loving-kindness – Grow Mindfulness

Ways to Manage Ourself During Difficult Times

The Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC) at UCLA offers weekly guided meditation podcasts on a wide range of topics and issues. In one of the recent meditation podcasts Diana Winston, Director of Mindfulness Education at MARC focused on “Practices in Difficult Times” – providing several mindfulness practices designed to help us achieve calmness, manage our challenging emotions and express compassion to ourselves and to others who are suffering.

Diana highlighted the fact that challenging events such as the mass shootings in America and the war in Ukraine can generate “emotional inflammation” in us – we can feel strong emotions of anger, grief, rage or sadness. We might feel overwhelmed by others’ inconceivable pain and loss and our own emotional response. We might be confused and continually ask ourselves, “Why the children?”, “Why Ukraine?” or “When will this emotional and physical devastation stop?”

Diana draws on mindfulness practices to help us deal with these challenging times and the emotions they elicit in us. She reminds us that mindfulness involves placing our attention fully on the present moment while being open and curious and accepting what is in our present internal and external reality.

Three mindfulness practices for difficult times

The three mindfulness practices offered by Diana are described, in turn, in the following discussion:

Calming Practices: Here we are encouraged to tap into the body’s own capacity to generate calm and ease. The primary aim is to achieve groundedness in a way that is conducive to our present needs. We could start by taking a couple of deep breaths and releasing them slowly to let go of the tension within us. There is the option to find a place of ease in our body and focus in on it, e.g., our arms beside our body, our relaxed legs or our fingers joined and pulsating with energy. Diana particularly stressed the power of “feeling the support of the earth” through our feet on the floor or the ground. Our breath with its natural rhythm can provide a basis for experiencing calm and ease (unless, of course, focusing on our breath acts as a trauma stimulus). If attention to our breath is calming, there are many ways to access a relaxed state through mindful breathing practices. We could adopt “micro-practices” such as the 4-7-8 breathing practice often used in yoga, the breathing in time practices (using our breath as a musical instrument) or we could pay attention to the internal physical sensations of our breathing – e.g., the rising and falling of our abdomen or the feeling of air moving in and out of our nose. Diana suggests another alternative is to pay full attention to the sounds in the room or what is being generated externally (especially if we are in a natural setting with the sounds of birds, waves, or wind). Sound can also be used as a calming mindfulness practice as we listen to and sing mantra meditations provided by people like Lulu & Mischka (such as their Rainbow Light song as part of their peaceful Horizon album).
Holding strong emotions: Normally, people tend to suppress challenging emotions, deny them, or deflect their attention from them by numbing themselves with some form of addictive behaviour such as drinking excessive alcohol, overeating, taking illegal drugs or over-spending while shopping compulsively. Mindfulness experts and psychologists remind us that we need to face up to our emotions or they will cause disruptions in our lives through some form of mental and/or physical illness. Diana encourages us in this guided meditation to pay attention to our challenging emotions and observe how they are manifesting in our body, e.g. tightness in the chest, pain in the arms or neck, headaches, overall stiffness or fibromyalgia (non-specific whole-body pain). Holding on to these strong emotions enables us to deal with them directly and use the healing power of our mind and body to dissipate them. If we experience overwhelm while confronting our strong emotions, we can return to our meditation anchor which could be our breath, external sounds, bodily sensations or music.
Compassion practice: Diana explains that compassion practice in this context involves ourselves as well as others who may be experiencing suffering and loss. She encourages us to treat ourselves with kindness and compassion as we struggle to deal with our challenging emotions and our misguided attempts to ignore them or numb them. She suggests, then, that we extend loving kindness to others in the world who are experiencing pain, devastation, grief and anger. Diana offers a possible expression of compassion for others in the form of a statement of desire, “May you be freed from pain and suffering and find contentment and ease”.

Reflection

We have a deep well of ease in our bodies that we can access at any time, if only we can let go of our damaging thoughts. As we grow in mindfulness through calming practices, facing our challenging emotions and practising compassion towards ourselves and others, we can gain the insight, courage and capacity to manage ourselves during difficult times. Mindfulness enables us to achieve emotional regulation, self-awareness and the creative drive to be the best we can be. Challenging emotions, left unchecked or ignored, can undermine our endeavours at home or at work.

