – an assumption that underpins the process of Creative Meetups. This is also a fundamental assumption of action learning (AL).

Reg Revans, the “Father of Action Learning”, charged with improving the mining industry in the UK, got mining managers together to solve their “here and now problems” in the mines. He also got nurses in Intensive Care Units together to work on their challenging situations. In an action learning context, participants are often described as “personal scientists”. Some academics in universities, tied to the concept of universities as the sole repository of “expert knowledge”, had great difficulty accepting this core assumption and would actively oppose the uptake of action learning – it challenged their firmly held beliefs about knowledge creation and dissemination.

Creative Meetups and action learning have a number of other elements in common and, in the final analysis, both seek to create positive change in a situation (either individual or collective). Some of the shared elements are as follows:

Peer support – a fundamental principle is to treat each other as peers – with no acknowledged hierarchical difference. There is a recognition that we are “all in the same boat” – each facing challenging situations. Reg described this element as “comrades in adversity”; more recently, people have termed it “comrades in opportunity”. In essence, it involves providing mutual support irrespective of our work role, status, social position or experience level.
Collaboration – participants work together towards a common goal (e.g. health and healing or team improvement) and willingly share stores, resources, and insights for mutual benefit. People are unstinting in their sharing – often recommending or loaning books, highlighting helpful websites or identifying relevant expert people.
Don’t know mind – participants adopt a “don’t know mind”, not presuming to know and understand another person’s situation. Reg suggests that if you think you understand something fully, you are not only going to get yourself into trouble but other people as well. Adopting a don’t know mind – not jumping to conclusions or interrupting another’s story with your own (erroneously assuming they are same or similar) – enables a person to tell their story in an unfettered way, opening up the path to healing and recovery.
Honesty – the conscious exploration of what it means to be honest with oneself (owning up) and with others. This opens the way for improvement and change. The process of writing in Creative Meetups helps participants to identify false self-stories and unearth truer and richer stories that open up new avenues for their lives and their relationships. Action learning, too, enables the development of honesty. Reg, for example, recounts an action learning program involving industrial executives in Belgium who, after 18 months of action learning, identified “What is an honest man and what do I need to become one?” (they were all men) as the most significant question they wished they had asked at the start of the program. He maintained that the pathway to learning and change involves “admitting what you do not know”. Reg also maintained that if you are going to do “something significant about something imperative”, you will come up against how you define yourself and your role.
Reflection – reflection is assisted by writing and sharing. The more we reflect, the more it becomes a way of life. Frequent reflection-on-action can result in the ability to reflect-in-action. Reg suggests that reflection is best done in a group because when we reflect alone we can tend to reinforce our existing assumptions and maintain our blindspots. He argues for diversity in the reflective group – diversity of culture, nationality, profession and orientation (business/not-for-profit/community). The Creative Meetups provide a rich diversity in terms of location (participants are from different countries and cultures) and health/caring situation. Participants can gain insight gratuitously when others share their reflections from their different perspectives.
Questioning – the willingness and ability to ask “fresh question” to open upinsight into a challenging situation. Reg describes this as “questioning insight”. This approach involves “supportive challenge” – challenging assumptions to enable a person to be the best they can be. Alice Morgan highlights the role of questioning in narrative therapy because we can often develop negative self-stories. Both action learning and Creative Meetups (narrative therapy) cultivate curiosity.
Action taking – action learning involves learning through action undertaken with others where possible. Creative Meetups promote writing as taking action to become open to the healing power of storytelling. The writing can take any form, e.g. prose, poetry, dot points. Action is also reflected in the changes in behaviour undertaken by participants as a result of insights gained through writing and sharing.
Facilitation – to design and manage the process of sharing. In Creative Meetups, the facilitator provides stimulus material (e.g., a story, music or poem) to enable participants to write and share. In action learning, the facilitator guides the process of planning, acting, reflecting and sharing. In both situations, the facilitator is not a teacher. Their role is to create an environment that promotes safety, trust, openness and sharing – their metaprocess goal is to develop a learning community.

Creative Meetups, in promoting writing and reflection, are helping participants to grow in mindfulness which is described by MARC (UCLA) as “paying attention to present moment experiences with openness, curiosity and a willingness to be with what is”. Both action learning and mindfulness contribute to positive mental health because they increase self-awareness and heighten a sense of agency (belief in the capacity to have some control over our inner and outer environment). In cultivating mindfulness, both approaches help people to develop resilience, compassion and creativity.

Reflection

I initially joined the Meetups with a view to writing my stories in prose but have found that the stimulus provided by the discussions and my recent reading of Kim Rosen’s book, Saved by a Poem: The Transformative Power of Words, has led me to write several poems about my health story and the process of the Meetups. Kim’s identification of the transformative elements of a poem continues to provide a pathway for my poetic expression. I used her elements to analyse a poem I had written called For the Love of Tennis that enabled me to express my gratitude for being able to continue to play tennis despite a diagnosis of “multiple-level spinal degeneration”.

Following a recent Meetup, I unearthed my feelings about my chronic condition of food sensitivity/allergy resulting from Long Covid-induced Mast Cell Activation Syndrome. I was surprised about the intensity of my feelings of frustration and alienation that I had not previously given voice to. The poem, The Inflammatory Thread in My Life, provided a creative outlet and release for emotions I had kept “under wraps” and not expressed to anyone, including myself.

