Frank Ostaseski – Grow Mindfulness

On Death and Dying

Elise Esther Hearst, in her novel exposing the day-to-day reality of people experiencing inter-generational trauma, makes the unequivocal statement in the title of her book, One day we’re all going to die. This is an undeniable aspect of the human condition. Buddhists remind us of the impermanence of everything and the need to prepare ourselves for the inevitable reality of our dying and death. They strongly urge us to savour the preciousness of life and nature and to meditate on death.

The recent Death and Wisdom Summit offered free recently is now available on a paid, upgrade basis. During the Summit, a number of presenters addressed the issue of preparing for dying and death. They shared the lessons from their own research and work in the hospice arena and in providing grief counselling. One of the keynote speakers Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations: Discover What Death Can Teach Us About Living Life Fully, spoke of the similarities between dying and meditation.

Similarities between the dying process and meditation

In an interview with Steve Heilig, Frank shared his lessons about living from accompanying over 1,000 people in the dying process. In the Death and Wisdom Summit, he focused on sharing his personal insights into the similarities between the dying process and meditation or other spiritual practices such as retreats. Frank, himself, had been a meditation practitioner over many years.

Frank identified the following aspects as similarities between the dying process and meditation:

Withdrawal from daily life – there is a peeling back of identity and a re-focus on the present moment and experience. Roles and ego identity are stripped away – the face we present to the world is no longer needed or relevant. In dying, as with meditation, distractions are reduced, habituated responses removed and other parts of our life are left behind, including our wide circle of friends. We are either left alone or engage, sometimes silently, with an intimate few.
Breaking down of conventional boundaries – there is a move away from duality towards wholeness. Elements previously experienced as separate are gradually integrated – such as mind and body, I and others. On a different level, the barrier between persona (projected or perceived ideal image) and the shadow (the unconscious, emotional blind spot) is broken down. So someone who is normally gentle and soft-spoken can suddenly appear as aggressive and loud (or vice versa). The shadow can emerge from behind the mask as the unconscious seeps into conscious life.
Increasing silence and appreciation of being silent – there is new-found comfort with, and valuing of, silence. People can experience a coma-like state before dying and, as a result, savour the silence. Frank noted, for example, that one person who emerged from a brief coma before dying stated, “If I had known that quiet was so beautiful, I would have spent a lot more time in silence”. There is a gradual process of “turning down the noise” – both the external interactions and the internal dialogue. There is an emergent clarity about our inner landscape.
The realisation of ordinariness – the progressive acceptance that we are all subject to the human condition, there is awareness that there is a naturally occurring “unfolding” of causes and conditions. This leads to humility and a sense that we are “no better or worse than anyone else” – we are all conditioned by our humanity and its fragility, its foibles and its impermanence. It can lead to the breaking down of “constructed protection” that results in “self-limiting identity”, thus allowing a fuller, more humane identity to emerge.
Emergence of a state of “not knowing” – a recognition that our fixed ideas about ourself, other people and the world around us are limited and limiting. Not knowing frees us to embrace the unknown and the uncertainty of death. Frank notes that “we all carry stories about our death” and these not only “shape the way we die” but also can shape how we live and love. Self-stories can blind us and their progressive release in meditation and dying can create openness to emergent possibilities.
Surrender – flows from “not knowing” and often follows a state of exhaustion. Frank describes it as a form of expansion, moving beyond our limiting self-stories to a “kind of spaciousness”. It is beyond struggling, beyond fighting with ourselves and our death and beyond acceptance.

Frank was adamant that “surrender” was not the same as “acceptance” and was “infinitely deeper than acceptance”. He explained that having been mentored by Elisabeth Kubler Ross he was convinced that many people, including those working with the dying, misunderstood what she was talking about in her book, On Death and Dying, when she identified the “five states of dying” – denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. He maintained, that contrary to popular belief, Elisabeth never saw the stages as linear or sequential, but sought to identify some of the defence mechanisms employed by people who were dying. Frank also explained that later in her life, Elisabeth mentioned to him that she had come to realise that the “five stages” did not represent the full picture of the dying process. Part of Frank’s unique contribution to our understanding of the dying process is his elaboration of the stage of “surrender”.

According to Frank, “acceptance” is a conscious act of “letting go” – removing attachment to, or constraint by, objects, people or false ideas. He suggests that, in contrast, surrender is an “effortless, easeful, non-doing” state that enables realisation of our basic nature without internal or external interference. He likens it to the experience of “time standing still” that some people experience in a car accident situation. In grappling to find the words to describe “surrender” fully, Frank resorted to telling the story of his near-death experience in a whirlpool while rafting in the Grand Canyon and how surrender followed exhaustion. He provides further elucidation of this elusive concept in his podcast, Surrendering to Death.

Frank maintained that we could develop qualities that enable us to be more ready to achieve the state of “surrender’ when dying. He suggests, for example, that a sense of wonder and awe, religious conviction, love or confidence in our acquired wisdom (achieved through mindfulness), can “engender surrender”. He further likens “surrender” to an initiation process involving prioritising the essential over the dispensable. Frank stated that our natural reaction is to resist and fight death through fear, but that “the essential is so magnetising, the surrender so compelling, that fear does not stop us”.

Reflection

Frank provides a very strong exhortation. He maintains that it is a “ridiculous gamble’ to assume that when dying “we will have the physical strength, emotional stability, the mental clarity to do the work of a lifetime”. He argues that NOW is the time for personal transformation – to grow in mindfulness through meditation, silence, developing wonder and awe, cultivating love and compassionate action and strengthening belief.

