Expressing Gratitude Daily

Kim Armstrong provides a meditation on the theme of Cultivating Gratitude Daily.  In the 12-Minute Meditation podcast on 21 March 2024, she takes us through a process of reviewing our day (or the previous day) at micro-points to reflect on instances, interactions or events that brought us joy, happiness or contentment.  She encourages us to reflect on these moments to express appreciation for them.  They don’t have to be big happenings, but by reflecting on the small positive moments in our life, we can cultivate gratitude on a daily basis.

Kim is co-founder and facilitator of Space Between, a not-for-profit organisation dedicated to bringing the benefits of mindfulness to teachers and school-aged youth.  She has a Master’s Degree in Child and Adolescent Psychology and is a certified meditation and yoga teacher.  Fun-loving Kim is a strong advocate and practitioner of deep listening and draws inspiration from Thich Nhat Hanh’s quote, “Live the actual moment. Only this actual moment is life”.   

Space Between draws its name from Viktor Frankl’s book, Man’s Search for Meaning, and his observation that:

Between stimulus and response, there is a space.  In that space lives our freedom and our power to choose our response.  In our response lies our greatest happiness.

Guided meditation process

In her guided meditation, Kim helps us to explore the minutia of daily life and to learn to savour each moment that has enriched our lives in small and significant ways.  Her process begins with encouraging us to take two deep breaths, inhaling through our nose and exhaling through our mouth, as a way to become grounded for the meditation practice.  This initial breathing process could be accentuated by vagal toning.  She then leads us to reflect on different stages in our day.  The reflections below are my own recollections of moments I appreciated as I progressed through her “Cultivating Gratitude Daily” practice:

  • Waking up –  the warm morning hug from my partner; the sound of birds greeting the morning light (especially the Kookaburras and their raucous “laughter”); the red and yellow glow of the sunrise spreading across the horizon and being reflected in the waters of Moreton Bay; the view of Green Island and its sandy beach from my lounge room and deck; the sand dunes of Moreton island providing a very white backdrop; the early morning silence punctuated by the calls of birds and the sea breeze.
  • Moving from the bedroom – appreciating having the water and toothpaste to brush my teeth; the opportunity to shower and freshen up for the day in a bathroom (instead of in a lake or river); observing the sunlight spreading throughout the rooms of the house I share with my partner and one of my sons; having a house to live in that is spacious and open to views of the Bay.
  • Beginning the day – being able to make a cup of coffee on our Expresso machine; having access to Almond Milk (to avoid dairy milk intolerance);  savouring the foam and taste of the cappuccino I made; providing a coffee for my partner; having distilled water and vitamins to energise my day; enjoying gluten-free toast and avocado for breakfast; watching the birds feeding off the nectar from our native Bottlebrush trees; enjoying the colour and shape of the Bottlebrushes.
  • Transition to work, play, or  exercise – having a focus and a purposeful task such as my blog and book; being able to write well; having a talent for integrating ideas, concepts and practices from multiple sources; having focus and clarity (not encumbered by “brain fog”); being able to form an intention and pursue it; being able to create poems to reflect my thoughts and emotions.
  • Transition to home life – being able to walk on the Esplanade beside the Moreton Bay;  seeing pelicans gliding gracefully across the water at the creek’s edge and resting contentedly on rocks beside the seagulls as they survey the surrounding Bay waters glistening with sunlight; having access to shops to buy a wide assortment of foods; having food to prepare for dinner; preparing the dinner meal for my partner and son;  the pleasure of eating and sharing; the taste of food and drink (peppermint herb tea).
  • After dinner – sharing a favourite TV show with my partner; being able to watch the Olympics and European soccer (having the resources to fund streaming services such as Stan and Kayo).
  • Sleeping – being able to sleep (not suffering from insomnia); having a comfortable and warm  bed to sleep in (not sleeping in the street on our Winter nights); the stillness of the night.

Kim points out that the “cultivating gratitude practice” has many benefits.  She maintains that it offsets the negative bias of our brains and the tendency to focus on what is unpleasant or dissatisfying.  Kim argues that gratitude builds resilience, displaces envy and resentment and builds a positive mindset. In her mindfulness training with teachers and school-aged youth, she aims to help them to achieve “integration and wholeness”.  Cultivating gratitude helps us to get in touch with ourselves.