In a previous post, I shared a poem, Compassionate Listening, that I wrote following a Creative Meetup where the stimulus input included an excerpt from Joni Mitchell’s performance of Both Sides Now at the 2024 Grammy Awards. To me the poem reflects the stance of participants of the Creative Meetup in being able to engage in deep listening, provide active support of the storyteller and reflect back not only the feelings expressed but also the intensity of those feelings.

Compassionate listening strongly reflects the ethos of HSC where Healing Story Principals (such as Micheal Bischoff) sought to support people “to tell and listen to stories in ways that are healing, connected and empowering”. The support and connection underpinning Creative Meetups and action learning promote health and healing.

Reflecting on the process of Creative Meetups and my long-standing experience with action learning in multiple contexts, I was inspired to write the following poem:

Where is “There”?

When you share your innermost secrets

and I say, “I’ve been there!”,

where is “there”?

It’s not where you have been

with your unique experience and perception.

I’m not inside you looking out,

I’m outside you looking in.

It’s like the glimpse of the Bay

that I get from my back deck.

It’s not the Bay!

It’s only a tiny window

on a complex ecosystem.

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Image by Xavier Lavin Pino 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.

Deep Listening: A Lost Managerial Art

Managers report that many things act as barriers preventing them from listening effectively in the workplace. Distractions from external sources such as endless emails, busyness at work, noise from “open office environments” and time pressures, are high on the list as impediments. Managers also identify what can be described as internal barriers to listening – preconceptions about an individual staff member, assumptions about what the individual wants to talk about, anxiety when the speaker is sharing difficult emotions, and absorption with their own personal issues. Managers report, too, that they tend to try to solve problems before they really know what the employee’s problem is, interrupt people to tell their own stories and have difficulty maintaining their focus on a speaker when they are perceived to be “rambling on”.

Added to these difficulties experienced by managers is what Johann Hari describes as our “lost focus” – an ongoing decline in our ability to pay attention for any length of time because of the “fire hose” of information flooding our minds through emails, social media and news broadcasts. In his book, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention, he highlights our inability to stay-on-topic, be truly present and achieve flow. Research shows that our attention span is diminishing rapidly, making it all the more difficult for managers to engage in “deep listening”. In a recent podcast, Gloria Monk PhD drew on this research to explain “Why our attention spans are shrinking”.

The essence of deep listening

Joan Halifax, in her book, Standing at the Edge, describes deep listening as truly listening in the present moment with openness and curiosity. She explains that this requires us “to step out of self-absorption, self-deception, distractions” and move away “from the trance of our technological devices”. Joan maintains that deep listening involves “really hearing” someone else by listening “with body, heart, and mind”. In her words, it also involves being able to “listen past the filters of our personal history and our memories” – it involves self-lessness. Too often, we have to tell our stories to legitimate ourselves in the eyes of the other person.

Larissa Behrendt, in her novel After Story, has one of her characters describe deep listening as “listening with respect” – not trying to hurry the other person to finish, paying full attention without interrupting the speaker. She reinforces the need to be “ready to listen” – “to prepare the space and listen” so that you can take in the wisdom of the speaker and the story they have to tell. Larissa, Distinguished Professor of Indigenous Studies and Research at UTS, maintains that deep listening has its origins in the ancient cultural ways known as Winanga-Li, where “the silences are as powerful as the words”.

Deep listening for Richard Wolf, author of In Tune: Music as a Bridge to Mindfulness, occurs when we “not only hear music but feel it”. This involves feeling the music “with your body and soul”. For Richard, music can help the listener/musician overcome internal barriers to listening by “filtering out” distorting elements such as biases, prejudices, blind-spots and false assumptions.

Benefits of deep listening

There are many benefits from deep listening that accrue to the listener as well as the person being listened to. I have summarised some of the key benefits that are identified in literature that I have been reading lately:

Facilitating the healing power of storytelling: deep listening enables a person to share their story of pain, suffering and trauma. Annie Brewster details the way this can happen in her book, The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma and Loss. It is because of the healing power of storytelling that Annie has established the Health Story Collaborative. Jana Pittman, in her biography Enough: accept yourself just the way you are, highlights the destructive impact of keeping painful things bottled up – you can lose yourself. As someone who has experienced deep pain and suffering – through three miscarriages, a marriage breakdown, media taunting and bullying, “a cervical cancer scare”, multiple injuries destroying her Olympic Dream, battling with financial difficulties and an eating disorder – Jana can readily attest to the healing power that facing her pain and sharing her story has provided her. She maintains that running away from pain can be a “heavy burden” because “bottling it up” is like “carrying it round like a ball and chain”. By facing her pain, embracing it and sharing it, she has found a new release to achieve even greater goals; the alternative, avoidance strategy, “leaves you with a whole lot of defensive walls and only a short ladder”. Larissa Behrendt, in her After Story novel, has one of her characters comment that there is “strength in saying things” because “it’s like a curtain being lifted”.
Achieving resonance: `Ginny Whitelaw, innovator in leadership development, contends that leadership is about achieving resonance with followers, and that it is through listening that leaders capture the energy of followers and thus focus and amplify the collective energy of a team. She explains her underlying principles, and supporting neuroscience, in her book, Resonate: Zen and the Way of Making a Difference. Deep listening for Ginny involves getting on the “same wavelength”, instead of “talking past” the other person. This means, in effect, that energy vibrations of the leader and follower become aligned and therefore amplified. The sensitivity involved in such deep listening changes the listener and enables healing of the storyteller.
Developing empathy: Joan Halifax contends that deep listening develops empathy, motivates compassionate action and obviates self-absorption. She provides examples of deep listening in her book, Standing at the Edge, while recognising that empathy is an “Edge State” – that can lead to significant personal and social contributions, but potentially lead to “empathic distress”. This latter downside of deep listening and the attendant empathic feelings can arise where a person is unable to separate themselves from the sufferer – they effectively “own” the other’s suffering. In her book, Joan describes situations where she has experienced empathic distress, however momentarily, and offers ways to overcome this other-absorption, including her G.R.A.C.E. technique.

