resilience – Page 4 – Grow Mindfulness

Mental Health and the Burden of Expectations for Elite Athletes

The 2020 Tokyo Olympics brought the issue of the mental health of elite athletes into the spotlight with the open admission of mental health issues by Naomi Osaka (World No.2 tennis player) and Simone Biles (American gymnast considered one of the greatest gymnast ever). Both elite athletes acknowledge that their performance and capacity to participate to the best of their ability was impacted by mental health issues. One of the key stressors for both these athletes was the burden of expectations, their own and that of other people, including the press and social media.

Naomi Osaka and mental health

In winning the 2019 Australian Open singles title, Naomi Osaka was the epitome of mindfulness in action – displaying resilience in the face of setbacks and disappointments, overcoming negative thoughts and drawing on gratitude as a means to stay grounded in the present moment. Yet by the middle of 2021, Naomi was experiencing severe mental health issues that led her to withdraw from the French Open after winning her first round match.

Naomi explained that she had experienced “long bouts of depression” since her win over Serena Williams at the US Open in 2018. She found giving post-match interviews particularly difficult because she is an introvert and inherently shy and has trouble dealing with the public scrutiny and criticism of the way she plays a match. Because of these difficulties, she publicly stated that she would not give post-match interviews during the 2021 French Open. This attracted a vehement response from an unforgiving press and social media that had created her social persona and related performance expectations. Added to the stress of the moment was a fine of $15,000 for refusing to be interviewed after her first round win, along with the threat of expulsion from the French Open (along with other Grand Slam events).

Some people rallied around Naomi and praised her for her willingness to publicly acknowledge her mental health issues, her judgment in taking a “mental health break” to concentrate on “self-care”, and her desire to avoid being a “distraction” from the main event. Some ruthlessly and with no compassion judged her as weak and suggested she toughen up. So the very criticism she had wanted to avoid was heaped on her after her decision to withdraw for mental health reasons.

It is understandable then that Naomi (with the memory of the trauma of the French Open still raw and real), should play a “loose game” when losing her Olympic third round match to world No. 42 Marketa Vondrousova. Naomi admitted that she found the pressure of expectation too difficult to handle. She had been made the “face of the Olympics”, had her first round match delayed so that she could light the Olympic Torch at the Opening Ceremony and carried with her the hope of her entire country, Japan (the host of the Olympics).

Barney Ronay wrote a scathing piece during the 2020 Tokyo Olympics about the role of media in Big Sport creating a “24-hour rolling hell” amid what he described as an “endlessly hostile kind of unregulated social experiment”. He points out that the athletes carry the weight of unrealistic expectations to be brilliant all the time, to assuage the sadness and despair of individual nations with rays of hope and achievement and fulfill political desires and sponsor demands. He argues that the world has become “a place of unceasing noise, reverence, poison, expectation” where athletes who have had a disrupted preparation in the face of pandemic uncertainty are subjected to the amplification of their mistakes and the associated “unkind words” voiced by caustic observers.

Naomi, in an insightful essay in Time Magazine after her French Open withdrawal, expressed her disappointment and regret that she was subjected to detailed, public scrutiny of her mental health condition by the press and French Open organisers. She explained that this invasion of privacy aggravated her mental illness at the time (and subsequently, through the memory of these painful events). She asked for “empathy” and “privacy” from the press.

There is now a special three-part Netflix documentary on Naomi Osaka which will help people to understand the influences in her life, the pressures she is under and the ways she seeks to manage overwhelming expectations.

Reflection

Privately, we each carry expectations of elite athletes and at times express criticism of their performance without knowing what is happening in their lives at a point in time or understanding the pressures they are under. It might be more helpful, caring and compassionate to refrain from our criticisms and focus on what the athlete has had to go through to achieve an elite performance level.

I have just finished reading Tania Chandler’s novel, All That I Remember About Dean Cole, which tracks the journey of a young woman from trauma to triumph. This penetrating and “compelling portrait” of mental illness is insightful and engaging. In an interview about her book, Tania explained that the book is “about memory, time, mental illness, perception, and perspective”. She stated that she drew on her lived experience of mental illness in her book as well as thorough research into areas such as trauma, mental health, depression, schizophrenia, psychosis, caring for people with mental illness, burns care, terror attacks and synaesthesia.

Tania’s book can help us become more aware that people we interact with daily are all subject to the influence of past events whether they experienced psychological control in a relationship, sexual abuse, physical abuse, trauma, social conditioning, parental neglect, an alcoholic parent, parental divorce or any of the multitude forms of adverse childhood experiences. This should encourage us to be more empathetic and compassionate towards others.

As we grow in mindfulness through loving-kindness meditation, reflection and other mindfulness practices, we can enhance our sensitivity and compassion, develop insight into mental illness and its behavioural manifestations and learn ways to develop self-care, gratitude and compassionate thoughts and action. In the process, we can develop our resilience in dealing with challenging times, ill-health, disappointments and setbacks. We can grow in awareness of the impact of our words and actions and learn to overcome habituated responses such as criticism.