Kim and her colleagues at Space Between employ trauma-informed mindfulness training to help members of the school community to use the space between stimulus and response to make better choices for the benefit of themselves and their community.   Research supports the organisation’s observation that undertaking mindfulness practices intentionally provides “systemic support for the mental health and well-being of students, teachers and families”.

Reflection

The “Cultivating Gratitude Daily” practice helps us to grow in mindfulness and experience the benefits of heightened creativity, greater calm and clarity, and improved focus and productivity.   It assists us to see more clearly what we have in life – the things that bring us happiness and joy and builds positivity that contributes to increased resilience.

It also helps me to appreciate the opportunity to pursue a purpose, the creation of this blog, that is helpful for other people as I contribute to awareness of what resources are available to develop mindfulness and the multiple benefits that can accrue from pursuing mindfulness intentionally.

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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.

Meditation for Clarity and Calm at Work

Neuroscience has highlighted the multiple benefits of mindfulness practice.  These include the capacity to pay attention, sustain task-focus and regulate our emotions.  Mindfulness can contribute to our overall happiness by enabling us to be in the present moment (rather than the past or future), to sustain positive emotions and recover from perceived adverse events.  Mindfulness enhances our capacity in a work situation by  enabling us to handle abstract ideas, to be reflective and to strengthen the communication between the hemispheres of the brain.  Nadine Cherry who teaches meditation and other mindfulness practices to corporate organisations around the world, maintains that meditation can also develop clarity and calm.

In a 12-Minute Meditation podcast  (25 April 2024), Nadine facilitated a session on the theme, Meditation to Cultivate Calm and Clarity.  In that session, she introduced two mindfulness practices that she contends can be used in the workplace or when working at home.  They are short and can be undertaken anywhere:

1. H.A.L.T. Practice

In this process we can explore the bodily sensations and our thoughts  associated with hunger, agitation, loneliness and tiredness. It involves stopping for a brief period to focus on each of these states and how they are affecting us in the present moment.  It requires tuning into our bodies and our thoughts to assess where we are at in terms of these four human conditions.  It also involves reorienting ourselves when we find that we are being impeded by what is going on both in our bodies and our minds. Nadine maintains that this mindfulness practice can contribute “to inner peace and outer performance at work”.  It can be very useful as a prelude to a potentially tense meeting, a formal presentation or a challenging conversation. 

2. Vagal Toning

Vagus nerves are a critical component of our parasympathetic nervous system and are responsible for creating signals between our brain, heart and digestive systems.  Before challenging activities at work, we can experience tightening of our throat or chest.  Vagal Toning involves deep breathing and exhaling with a particular sound that relaxes the vagal nerves.  The process requires deep inhaling through the nose and then exhaling while making a “v” sound.  This action expands the chest and calms the body, enabling clarity of thought and decision-making. Vagal toning helps us to become more grounded and connected to ourselves, enabling us to relax and to achieve optimal performance in the moment.

Nadine asserts that these two mindfulness practices facilitate “authentic expression” and enable us to overcome “overwhelm” when working.  By helping us to become more connected to ourselves, they assist us to become clear about what we want to do and say in a work situation.

Reflection

While listening to Nadine’s podcast and participating in the mindfulness practices she described, I recalled another calming benefit of mindfulness that has personal relevance to my health situation.  I had been watching Dr. Darin Ingles’ Q & A video presentation on the Inflammatory Auto-Immune Response where he mentioned strategies to manage Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS) – a condition that I am currently experiencing.

Mast cells release chemicals that produce an inflammatory response to a “perceived invader” – something the body may misperceive as harmful (e.g. a particular protein found in gluten or milk).  The activation of the mast cells can range on a spectrum from mild to severe.  Darin maintains that in addition to medication, natural processes such as bodywork “can be helpful in resetting your autonomous nervous system and getting it back under control”.  He mentions explicitly bodywork such as meditation, Tai Chi, acupuncture, vagal toning, yoga and deep breathing as being especially helpful in toning down the body’s “hyper-active” immune response.

The calming influence of Tai Chi on MCAS provides an added motivation for me to practise Tai Chi regularly.  I have previously developed a mnemonic, FRAICHE, to remind me of other potential benefits of this mindfulness practice – flexibility, reflexes, awareness, intention, concentration and coordination, heart health and energy.  So, as we grow in mindfulness through practices such as H.A.L.T. , vagal toning and Tai Chi we can calm our body and mind and develop clarity in our thinking and decision-making.