Ways to develop deep listening

There are multiple ways to develop deep listening and, like any art, “practise makes perfect”. However, we each have our personal and historical impediments to achieving deep listening at any point in time. Actively working to cultivate deep listening can be very beneficial for ourselves and others we interact with on a daily basis. Several authors suggest different ways to develop deep listening (apart from consciously practising it in the present moment):

Sounds as an anchor in meditation: meditation often involves choosing an anchor that can enable us to re-focus once we experience distractions during meditation. While our breath is often used as an anchor, sounds can be an alternative. Richard Wolf suggests that focusing in on the sounds of our breath along with the gap between breaths, can effectively cultivate deep listening. We can also tune into our environment, including what he describes as the “room tone”. Richard also encourages the development of “dual awareness” where we not only focus on the sounds of our breath but also become consciously aware of our associated bodily sensations.
Music to quiet the “inner voice”: Richard maintains that playing a musical instrument or listening to music can cultivate deep listening because of the sustained concentration required. You are effectively training yourself to tune into the music (by fully attending to the sounds) and experiencing the music emotionally and bodily. Richard argues that the concentration required quiets the self-critical inner voice and prevents contamination by our “cognitive limitations”. He contends that music enables us to achieve an alignment of mind, body and emotion. Richard suggests that playing an instrument for others not only develops deep listening for the musician but also provides a “stunning variety of sonic, emotional and musical elements” for a discerning audience – a catalyst for deep listening on their part. One can readily picture a young child dancing in a totally uninhibited way to music played by a street performer who is totally absorbed in his or her art.
Tuning into nature: nature provides silence and unique sounds that enable us to experience our interconnectedness to everything, including people who are attempting to gain a “hearing”. Gordon Hempton reminds us that silence in nature does not mean the absence of sounds but “an acoustic state, free of intrusions of modern, man-made noise”. Gordon has recorded his journey as an activist for nature’s “silence” in his book, One Square Inch of Silence: One Man’s Quest to Preserve Quiet. Through his work as a sound recordist and an acoustic ecologist, he has encouraged people to heighten their auditory awareness of the unique “soundtracks” that surround us in nature and to observe “the quiet between the notes” (so that we can better appreciate the value of silence and stillness). Gordon’s crusade for silence and listening to nature is mirrored in the work of Christine Jackman, author of Turning Down the Noise: The Quiet Power of Silence in a Busy World. In a chapter on nature, she highlights the healing power of nature and the need to tune into nature to reduce our “emotional inflammation” and regain our capacity to be quiet and listen. Like Gordon, she contends that when we listen to nature “our listening horizon extends”. Polar photographer, Camille Seaman, maintains that spending time in the stillness and silence of nature “dissolves the veil of separateness” and increases our understanding of, and respect for, our connectedness.
Adopting a “not Knowing” mindset: Joan Halifax recommends cultivating a “beginner’s mind” – the stance of “not knowing”. She maintains that we can never really know and understand the complex mix of emotions another person is experiencing, or the precursor events at different points in their life, or the unique interplay of triggers that were the catalyst for their current psychosomatic state. This perspective accords with the advice of Frank Ostaseski to cultivate a don’t know mind. Robert Wilder discusses the challenges and benefits of living a “not knowing” life in his podcast, The Not-Know-It-All: The Struggle of Not Knowing.
Reflective practice: reflection on our communication experiences can help us to gain insight into the barriers we put in the way of deep listening. If we are honest in our reflections, we can improve our awareness of our habituated behaviours (such as interrupting others) that act as blockages to our deep listening. I have posted a sample of questions for reflection on personal interactions in a previous post.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness by spending time observing and listening in nature, reflecting on our interactions, meditating on internal and external sounds and undertaking other mindfulness practices, we can gain awareness of our personal impediments to developing the art of deep listening. For me, some of these impediments are a tendency to deflect the conversation when emotions become intense (on either side of the conversation), to divert the conversation to my own story or to demonstrate knowledge and experience to prop up my sense of self-worth or external credibility.

A further reflection (25 August 2023)

Reflecting on my behaviour when interrupting somenone’s conversation, I realise that sometimes I come from an “I know” position, not a “don’t know” perspective. I feel I have to explain that I have experienced (directly or indirectly) what they are talking about, read about it or heard someone else talking about it. The net effect is that I don’t reflect back the communicated emotions and divert the conversation onto my issue and away from challenging emotions. I wonder whether this habituated behaviour has resulted from my academic background (the need to be seen to know).

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Image by Monika Iris 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.

Living at the Edge: Empathy

Joan Halifax author, Buddhist teacher, anthropologist and Zen priest has written a profound book on what she calls the “Edge States” – “five internal and interpersonal states” that she maintains are the foundation of compassionate action and living a courageous life. They are described by her as “Edge States” because they can lead to positive living and constructive social contribution or become harmful and cause damage to others. Joan describes the Edge States in her book, Standing at the Edge: Finding Freedom Where Fear and Courage Meet. Her book covers each of the five edge states in detail – altruism, respect, integrity, engagement and empathy. In this blog post, I will address Joan’s views on empathy as an Edge State.