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Image Source: Ron Passfield (Point Lookout, Stradbroke Island)

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.

Solitude and Silence in Nature – A Pathway to Self-Awareness and Resilience

We can have an approach-avoidance attitude to solitude in nature – being alone in silence away from other people. It can at first generate fear and tap into all our negative associations with “being alone”. Solitude is different to loneliness because it involves choice – choosing to be by ourselves or to make the most of being “forced” to be alone. It involves developing a positive perspective on being alone – seeing it as an opportunity for increased self-awareness and empowerment rather than a deprivation of company.

Ruth Allen, author of Grounded: How Connection with Nature Can Improve our Mental and Physical Wellbeing, maintains that when we are in nature we are never really alone – we are always in the presence of other living things that are around us that we often do not see. Our natural environment is teeming with life. When we choose solitude in nature, time away from other people, we can become more connected with nature and every living thing. We can be more open to the vibrancy and beauty that surrounds us.

Often, we can be fearful of being alone with ourselves – facing up to who we really are (rather than who we project to others). It means confronting those parts of ourselves that we may not like – it might be our character flaws or personal weaknesses, our past history of unkindness or thoughtlessness or our self-indulgence. Many of these traits can be hidden away from consciousness because they appear too painful to confront. The power of solitude in nature is the gift of silence and quiet reflection – time away from the distracting influence of noise and the pollution of expectations (our own and those of other people).

Gaining self-awareness and clarity

Solitude in nature offers us the opportunity to become increasingly self-aware – to understand who we really are and what we are truly capable of. In his TED Talk, photographer Benjamin Powell argues that solitude in nature gives “our inner voice the opportunity to speak” and reveals our life purpose to us because it unearths our “latent gifts and talents” and cultivates unselfishness. We can move from being self-absorbed to being absorbed in everything around us.

Often when we are experiencing challenges we say, “I need to go for a walk to clear my head”. Solitude in nature gives us the opportunity to develop clarity, restore perspective and find creative solutions to issues that are causing us stress. We can gain insight into our own way of perceiving the issues as well as develop an understanding from other people’s perspective. Reflection through solitude in nature can help us, for example, to understand residual resentment that we may carry after an interaction (even if that was a long time ago). It enables us to step back from the noise and clutter of a busy life and self-indulgence in hurt feelings and to find the insight to balance our perspective on the interaction, including understanding how our own sensitivity has contributed to our hurt feelings and appreciating the influences that contributed to the other person’s behaviour.

Strengthening relationships

When we return from solitude in nature, we are in a better place to engage with others, whether partners, family, friends, or colleague. We can be more self-aware (particularly of our sensitivities and our habituated behavioural patterns), more patient through absorption in the quietness and stillness of nature, more in control of our own emotions and more ready to appreciate others in our life through experiencing gratitude for nature and its freely-given gifts.

Building resilience and self-reliance

When we spend time alone in nature, in stillness and silence, we have to fall back on our resources and resourcefulness. We have to tap into our inner strength as we explore our “inner landscape” with openness and curiosity. Meeting this challenge head on builds our capacity to meet the challenges of everyday life and to learn the depth and breadth of our inner strength. Solitude in nature can provide us with an experience of bliss that flows over into our daily lives and strengthens us when we are confronted by adversity. We know, too, from experience of solitude that we can seek refuge in nature to restore our groundedness and self-belief.

Reflection

If we have an aversion for solitude in nature, we can explore the feelings we are experiencing to better understand the source of our fear. It might be that such solitude is a trigger for a traumatic reaction because of prior adverse experiences. It could be that we are very reluctant to look too closely at our lives and what we have done in the past. Sometimes, we may need professional support to engage with the challenge of solitude.

Ruth contends that we can train ourselves for solitude in nature and offers activities that we can undertake when alone in nature and ten strategies to employ when planning solitude in nature. She also cautions against trying to move too fast or too far when we are not used to spending time alone. Ruth points out, too, that we can progress from a short period to longer periods in solitude as we expand our comfort zone. She also recommends that we reflect on our solitude experience and learn what natural places are more conducive to wellness for us as well as what is an ideal amount of time for us to spend in nature alone.

As we grow in mindfulness through solitude in nature and the resultant self-reflection, we can grow in self-awareness, self-reliance, and resilience to face the challenges of life. We can also gain clarity about our life purpose and what we can contribute to helping others achieve wellness.

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Image by Antonio López from Pixabay

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

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

Creating a Personal Transformation: Reframing Your Life

Tina Turner argues in her book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, that a transformation or total revolution of mind and heart takes considerable energy and courage. It is clear that her own transformation was powered by the vibrational energy of her chanting. What is not so clear is that she was able to reframe her life through the insight and mindset gained through her research of Buddhism, particularly Nichiren Buddhism.