Darin is the author of The Lyme Solution: A 5-Part Plan to Fight the Inflammatory Auto-Immune Response and Beat Lyme and provides a regular podcast on health issues, Resilient Health Radio.

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This post is provided for information purposes only and is not intended to replace personal medical advice provided by a trained medical practitioner.  Please seek advice from a qualified professional before deciding on treatments for yourself or other members of your family.

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Image by Fabiana pfernandes 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.

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:

  1. 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.
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.

Deep Listening: A Lost Managerial Art

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

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

The essence of deep listening

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

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

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

Benefits of deep listening

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

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

Ways to develop deep listening

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

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

Reflection

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

A further reflection (25 August 2023)

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

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Image by Monika Iris from Pixabay

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

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

Dealing with Guilt and Shame on the Death of a Son or Daughter

In the previous post, I wrote about how storytelling helped Tiffany Barton deal with grief and loss on the suicide death of her son, Cosmo.  She talked about her letter and poem, Young Death, that Nick Cave published in his book, Faith, Hope & Carnage.  She expressed gratitude that Nick’s wife, Susie Cave (née Bick), allowed him to share her “guilt and shame” in his book because it helped Tiffany “so much to know I wasn’t alone”.  Tiffany also stated that in sharing her own story publicly in the Weekend Magazine, she felt “some relief from pain” and “some forgiveness”.  Her experience and that of Nick reinforces the wisdom of Annie Brewster in her book, The Healing Power of Storytelling: Using Personal Narrative to Navigate Illness, Trauma and Loss.

Forgiveness: Release from guilt and shame

The latter part of Nick’s book is devoted to forgiveness and the idea of making amends.   He indicated that he and Susie were “looking the wrong way at the wrong time”.   He suggested that everything they do now is designed “to seek forgiveness by making amends”.   Tiffany related to that statement and indicated that her public storytelling was designed to help anyone else who is also wrestling “with guilt, shame and self-loathing” as a result of the suicide death of their son or daughter. Nick devotes a whole chapter (chapter 15) of his book to the theme of “Absolution”.

Nick found recording the Skelton Tree album in Brighton particularly challenging as he had to drive each day past the cliffs were his son Arthur died and past the Church where he was buried.  Even moving to Paris to finish the recordings did not assuage his sadness or sense of guilt.  What did effectively provide some form of “exoneration” and inner peace was the Andrew Dominik’s documentary, One More Time with Feeling.  The documentary captures the final recording sessions of Skeleton Tree by Nick and his band, The Bad Seeds, following the death of his son.  It also incorporates Nick’s reflections and those of his wife, Susie.   Nick explains that the documentary seemed like it did something for Arthur – “bring him back into the world”.   It served as a form of release for his own sense of helplessness and guilt and enabled him to experience “a kind of peace, an internal silence and calmness”, even when driving past the cliffs where Arthur died.

Finding forgiveness in working with clay

Nick found his way to forgiveness not only through his music but also through working with clay and developing figurines “in the Staffordshire style”.  He became obsessed with this project pursuing it intensely because he was totally absorbed by it and experienced flow through the deep concentration involved.  Nick found the process therapeutic, permeating his dreams and consuming much of his time when he was awake.  He indicated that part of the attraction of working with clay was that the process was “something very direct and elemental”.   Nick found that the medium “felt liberating, also very healing”.

Sean O’Hagan, Nick’s interviewer for the Faith, Hope & Carnage book, was intrigued by Nick’s compulsion with the clay figurines and asked about the portrayal of the epic journey involved, a seeming allegory.  Nick responded that the figurines were not intended to be directly about Arthur but, in the final analysis, had something to do with his death – there is a gesture of atonement involved in the final sculpture that is titled “Devil’s Forgiveness”.  When asked directly whether the figurine epic is “an allegory about forgiveness”, Nick found it difficult to articulate exactly what the figurines meant.  However, despite himself, the figurines, and the story they portrayed,  spoke to him “directly and explicitly”.   He found that the “plain and explicit nature” of the figurines related to him “the larger and unambiguous meaning of his predicament”.

Nick explained that the theme running through each of the sculptures, and the underlining story, is “the need to be forgiven” which he maintains is at the centre of his life and that of Susie and, as such, acts as a “motivating force”.   Nick stated that the Faith, Hope & Carnage book, his live performances, albums (Skeleton Tree, Carnage and Ghosteen), The Red Hand Files, and his In Conversations events, are all asking for absolution – “to be released from my own personal culpability”.  He also maintained that all the work that they do – he (with his creative works) and Susie (with her “ghost-like dresses”) are asking for forgiveness and saying that they are sorry for what happened to Arthur.  In his own words, Nick asserts, “There is not a song or word or a stitch that is not asking for forgiveness”.