Empathy vs Compassion

Joan contends that empathy is not compassion. In her words, empathy is “feeling into” another – experiencing their pain and suffering. Compassion, on the other hand, is not only “feeling for” another but aspiring to take some form of action that will be of benefit to the person you are feeling for – this can be any form of compassionate action. Empathy underpins compassion and is a necessary internal state if we are to avoid becoming totally self-absorbed, small-minded or even narcissistic.

Three forms of empathy – somatic, emotional and cognitive

Joan describes three forms of empathy and illustrates them from her own life experience. The first of these is somatic empathy – where resonance with another’s suffering or pain is felt in some form of bodily manifestation. It can take the form of a strong physical sensation such as feeling punched in the stomach, feeling faint or being unsteady. Joan mentions that somatic empathy can occur on a regular basis between people who are close or in frequent contact. She mentions, for example, the uncanny ability of her mountain guide/minder in the Himalayas who became so “physically attuned” to her that he could sense if she was about to fall over and catch her to prevent it happening. Joan indicated that some people are hypersensitive to the somatic experience of others and she mentioned Dr. Joel Salinas who has what is called “mirror-touch synesthesia” – an extreme form of somatic identification that he has to consciously manage for his own preservation and the benefit of his patients.

Emotional empathy, the second form of empathy described by Joan, involves sharing the emotions being experienced by another person – becoming “inhabited by another’s feelings”. When emotional empathy is at a healthy level, it can help us to be more caring, more conscious of connectedness to others and more willing to take compassionate action. However, if we become too closely identified with the emotions of others we can tip over the edge into personal distress, burnout and “blunting” (a state where we no longer “feel for” others as a way to protect ourselves).

The third form of empathy described by Joan is cognitive empathy. This is explained in terms of “perspective taking” – in other words inhabiting the mindset or mind view of another, often described as “standing in another’s shoes”. Again this form of empathy can be enabling for ourselves as well as others or lead to our being captured by another’s way of seeing the world (as in cults or the experience of the German people at the time of Hitler). People’s propensity to adopt another’s world view can be used as a form of manipulation. However, when employed positively it involves attunement to another leading to a form of resonance. Joan illustrates this in describing an experience of being confronted by an angry Algerian soldier at the Algeria-Mali border when she was on an archaeological trip by herself. Her ability to take on his perspective, instead of “othering” him and viewing herself as a victim, enabled her to gain safe passage. Joan also recounts the story of Lieutenant Colonel Hughes and his instructions to his troops in Iraq near the holy Imam Ali Mosque to “take a knee” (and point their rifles to the ground) as a form of successful perspective taking that saved many lives when the troops were confronted by an angry crowd (who misunderstood the American’s intentions).

Over the edge – empathic distress

Empathic distress occurs when we become too identified – somatically, emotionally and/or cognitively – with another person’s suffering or pain. We lose the capacity to separate ourselves from the other person’s experience and in the process become disoriented and unbalanced. Joan describes a number of situations where she was on the edge of empathic distress but was able to recognise her response for what it was and pull back from the edge.

In one situation, involving a young girl with severe burns who had been carried by her father to the Upaya Nomads Medical Clinic in Nepal, Joan found that her own heart rate was racing and dropping, her breath was “shallow and rapid” and her skin became “cold and clammy”. She was momentarily overwhelmed with her perception of the little girl’s suffering and pain. Joan indicated that at the time her “hyper-attunement ” with the child was causing her to spiral out of control and into deep distress physically (almost fainting) and emotionally. Fortunately, through her social engagement activities (including being with the dying), she was able to draw on a process to help her restore her balance and control.

Moving away from the empathic edge – overcoming empathic distress

Joan was able to draw on a process she had developed to help people move from empathy to compassion, to move away from the edge represented by empathic distress. Her process involves the mnemonic, GRACE. This stands for:

G – gathering our attention by refocusing on our breath or our feet on the ground (restoring our groundedness)
R – recalling (bringing to mind again) our intention for being with the other person in their situation
A – attuning to ourself and the other – being fully aware of our own bodily sensations and what the other person is demonstrating (in the case of the little girl, this was resilience).
C – considering how we can serve in the situation without taking control over others or pursuing our own needs
E – engagement and disengagement –adopting an appropriate means of engagement (e.g. engaging in a loving-kindness meditation focused on the other’s wellbeing) and being able to end the interaction when desirable to do so.

Joan makes the point that if we learn to identify empathic distress, we will be better able to manage our responses and restore our balance instead of experiencing burnout, with its physical, emotional and moral degradation. She likens empathic distress to vicarious suffering and highlights the fact that people in the helping professions and caregivers are prone to experiencing this depleted state.

Developing empathy

Joan describes four practices that support the development of empathy – attuning to our bodily sensations, (e.g., body scan), deep listening, stewarding empathy and “rehumanization”. Her description of deep listening is especially insightful and demonstrates her willingness to be with another person fully. She maintains that “really hearing another person requires us to listen with body, heart and mind” while being aware of how our personal experiences and recollections can act as filters, thus distorting the message of the other person. By stewarding empathy, Joan means that we have to be able to cope with the dilemma of our life – that we are both connected to everyone and, at the same time, separate – we cannot become totally identified with the other or we lose ourselves in the process. This requires practice and the GRACE approach is one way to develop this capacity. Lastly, rehumanization according to the work of John Paul Lederach, involves adopting a moral stance “to see the other as a person first, to see ourselves in others, and to recognise our common humanity”.