In the process we can let go of limiting self-stories, misconceptions about death and dying, attachment to externalities, and fear of losing control. We can develop a “not knowing” state, realise the reality of our human condition and our own ordinariness and increase our sense of connectedness to nature and others.

Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach provide a Power of Awareness Course online with 21 hours of teaching. The Course helps you to develop a daily practice of mindfulness mediation and provides ways for you to sustain this practice. It enables you to live life more fully, break free of self-limiting thoughts, increase your sense of wonder and joy and enrich your relationships at home and at work.

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Image by Nicky from Pixabay.com

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.

Death, Dying and Grief

The Death, Love and Wisdom Summit was offered free from 12-16 October 2023 by Lions Roar and is now offered as an paid, upgrade option. The Summit brought together 16 key leaders and teachers in the field of caring for the dying, handling grief and facing the reality of our own death. The offerings included lessons learned from the dying, meditations and transformative processes. Many of the presenters are also accomplished authors in how to deal with the end-of-life transition, our own death and that of others close to us. Keynote addresses were provided by Joan Halifax, PhD, and Frank Ostaseski, Co-Founder of the Zen Hospice Project.

A perspective on death, dying and grief based on personal experience and academic research

The Summit provided a range of perspectives on end-of-life issues and offered insights from various hospice settings and research undertaken by the presenters. Dr. Joanne Cacciatore, a bereaved mother and tenured Professor, spoke about traumatic grief arising from an unexpected event with catastrophic consequences. She detailed the spiritual, emotional and somatic/physical symptoms of traumatic grief. Joanne talked about the “grief umbrella” with each spoke representing a different feeling, e.g., anxiety, regret, anger, guilt, despair, or abandonment. She explained, too, that grief can manifest in many forms on the physical level as inflammation and inhibited immune response, breathing and sleep disruption, trembling and headaches, or unpredictable, bottomless pain.

Having experienced the death of Cheyenne (her fourth child who was still-born) and the associated totally, debilitating traumatic grief, Joanne established the MISS (Mothers in Sympathy and Support) Foundation that provides a wide range of support for those “grieving the death, or the impending death, of a child” – offering advocacy, counselling, research, education for caregivers and resources. This initiative was motivated by the lack of support available for her own grieving process, the lack of understanding and empathy of the medical community who viewed grief as “pathological” and what she describes as “the social constraints on grief”.

In a YouTube interview, Bearing the Unbearable, Joanne cites research that shows that social constraints are the “greatest predictor of poor psychological and physical outcomes” of the grieving process. These constraints are reflected in implicit and explicit messaging such as “move on”, “don’t talk about it”, “get over it” or “go back to work”. Another aspect of negative social influence is what Joanne describes as “toxic positivity” where people are encouraged to always choose happiness or joy (rather than face the reality and pain of the challenging emotions of grief).

Selah Model of Grief

Joanne promotes the Selah model of grief – which involves “fully inhabiting grief” by “being with” our grief, surrendering to our grief and transforming our grief into compassionate action. In her video interview, Joanne indicated that she was able to be with her grief through frequent crying and commented that her 3 year old daughter showed more grief wisdom than many medical practitioners when she said. “It’s okay to cry Mummy because babies are not supposed to die”.

Joanne likened embracing grief to the progressive undertaking of a new yoga pose – where initially you have to reduce the time spent in the pose because of the pain experienced when challenging the muscles with a new position, but persistent practice gradually builds capacity to hold the pose longer and more capably.

Human-Animal Connection in the grieving process

Based on her own grieving experience and research from her studies, Joanne also advocated for the human-animal connection as a means of healing for grieving families after seeing the effect a horse rescued from abuse had on a grieving client. After a fortuitous meeting with Dr. Rich Gorman, who was studying the idea of “therapeutic spaces” and the mutual therapeutic effects of bringing together humans and animals, Joanne established the Selah Carefarm, which today is home to more than 50 rescued animals and also a mixed “community” of support for grieving families and individuals who travel from all around the world to be part of the mutuality of the Carefarm.

The healing processes for grief

Joanne is the author of Bearing the Unbearable: Love, Loss and Heartbreaking, and she maintains that where there is love, grief is inevitable in the event of the loss of a loved one. In the book, Joanne offers a process for creating the space ‘to integrate and honour our grief”. Her follow-up book, Grieving is Loving: Compassionate Words for Bearing the Unbearable, provides quotations from the previous book together with new prose and poems from Joanne.

Joanne encourages movement as part of the healing process for grief, e.g., dance, bare-foot hiking, running and yoga. She maintains that there is a need to transform the energy of grief and this can be achieved through movement and creative outlets such as art and writing. Joanne is a strong advocate, and daily practitioner, of meditating and expressing gratitude. She offers more advice on How to Navigate the Path of Grief in a recent podcast interview.

Reflection

The Death, Love and Wisdom Summit provides a wide range of resources for dealing with grief. The advice given by the experienced teachers and grief counsellors is very practical and readily implementable.

The Summit presentations reinforced the view that as we grow in mindfulness through meditation and other mindfulness practices, we can build our resilience and our compassion, and increase our ability to manage the challenging emotions and physical impairment that accompanies the grieving process.

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Image by 3345408 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.