Reflection

It is not possible to fathom the depth of grief and feelings of guilt and shame experienced by a parent on the death of a son or daughter.  Grief expresses itself in unique ways – for some it is totally consuming and takes over their life.  For others, it seems to be a passing feeling that becomes buried before it can become an all-consuming pain.  Some retreat into isolation , others “party on” while attempting to “drown their sorrows”.

The road to self-forgiveness and absolution is a long and winding road, and often a tortuous path.  It is highly individualised as reflected in Nick’s figurine epic and Susie’s dress designs.  Each person has to find their own way through the darkness of grief, guilt and shame.  For Nick and Susie, the road to release was paved with creativity – but never dissolving the underlying sadness.

Nick mentioned that meditating enabled him to access his better, sympathetic self.  In contrast, when he stopped meditating, his life tended “to slip back into chaos, low level depression and anger”.  As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, we can progressively deal with our challenging feelings of grief, guilt and shame and find a way to support others through empathy and compassionate action, whatever unique form that takes.  Through his pain, Nick reminds us to savour the “the precious nature of things” and the world at large.

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Image by Sergio Cerrato – Italia 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.

Mindfulness: A Pathway to Long Covid Recovery

Gez Medinger, creator of more than 90 video interview podcasts on Long Covid, strongly recommends visiting your medical practitioner if you have symptoms related to this emerging  illness. He also suggests that any medication should be supplemented by whatever way you find useful to calm your autonomous nervous system.  He argues that there is no recovery from Long Covid without calming the mind and body because the illness is a form of inflammation affecting multiple parts of our human makeup (as reflected in the more than 200 systems identified as being associated with Long Covid).  The illness creates pain because of over-activation of nerves in multiple parts of the body (the body goes into a fight/flight response).  Dr. Deepak Ravindran, pain management expert and Head of a Long Covid Clinic, encourages the use of gentle mind/body practices such as Tai Chi to aid the management of pain and overall recovery. 

After interviewing yoga teacher Suzy Bolt in one of his podcast interviews, Gez strongly advocates her course, Rest, Repair, Recover Programme, as a pathway to recovery from Long Covid.   Suzy’s Programme incorporates yoga, breath techniques, meditation and other mindfulness practices.  She also provides a community of people who are currently experiencing Long Covid or have recovered from it and who readily provide supportive relationships by sharing their own experience of what works for them and offering encouragement and inspiration.  The three different levels within the Programme cater for everyone, irrespective of their physical limitations or mobility issues.

Evidence of the effectiveness of the Rest, Relax, Recover Programme (incorporating mindfulness)

Of particular note, is Suzy’s interview with a course participant Joe Iddison and world famous cardiologist, Dr. Boon Lim.  In the video interview, Joe talks about his recovery journey from Long Covid with the aid of Suzy’s Programme and Boon’s medical advice.  Joe had experienced multiple Long Covid symptoms including PoTS, brain fog, fatigue and insomnia.  Boon recommended Suzy’s Programme because of the many reports he had been receiving from his patients who had recovered from Long Covid with the aid of medication and the Programme.   He indicated that he meditated a number of times each day in his busy cardiac practice.

Suzy herself had recovered from extreme symptoms of Long Covid and her capacity to launch and manage her Programmes with the aid of other professionals, bears witness to the power of her approach.  She stressed the value of her Programme in helping people deal not only with the physical side of the condition but also the mental and emotional side.  Long Covid can negatively impact your role, self-identity, work and home activities (including caring for children) – some people, for example, are so ill that they cannot get out of bed (and you can see them participating in Suzy’s Programme from their bed).  People, too, experience fear and anxiety as a result of the uncertainty and lack of understanding of the illness (from doctors, family, bosses, colleagues and friends).  Mindfulness has been shown to help people manage their anxiety.

While participating in the Programme in real time is desirable for the community connection, the Programme’s effectiveness can also be realised through accessing the resources provided after the activities have been completed live.  Suzy offers an on-demand version of the Programme, at a reduced rate, for people who cannot attend live because of family or work commitments or time differences (the Programme is offered according to the UK time zone).   Joe attests to the effectiveness of the on-demand Programme because that is the version he used for his recovery from extreme Long Covid symptoms.  He indicated in the interview mentioned above that he undertook one activity per day drawing on the Programme’s resources (e.g., yoga, breathing techniques, meditation or listening to the group discussion).