Reflection

I have experienced empathic distress on a number of occasions. In one particular instance, I was driving across the Story Bridge in Brisbane when I heard a woman on the radio talking about her suffering and grief. I can’t recall the detail of the story but I became more and more strongly identified with her emotions. I can clearly recall my somatic empathy in the form of a sense of dizziness and disorientation while driving. Fortunately, I intuitively knew to turn off the radio and refocus my attention on the act of driving the car and paying attention to the road and traffic.

On other occasions, I have experienced hyper-attunement to someone who is suffering extreme stress from working for a narcissistic manager. Because I have been involved in directly helping a manager and their unit in such a situation, I have great difficulty stopping myself from taking on another’s distress and suffering when they are in a similar situation.

Joan’s GRACE model will be particularly helpful for me in the future. As I grow in mindfulness through mindfulness meditation, reflection and mantra meditations, I can increase my self-awareness of when I am experiencing empathic distress and have the insight and courage to adopt the GRACE model so that I do not fall over the empathic edge.

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Image by Mirosław i Joanna Bucholc 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.

Being Mindful of Breathing

The upgrade version of the Nature Summit provides a number of meditation podcasts that offer a range of guided meditations. In one of these, Mark Coleman – meditation teacher, coach, and therapist – leads a guided meditation on the Mindfulness of Breathing. This is one of three meditations that he offers as an upgrade bonus that normally make up his CD meditation series, The Art of Mindfulness: Meditations for Awareness, Insight, Relaxation and Peace. Mark is a co-founder of The Mindfulness Training Institute and the Nature Summit.

A guided meditation on the mindfulness of breathing

Mark’s meditation on breathing begins with encouraging you to adopt a comfortable position and become conscious of the pressure of your feet on the floor.

He then provides a series of mindfulness activities designed to heighten awareness of breathing and its beneficial effects on mind and body. His instructions for this mindful breathing practice are below:

Begin with a light body scan checking for, and releasing, any point of tension. You can scan the more common places of tension – your shoulders, neck muscles, face and eye muscles, feet and ankles. I find that typically my shoulders are raised and tense, so I have to learn to let go at this stage of the meditation.
You can now focus on an area of your body where you can sense your breathing – it could be the flow of air in and out of your nose, the undulation of your chest or the rise and fall of your abdomen. Try to pay attention to your breath and how you are experiencing it – fast or slow, deep or shallow, long or short. The idea is not to try to control your breath but just observe how it is for you.
Mark suggests that once you have been able to focus on a location of your experience of breathing that you take time to pay full attention to the in-breath and then the out-breath – just focusing on how they are occurring.
You can then move on to observing the gap or silence between your in-breath and your out-breath – lengthening the gap if you desire. Mark notes that during this stage of the breathing meditation (or one of the earlier stages) it is normal to be beset with distractions from your focus on breathing – images, emotions, planning, questioning, going over the past or thinking about the future. He suggests that when you notice a distraction, name it for what it is without self-criticism and return to your focus. He maintains that noticing the distraction and its nature in the moment is actually an act of mindfulness (paying attention on purpose in the present moment and doing so non-judgmentally). By naming the type of distraction, you may actually observe a pattern in your distracted thinking (mine is typically “planning”).
If strong bodily sensations arise, you can put attention on breath in the background while you deal with the sensation such as pain, tingling or soreness. Similarly, if a strong emotion occurs, you can temporarily focus on it, name the emotion, and explore its bodily manifestation. Mark suggests that you avoid letting your thinking about the emotion take over but stick with its actual physical manifestation. Thoughts can reinforce an emotion, embed it more deeply and make it difficult to return to your focus on breathing.

Variations on the theme of mindfulness of breathing

Richard Wolf, author of In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness, discusses the practice of “rhythmic breathing” when exploring the interplay between music and mindfulness. He also offers several breathing practices that involve breathing in-time to music beats such as 4/4 or ¾ time. He suggests that you can develop this further by adopting what he calls the “four-bar sequence” – basically alternating inhalation and exhalation with holding your breath and doing each aspect for the equivalent of four bars.

Richard encourages us to not only observe our breathing closely but notice its sonic qualities as well. He maintains that the process of conscious breathing is a meditative practice that builds mindfulness. He argues that regular practice of breathing meditation linked to music can help us to develop “deep listening”, a skill that underpins quality relationships.

Reflection

Our breath is with us in every moment and by paying attention to our breathing in the ways suggested, we can become more grounded in the present and less disturbed by ups and downs of life. As we grow in self-awareness through breathing meditations, we can deepen our self-awareness and emotional regulation and being more fully present to others through improved concentration and deep listening.

Mark extends the practice of mindful breathing and deep listening beyond our room to outside in nature and the wild. He offers free daily nature meditations as well as Awake in the Wild Teacher Training. He is the author of A Walk in the Wild: A Buddhist Walk through Nature – Meditations, Reflections and Practices.

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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.

Befriending Yourself and Others through Mindfulness

Allyson Pimentel in a recent MARC weekly podcast spoke about the power of meditation to enable us to befriend ourselves and others. Her guided meditation is titled, Meditation as a Path of Friendship. The meditation does not focus on self-improvement per se but on how to improve our relationship with ourselves, a relationship which impacts on our interactions with others. If we are down on ourselves, for instance, it is difficult to be open and accepting of others. When we are not at ease with ourselves, it is easy to be envious of others and resentful towards them.