Assumptions Can Mislead Us About Long Covid

We make assumptions about many aspects of our lives, including about the motivations of others when they do something that has an adverse effect on us – but more often than not our assumptions are wrong. In this era of Long Covid, it is easy to assume that we suffer from this condition, particularly if we are experiencing multiple symptoms that persist months after a Covid infection. The Mayo Clinic, for instance, identifies a wide range of symptoms that could be attributed to Long Covid. They suggest that seeing a medical practitioner in the first instance is important to ensure that we eliminate other possible explanations of our symptoms. They also provide suggestions about what information to record about our symptoms before we visit the medical practitioner.

I have been experiencing peripheral neuropathy (pain in my ankles and numbness in my feet) for some time after an earlier Covid infection. When I listened to Gez Medinger, co-author of the Long Covid Handbook, during the Long Haul & CFS Summit, I began to attribute all my symptoms to Long Covid. Gez had outlined a range of Long Covid symptoms that aligned with what I was experiencing. However, having done more research about peripheral neuropathy, especially listening to the video podcast of Dr. Shanna Patterson, a leading neurologist, I was keen to explore my symptoms further. Shanna explained that there were potentially multiple causes for neuropathy, including structural issues.

Investigating peripheral neuropathy – an on-going symptom

I undertook an X-Ray through a referral by my medical practitioner and discovered that I did have a structural problem in my lumbar spine – degeneration of several discs and potential spinal stenosis. The structural problems in my spine more likely began at age 12 when I was involved in a serious car accident (before seat belts were available) – our family car rolled multiple times after being hit in the side by another car and then went over a 3 metre embankment, landing on its hood.

From what I have read, tennis (especially the service action) can aggravate spinal injuries. This was made patently obvious to me in 1997 when a disc in my lower back collapsed, leaving me with severe sciatica for 18 months (finally rectified through multiple natural health modalities such as osteopathy, physiotherapy and hydrotherapy). I was able to resume playing tennis after these lengthy treatments once I adopted some modifications to my tennis game (especially my serve).

However, now the wear and tear on my spine is so severe that I am unlikely to be able to play tennis again without causing further irreparable damage. Despite this loss of my favourite sport, I am grateful that I took my doctor’s advice and that of experts like Shanna, and investigated my peripheral neuropathy, rather than just assuming these particular symptoms were caused by nerve damage as a result of Long Covid (even though this could be a contributor).

Reflection

I have not fully comprehended what it means for me to give up playing tennis which has been so much a part of my life for over 60 years. Tennis has been my escape from the pressures of daily life and a means of developing mindfulness and the associated competencies of paying attention, being in the present moment and visualisation. Tennis has been a catalyst for savouring my competence and accomplishments. It has also facilitated reflection on my blind spots and managing mistakes.

To manage this current challenge to “letting go” of my self-image as a fit and competent tennis player, I will have to turn to my mindfulness practice. As Frank Ostaseski reminds us in his book, The Five Invitations, that in the face of loss and grief, we have to let go of the identities that we have become attached to. He emphasises the preciousness of life and the impermanence of everything.

As I grow in mindfulness through my daily practices, I hope to readily accept the loss of my capacity to play tennis, let go of my related identity, redefine who I am, accept the impermanence of everything and learn to savour the preciousness of life.

Alexia Chellun in her song Surrender also encourages us to “let go” and surrender our fear while opening up to harmony and our higher being.

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Image by Aritha 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.

Building Tolerance through Understanding

We have each experienced situations where someone seems to overact to what appears to be a minor stimulus – a sound, a sight, something said, or a gentle touch on the arm. For example, I have seen people become hysterical while just observing a one-on-one facilitation process or hearing a very loud note sung close to them. More than likely, we have each observed a disruptive person in a team meeting or training course, someone who is withdrawn and refuses to engage in conversation or someone who is overly aggressive. Bruce D. Perry and Oprah Winfrey in their book, What Happened to You? maintain that understanding the impact of trauma on others helps us to build tolerance for what seems initially to be aberrant behaviour. They argue that the foundation for that understanding is learning about how our brains operate.

Understanding how our brains work

Bruce illustrates the processes of the brain by showing an inverted triangle with the cortex at the top and the “lower brain” or reptilian brain at the bottom. While the cortex enables us to think, create and plan and is conscious of time (past, present and future), the lower part of the brain has no sense of time but serves to regulate bodily functions. The fundamental problem with our emotional and behavioural response to stimuli is that all sensory input (perceptions) are first processed in the lower part of the brain and interpreted there after matching with prior experiences (which are stored along with the emotional content). This is why someone who shares a disturbing event with others can become quite emotional even when the event occurred many years before.

The associated problem is that sensory input (sight, sound, taste, touch and smell) can stimulate recall of a traumatic experience – “a powerful, frightening or isolating sensory experience”. Bruce discusses a case study of a veteran of the Korean war experiencing Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The sound of a motorcycle backfiring would generate an “extreme survival response” such as immediately lying prone on the ground behind some form of shelter. Bruce comments that what was originally an “adaptive protective memory” (for surviving in the trenches “where you had to keep your head down”), had become a maladaptive behavioural response. The veteran’s life became “miserable” because he was frequently startled, always on the alert (scanning a room or the environment continuously) and often “jumpy”.

Maladaptive responses

Oprah pointed out that people like the veteran who have maladaptive responses to stimuli, often ask “What’s wrong with me?” The book she has produced with Bruce, changes the focus to “What happened to you”. Understanding what people have experienced and the depth of the impact on their lives helps to build tolerance and empathy, and ideally, compassionate action. Bruce explained that for each of us “every moment builds upon all other moments that come before”. The net result of our personal history shaping our brain’s development is that “each of our brains are unique” – our experiences, traumatic and otherwise, shape our perceptions of the world, what we feel and how we respond.