Over time we can develop a regular mindfulness practice that suits our make-up and that we can undertake on a daily basis (e.g., Tai Chi, mantra meditations, chanting or yoga). This core mindfulness practice can be supplemented by micro-practices that we engage in throughout the day (e.g., when washing our hands, during waiting times, or when boiling the jug). The compound effect of these core and micro-practices is a calm state of mind, enhanced patience and conscious 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.

Anxiety Management with Mindfulness

Diana Winston offers a mindfulness meditation podcast, Working with Anxiety, as one of the weekly meditations conducted by the Mindful Awareness Research Center (MARC), UCLA. As Director of Mindfulness Education for MARC, Diana frequently leads these weekly meditations. She stresses that mindfulness enables us to be more fully in the present moment and to accept what is in our life (including anxiety) with curiosity and openness.

Diana maintains that mindfulness helps us to work effectively with anxiety because it, (1) enables us to be present in the moment, rather than absorbed in the past or the future; (2) facilitates reframing of our experience, and (3) provides a place of rest and ease from the turbulence and waves of daily life. As Diana asserts, anxiety is part and parcel of daily life, given the human condition and the uncertainty of the world around us today. The world situation with the global pandemic and devastating conflict between Russia and Ukraine add to anxiety-producing situations we experience on the home and local front. In consequence, there is an increase in mental health issues along with restricted resources to deal with explosive demand.

Guided meditation for working with anxiety

Diana’s approach is consistent with trauma-sensitive mindfulness in that she allows a choice of posture, meditation anchor and overall focus. She encourages us to find a posture that is comfortable with eyes closed or open (ideally, looking down). At the beginning of the meditation, she has us focus on something that gives us a sense of being grounded and supported by something of strength, e.g. our feet on the ground/floor or back against the chair. It is important to tap into something that enables us to slow our minds and calm our feelings

Diana then suggests that we focus on our breath as a neutral experience of the present moment. For some people, breath may not be a neutral aspect and could in fact trigger a trauma response. So, she offers an alternative focus such as sounds in the environment, the room tone or rhythm in some music. Whatever we choose as an anchor, we can return to it whenever we notice our thoughts distracting us and leading to anxiety-producing images, recollections or anticipations.

The next stage of the guided meditation involves focus on some source of anxiety and exploring the bodily sensations associated with it. Diana suggests that if we are new to meditation we should focus on a minor source of anxiety rather than a major issue. Whatever our focal anxiety source, the idea is to notice what is happening in our body, e.g. tightness around our neck and shoulders, quickening or unevenness of our breath or pain in our back. By bringing our consciousness to these bodily sensations, we can work to release the tension involved and restore some level of equanimity.

Diana suggests that at any stage we could use imagery as a way to achieve an anchor that gives us strength and/or a sense of peace. The image could be of a tall mountain withstanding the buffeting of strong winds and rain or a still lake reflecting surrounding trees and supporting the smooth gliding of swans or ducks. Imagery can take us out of our anxiety-producing imagination and transport us to a place of strength and/or peace.

In the final stage of the meditation, Diana encourages us to offer ourselves loving-kindness, acknowledging that we are only human after all and that the world is anxiety-producing. She urges us to extend positive thoughts towards ourselves, rather then beat ourselves up for our fragility. We could focus on times when we have demonstrated resilience to overcome difficulties, extended compassionate action to those in need or expressed gratitude for all that we have.

Reflection

There are many tools to help us work with, and manage, anxiety. These include chanting and/or mantra meditations such as the calming mantra produced by Lulu & Mischka, Stillness in Motion – Sailing and Singing with whales. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, chanting, mantras or other mindfulness practices, we can learn to be more fully present in the moment, to manage our anxiety-producing thoughts, regulate our emotions and find the peace and ease that lie within.

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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.