Befriending yourself in meditation

Being kind to yourself in meditation begins with such simple things as ensuring that you adopt a comfortable position during the meditation, whether lying down, sitting, or standing. It also involves undertaking a body scan to identify tense points in your body and to relax them.

Allyson suggests that you begin initially with a slow deep breath to help relax your body and open yourself to relaxing breath meditation. This form of meditation entails focusing on your in-breath and your out-breath without any attempt to control them – just letting them be, while observing how they feel in your body with the rise and fall of your abdomen or chest or the smooth passage of air in your nose. It involves appreciating that no matter what is going on around you or where you are, your breathing-on-auto is keeping you alive.

Jon Kabat-Zinn stresses the need to be non-judgmental when we are purposely in the present moment while meditating. He suggests that self-acceptance begins with acknowledging that as human beings, we are constantly engaged in thinking – whether planning, analysing, criticising, judging, or evaluating. The act of thinking is perfectly human, and we can befriend ourselves by accepting that we will have distracting thoughts when we are trying to focus during meditation. However, by constantly returning to our meditation focus, our anchor, we can progressively build up our attention muscle.

This refocusing requires us to notice that we are planning or evaluating, to name what is happening (“I’m evaluating again”) and to observe our thoughts as passing clouds, not entertaining them or dwelling on them. This simple process of refocusing (that is hard to do) is a way to befriend ourselves through self-acceptance, to value ourselves enough to want to increase our capacity to pay attention and concentrate (to activate our highest potential) and to free ourselves from negative self-judgment.

Allyson suggests that you can befriend yourself by choosing an anchor that is comfortable for you and that does not trigger any negative physical or emotional reactions. Each one of us has our own preference for an anchor – whether it is our breathing; sounds within our room or externally; or some form of bodily sensation such as the sensation of warmth and tingling as our fingers are touching or the feeling of being supported as our feet are firmly on the ground or floor.

Our anchor helps us to develop the capacity to be in the present moment, appreciate what is good in our life and grow in mindfulness – being increasingly self-aware, better able to manage our difficult emotions, becoming more patient and tolerant, and learning to accept what is. As we develop self-forgiveness and self-care, we can experience ease and tranquillity and become more sensitive to the needs of others.

Befriending others

The more we can befriend ourselves through meditation, the better we are able to befriend others. We will be more aware of our own limitations and more accepting of those of other people, better able to control our reactions to the words and actions of others, more willing to listen and build relationships and more able to find joy in the achievement of others (rather than envy).

Through meditation we develop a deeper sense of our connectedness, of our common humanity. We also begin to appreciate the importance of connectedness for our mental health and wellbeing, as well as for that of others. We can see in others what we value in ourselves – including our common appreciation of nature and all it has to offer for our well-being.

Reflection

As we develop self-compassion, our compassion for others also grows and we become more willing to take compassionate action, including deep listening in times of another’s need. Self-understanding and self-acceptance, developed through meditation and other mindfulness practices, are foundational to befriending ourselves and others.

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

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

Using Imagery to Handle Difficult Situations

Diana Winston in the last MARC meditation podcast of 2020 provided a guided meditation on Handling Difficult Situations with Wisdom and Compassion. She uses imagery for the guided meditation – a process she has used previously for a kindness meditation. However, the focal image differs in the two meditations – the current meditation involves picturing a wise, compassionate person while the previous one involved the image of a “kindness pond”. At the outset of the difficult situation meditation, Diana encourages you to envisage the mediation as an “inner oasis”, a refuge in times of stress.

Guided meditation on handling difficult situations

Difficult situations can be many and varied – e.g., a close relative suffering from dementia, conflict in the family, falling out with a partner or friend, personal illness or chronic pain, serious financial loss or job loss. The starting point is to accept what is – not disowning it but being prepared to be with what is happening without judgment, recrimination, or resentment.

Diana suggests that you begin the meditation with a couple of deep breaths – using the exhale phase to release any build-up of tension (this could involve multiple deep breaths if your tension is very high). The grounding phase of the meditation focuses strongly on posture and the sensation of being supported – by the chair, the floor, and the ground. This initial postural focus enables you to become grounded in stillness and silence.

Moving beyond the initial focus, you can re-focus on your bodily sensations and your emotions. Diana leads you in a simple body scan looking for particular points of tension such as in your back, arms, or shoulders, so that you can progressively release what is holding you back.

Once you have achieved some level of groundedness in stillness and silence, you can focus on an anchor of your choice. It could be observing your breathing, listening to sounds internal and/or external to your space, or paying attention to the sensation in your feet or when your fingers from each hand are touching. The anchor serves as a home base whenever distracting thoughts intervene and capture your attention.

Introducing imagery into your guided meditation

Diana suggests that you focus on the image of a person you consider the wisest and most compassionate person you know (or know of). It could be a current or past mentor, a health professional, or the Dalai Lama – the choice is yours.

Once you have a person in mind, you think about what advice they would give you in relation to your current difficulty – “what would they suggest that you do or say?” For example, when I did this meditation what came to me was the need to listen more and interrupt less as a way to help another person who was experiencing considerable difficulties on a health and work front. Deep listening is perhaps the kindest think you can do for a person in difficulty – it is a way to develop empathy and compassion.