Developing a positive mindset

A key element in the Suzy’s Rest, Relax, Recover Programme is the power to create hope in participants.  This is generated through Suzy’s positivity, the community support and the video testimonials and education provided by participants and medical practitioners.  A key element in recovery from Long Covid is a positive mindset because this determines whether or not you will make the necessary adjustments to your lifestyle to aid recovery.  Debbie Geraghty, for example, shares her recovery story and emphasises the importance of being positive and tapping into something that you love such as dance, creativity, and/or connection.  

Deepak Ravindran, Long Covid and pain management expert mentioned earlier, has written a book, The Pain-Free Mindset: 7 Steps to Taking Control and Overcoming Chronic Pain, which is available in Paperback or as an e-book.  Deepak also mentioned in the interview with Suzy that he has obtained funding to support his patients to be able to do seated Tai Chi.

Reflection

The inability of many doctors to understand the nature and complexity of Long Covid has left their patients confused and uncertain.  Gez Medinger commented during the Long Haul & CFS Summit that the specialization of medicine has contributed to this.  He stated that many medical practitioners are “inadequately equipped” to take on Long Covid because it is a “multi-system, multi-factorial, multi-organ” condition.  Too often, a medical practitioner will focus on a particular symptom that they know how to address but fail to identify the root cause of the overall debilitating condition.  There are clearly exceptions to this, including Dr. Deepak Ravindran and Dr. Boon Lim.

It is important, however, to establish whether other factors (such as nutrient deficiency, undiagnosed cardiac illness or structural problems) are causing and/or contributing to our emerging symptoms.   Leading neurologist, Dr. Shanna Patterson, in a video interview podcast for the Foundation for Peripheral Neuropathy, emphasised that scientists are reluctant to attribute peripheral neuropathy to Long Covid without supportive scientific evidence (because there are many possible causes of this condition). 

However, individuals who are suffering from other identified Long Covid symptoms report experiencing peripheral neuropathy in the form of numbness, pain or tingling in their arms, legs or feet.  Shanna encourages people to explore different forms of diagnosis with their doctor to determine the type of neuropathy involved and to identify appropriate treatment options.  She indicated that blood tests, for example, can highlight whether diabetes, thyroid problems or vitamin deficiency is contributing to the neuropathy.

As I have experienced peripheral neuropathy and a mild form of post-exertion malaise, I have recently approached a medical practitioner who is very experienced and qualified both as a  General Practitioner and an Occupational and Environmental Physician.  I have undergone a series of tests for my current condition under his guidance.  I have simultaneously registered for the on-demand version of Suzy’s Rest, Relax, Recover Programme (the timing of the live sessions does not suit people living in Brisbane, Australia). 

I have a firm belief that as I grow in mindfulness – through breathwork, meditation, Tai Chi and other mindfulness practices – I will be able to calm my autonomous nervous system, develop confidence and hope and facilitate my body’s self-healing properties.  I look forward to engaging with the training provided by Suzy and her professional colleagues and learning from the experience (and success) of others who have suffered from Long Covid.  Suzy reinforces the view that breath is “the bridge between mind and body” and that we can slow both our mind and body by consciously slowing our breath.  Suzy’s YouTube Channel, with free resources such as podcast interviews with leading experts and sample classes, is located here.

Alexia Chellun’s Healing Song is very apt at this point as it incorporates the mantra:

“My body, mind and spirit are healthy”.

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Image by Zhu Bing 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.

Paying Attention to the Present Moment

Marvin Belzer recently facilitated a guided meditation podcast on paying attention to the present moment as a way of developing mindfulness.   Marvin stresses the simplicity of meditation, especially for those who are new to meditation practice.  He suggests that the focus for paying attention can be anything that is happening for us at present.  The focus can be our breathing, sounds around us, our bodily sensations or emotions that we are experiencing at the time.

Marvin stresses that meditation does not have to be goal oriented or involve an attempt to achieve perfection.  Being aware and paying attention to some aspect of our here and now experience brings with it a wide range of benefits, e.g., calmness, clarity, peace and positivity.  Diversion from our focus will occur naturally but these distractions can serve to build our awareness muscle , if we consciously return to our focus once we become aware that we have become diverted.