Tina asserted that if we never challenge our comfort zone or have it challenged through our life circumstances, we will not be able to realise our potential. In her view, in challenge there is real learning and strength – a mindset that sees challenges as opportunities for insight, growth and development of resilience.

Tina challenged her own comfort zone by working with songs that she initially did not like and searching for some meaning in them that she could explore and express. One such song, What’s Love Got to Do With It, became an international hit – like many other successful songs that she initially did not like, but pushed past her initial reaction to challenge herself.

And so it is with us, if we hold back or procrastinate, we can deprive ourself of realising some element of our potential and our capacity to help others. Our example alone of pushing through the comfort barrier can assist others who are struggling to achieve something important in their lives. Tina argues that we can’t wait until we are fully confident of success (with no chance of failure) before we act – life is too short for such procrastination.

Our inherent connectedness

Tina maintains that an essential element in the growth of consciousness is the realisation, both conceptually and energetically, that we are connected to every other person and every living thing through our reliance on and contribution to the flow of universal energy. She quotes Matin Luther King Jr. who puts this reality very simply by saying that we all belong to an “inescapable network of mutuality”.

Tina points out that in this interconnected reality, there is no room for racism, ageism, sexism, or any other divisive discrimination. In her view, we are like the dots in a Pointillism painting where coloured dots form a pattern that the eye can discern as an integrated image. Georges Seurat, an early proponent of this approach, maintains that “unifying diverse colors in this way made his art more brilliant”. Tina used this analogy to express our interconnectedness because it “honours each colour, each dot, its distinct characteristics”.

Tina was very conscious that every person has “great worth” and “inherent potential” that can be progressively released over a lifetime (as she has shown in her own life). Recognition of the rich tapestry of difference makes our world an absorbing place to be. This diversity of perspectives throws light on the unfathomable depth of our inner landscape, the pervasiveness of energy and its many forms and the infinite reach of our universe – undeniable grounds for wonder and awe.

In acknowledgement of our inherent connectedness, many Nichiren Buddhists, in this day and age, have engagement and social activism “as a vital part of their practice”. This is particularly true of Tina who has co-founded and contributed to the Beyond Music Project designed to “celebrate unity in its cultural diversity” through music.

Nichiren Buddhism and science

In her book, Tina explains how she developed her understanding of, and commitment to, Nichiren Buddhism. She does not attempt to explain the science of Buddhism nor the neuroscience confirmation of its benefits but describes how it has transformed her heart and mind and underpinned her success in life.

However, Susanne Matsudo-Killani and Yukio Matsudo, in their book, Transform your Energy – Change your life! : Nichiren Buddhism 3.0, draw on the metaphorical language of Nichiren to explore the links between his approach and that of quantum physics and bio-feedback which effectively “integrate energy and consciousness” in their explanations of nature and human reality. As scientists begin to explore Meditation, Buddhism and Science, they are beginning to realise that these different worldviews are complementary and enrich each other.

Reflection

Tina has demonstrated that if we push our perceived personal boundaries, we can realise higher levels of awareness, consciousness, and achievement – we can actualize our hidden potential. Buddhist practices enable us to tap into the universal energy that is within and around us.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, chanting and exploration of different worldviews, we can open our horizons, transform our hearts and minds, and make a real difference in our world.

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Image by Hamsterfreund 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.

Turning Your Life Around – a Buddhist Perspective

In her book Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good, Tina Turner identifies a number of ways to achieve our full potential and realise happiness in our lives. In a previous post I discussed how she chanted the Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo mantra as a way to tap into her fundamental Buddha nature which releases “limitless courage, wisdom and compassion” to overcome any obstacle or challenge in life. However, along the way she encountered the pull down to a lower life condition created by negative self-stories.

Tina experienced negative self-talk that saw her as not beautiful, not talented, or too fat. These messages were reinforced by her interpretation of her mother’s behaviour – her neglect and desertion as well as her preferential treatment of her sister. We can each develop specific negative self-talk through our experiences of the words and behaviour of our parents, our “friends”, classmates, teachers, or the community generally.

When we entertain these thoughts, they begin to have a life of their own and can be a powerful pull away from the realisation of our potential and our happiness. The strength of these negative thoughts, as in Tina’s case, can be reinforced by the press and/or social media which can be particularly unkind, hurtful, and damaging to self-esteem.

Overcoming the negative self-talk

Tina’s Buddhist beliefs enabled her to see the good in everyone, including herself – to understand the inherent Buddha nature of everyone. This strong belief in the core value and worth of everyone, which can have its origins in any philosophy or religion, can be a strong antidote to negative self-talk.