Managing Our Response to Uncertainty

In these challenging times, we often experience uncertainty and ambiguity which, in turn, leads to anxiety and depression. At the very least, these conditions can make us feel uncomfortable, annoyed or ill at ease. We normally want to be in control of our lives and have some certainty about our future. We try to create some sense, order and meaningfulness for our future by developing our plans for our career, family interactions, travel and personal development. In times of uncertainty like the present, we can become disoriented when these plans are disrupted, put on hold, deferred or cancelled altogether because of lockdowns, border closures, ill-health, international conflicts or major natural disasters.

We need some strategies to help us cope with this uncertainty and ambiguity. Over time, we have to develop ways to tolerate these setbacks and anxiety-inducing conditions. The reality is that uncertainty and ambiguity are part of the human condition and cannot be avoided. Diana Winston offers one way of addressing this uncertainty and managing our response to challenging times. In her guided meditation podcast, Opening to Uncertainty, she provides a mindfulness meditation approach which she describes as “advanced practice” – not only is it challenging but also requires repetition and practice to enable us to widen our window of tolerance in the face of ever-increasing uncertainty and ambiguity.

Guided meditation on managing our response to uncertainty

Diana begins the guided meditation with an initial focus on body posture which should be relaxed and comfortable but involve conscious choice that enables freedom of breathing. She begins the meditation practice encouraging multiple deep breaths that facilitate release of built-up tension and stress. Diana encourages us to “relax into the present moment” and become conscious of our bodily sensations – especially pockets or points of uptightness. As we wind down, we can progressively release specific points of tension.
The next phase involves choosing an anchor that truly grounds us in the present and is unlikely to act as a trigger for heightened negative emotions or a trauma response. We each have our negative triggers and varying levels of tolerance to specific difficult situations. Our meditation anchor enables us to return to a chosen focus when we notice our mind wandering or when we experience strong challenging emotions.
When negative emotions take over, we have the choice to work with the difficult emotion and its intensity (if we are at an advanced stage of meditation practice) or to use our anchor as a way to return to being grounded in the present moment.
After addressing emotions around experienced anxiety, Diana moves the meditation to another stage where she encourages us to recall an occasion when we successfully dealt with some level of anxiety and ambiguity. Associated with this, is recalling the feeling of dealing positively with the stress – we can try to recapture those positive emotions to strengthen our belief in our own capacity to deal with current challenges. I found this activity particularly useful, because it is so easy to overlook past successes in dealing with anxiety when you are feeling overwhelmed with present challenges.
The next stage of the meditation involved loving-kindness towards ourself. To begin with it is important to acknowledge that it is natural to feel anxiety in the face of uncertainty and ambiguity. Diana recommends that once we acknowledge this naturalness, we can express a positive desire such as, “May I meet uncertainty with grace and ease.” This request can be repeated as a way to reinforce the belief that we are able to manage uncertainty in whatever form it takes.

Reflection

I undertook this meditation on the day that I was due to receive my first COVID-19 vaccine. I was uncertain about what vaccine I was going to receive and concerned about the after effects, given that I suffer from a wide range of sensitivities and allergies. There was ambiguity to deal with as well – surrounding the availability of the different vaccines, their relative effectiveness and their after effects. However, I found that Diana’s guided meditation helped me to become grounded and prepared for most contingencies.

In her meditation, Diana encourages us to approach uncertainty and our response with openness and curiosity and a “willingness to be with that experience”. She stated that life has its “ups and downs” and sometimes terrible things happen as well as wonderful things. She maintained that it is illusionary to believe that life is an even, untroubled flow – we will be challenged at times and be able to cope to varying degrees with what confronts us.

Diana asserted that as we grow in mindfulness through meditation, we will be better able to deal with uncertainty and ambiguity and manage our response to challenging stressors and associated emotions. However, she asserted that managing our response to uncertainty is a long-term process. Her guided meditation can help in that regard.

Diana mentioned the availability of other MARC meditation podcasts via the UCLA Mindful App. Previously I have identified activities to maintain a positive mindset in the times of uncertainty and anxiety. In this blog, too, I have covered other meditation approaches to managing our response to uncertainty:

Jill Satterfield provided a meditation on using breath as a restorative process in challenging times.
Diana Winston offered an approach which focuses strongly on gratitude.
Kristin Neff and Chris Germer provided a range of self-compassion practices to enable us to manage in challenging times, including the pandemic.
MARC meditations incorporate a range of other meditations that can reduce anxiety in times of uncertainty and challenge.