Marvin offers a choice of anchors or meditation focus, consistent with trauma-sensitive mindfulness practice.  He also provides a choice in how we meditate (e.g., sitting, lying down or walking) and whether or not we wish to participate with our eyes closed or open.

My experience of Marvin’s guided meditation

At the outset of the meditation, Marvin encourages us to become grounded through a number of deep breaths, including a heavy sigh on our out-breath.  This process helps to anchor us in the present, release tension and remind us of our intention in pursuing the meditation practice. 

When Marvin offered different foci for the meditation, I chose to focus on an emotion that was present (though somewhat buried).  The emotion was unearthed as I started to do a light body scan focusing on points of pain or tension.  My attention eventually landed on my right foot and ankle where I had been experiencing numbness and pain.  I had come to associate this with post-exertion malaise resulting from the effects of Long Covid.

As I focused on the numbness and pain in my right foot and ankle, I became aware of an associated emotion of disappointment. The net result of the post-exertion malaise is that I am unable to take my walks along the Manly esplanade in Brisbane, practice Tai Chi, or play social tennis (all of which are normally an integral part of my life).  As I focused on the emotion I was experiencing, I became aware of a tear forming and dropping on my face. So, even if I had not previously attended to what I was experiencing as a result of the post-exertion malaise, my body was keeping the score

I realise too that my reluctance to engage in any extended mental exertion (such as writing this blog) or gardening), was a result of recent experiences where limited exertion led to a very quick elevation of heart pulse rate and blood pressure, on one occasion resulting in numbness in both legs and difficulty in moving. Since these experiences, I have undertaken extensive research and participated in (and purchased) the 2023 Overcoming Long Haul and Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Summit.

Reflection

Gez Medinger, who presented at the Overcoming Long Haul Summit, suffered from Long Covid himself and has produced over 90 video interview podcasts with experts in the field.  His very strong recommendation is that people who suffer from Long Covid should “work out what helps them calm the nervous system down”.  He mentioned that acupuncture helped some people, while others have benefited from the Rest, Repair, Recover Programme of yoga teacher Suzy Bolt.   Gez interviewed Suzy Bolt as part of his video podcast interviews on Long Covid.  Lorrie Rivers, Convenor of the  ME/CFS and Long Covid Summit focused on mind/body techniques and mindfulness to aid her own recovery from Long Covid.

The insights I’ve gained to date about recovery from Long Covid encourages me to pursue various mindfulness practices to aid my own recovery.  As I grow in mindfulness, I hope to maintain my calmness and acceptance of my condition, while working creatively towards complete recovery.  Meditation is one practice that can help me use the power of the present moment to “calm my nervous system” and associated symptoms.

I am constantly reminded of Alexia Chellun’s song:

The Power of Now is Here Now

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Image by icecube11 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.

How to Sustain the Practice of Meditation

Marvin Belzer, Assistant Director of MARC, UCLA, in a recent guided meditation podcast provides some insights into what is required to sustain the practice of meditation.  He suggests, for example, that “willingness” is the essence of sustainability in relation to meditation.  We have to be willing to give it a go, be patient to stay with the process and avoid any attempt or pressure  to achieve perfection.  Some of his insights for sustainability, after 30 years of his own mindfulness practice, include the following.

Choose an anchor that is natural and comfortable for you

It is really important to choose an anchor that is easy for you and assists you to sustain the effort needed for meditation.   An anchor helps you to focus your attention, sustain the focus and serves as a point of return when you experience distractions.  The more common anchors are sounds (within your room or external), bodily sensations and your breath.  With sounds, it is important to just tune into what is happening around you but not attempt to identify the sounds (or source) or evaluate them in terms of pleasant/unpleasant, soft/loud or any other evaluation criteria.  The essence of sound as an effective anchor is the process of “tuning in”.   A focus on bodily sensations can be achieved through a body scan or a simple focus on a particular area of your body.  With your breath as an anchor, it helps to focus on where you experience the process of breathing, e.g., abdomen, nose or chest.  You are not attempting to control your breath but just to pay attention to the “in-breath”, the “out-breath” and the space between.  I find that a focus on breathing is easier for me than sounds because I find the latter distracting if I am inside a room.  However, if I am outside, I find it easier to focus on the sounds of birds, both those that are nearby and those further away.  It is important to be aware of the need to choose a “trauma-sensitive” anchor if a particular anchor elicits a trauma response (a rare occurrence, but a reality for some people).