A key strategy that Tina employed and that is advocated by mindfulness experts such as Jon Kabat-Zin is to assert that “we are not our thoughts” – that we are much more than our limiting self-talk. This recognition and constant affirmation are powerful ways to break free from the holds of negative self-perception.

Tina reaffirms the positive energy and self-talk that is generated by chanting the powerful Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo mantra or other forms of mantra singing. The vibrational energy and resultant healing in mantra singing are confirmed by neuroscientists. Tina maintains that we can each have our own preferred way of tapping into positive energy whether that be singing, listening to music, observing nature, walking or exercising. The important process is to find a way to replace the disabling energy of negative self-talk with the powerful energy of whatever stimulates positive energy and resonance for us.

Reframing our difficulties and challenges

Despite our best efforts to generate positive energy, we can be thrown off balance by life-changing difficulties or challenges such as illnesses, loss of a job, death in the family, deterioration of another family member or other forms of emotional overload. Workload and the challenges of being a carer can add to the tendency to lose our balance and develop negativity.

Tina draws on the work of Nichiren and his restatement of the Buddhist concept of “changing poison into medicine” – turning challenges and setbacks as opportunities for learning and to grow stronger, enhancing our “courage, wisdom and compassion”. When she was about to perform after a night of celebrating the close of a very successful music tour, she was low in energy and high in reticence but found the strength to do her chanting and remind herself that hidden treasures lie in life’s challenges. She went on stage to conduct a highly successful event. She did not let old habits and negative self-talk destroy her positive energy but overcame them through chanting and waking up to the beauty in her life, including the pleasure on people’s faces when they heard her sing.

Reflection

Tina presents a positive approach to dealing with negative self-talk and life’s challenges and setbacks and demonstrates in her own life how to turn your life around, develop resilience and achieve sustainable happiness. There is a general consensus that chanting mindfully is itself a form of meditation that can enhance our capacity to be present in the moment, enrich our inner landscape and increase our inner strength. As we grow in mindfulness, we can experience the ease of wellness, the energy of connectedness and the insight to pursue out life’s purpose and passion.

Tina’s book is enlightening, engaging and enriching. It’s readability and attractiveness is created by her rich story-telling, her openness and her vulnerability.

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Image by Kanenori 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.

Adversity, Resilience and Happiness: A Chanting and Meditation Pathway

Tina Turner experienced an incredible amount of adversity – an abusive marital relationship, stalled singing career, severe illness (including a stroke and kidney failure), all preceded by adverse childhood experiences (including parents who constantly fought, divorced and abandoned her). At age 34, still in her destructive relationship, Tina discovered Buddhist chanting and meditation and this eventually changed her life, giving her the courage to break off her damaging relationship and launch her solo career. Tina explains her journey in her new book, Happiness Becomes You: A Guide to Changing Your Life for Good.

The chant that changed her life

Tina explains how she discovered the power of the Daimoku – the chanting of the Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo. This mantra is central to Buddhist practice and millions of people around the world practise it every day. Orlando Bloom, the English actor, is also a strong advocate and practitioner of this mantra.

Tina maintains that chanting the Buddhist mantra generates vibrational energy and positive Karma in a person’s life. She explains “Karma” as “the sum of all your actions – thoughts, words and deeds” and suggests that it is like a “balance sheet” reflecting the net balance of the positive and negative actions of your life. Karma “determines our dominant life condition”.

Tina maintains that chanting the mantra is doing a workout for your spirit and likens it to a physical workout that conditions you for physical exertion and sporting activities. She suggests that the time spent in daily chanting should be influenced by the level of your karma limitations (excess negative over positive energy), your life condition and the magnitude of your dreams.

Tina writes that she spent many hours a day chanting when she was in a karmic low and experiencing adverse life conditions while still holding onto very big dreams. She found that the very positive results she achieved with her chanting acted as reinforcement to maintain her daily practice. She was, however, able to modify the time spent on chanting as her life became more balanced. Tina suggests that even 15 minutes chanting the Nam-Myoho-Renge-Kyo mantra each day, can be beneficial for your life condition and the achievement of your dreams.

Buddhist wisdom – the Ten Worlds

In her book, Tina introduces the “Ten Worlds” of Buddhism that describe our “life condition” and likens them to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. She explains that our life condition encompasses our thoughts, moods, and our overall wellbeing which, in turn, influence how we view ourselves and others, our emotional disposition, our decisions and actions. Tina compares the lower levels of the Ten Worlds to the lower levels of the hierarchy of needs such as physiological needs, safety, need for belonging and self-esteem.

In Tina’s view, the highest level of Maslow’s hierarchy, self-actualization, accords with elements of the top four Buddhist Worlds, namely Learning, Realization, Compassion, and Buddhahood (complete freedom, endless courage, wholeness, a sense of connection to the “life force” of the universe). Both Learning and Realization are developed through learning and reflecting on our own experiences and insights and that of others.