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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.

Mindfulness Meditation for Anxiety

Diana Winston introduced the use of mindfulness meditation to reduce anxiety in a recent guided meditation podcast through the Mindfulness Awareness Research Center (MARC), UCLA. The catalyst for the meditation was the anxiety she experienced listening to the news one morning before undertaking her daily meditation. She explained that she normally began her day meditating before anything else. On the occasion she described, Diana started the day with listening to the news – a departure from her normal routine. Starting the day with meditation is often recommended by mindfulness experts as a way to set your intentions for the day and strengthen your capacity to manage the challenges that will inevitably occur in the day ahead.

Diana found the news disturbing and she found herself very anxious – an anxiety that she experienced physically as well as emotionally and intellectually. In these situations when we experience news that is traumatic, upsetting or triggering, our minds tend to move to the worst possible scenario…”What if..”, ‘How will they cope?” Diana decided to turn to mindfulness meditation as a way to manage her anxiety and disturbed mind.

Guided mindfulness meditation for anxiety

Diana’s approach to the guided meditation followed a number of steps:

Grounding – starting with a couple of deep breaths, you can begin to release some of the bodily tension through your out-breath. Next, adopt a comfortable posture wherever you are undertaking the meditation – on a chair, lying on the ground, sitting on the floor or lying on a bed. The central focus of the meditation is to pay attention to the sensation of solidity provided by the ground – you can access this sensation by focusing on your feet on the floor, your body on the ground, or the bed or chair on the floor which, in turn, is linked to the earth via the foundations of your house/building. It is important to use whatever imagery or bodily sensation is useful to enable you to feel “solid” and grounded. This is your return point throughout the meditation.
Body scan – begin a non-specific body scan by exploring wherever there is tension in your body. When you locate an area or point that is tense, you can bring your attention to this point and consciously breathe out to releases this tension (you may need to do this a couple of times, if you are particularly uptight).
Choosing an anchor – one of the issues with anxiety is a racing mind, so it is important to have an anchor to constantly bring your mind back to your desired focus. There are many choices for an anchor – your breath, the sounds in your room or externally, your hands resting easily on your lap. However, it is important to choose something that does not itself trigger further anxiety, stress or trauma. Diana suggests that you can always use the grounding sensation itself or focus on an object (e.g. a painting or a tree) which itself can lock in your attention.
Exploring bodily manifestations of anxiety – to achieve equanimity you have to be able to face your anxiety and the bodily manifestations that it generates, but this can be done gradually. You may want to start with a small source of anxiety in the first place as Diana suggests. Alternatively, you may find it important to focus on the anxiety that is really troubling you the most, so you can create a sense of ease as you go about your day. Whatever anxiety-generating event/incident you choose, it is important to feel how it is experienced in your body. Your mind-body connection means that feelings find expression in your body, whether experienced as good or bad. The task here is to tap into how you are experiencing your anxiety or disturbed feeling in your body – it could be tightness in your neck or arms, soreness in your shoulders or legs, a queasy stomach, tightness in your forehead or any other bodily sensation or combination of sensations. The important thing is to get in touch with a bodily sensation at this stage and focus on it so that you can work towards its release.
Revisiting your groundedness – Diana advises you to take the previous step progressively and iteratively. So you might start with a particular sensation and experience it fully and then return to your sense of groundedness, so the anxious sensation does not throw you off-balance. By sensing, releasing, re-grounding, you can progressively cleanse your body of the tension – this, in turn, will help to reduce your anxiety-provoking thoughts and associated emotions. The intensity of your anxiety will affect how long or how often you need to employ this meditation. Small steps can have large effects with persistence.
Loving-kindness to yourself – in all this, it is important to realise that we all experience anxiety at different times and events in our lives. It is vital to be kind to yourself and not berate yourself for your assumed “weakness”, “over-sensitivity” or “softness”. It is human to feel fear and to experience uncertainty, especially in today’s world of the pandemic and racial, national and international conflicts. Part of caring for yourself in the middle of your anxiety is to tell yourself that it is okay to feel anxious, the feelings will pass and external events will change; and to acknowledge that there are many things that you do not have control over.
Loving-kindness towards others – this involves extending kind and empathetic thoughts to others who are experiencing anxiety or are the subject of your worry and concern. There may be people who are experiencing local conflicts or threatening situations that you are anxious about. Accepting that you cannot control the situation is a starting point and then offering them kindness in your thoughts may be all you can possibly do. If you can take compassionate action, then, this will help them and yourself.