The final stage of the meditation involves asking your imagined wise and compassionate person for a gift. In my case, for example, I asked for patience, kindness, and sensitivity to the needs of others who are experiencing difficult situations.

Reflection

Imagery for people who are visuals can be a powerful way into profound meditation. We can all enhance our perception and capacity for imagination by developing our visual intelligence. One of the challenges in this meditation is to avoid becoming embroiled in re-living the difficult situation rather than maintaining attention and focus on achieving wise and compassionate action.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, we will become better able to draw on a range of mindfulness practices to deal with difficult situations and approach them with both wisdom (through in-depth understanding) and compassion towards ourselves. The benefits of doing so include realising peace and tranquility amid the turbulence, accessing our creativity to achieve wise action, and extending empathy and compassionate action to others in need.

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

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

Developing Inner Silence through Sound Meditations and Music

Christine Jackman describes silence as the space in which one was “free to breathe and simply be”. It is a space without speaking or being spoken to. In the context of mindfulness, silence does not mean the absence of sound, just the absence of unwanted inner and outer noise – freedom from the noise pollution of our minds and of a busy world. It is a refuge – a place of retreat from inner chatter and outer noise. In stillness and silence, we can find inner peace and tranquility.

Sound and mindfulness

Many mindfulness practices involve being still and listening to sounds, either the room tone or external sounds from wind, rain, birds, or other sounds. The aim of these practices is to maintain focus on sound and keep our minds free from other distractions. Sound meditations can strengthen our concentration and listening skills and contribute to our overall well-being. Sound can also be provided as an anchor for people involved in trauma-sensitive mindfulness.

What we are aiming to achieve in sound-based mindfulness practices is an inner silence and harmony – turning off self-stories, negative thoughts, interpretations, or projections. Basically, it involves tuning out of the inner dialogue by tuning into sound. We strengthen our awareness muscle when we are able to return to our inner silence and focus whenever distracting thoughts occur.

Music as a pathway to inner silence

Christine Jackman, in her book Turning Down the Noise, describes her search for “the quiet power of silence” in her busy world. She found inner silence in a number of places, including while participating in Vespers in a Benedictine Monastery – an evening prayer that is recited or sung.

Another form of ecclesiastical music, Gregorian Chant, has developed over many years by monastic orders dedicated to prayer and silence as a way to develop inner silence – the focus on singing meaningful phrases to the sound of monotonal music serves to shut out distractions and build inner peace and harmony.

Mantra meditations often employ a musical instrument (e.g., a drum or guitar) together with chanting long-established phrases that evoke positive emotions such as peace, harmony, relationships, or connectedness to nature or a higher being. Repetition of the lyrics enables a deeper penetration into the meaning of the words that are sung mindfully and facilitates a deepening inner silence and tranquility.

The silence between the notes

Richard Wolf, author of In Tune: Music as the Bridge to Mindfulness, identified what he called “12 bridges to mindfulness” created by music. These include deep listening and “sympathetic vibrations”. Richard argues that music is a key to inner silence, one of the bridges to mindfulness. He makes the point that silence is embedded in music – music notations for the duration of a note are matched by “an equal notation for the duration of silence” between the notes. He mentions Miles Davis’ emphasis on the “connection between the role of silence in music and in life”.

Some music composers pay particular attention to silence within their compositions. Richard refers, for example, to the work of John Cage and his important piece of music, 4’33”, in which the pianist begins by not playing but sitting still for 4 minutes 33 seconds as a way of “drawing the audience’s attention to the process of listening itself”. This engenders a particular form of participation whereby the audience through their silence become part of the performance.

Reflection

This blog post was stimulated by a conversation I had with a musician friend of mine who played the guitar professionally, both as an individual and as a member of a band. We had been discussing music and mindfulness when he mentioned a story about how he had become distracted during a performance. He was playing guitar with his group on a footpath outside a building when a car pulled up and two men hopped out of the car and headed towards the musicians. My friend immediately began to think, “Are they going to disturb us?” or “Are they interested in the music?”

As he thought about the possibilities, he became mentally distracted, lost his place in the music, and played some wrong notes. Up until the distraction, his band was exhibiting some of the characteristics identified by Richard Wolf as bridges to mindfulness , e.g., concentration, harmony, and sympathetic vibration. However, as a result of regular music practice, my friend was able to restore his focus and catch up with the music and his other band members very quickly.

The positive influence between mindfulness and music is bi-directional – it operates in both directions. As we grow in mindfulness, our capacity to play music, sing and listen deeply, develops; as we play music, practise playing and sing, we can grow in mindfulness because music can provide the bridge to inner silence. Mindfulness practice and music practice both build our power of concentration, our awareness muscle, our ability to achieve resonance with others, and our overall well-being. Richard highlights the positive impact of inner silence on our relationships when he writes, The ability to silence the inner voice creates the conditions for truly hearing the voices of others.

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

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

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.

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

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

Transformation through Meditation

Sohini Trehan writes about the transformative powers of a particular form of meditation – Bija Mantra. This form of meditation uses specific sounds or mantras aligned to the seven chakras of the body. Sohini suggests that the literal meaning of “mantra” is “to liberate one’s mind” and mantra meditations serve to “create transformation”. She states that the emerging research in psychoacoustics reinforces the “vibrational energy” of sound and its healing power for mind, body and emotions.