Tina found that one of the attractions of the Buddhist concept of Ten Worlds was the idea that you can progress directly from the bottom level to the top levels through concerted inner work, working daily on enriching your inner landscape. Her pathway was that of Buddhist chanting and meditation. She maintains that we each have to find our own pathway to live more fully.

Reflection

Tina has demonstrated throughout her life the capacity to bounce back from physical, emotional and relationship challenges – she has shown resilience in the face of adversity. In the process, she has been able to achieve deep happiness. As she points out, we all seek happiness but it is invariably “elusive”. Sustaining a state of happiness is a challenge.

Tina was able to grow in mindfulness and awareness through Buddhist chanting and meditation and found that her daily practice enabled her to rise above challenging emotions and circumstances, enrich her life, and achieve her wildest dreams. For each of us there is a potential pathway to resilience and happiness and the realisation of our dreams and life purpose.

As Tina states in her book Happiness Becomes You:

Each of us is born, I believe, with a

unique mission, a purpose in life that

only we can fulfill.

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Image by Наталья Данильченко 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.

Change Your Perspective and Change Your Life

Foundational to Hugh Van Cuylenburg’ Resilience Project is a change in perspective and in his book on the topic he provides evidence of people who have turned their lives around through a change in their perspective. He urges us strongly to focus on what we have, not what we lack. He maintains that this change develops the positive emotions of appreciation and gratitude that replace the negative emotions of envy and resentment. He points out too that it replaces depression about the past and/or anxiety about the future with the capacity to live the present moment more fully.

Underpinning the gratitude perspective is a change in our point of reference – from comparing ourselves to those who have more, to making the comparison with others who have considerably less. His story of the Indian boy, Stanzin, highlights the impact of this different way of looking at things. Stanzin was one of the most destitute children he met in India but the happiest person he had ever met – he appreciated everything in his life (no matter how old, broken, or impoverished).

Hugh worked with elite sportspeople including NRL and ARL football players. He mentions that at least five elite athletes changed their lives dramatically by implementing a daily gratitude journal – going from suicidal thoughts to appreciating the richness of their lives.

From loss and failure to learning and understanding

Hugh suggests that loss and failure can be seen in a very different light if we change our perspective. If we view them as opportunities and lessons to be learned and realise that they are often the result of our own unmet expectations, we can move away from depression and anxiety to understanding and valuing the experience. In each of life’s experiences, there is something to learn. If we always experience “success” we can harbour false assumptions about what “made” our success, not realising our underlying deficiencies (often propped up by others).

Associated with this change in perspective is moving from self-absorption and self-congratulation to acknowledging the very rich contribution of the many people who have had a positive influence on our life (including our parents who provided our “gene pool”). This latter thought came to me this morning when I was making an entry in my gratitude journal. I was able to write, “I appreciate my genetic legacy from my father – athleticism, resilience and stamina, and from my mother – kindness, compassion, understanding and patience.”

It also means moving away from the perspective of “better than” to realistically appreciating our strengths and limitations – a change in perspective from “superior conceit” to a “healthy confidence”. This change can result in improved behaviour together with happiness and contentment.

From “clients” to “friends”

Hugh mentions that at some stage in introducing students, elite sportspeople, and businesspeople to his GEM pathway, he started to view them as “friends”, instead of “clients” who paid for his services. He viewed his role as helping people and building relationships, not engaging in a money-making venture. This made the experience richer for himself and others he interacted with. He gained many friends and was better able to help them as a result. It also meant that sometimes he offered his services for free to people or organisations that had limited resources.

From “outcomes” to “process”

Both Louie Schwartzberg and Lindsey Stirling, award-winning creative producers of film and music, stress the importance of focusing on the process, not the final outcomes. This involves enjoying the moment and fully experiencing making film or making music or engaging in any other creative endeavour. In our organisational consulting work, my colleague and I have moved from a focus on outcomes to designing a process that enables people to “have the conversations that they need to have”. This reduces the stress of process design because there are so many factors that influence the outcomes over which you have no control – what you can control is how well you design the intervention process. This shift in perspective from outcomes to process provides the freedom to explore innovative and creative ways to work with people, music, or photography.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness, we can become more aware of the perspectives and expectations that create our self-sabotaging behaviours and limit our options. Changing our perspectives can significantly change our lives for the better, increase our happiness and strengthen our resilience in the face of setbacks and failures. Perspective change can open the way for the exploration of creative options in all our endeavours – family, work, and sport.

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Image by Renan Brun from Pixabay

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

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

Mindfulness and Self-Sabotage through Social Media

Hugh Van Cuylenburg has developed the GEM pathway to happiness which entails three core elements – gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness. In his book, The Resilience Project, he describes the origins of his approach, the impact of practising GEM and its effectiveness in helping people to move from depression about the past or anxiety about the future. He has found that his approach has been effective for school children, elite sportspeople, and businesspeople in small and large organisations. At the heart of his approach, is the tenet that happiness lies in “being” and appreciating what we have, not in “having” and resenting what we do not have. Hugh gives concrete examples of where practising the simple process of a gratitude journal has enabled people to overcome suicidal thoughts and find happiness in their life, their relationships, their business accomplishments and/or their sporting endeavours.