Keep it simple

Marvin emphasises the simplicity of meditation.  You do not have to “perform” or achieve “mastery” to gain the benefits of meditation practice.  It does not involve a process of ongoing measurement or evaluation against some yardstick.  There will be days when meditation will feel easy and natural and other days when it is difficult because of what is going on in your life at the time and your level of health/wellness.  The amount of time you have available for meditation can also impact your experience of it. 

Choose a meditation practice suited to you and your available time

You do not have to master all possible forms of meditation (which are numerous).  For sustainability, it is important that you try to focus on a particular form of meditation that suits you and your lifestyle.  Some people like to sit quietly in their home, others like to meditate externally in nature, while others like an active meditation process such as movement meditation.  Some people prefer to employ meditation within a yoga framework.  I find that Tai Chi is the form of meditation that I can practise more regularly because I have spent a lot of my life in activities such as playing tennis, bike riding, competitive athletics and walking.   Some people find that mantra meditations or chanting suits them best and their situation.  Tina Turner, for example, found that chanting a particular mantra enabled her to achieve balance in times of adversity, which were sometimes extreme such as being an abusive relationship.

Remind yourself of the benefits that accrue as you meditate

Recalling the benefits of meditation practice provides positive reinforcement for your practice and helps you to sustain the effort.  Invariably, you can experience calmness, equanimity and clarity if you persist.  However, there may be particular benefits that you experience that are personal to you, e.g., reduction in difficult emotions, better stress management or ease in daily life.  I find that Tai Chi helps me to play tennis better because it improves my reflexes, coordination, concentration and flexibility.  The flow-over benefits of Tai Chi for my tennis performance (and enjoyment of social tennis) are a source of reinforcement for my mindfulness practice. 

Reflection

Marvin reinforces the need to not be discouraged when you experience distractions such as planning thinking or strong emotions.  It is natural, no matter how experienced you are, to find distractions intruding into your meditation practice.  You can acknowledge the distracting thought or planning process and return to your focus.  I find that planning my day is a major source of distraction for me during meditation but recognising this, I have adopted the practice of just naming what is happening and returning to my anchor.  Marvin suggests that with emotions you experience during meditation, you can just notice what they are like and how you experience them in your body, e.g. anxiety might be experienced as tightness in your chest or stomach.  After tuning in to the emotion and its bodily manifestation, he encourages you to return to your anchor.  The very act of continually returning to your anchor after a distraction serves to build your awareness muscle and your capacity to sustain concentration.  As we grow in mindfulness through sustained meditation practice, we will experience an ever-widening range of benefits that will serve, in turn, to reinforce our practice.

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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.

The Simplicity of Meditation

Marvin Belzer, PhD, provided a guided meditation podcast emphasising the simplicity of the process and the fact that its eminently “doable” – even if we have to fit it into a busy life by dedicating 3-5 minutes to focused attention on the present moment and our bodily sensations.  He emphasised that it does not have to be difficult or challenging but does require effort and regular practice.  He emphasised the need to avoid setting a goal that we pursued through meditation – this can create stress and distraction.  His emphasis is on keeping it simple while paying attention to some aspect of our everyday life. 

Marvin indicated that he has practised meditation for more than 30 years and has taught mindfulness for 20 years.  He offered the meditation as part of the free weekly guided meditations provided by MARC, UCLA.  His role in UCLA is that of Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences.  He has taught mindfulness to many groups including semester-length courses for university students and courses for teens.  We can gain some insight into Marvin’s mindfulness orientation by listening to his interview with Bob O’Haver on Bob’s “Why Meditate?” Podcast – the interview provides some insight into Marvin’s approach to meditation, mindful living, and the cultivation of compassion in our lives.

Guided meditation

In the guided meditation, Marvin maintains that by keeping the process simple, we can more readily access the calming effect of meditation and not be so readily distracted by complex or abstract thoughts.  The focus is on the present moment awareness as we are experiencing it.  His starting point is deep breathing to help us to ground ourselves – with a sigh on the out-breath. Marvin offers a choice of anchors – bodily sensations, surrounding sounds or our breath.  He encourages us to sustain our attention on one of these anchors so that we can experience a sense of calm, peace and stability.  Marvin emphasises that this simple approach to meditation can be a refuge in busy or turbulent times, if we make it a regular practice.