Reflection

The MARC meditation podcasts are provided on the UCLA website and via an app, and are offered to enable us to “develop self-awareness, emotional regulation and increased well-being”. Diana makes the point that mindfulness meditation on anxiety equips us to deal with life’s difficulties and challenging emotions. Persistent practice can deepen our resolve, strengthen our connectedness and achieve better integration of our mind and body. As we grow in mindfulness, we will be able to choose wise actions, overcome habituated responses and achieve equanimity and ease.

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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 Wisdom Through Meditation

In a recent interview for Mindful.org, Sharon Salzberg discussed The Power of Loving Kindness. In the course of the interview, Sharon identified different ways that meditation can develop wisdom – the ability to make insightful judgments and sensible decisions based on our knowledge and experience. Her wide-ranging conversation focused on a number of key insights that can help us to inform our judgements and guide our decision making.

Elements of wisdom developed through meditation

In her interview, Sharon shared several key insights into the way meditation can contribute to the development of wisdom:

Learning to accept what you can’t control – the starting point to develop wisdom is to acknowledge that many things are outside our control and to accept this fact despite our innate need for control. Wasting energy and negative emotion on things outside our control only debilitates us and leaves us open to frustration and depression.
Realising that no matter the situation, you have agency – you can exercise agency (your capacity to act to have control over your inner landscape and over some elements of your external environment). Viktor Frankl, author of Yes to Life in Spite of Everything, demonstrated control over his inner landscape during his internment in a concentration camp. There is always something that you can do externally as well – you just need the space and time to be open to this possibility. Even in this time of the global pandemic, people and organisations are finding creative ways to take action to exercise control over some elements of their life and work. Wisdom recognises that you don’t need to feel entirely powerless. As Sharon points out, “It’s an illusion to think that we are without any agency in our lives, any ability to act”.
Learning to use the gap that is available between stimulus and response – you can become convinced that your conditioned way of responding is the only way for you to react to a negative stimulus. As Viktor Frankl maintains there is a gap between stimulus and response and therein lies your freedom to choose your action (“considered action” rather than reaction). Meditation develops self-awareness, especially in relation to the negative stimuli that activate your fight/flight/freeze responses. Meditation also builds self-regulation so that you can choose your response rather than be conditioned by your past experiences and habituated way of reacting.
There is a unique way for you to help others – you have a combination of life experiences, skills, personal attributes and knowledge/understanding that is different to anyone else. Instead of trying to live up to others’ expectations, you can find a personal way to help through meditation and reflection – you can exercise sound judgment and creative decision making in relation to your potential contribution. Sharon reinforces this when she suggests that you can “pay attention and look and listen for opportunities to help” that are in line with your capabilities and the challenges of the situation you are faced with.
Dealing effectively with difficult emotions – being with these emotions in all their pain and intensity instead of avoiding them and acting in a dysfunctional and hurtful way. Feeling difficult emotions in your body and naming them in a granular way (e.g. anxiety, fear, shame) enables you to tame them and to convert negative energy into constructive action.
Appreciating moments of wellness and joy – it takes awareness in the moment to appreciate your experiences of beauty, joy and love. Gratitude for these experiences enhances their impact on your overall wellbeing. Also, as Sharon maintains in her recent book, loving-kindness meditation is a revolutionary way to happiness.
Developing your sense of connectedness – when you experience wellness or complex emotions or become immersed in nature through meditation and reflection, you heighten your sense of connectedness to everyone else who is experiencing this range of human emotions and to every living thing. Sharon notes that connectedness is the very fabric of life and if you treat yourself as separate, you are “fighting that reality”. Loving-kindness meditation is a very effective way to reinforce and manifest our connectedness to others.