Developing mindfulness practices

Hugh described how his school children in India looked forward to their daily 30-minute meditation each morning at school. In Australia, he had his students take a mindful walk around an oval before school started and observe and record “five things they heard, saw and felt” on their walks each day. He basically encouraged them to pay attention to their senses so that they could live their day more fully, with increased awareness. Hugh highlighted the studies that demonstrate the positive impact of mindfulness practices (e.g., meditation, body scan, mindful breathing) on adolescent stress, depression, and anxiety. These impacts have explained the global development of mindfulness in schools, including the MindUP Program developed by Goldie Hawn and her foundation.

I have written earlier about the benefits of mindfulness meditation for adults, including the development of wisdom, calmness, clarity, and self-awareness. Mindfulness practices can also help to “mind your brain”, an otherwise neglected resource. The challenge is to find a way to practise mindfulness daily in whatever form suits us personally. Regularity, repetition, and practice build capability, provide constant positive reinforcement, and develop “unconscious competence”. Hugh demonstrated through his real-life stories how we become what we focus on – the simple act of a daily gratitude journal leads to gratitude-in-the moment; practising loving-kindness meditation develops kindness and compassionate action; and regular reflection-on-action enables the capacity for reflection-in-action.

Self-sabotage in the pursuit of mindfulness

Despite our best intentions in practising mindfulness, we can easily sabotage our own efforts. Self-sabotage can take many forms, including obsession with the news, overuse of our mobile phones or addiction to social media. We can grab for our phones when we are waiting for something or someone, instead of using the opportunity to develop awareness.

Hugh warns about the negative impacts of social media and its harmful effects on our minds. He explains how social media giants like Facebook, Google, and Twitter use “persuasive technologies” to distract us and capture our attention – because “eyes-on-a-page” readily translates to revenue dollars through advertising. Your likes and dislikes are tracked continuously so that you can be fed advertisements for what you most likely desire and are willing to buy. The benefits of any particular product or service are embellished – you do not buy a car, you buy “envy”, “status”, “luxury” or “visibility”.

Hugh points out that social media and constant, easy access via mobile phones have become integral to the “attention economy” that feeds off our tendency for distractedness – distraction from ourselves, our pressures. and relationships. Disruptive marketing through “pop-ups” and “behavioural retargeting” are designed to pull your attention away to what social media advertisers want you to pay attention to. By engaging endlessly in consuming social media, we are self-sabotaging our mindfulness – our capacity to pay attention on purpose in the present moment with wonder and awe and an openness to what is real and meaningful in our life.

Hugh recommends several strategies to reclaim “what the attention economy has taken from you”:

Delete Facebook from your phones
Turn off notifications on your phones
Rearrange your home screen to display what you want to focus on and delete what you are unhealthily addicted to
Leave home without your phone (at least occasionally when it is not necessary to have it with you).

Our level of resistance to any or all of these recommendations reflects our level of capture by the psychological manipulation of the attention economy.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness, we can access a wide array of benefits that enable us to live more happily and aware. However, if we obsess over the news or social media and become captured by our mobile phones, we will sabotage our efforts to mind our brains, build emotional resilience and achieve tranquility and ease.

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Image by Thomas Ulrich 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.

A Pathway to Resilience and Happiness

Hugh Van Cuylenburg has written a life-changing book which Missy Higgins describes as “hilarious, inspiring and heartbreakingly vulnerable”. Hugh is a great storyteller and his stories, provided both verbally and in writing, have changed the lives of thousands of people, from school children to elite sportspeople. His book, The Resilience Project: Finding Happiness through Gratitude, Empathy & Mindfulness, provides a very clear pathway to resilience and happiness. It is admirably digestible and eminently practical – which partly explains its amazing influence on so many lives.

Hugh summarises his pathway in the mnemonic, GEM, and the three powerful words that these letters represent – Gratitude, Empathy and Mindfulness. He developed his approach while in India working as a volunteer teacher in an incredibly poor village – where children often could not go to school, had no shoes, little food and no electricity or sanitation. He could not work out why the children at the school were so unbelievably happy despite their destitute conditions. He found the answer by observing the children and their practices closely and discovered that their resilience and happiness had its foundation in gratitude (appreciating what they do have), empathy (showing care and concern for others) and mindfulness (being mindful and developing this through meditation).