In his view, meditation enables us to pay attention to what is real in our life, not what we wished it would be.  Marvin encourages us to persist with paying attention even when thoughts, emotions or sensations distract us from our focal anchor.  He suggests that we adopt a playful approach to meditation not chiding ourselves, but noting something like, “There I go again, planning my day as if my life depended on it”.  He recommends that even in this busy time of the year, with Christmas approaching, we can adopt the habit of brief meditations – a process I employ when “waiting” for someone or something, especially traffic lights. 

Marvin encourages us to be non- judgmental towards ourselves but to “show up as we can”, given our commitments, health and family situation.  This is sound advice as I often find myself, when I am unwell or have an injury, being critical of myself for not doing my Tai Chi mindfulness practice.  His overall approach with his focus on simplicity and regularity is very encouraging.

Marvin also notes that sometimes we can be bored during meditation (I can relate to this!) but that boredom can be an important antidote to the endless stimulation provided by social media and invasive advertising.  Our capacity to pay attention is continuously eroded by the “firehose of information” – a term used by Johann Hari in his book, Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention If we persist with meditation despite our sense of boredom, we can reap the fruits of developing our awareness muscle and deepening our capacity to concentrate.  It is critical for our mental health and the health of our minds to protect our attention.

Reflection

Marvin, like accomplished practitioners in many fields, is able to make complex concepts and processes simple.  His approach encourages us to persist with meditation, no matter what is happening in our lives.  He suggests, for example, that if we are anxious, we can pay attention to the bodily sensations of our anxiety – we can release any tension we locate or stay with the sensation in a softening, calming way through a compassionate body scan.  As we grow in mindfulness through regular mindfulness practices such as meditation, we can access our inner landscape, enjoy tranquility, and gain clarity and insight.

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Image by nobutz 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.

Guided Mindful Movement Meditation

Tom Heah, a highly accredited mindfulness teacher, provides a guided meditation podcast on mindful movement, his particular area of expertise.  Tom was an Occupational Therapist in Vancouver Canada until 2021 when he switched to offering mindfulness training to the Vancouver Center which focused on mental health and substance abuse.  Tom has conducted many mindfulness training courses, including Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) and Mindful Awareness Practices (MAPs).  He offers free access to guided audio versions of mindfulness practices incorporated in these courses – they are available for streaming and/or download.  His recent mindful movement meditation was offered as the last of the 2022 weekly, UCLA online meditations.  From 12 January 2023, the weekly meditations will resume as in-person, face-to-face sessions at the Hammer Museum with live streaming.  The guided meditations will continue to be available in audio podcast form after the resumption.

Tom discusses the nature of mindfulness in terms of focusing on the internal and external sensations of the present moment.  He suggests that this involves openness, interest and curiosity about our current reality, both internal and external.  By focusing on the present moment, we resist the natural urge to ruminate about the past (experiences, mistakes, losses) or to worry about the future.  Tom maintains that cultivated present moment awareness enables us to show up in the various arenas of our lives.

Tom highlights the fact that despite the festivities of the Christmas season, many people will be experiencing sadness through loss, isolation, loneliness, illness or conflict with relatives.  He observes that people often cannot sit still when they are stressed – so he focuses on mindful movement in his guided meditation.

Guided mindful movement meditation

From the outset of the mindful movement meditation, Tom stresses the need to stay within our own physical limits, engaging in the suggested movements only to the extent that they do not cause pain.  The fundamental idea of mindful movement is to move parts of our body while breathing in a controlled way.  The aim then is to focus on the bodily sensations experienced with each form of movement.  Guided movements can be undertaken either standing or sitting, allowing for variations for the chosen posture.

In the guided movement meditation, Tom skilfully directs our movements while guiding our breathing – all the time reminding us not to stop breathing.  Some of the movements involve raising both arms, moving our arms sideways and slowly moving the neck in a number of directions.  It is important to follow the guidance provided so that we can remain focused on our bodily sensations, without thinking about the next step.

After completing the movement meditation, Tom guides us on a silent, still meditation where we can focus on an anchor of our choice to enable us to return to our focus when we become distracted by thinking or planning.  The anchor could be our breathing, sounds that surround us or some form of bodily sensation such as our fingers touching.

Reflection

The guided meditation provided by Tom is one of the many meditations that involve mindful movement.  Others include Tai Chi and Yoga.  As we grow in mindfulness through mindful movement meditations, we can develop new perspectives on old problems, respond to triggers in a more skilful way and experience greater ease and restfulness.  Our increased bodily awareness can help us to better access the wisdom of the body and develop openness to our intuition.

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Image by Moondance 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.