Oprah describes in detail her own traumatic experiences and maintains from her numerous interviews with people who have experienced trauma, that the result is often self-sabotage in the form of addiction, abuse, promiscuity or “the need-to-please”. She argues that there is considerable work to be done by the individual and their therapist to identify the trauma-inducing event, the “evocative cues”, and the related emotional and behavioral responses.

Reflection

We can become more tolerant of other people if we acknowledge Bruce’s findings (developed through neuroscience and clinical practice) that “each of us sees and understands the world in a unique way” – and this conclusion applies to us also! Our view of the world is not the only view nor is it necessarily complete, accurate or uncontaminated by our life experiences. We are challenged to recognise our own fallibility, especially if we too have had traumatic experiences that will have shaped our perceptions and responses. We can build our tolerance of others too if we work to understand what trauma does to the brain and its impact on behavioural responses. Bruce suggests that we approach others with a degree of “curiosity”, wanting to understand what happened to them (not what’s wrong with them). Frank Ostaseski, author of The Five Invitations, encourages us to cultivate openness and curiosity – to replace criticism with understanding.

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, journalling, research on trauma and meditation, we can develop greater openness and curiosity, increase our self-awareness (including of the impacts of trauma on our own emotional and behavioural responses) and cultivate understanding, empathy and compassion.

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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.

The Ripple Effect of Your Life – Choosing What Effect You Will Have

Authors who have reported research into near-death experiences (NDE’s) invariably describe the “life review” as an integral part of the experience, along with many other elements. While researchers and writers in the area of NDE’s confirm that every near-death experience is different in its dimensions and intensity for everyone (no two are exactly the same), they consistently report on the high level of incidences of people experiencing a life review during their NDE. The character of the life review is typically individualised also.

The nature of the life review is richly described by Jeff Janssen, author of Your Life’s Ripple Effect: Discover How and Why Your Life Really Matters. Jeff has researched more than 3,500 NDE cases and reported in depth on their nature and their impact on the individual involved. He discusses his research findings and his book in a video podcast interview with Kirsty Salisbury. Jeff explains the nature of life reviews along a number of dimensions and provides illustrations of each dimension from actual near-death experiences. The dimensions include microscopic focus, panoramic view of the ripple effect of a person’s life and the resultant profound understanding experienced by the individual involved:

Microscopic focus: Jeff describes the level of detail experienced by many people undergoing a life review during their near-death experience. He explains that the life review can encompass a person’s life from birth to the present day (or periods within) and entail highlighting every thought, word, action and feeling experienced by the individual involved over the span of the review. Not only does this involve vivid recall but what is also exposed is person’s reasons for acting (or re-acting) in the way they did. This microscopic view means that the individual involved cannot hide the real reasons through self-justifications, lack of self-insight or unfounded assumptions – the underpinning motivations and precursors are in the spotlight.
Ripple effects: Not only are the individual’s words, actions and reasons exposed but also the impact that these have on individuals who are directly impacted by them. This is experienced in high definition – feeling the physical impact of a slap or punch, experiencing the pain, anguish, frustration and anger of another resulting from the focal individual’s words and actions. So not only do you experience your own thoughts and feelings but also those of people directly impacted. The ripple effect is disclosed through being able to observe what the impacted individual does as a result of the interaction with you – passing on their anger, resentment or other feelings to family members, co-workers and anyone else they interact with. Orthopaedic Surgeon Dr. Mary Neal in her book chapter, Death on the River, discusses her life review during her near death experience and explains that no event or words in her life were seen in isolation but starkly in terms of their “unseen ripple effects”. She saw the impact of her words and actions on others “dozens of times removed” from the immediate situation and understood that “every human interaction” has a far more significant effect than we can possibly imagine with our limited vision and insight. The effects of words and actions that express love and kindness towards another person appear in the life review as amplified feelings of joy, gratitude and appreciation by the recipients and others.
Profound understanding: people who report having a life review during their near-death experience also report that if there are witnesses present who can see the life review (in all its high definition visuals, e.g. in shared death experiences), they do not judge the person having the review. Jeff confirms that this is true also of other beings who are seen by some people to be present, including the Supreme Being (or “God” for some people). There is no external judgment as the life review proceeds, only one’s own evaluation based on full information, understanding and insight that is engendered by the life review process. Kirsty and Jeff suggest that the life review serves to identify areas for learning and development – what they describe as “soul purpose”, e.g. to develop greater patience or empathy. The life review can also throw light on one’s life purpose and may even show the way forward by identifying a unique way to contribute to the welfare of the broader community and the world at large.

Choosing the effect you will have

There is little we can do about our past words, actions and omissions other than seek and/or give forgiveness – a forgiveness meditation can be helpful here. Research into life after a NDE and life review indicates that people affected by the experience tend to change their words and actions so that they will have a positive ripple effect in their interactions. Jeff describes these changes on his website and I have summarised them here:

More of:

Focus on living a life of contribution and personal meaning
Courage and fearlessness to live authentically
Offering unconditional love
Purposely living life to the full
Peace, patience and joy.

Less of:

Being a victim and passive in the face of challenges
Focus on materialistic values
Hatred and envy of others
Being stressed and overwhelmed
Concern about what others think about them.

