grief – Page 4 – Grow Mindfulness

Jack Kornfield and Tara Brach, when discussing their Awareness Training Institute, spoke of the power of awareness to help us manage life’s difficult situations.

They each discussed situations that they had experienced that challenged their personal resources and capacity to cope.

A difficult situation may entail dealing with grief, feeling totally inadequate in the face of a challenging health condition, experiencing intense fear over diagnosis of a chronic health condition or feeling depressed by a physical disability that prevents you from doing the activities that give you satisfaction and joy.

Jack and Tara explained that they use a metaphor to help people tap into the power of awareness for managing difficult challenges. The metaphor they use is “ocean and waves”. The ocean is the depth of personal resources and abounding love that we have access to, while the waves are life’s challenges that create disturbances in the otherwise peaceful ocean.

They maintain that through awareness training, you are able to ride out the waves and rest in the ocean of your personal resources and surrounding love. Awareness enables you to step back and see yourself experiencing pain, fear or depression and to accept the situation for what it is.

Awareness brings with it increased personal resources and the capacity to immerse yourself in the love and kindness that surrounds you. Tara and Jack report that, through developing skills in awareness, they have been able to help people in hospice situations to experience calm and peace despite facing their impending death.

As Tara Brach explained:

So that’s one of the blessings I’ve found over and over again in this [awareness] practice is that I might have a reactivity to different difficult circumstances and, without too much lag time now, there’s this remembrance of, “Oh, just stay. Just meet this with these two wings of noticing what’s happening and kindness, and in time – it’s not always right away – there’ll be a relaxing back open into a real space of presence and a feeling of, ‘There’s room for this.'”

As we grow in mindfulness and awareness, we are better able to manage difficult personal situations and do that sooner.

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

One of the things that we often fail to realise is what impact our own consciousness has on people around us – how we can make a real difference through being mindful.

Paulo Coelho captures this principle in his book, The Alchemist:

That’s what alchemists do. They show that, where we strive to become better than we are, everything around us becomes better, too. (The Alchemist, p.150)

Recent research reinforces the fact that our moods are contagious – so if we are happy and calm, then we can positively impact those around us. We can make a difference in other people’s lives by living mindfully – by developing our emotional intelligence and building our sense of gratitude and contentment.

Joseph Folkman, who has made a personal study of the contagiousness of mood and engagement, reminds us:

Since doing this research, I have begun thinking about the fact that every interaction I have with other people can be inspiring and building, or discouraging and frustrating. We can build others up or tear them down.

The impact of our mindfulness can spread to our social network just as a person’s grief can impact those connected to them to “three degrees of separation” (friends of friends of friends) – like the concentric ripples that result when a stone drops into a pool of water. Nicholas Christakis has studied this ripple effect over 15 years and demonstrated the pervasive influence of social networks. His study can explain the growth of obesity, drug use and depression within a social network over time.

Whether we are conscious of it or not, our mindfulness can impact others in a positive way and make a real difference in their lives. This was recently reinforced for me with the death of a friend, Pam Kruse. People from all walks of life and different phases in her life, expressed their appreciation and gratitude for her sense of fun and humour, her zest for life, her thoughtfulness, her energy and readiness to serve others in a generous and unassuming manner. In a lot of ways, Pam epitomized the “servant-leader“.

So let the warmth of your smile and your sense of contentment shine on those around you, just as the setting sun brightens the darkness of the night sky.

Tag: grief

Awareness: Managing Difficult Situations