His message has been taken up not only by schools throughout Australia but also by elite sporting clubs such as the NRL team, Melbourne Storm and the AFL team, Collingwood. He tells the story, for example, of a Collingwood player who wrote a three-letter word on his wrist to remind himself during a game of the things that he is grateful for so that he could push aside negative thoughts and anxiety that arise when engaged in a highly competitive match.

Hugh’s pathway to happiness and resilience applies to each of us in our everyday life. The three elements of his approach are not new – we have covered many aspects of these in this blog as the result of the work of many other people. What Hugh presents in simple, digestible language and illustrative stories, is a very clear pathway integrating the three GEM elements that can be practised daily and that are mutually reinforcing – just like exercising, appropriate nutrition and yoga/ Tai Chi are mutually reinforcing, with each of these elements building on, and assisting us to achieve, the others.

The GEM pathway to happiness and resilience

Hugh refined his approach when he completed a Master of Education by focusing all his study and assignments on the mental health and wellness of adolescents. He was also able to learn about the neuroscience that underpinned his approach (he provides references to the scientific papers in his “Notes” at the end of the book).

What was a catalyst for Hugh’s passionate pursuit of the issue of resilience was his own traumatic experience as a teenager trying to cope with his younger sister’s anorexia nervosa. At the time, he did not understand what was happening to her and why she behaved the way she did, and did not show empathy for her plight. He failed to realise that she was mentally ill, not just suffering a physical malady, malnutrition, that could be overcome just by eating more. He became acutely aware as an adult of the “concentric circles of suffering” (for siblings, parents, friends, and teachers) that mental illness can create.

I will discuss each of the elements of GEM below:

Gratitude – Hugh suggests that this means appreciating what we have rather than focusing on what we lack. He tells the story of Stanzin, one of his students in India, who despite his impoverished circumstances was grateful for everything in his life – his gratitude was pervasive and continuous. Stanzin often pointed out to Hugh things that he was grateful for – his friends, being able to go to school, having shoes to wear and even receiving a plain bowl of rice for lunch. He was incredibly grateful for his rusted, broken-down play equipment (such as a swing) – something that in our Western society would initiate a complaint. Stanzin focused on what he had, not what he did not possess – avoiding negative emotions of discontent, resentment, or anger, and developing a positive mindset.

Hugh recommends a daily gratitude journal as a way to build resilience and happiness. This is a recommendation and practice of many people. In the previous post, I spoke of the twice-daily practice of gratitude journalling of Lindsey Stirling, the hugely successful songwriter, violinist, and dancer. Gwen Cherne, the first Commissioner for Veteran Family Advocacy, who agitates for veterans and their families battling mental stress, stated that she writes a gratitude journal every night (her story is featured in the Weekend Australian Magazine, March 6-7, 2021, pp.13-16). Hugh, Lindsey, and Gwen have each experienced considerable trauma in their lives and each has shown the resilience to be able to “bounce back” and experience happiness in pursuing their life purpose in contributing to the welfare and joy of others.

Empathy – being able to feel for others by consciously thinking about what they might be experiencing intellectually and emotionally. Hugh points to the neuroscience that reinforces the fact that practising empathy develops kindness and motivates compassionate action. Simon Sinek suggests that in a work situation an empathetic leader is “more concerned about the human being not their output”. The young boy Stanzin, who made a lasting impression on Hugh, was continuously empathetic – going out of his way to help others in need, e.g., sitting with children who were alone during the lunch hour. Hugh recalled that in contrast, he himself was not empathetic to his young sister as a teenager and was not able understand her suffering and feel with and for her. A key component of empathy is deep listening – openness to other’s stories and their perspectives.

Mindfulness – being present in the moment while adopting an open, curious, accepting, and non-judgmental attitude. Hugh learned through his experience in India that practising mindfulness through meditation was a way of “taking greater control of your mind and, therefore, of your life”. The children in the village school where he taught began each day with a 30-minute meditation, At first, he was sceptical about the practice but soon found that he could focus so much more on the present moment, and not become absorbed by anxiety about the future or depression about the past. He found that Stanzin was a living example of the benefits of mindfulness meditation. The young boy would be constantly mindful of what where the positive things in his village life. Mindfulness develops both gratitude and empathy.

Developing the GEM pathway to happiness and resilience

In his book, The Resilience Project, Hugh provides a section at the back where he offers some exercises that can help us to develop gratitude, empathy, and mindfulness – some of which he has used in schools throughout Australia. The Coles Group have implemented a range of practices drawn from The Resilience Project.

Simon Sinek suggests that a simple way to practise empathy in everyday life is to let the person into traffic ahead of you if they are stuck in a side street or are attempting to cut in front of you. He argues that you never know why they are trying to enter the traffic or are in a hurry to get somewhere. They could, for example, be dealing with an emergency – a sick parent/child, an accident at home, someone dying in hospital, or anxiety about a child stranded at night at a lonely, dark railway station.