As a result of this changed orientation to a positive ripple effect in their lives, people left soul-destroying jobs, increased their connectedness with others (family, friends, colleagues) and ceased to gossip about or bad-mouth others. Some even chose to work with the dying in a hospice setting.

In his earlier book, 10 Life Changing Lessons from Heaven, Jeff identifies how we can increase the positive ripple effect from our words and actions – we can choose what kind of ripple effect we will have in the rest of our life. The lessons include learning, loving, trusting, and appreciating without limit while fearlessly pursuing a purposeful life in the service of others. These lessons from near-death experiences resonate strongly with what Frank Ostaseski describes as the “lessons from death and dying” – gleaned from providing end-of-life care to over a thousand people who have died in a hospice environment.

Reflection

Throughout his book on the 10 lessons, Jeff offers exercises to make us think about what we need to change in our lives. He also offers a series of questions on his website that address each of the 10 lessons, including “accept non-judgmentally” and “appreciate regularly”. He encourages us to explore these with our friends or a community of care.

Even small acts of kindness have a positive flow on effect and cause ripples that may improve the quality of other peoples’ lives. One small example of this is the daily ritual of the “waving man”, Peter Van Beek, who waved to everyone who passed him in a car as he stood near a roundabout with a broad and welcoming smile – the positive ripple effect of this small action was reported recently on his death.

The challenge as Kirsty points out is to avoid being obsessed with our past life and things that we cannot change but to look ahead and change our words and actions while pursuing a life of purpose, meaning and contribution. As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, meditation and other mindfulness activities, we can develop the necessary self-awareness, insight, courage and fearlessness to make our life matter for others.

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Image by Peter H 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.

Cultivating Curiosity and Openness

Frank Ostaseski in his presentations during the Healing Healthcare Summit focused on openness and curiosity. In the process, he revisited two of the key lessons of living and dying that he had previously written about – (1) welcome everything, push nothing away and (2) cultivate a don’t know mind.

Openness – welcome everything

Frank suggests that we need to be able to meet whatever our life circumstances bring our way and do so in a way that we are open to the full range of thoughts and emotions involved. He reminds us that life is a series of constant changes, e.g. loss of a job, death of a close family member, change In financial circumstances or location. He encourages us to meet these changes as if welcoming a familiar person at our front door. He draws on James Baldwin’s insightful comment for his rationale – “Nothing can be changed, if it is not first faced”.

Frank reminds us that denial or ignoring unpleasant experiences does not create freedom, only servitude. He encourages “fearless receptivity” – awareness of fear without imprisonment by it. He maintains that mindfulness involves moment to moment awareness of everything we are experiencing – bodily sensations, thoughts and emotions. In this openness lies true freedom – because we are fully aware of what is happening to us and conscious of our habituated responses and yet able to regulate our emotions and explore alternative ways of responding.

Frank suggests that sometimes mindfulness practices involving “precise attention” to a single thing, e.g. a word or our breathing can create something of a struggle or tension in our minds and somewhat defeat the purpose of the practice. He contends that the practice of “open boundless awareness”, sometimes called “natural awareness”, can be more liberating when we feel constrained by a focused meditation practice. He offers awareness of the sky and its vastness as an example. He also provides a mini-practice that can help to engender this sense of boundlessness.

In the mini-practice, Frank encourages us first to become grounded and relaxed so that we can focus on the meditation. He then encourages us to take in the space above us, to our left, then to our right, followed by the space below and in front of us. An alternative to this, is to focus on the sounds that surround us, progressively shifting our focus onto the soundscape in the directions that Frank mentions above. Frank suggests that we treat distracting thoughts like birds flying past, not landing or hovering above.

Becoming more curious and less critical

This topic was the theme of his second presentation during the Summit and aligns with his exhortation to “cultivate a don’t know mind”. Frank argues that mindfulness is not about searching for some future enlightenment goal but becoming “up close and personal” with ourselves. He contends that our aim is to become “intimate” with ourselves and every aspect of our lives, pleasant and unpleasant. He explains that this is the path to true liberation and reinforces the view that “the path is right beneath your feet”.

In cultivating intimacy with ourselves we will become aware of parts of ourselves that we do not like. In Frank’s view, the inherent challenge is to be able to “tolerate intimacy” – be able to fully face up to who we are really, warts and all. In his podcast interview with Whit Missildine, Frank addressed the question, “What if you witnessed a thousand deaths?” – a question that was based on his personal experience as End-of-Life Teacher, Founding Director of the Zen Hospice Project and Director of the Metta Institute. Frank maintained that the ways we define ourselves will be stripped away in the process of dying and death. He contends that throughout life we live a delusion about ourselves – we project an image that is not our real self, but our imagined or idealised self. He has witnessed numerous people expressing regret as they lay dying – regrets about what they have done of failed to do. In dying, we are confronted with who we really are.

Frank maintains that when people are dying they have no interest in, or energy for, maintaining an illusion of who they are and cease to be concerned about what others think about them. He suggests that it behoves us during life to express remorse rather than regret – because remorse confronts the unpleasant side of ourselves and motivates us to avoid similar actions or omissions in the future. As we grow in intimacy with ourselves through meditation, we can progressively strip away the illusions about who we are through a process of loving kindness and forgiveness towards ourselves, avoiding harsh self-criticism.

Frank argues that In developing intimacy with ourselves, we become acutely aware that we are not separate but connected to everyone. He maintains that in this deep learning about ourselves, we develop a “deep sense of belonging” – an acute recognition of our interdependence and a strong desire to move beyond our limiting self-centredness. He suggests that a simple practice is to just “pause” throughout our day, taking a break from the busyness of life, and to focus on our experience as it is occurring. Frank contends that “mindfulness emerges from a relaxed heart and mind”.