Reflection

It pays to think about, and experience, how meditation develops sound judgement and enables sensible decisions. We so often relate meditation to rest and relaxation and overlook its power to facilitate effective action in a wide range of situations. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and reflection, our awareness of what is and what’s possible develops, our ability to manage ourselves (thoughts, emotions and actions) increases and our enhanced sense of connectedness becomes an inner source of energy and empowerment.

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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.

Accessing the Power of Meditation and Loving Kindness

Barry Boyce, founding editor of Mindful.org, interviewed Sharon Salzberg, globally recognised meditation teacher, about the impact of meditation and loving kindness (about which Sharon is a world-renowned exponent). In the interview, The Power of Loving-Kindness, Sharon explained how she had studied Eastern philosophy and learned about meditation by travelling to India, not the local meditation centre like you do today. She was surprised that much of the Indian meditation practice that she learned focused on the breath, not the more esoteric approaches she had learned about.

Focusing on the breath

Sharon was at first taken aback by the simplicity of the breath focus. However, she soon realised that while the idea is simple, the execution is difficult because it involves having to deal with racing thoughts that distracted her from her focus on her breath. She found how hard it was to pay attention to her breath when “thoughts came tumbling down like a waterfall”.

At challenging times, when anxiety is high, our mind races away from our focus with some speed and intensity. Bringing attention back to our breathing focus, is difficult to do but builds our “attention muscle”. It enhances our power of concentration and our capacity to be with what is, whether it is the experience of well-being or the pain and suffering of challenging emotions. Pausing to focus on our breath develops clarity and our capacity to lead with conviction.

The role of loving-kindness

There is a tendency is to give up in the face of the difficulty of focusing on our breath. However, persistence really pays and creates the power to access equanimity, ease and creativity. Sometimes, we are tempted to beat up on ourselves by saying, “We are not good at meditation and never will be?”; “It’s such a simple thing, why can’t I do it?” “Other people seem to manage, why can’t I?”

This is where loving kindness has a role. Jon Kabat-Zinn, in his definition of mindfulness, exhorts us to practise paying purposeful attention “non-judgmentally”. It is the negative self-evaluation that creates the greatest barrier to meditation, not the fact that we have lots of distracting thoughts. Thoughts are natural and will vary in content and frequency over time, reflecting what is going on in our life at that time. Jon suggests that we treat thoughts as if they are bubbles floating to the surface in boiling water.

Sharon maintains that “kindness towards ourselves” is essential if we are going to be able to persist with meditation. She argues that paying attention and kindness are inseparable – without self-compassion, you cannot sustain your attention. The power of meditation lies not only in the increasing capacity to concentrate but also in the ability to develop robust self-esteem through loving-kindness. Another dimension of this power is the ability to rest in our breath and bodily sensations in troubling times and times of turbulence in our life. Sharon explores fully the role of loving-kindness in her recent book, Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness.

The power of connection

Through meditation and loving-kindness, we come to realise our connectedness to everyone and our connection with nature. This is foundational to our ability to show compassion towards others. If we can accept ourselves fully – with our flaws, hurtful behaviour and our complex emotions – we are better able to extend compassion and forgiveness to others and accept that they are only human too.

Through our sense of connection, we can tap into the “collective energy” that surrounds us, pursue our life purpose and make a real difference in the world. Meditation becomes a power source, a way of accessing the power within and without – it becomes the conduit for our energy system.

Reflection

Meditation has a calming yet powerful effect. When we are rattled or frazzled, our power of concentration is diminished, our thoughts become dispersed and our energy dissipated. Paying attention to our breath with loving-kindness enables us to access our power source and to bring focused energy to our endeavours, whatever they may be. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, particularly through loving-kindness meditation, we can enhance our sense of connection to everybody and every living thing, build resilient self-esteem and draw on the power of focus.

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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 Mindfulness to Help Ourselves and Others

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

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

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

Reducing reactivity

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

The R.A.I.N. Process

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

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

Reflection

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

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

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

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Image by Mammiya from Pixabay

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

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