In a previous post, we discussed the experience of Tina Malia and her emergence from her “dark night of the soul” through the transformative power of Japa – in her case, the combination of the Ram mantra with the use of beads. Tina spoke of her transformation from a total loss of meaning to a deep well of energy and creativity. Some experts believe that the depth of depression experienced in the dark night of the soul is what is necessary to achieve a truly deep transformation.

This transformation occurs because the depth of depression derives from the fact that we become detached from our meaning anchors – all our constructs about meaning break down so that things like material success, being seen to be competent or creative or becoming famous or popular, cease to have meaning anymore. As a result, we have to search inside ourselves for something deeper and more meaningful – a true purpose to our lives. This purpose does not have to be ground-breaking or earthshattering – it has to be aligned to our specific life experience and our real gifts and contribute to something greater than ourselves.

Meditation brings true peace and transforms suffering

In an interview with Oprah, Thich Nhat Hahn maintained that meditation brings true peace, even in the midst of the turbulent waves of life. He also stated that meditation develops compassion which, in turn, “transforms suffering in you and the other person”. He suggested that what is needed is deep listening for understanding, what he calls “compassionate listening” – listening without judgment. By being fully present to the other person, we can enable them to release their pain and suffering. In the process, we come to understand their perspective and deepen our understanding of our own perspective.

Mindfulness meditation dramatically increases our response ability so that we are not overcome by difficult emotions, chained by resentment or captured by envy. Meditation transforms reactivity into a positive way to respond – overcoming our habituated way of reacting and developing our power and energy. Likewise, as Rick Hanson argues, meditation can transform fear into resilience.

Reflection

It is so easy to undervalue the transformative power of meditation because we often adopt a piecemeal approach to developing the habit of meditation. The real transformative benefits of meditation are experienced when it is practiced daily over an extended period. This requires discipline and a sound appreciation of the power of meditation to transform our lives, our happiness and our energy. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation (especially mantra meditation) and mindfulness practices throughout our day, we will experience the pervasive effect of meditation on our lives. As Oprah commented to Thich Nhat Hahn, other people will feel calm just by being in our presence.

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

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

How to Maintain Mental and Emotional Balance When Physically Isolated

Previously I have spoken about mindfulness practices as a way to handle the mental and emotional challenges inherent in the current Coronavirus and the imposition of social isolation and social distancing. What I have covered there is a list of discrete practices that can help us to manage the overwhelm associated with these times of uncertainty and anxiety. Arjuna Ardagh, author of Radical Brilliance: How and Why People Have Original Life Changing Ideas, offers a more holistic approach that recognises the mind-body connection. His tips on maintaining emotional and mental wellness are mutually reinforcing and place the body as central to emotional and mental stability in our current environment.

A holistic approach to mental and emotional wellbeing

Arjuna highlighted some of the unproductive and potentially aggravating practices that people are engaging in to release tension and stress at this time, e.g. spending many hours on social media and indulging in the blame game and conspiracy thinking or turning to alcohol or drugs to numb the mind and distract from the fear and anxiety that people are feeling. He suggests that this current pandemic challenge provides us with an unprecedented opportunity to develop self-intimacy and learn to change our mental and emotional state through holistic practices.

In his short tips video (17 minutes), Arjuna proposes four integrated approaches or types of practices that are designed to strengthen the mind-body connection while releasing negative energy and building positivity:

Removing physical blockages – this entails elements such as stretching and moving emotion though your body. Arjuna suggests that you identify and practice a physical expression of the emotion that you are feeling, e.g. fear may be experienced bodily as a curled-up posture and then released through stretching to one’s full height. Frustration, on the other hand, might be expressed by an angry, explosive gesture and a prolonged cry of anguish such as “Aargh”. This bodily approach releases inhibiting emotions locked away in your body and opens the way for developing a “positive disposition”.
Relax into awareness – this can take many forms such as somatic meditation, the use of singing bowls as described in a MARC podcast, exploring natural awareness (opening to the infinite reality that is accessible through our senses), or deep listening to classical music, singing of mantra meditations or “sacred acoustics”. Arjuna maintains that all that is really required here is to be “naturally curious” about the sensations that you are experiencing in the present moment (including awareness of the fact that YOU are doing the experiencing).
Enter the flow – this approach involves engaging the flow of energy through your body. There are a range of Eastern practices that can help you achieve this but one of the best and well-researched practices is Tai Chi. Arjuna asserts that if you can engage in the process of flow (even through dancing to music), you not only release energy throughout your body but also emotion – you can experience the joy and ease of wellbeing.
Use thought creatively – Arjuna suggests that after you have removed blockages, experienced deep awareness and engaged your energy flow, you are well placed to engage your uncluttered mind. So, instead of marinating in negative thoughts that generate complex and harmful emotions, you can begin to write creatively in a journal or blog or create a video podcast that reflects your positive, energetic flow.

Arjuna maintains that if you practice each of these approaches each day, however briefly and in whatever form you choose, you can release the hold of your complex emotions and develop emotional and mental wellness.

Reflection

Arjuna’s approach involves a progressive release of creative energy, moving from clearing blockages to engaging the senses in awareness and tapping into the energy flow of the body. The outcome is creative expression and resolution of perceived, impenetrable challenges. His approach is deeply embedded in the mind-body connection and employs integrated approaches that open up a wealth of possibilities. As we grow in mindfulness through adopting these holistic practices, we can more readily access our creativity, build resilience, manage our confounding thoughts and emotions and experience the peace and ease of wellness.

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

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