Reflection

Frank has learned so much through observing the process of dying and death and willingly shares the lessons he has learned. He explains that he learns from the dying as they learn from him – there is a reciprocity about his engagement with them. He is humbled and amazed by what he learns and yet he recognises that he still harbours a fear of death because of its uncertainty. Frank has detailed his lessons learned in his book, The Five Invitations: Discovering What Death Can Teach Us About Living Fully.

Regrets are a natural response in the event of someone dying who is close to us (or not as close as they should have been). I can certainly acknowledge that I had regrets on the recent death of my brother Pat. However, as Frank suggests, remorse is a better option. With remorse we can revisit what we have said and done or failed to say and do, give ourselves forgiveness and express the intention to do better in the future. We can reflect on our individual regrets and ask ourselves:

What will I do more of in the future?
What will I do less of?
What will I stop doing?
What will I start doing?

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection, meditation and other mindfulness practices, we can develop intimacy with ourselves, recognise our connectedness, deepen our connection with others and learn the profound lessons from death and dying.

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Image by Tommy_Rau 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 Meaningful Story for Your Life

Tami Simon, CEO of Sounds True, interviewed Rebecca Walker and Lily Diamond as part of her Insights at the Edge podcast series. Rebecca and Lily are the authors of the newly published (January 2021) book, What’s Your Story? : A Journal for Everyday Evolution. The book provides deeply personal insights into what constitutes a meaningful life as a well as interactive, reflective questions designed to help the reader to revisit and rewrite the story of their own life. Both authors are accomplished writers and activists with quite diverse backgrounds. Their collaborative writing over the past ten years to produce the book is a profound endeavour in its own right. They share a common and very strong belief that in writing our own story with honesty, fearlessness, and persistence, we can rewrite our past and reshape our future so that we live a more meaningful life.

An opening reflective question

During the podcast interview, Tami asked Rebecca and Lily about the first question in their book which is, What is your first memory? This question is penetrating in that it requires the reader to identify a memory that they really experienced and own. It means unravelling the self-stories from what has been communicated by parents, society at large, national culture, workplace culture or formal education. It means getting to the heart of what we actually believe and practice. For Lily, the catalyst for the question was the experience of her mother dying from cancer; for Rebecca, the catalytic event was the divorce of her parents. In both cases they were faced with the fundamental question of What story have I been telling myself about my life? Which leads to the question, How limiting or empowering is my self-story?

A closing reflective question

The interview discussing the book – What’s My Story? – gravitated to the final reflective question How do I define a life well lived? This question is designed to be proactive – to stimulate not only reflection but future action. The question is intended to have us look back from our future deathbed and review how we have spent our life and how we had wished to spend it. It means, in Rebecca’s terms, what would enable me to die peacefully when reviewing my life’s contribution and legacy? The question for both authors revolved around, What is a meaningful life? How can I now live my life in a way that is congruent with what gives my life meaning, satisfaction and a sense of positive contribution to my relationships, my community, and the world at large?

Lily and Rebecca talked about how these questions and their personal responses are influencing the way they live now – even at the micro-level. Throughout their book they ask the reader to reflect on what was meaningful in their past, what is meaningful in their present life and what would give meaning to the rest of their life – a potential catalyst for rewriting our own stories. What could be useful in this personal pursuit of “a life well-lived” are the lessons from death and dying provided by Frank Ostaseski.

The science of a meaningful life

Several authors for the Greater Good Magazine collaborated on an article titled, The Top 10 Insights from “The Science of a Meaningful Life” in 2020. The magazine itself is a production of the Greater Good Science Center, The University of California, Berkeley. The authors drew on the work of multiple researchers in their network and viewed the identified elements as a source of hope in these challenging times when the pandemic has led to many people experiencing conflict, loneliness, illness, and grief.

The authors draw on the concept of a “psychologically rich life” as a framework for their suggestions for a meaningful life:

Collaborating in learning with others
Connecting with other people by phone rather than text or social media
Expressing kindness and gratitude to others (which are contagious)
Being more extroverted in engagement with others (especially beneficial for introverts)
Engaging with diverse cultures that can serve to challenge our stereotypes
Seeking out challenging and varied experiences
Working in organisations that consciously pursue social justice both within and without
Exploring ways to be more motivated to express empathy.

Reflection

It is a sobering exercise to ask ourselves these reflective questions that represent the lived experiences of the authors. What is also relevant to this reflection are the lessons from death and dying advanced by Frank Ostaseski. The challenge is to work out how we define a “life well lived”. As we grow in mindfulness, we can gain greater clarity about what a meaningful life is for us and have the courage and resilience to pursue it in our chosen field of endeavour.

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Image by Marcel S. 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.

Appreciating the Jacaranda

For a long time now, I have viewed trees as a source of meditation and of poetry. The title of this post is really a metaphor for appreciating our own life and the uniqueness of others. Jacarandas in Brisbane flower during October/November which is around exam time and their stunning display of purple flowers serves as a reminder of all we have accomplished in formal learning and all the people who have helped us in these achievements. So, Jacarandas help us to appreciate our life and what we have achieved. At the same time, they remind us that outward success is ephemeral – impermanent and quickly fading, which is a characteristic of the Jacaranda flowers.

Savouring your achievements

In a previous post I discussed in detail how savouring your achievements can be a mindful exercise in appreciating your opportunities in life and valuing what you have been able to achieve through the assistance of others. Reflection on your study achievements can build confidence and a sense of self-efficacy – your belief in being able to achieve a particular outcome through focus and effort. You can reflect on what it took personally to graduate at school, university and/or a TAFE College

You can be grateful that you have acquired the knowledge and skills that come with your study achievements and that have opened the way for many other opportunities in life, e.g. the nature of the work that you do, the opportunity to travel or the ability to build relationships and interact effectively with others.

Acknowledging the contribution of others

Recognising that your achievements were accomplished through the support of others is a great leveler and a source of appreciation and gratitude. Those who have contributed to your achievements could include your parents, schoolteachers, educators, lecturers, trade trainers, or professors. Some had a role to play in your formative years, others in your adulthood as you made your way in the world. You can value their contributions to your personal growth in knowledge and skill.

Of particular importance, is focusing on the people who played a significant role at different turning points in your life. They could be mentors, coaches, friends, bosses, or relatives. It pays to spend time to focus on a particular individual who has influenced the way you think, how you go about your work, how you relate to others and/or what you consider important. It may be someone who encouraged you and supported you to believe in yourself and what you are capable of. This type of reflection reinforces our connectedness and interdependence and can deepen our humility and gratitude.

Radiant beauty, quickly shed

A key source of insight when observing or reflecting on Jacarandas is the ephemeral nature of their beauty. I once captured this thought in a poem about Jacarandas when I wrote, “radiant beauty, quickly shed”. This is a reminder that external signs of success can quickly fade or disappear – as many people have found during the onset of the global pandemic. Thomas Merton reminded us that what is important is the “inner landscape”, not externalities, when he wrote:

If you want to identify me, ask me not where I live, or what I like to eat, or how I comb my hair, but ask me what I am living for…

Savouring our achievements is not designed to be an exercise in considering ourselves to be “better than” others; it is designed to help us to realise the gifts, talents, knowledge, skills and supports that we have to enable us to make a contribution to the welfare of others. It is one way to help us overcome the barriers to achieving our unique contribution and life purpose. We can be prompted to ask ourselves, “What am I doing with my life and all that I have been given in terms of opportunities, knowledge, skills and insights?”

Frank Ostaseski reminds us that one of the lessons from death and dying is the need to cultivate a “don’t know” mind – a mind that is “open, receptive and full of wonder” and willing to learn from anyone, even young children. He suggests that we need to develop our curiosity and instead of trying to prove that we are “interesting” or learned in our interactions with others, that we focus instead on being “interested in” others.

Reflection

Savouring our achievements can be a source of appreciation and gratitude. Remembering that our external success is ephemeral and that what is important is our contribution to the welfare of others, can be a source of humility and motivation to pursue our life purpose. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection, we can progressively develop our “inner landscape”, gain insight into our life purpose, and develop the courage and creativity to make our unique contribution.

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Image by Christian Abella 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 for Others

In a previous post, I discussed mindfulness for ourselves and others. In this particular post, I will explore specific ways in which our mindfulness helps others. Mindfulness is not only about developing calmness and relaxation for ourselves; it also involves being aware of our connectedness and the impact that our words and actions have on the well-being of others. It pays to be conscious of how we positively impact the welfare of others as this can motivate us to sustain our regular practice of mindfulness.

Ways in which our mindfulness practice helps others

Often, we are not conscious of the impact of our words and actions on others, but every interaction has consequences, whether helpful or harmful. Here are six ways our mindfulness can be helpful for others:

1. Mood contamination: Research confirms that our mood is contagious, especially if we are a leader (formal or informal). We can all relate to an intimate relationship situation or work situations where one person’s “bad mood” contaminates the relationship or the work environment. We often speak of toxic workplaces where a negative or cynical emotional environment, emanating from one person or a group, is harmful and negatively affects our life outside work as a well as within it. Research shows that mindfulness practices such as Tai Chi lead to an improved mood – a more positive, energetic and empowered outlook on life, which positively impacts those around us. Mindfulness practices enable us to bring calmness and equanimity to our workplace or interactions away from work – our calm demeanour can develop calmness in others. This was brought home to me in a recent workshop at the end of a 4-month management development program that I was co-facilitating. A participant approached me and thanked me for the workshops we had conducted and especially for my “calmness” because it created a very positive learning environment for her. I was not conscious of my own calmness, let alone the impact that it was having on participants. However, I was conscious of the fact that I had been undertaking mindfulness practices such as meditation, Tai Chi and reflection leading up to, and during, the program.

2. Listening for understanding: One of the kindest things we can do for others is to be really present to them and actively listen to what they have to say. This entails listening for understanding, being curious about the other person and their life situation – not interrupting and trying to establish our credibility by telling stories about ourselves and our achievements. Listening communicates that we value the other person, that we acknowledge their uniqueness (in the best sense of the word) and that we are interested in them and what they have to say. It also involves what Frank Ostaseski describes as cultivating a “don’t know mind” – a mental state that is curious and willing to learn from everyone, including children.

3. Self-regulation: With the degree of self-awareness and self-control that we develop over time through mindfulness practices, we are less likely to “fly off the handle” or use angry words or actions towards others. We are better able to identify the negative stimuli that trigger us (e.g. an explicit or implied criticism) and respond more appropriately when interacting with others. It does not mean that we are never triggered by others but that we have more effective ways to deal with negative stimuli. We are also less likely to harbour resentment if we undertake mindful reflection on our past experiences in which we felt hurt.

4. Sense of connection leading to kindness: One of the key outcomes of mindfulness practices is the development of our sense of connection. Through awareness of our connectedness, especially through a shared sense of pain and suffering in these challenging times, we are more empathetic towards others. We are more likely to take compassionate action towards those in need – compassion that is enhanced by mindfulness practices such as loving-kindness meditation.

5. Gratitude: Through mindfulness practices we can readily develop gratitude towards others and savour what we have in life. We can really appreciate our friendships, intimate relationships and our work colleagues – and be willing to express our gratitude. Where there is a strong sense of gratitude, there is no room for the destructive force of envy. Gratitude meditation helps us to savour every aspect of our life, so that we consciously savour what we have in our life and our unique experiences. It also enables us to value our minds and bodies and bodily sensations, rather than indulging our harmful inner-critic or feeling the need to please in an unhealthy way.

6. Sympathetic joy: Mindfulness enables us to experience joy when others achieve or experience good things in their life. We are not mired in envy because they have achieved something that we have not. We can be positive and joyful for their good fortune and express our sympathetic joy to them. This stance communicates valuing the other person and actively builds relationships, rather than diminish them through “superiority conceit”.

Reflection

Being conscious of the potential positive impact of our mindfulness for others, enables us to sustain our mindfulness practices and enhances our relationships, whether passing or intimate. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, reflection and other mindfulness practices, we can bring to our interactions a sense of calm and a positive mood, increasing self-regulation, enhanced ability to be present and listen to others, a strong sense of appreciation and a developing sympathetic joy that enables us to rejoice in the good fortune of others.

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Image Source: Ron Passfield 16.8.2020

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.

Forgiveness: A Reflection

In a previous post I discussed an important topic, Don’t Wait to Forgive, based on the book by Frank Ostaseski, The Five Invitations. Forgiveness is something that we tend to put off because it is too self-revealing and painful. Frank suggests that we have to face up to who we really are and not who we project ourselves to be. We have to look in the mirror, not into an internally fabricated image that shows ourselves in the best possible light. The honesty required is disarming and can be disturbing. Experience and research suggest that some principles can help us along the way:

Be grounded and relaxed – Forgiveness is a difficult pursuit at the best of times. However, if you are agitated or highly distracted, it is extremely difficult to focus on forgiving yourself or someone else. The starting point is to become grounded and relaxed. Grounding in the present moment can involve tapping into your breath, your bodily sensations or the sounds around you. I find sometimes that sounds can themselves be distracting because I am always trying to interpret them. I like using a particular body sensation as a means of grounding, e.g. the sensation of fingers on both hands touching. I find that I can use this practice anywhere, whether waiting for something or someone, or beginning a meditation. It can quickly induce relaxation and focus for me. Each person will have their preferred approach to grounding and relaxation – for some people, it may involve a full body scan to identify and release tension.
Manage distractions – Distractions are a natural, human frailty – they pull us away from our focus. However, they can be more persistent and intensive when we are trying to focus on forgiveness because of the level of discomfort that we may feel when dealing with our shame. Having a “home” or anchor such as our breath can enable us to restore our focus. Persistence in returning to our focus builds our “attention muscle” over time – a necessary strength if we are to progress in our goal of developing forgiveness.
Start small – Self-intimacy around our need for forgiveness (for the multiple ways in which we have hurt others) can be overwhelming if we take on too much at once. When you think about it, our need for forgiveness can be pervasive – impacting every facet of our interactions in close relationships, with work colleagues or with strangers in the street or shops. We can think of times when we have interrupted someone, ignored people, been harsh towards them or spoken ill of them. There are times when we have taken out our frustration or anger on someone who is not the trigger for our difficult emotions. We can begin by focusing on a small, recent incident where we have caused hurt or harm to someone and gradually build to more confronting issues, situations or emotions. Mitra Manesh in her guided meditation podcast on forgiveness suggests that a simple way to start might be to bring a particular person to mind and mentally say, “For all the pain and suffering I may have caused you, I ask for your forgiveness”. This kind of catch-all statement avoids going into all the detail of an interaction. Sometimes we can become distracted by what Diana Winston describes as “being lost in the story” – we can end up recalling blow by blow what happened, indulging in blame and self-righteousness. Forgiveness is not a process of justifying our words or actions.
Forgiveness is healing for ourselves – We have to bring loving kindness to our forgiveness practice whatever form it takes – loving kindness for our self as well as for the person we are forgiving. The process is not designed to “beat up on” our self but to face up to the reality of what we have said or done or omitted to do that has been hurtful for someone else. It’s releasing that negative, built-up energy that is stored in difficult emotions and is physically, mentally and emotionally harmful to our self. It is recognising that holding onto regret, anger, resentment or guilt can be toxic to our overall wellness. However, like giving up smoking, it takes time, persistence and frequent revisiting of our motivation.

As we grow in mindfulness and self-awareness through meditation, reflection and daily mindfulness practices, we can learn to face up to our real self and our past and seek forgiveness. However challenging this may be, we need to begin the journey for our own welfare and that of others we interact with. Diana Winston in her forgiveness meditation podcast reminds us that mindfulness involves “being in the present moment with openness and curiosity” together with a “willingness to be with what is” – it entails honest self-exploration. She cites Lily Tomlin who maintains that forgiveness involves “giving up all hope for a better past” – seeing our past with clear sight and honesty.

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Image by Gerd Altmann 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.