Reflection

Taken together the elements of the GEM pathway can lead to happiness and resilience. The stories Hugh tells, and the research he draws on, reinforce the benefits of his approach. The widespread adoption of the principles of The Resilience Project attests to its effectiveness.

Hugh also stresses the importance of connection and has exercises that can help us renew our connections given that they have been eroded through social media and the distancing created by the pandemic. He stresses that practising GEM is even more urgent in these challenging times. He maintains too that we must go beyond connection itself and take wise and compassionate action to redress the suffering and pain of others, e.g., asking “R U OK?”

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and practising gratitude and empathy, we can develop self-awareness, self-regulation and compassionate action and gain increasing insight into our life purpose. As Hugh observes, every challenge is an opportunity to realise our potential and our capacity to contribute positively to the lives of others.

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Image by billy cedeno 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.

Exploring Healing and Creativity through Music and Nature Imagery

Louie Schwartzberg, time-lapse photographer and filmmaker, in a recent Wonder and Awe podcast, interviewed Lindsey Stirling, internationally famous songwriter, violinist and dancer. They explored the role of music and nature imagery in self-healing and in stimulating energy and creativity. Louie and Lindsey have collaborated on a number of projects, including The Big Sur – shown during the podcast interview and featured in Louie’s Moving Art video on Netflix. They identified one key aspect that their individual artistry has in common – Lindsey’s classical music and videos and Louie’s nature photography and videos – both have no words. They pointed out that in a world of information overload they offer inspiration, a personal emotional journey, self-awareness, and self-healing. Lyrics, in contrast, can take us down the track of the thoughts and emotions portrayed by the creator.

Healing from grief through music

Lindsey spoke of her grief with the loss of her father and her best friend in the one year, and how she turned to music as a form of self-therapy to deal with her sense of loss and associated grief. Her album, Brave Enough, enabled her to pour out her grief and to be “brave enough” to feel the intensity of her difficult emotions. She said that every song on the album was inspired by her feelings of grief and loss. In her reflection on the loss through Lymphoma, of her keyboard player and best friend, Jason Gaviati, she indicated that the true path to success is being able to “rise from failure”, time and time again. She stated that her album and related Brave enough tour were about “the courage to feel, to feel everything”.

She wrote the instrumental song Guardian which highlights the way her own grief became transformed into connection. Working with Mako, she was able to hear the words that expressed her grief in a song called, Lose You Now. She wanted this music to be light and conducive to reminiscing (e.g., the Monarch butterfly represented her friend Jason) while building hope for the future, despite the sadness of the past. Louie commended her for her inner strength and ability to manage the challenges of “the journey of life” with all its waves and vicissitudes.

Bouncing back from setbacks and failure

Lindsey Stirling was buzzed off by Piers Morgan during the quarter-finals of America’s Got Talent and was rejected by the judges who variously said she was “not good enough”, “would not fill a concert hall in Las Vegas” and was “not a world-class violinist”. All of which made her work harder at both her music and her dancing. Lindsey’s accomplishments since then are mind-boggling. By 2017, she had 600 Million views of her music/dance videos on her YouTube Channel and, at time of writing, this number has grown to 3 Billion views of her 100 videos. She made history with her 5 top-selling albums and filled concert halls everywhere (her “Brave Enough tour” involved 83 concerts in 20 countries). Also, Lindsey and her dancing partner were second on Season 25 (2017) of Dancing With The Stars (DWTS). As she has proven in her own life, “bouncing back” from setbacks is an essential element in her success.

Parents as models and inspiration

When asked by Louie how she had developed her passion for music, dance and storytelling in song, Lindsey maintained that her earliest influences were her parents who exposed her to the arts, especially classical music. Her mother was creative in her sewing endeavours, a skill that Lindsey also shared, while her father’s creativity was expressed through writing stories that he often read to her. Lindsey identified her storytelling as her “greatest gift”.

Gratitude in the midst of loss and pain

Lindsey tells the story of how painful it was to be at the bedside as she and her sister watched her father die of cancer. In those moments of extreme sadness, they found the inspiration and energy to tell each other stories of their childhood memories of being with their father. Amidst the tears and pain, she felt an intense sense of gratitude for having had such a life together and a rich store of wonderful memories.

This experience was replicated when she took on the challenging task of dancing and playing the violin while hanging from her hair to create the video for the song, Crystallize. The excruciatingly painful training over three months for this achievement has been recorded in her Hair Hanging Vlog. Despite the pain, Lindsey was able to feel gratitude for the feelings of beauty and power that the final performance engendered in her. Her basic message is that we are all capable of what at first seems impossible because we have achieved hard things before. She reiterated that “courage and faith can be found through the fear” and that “gratitude can be discovered by our losses”.

Developing resilience through gratitude

Louie observed that research has demonstrated that gratitude develops resilience. He maintained that if your mind is filled with thoughts of gratitude, there is no room for negative thoughts. Both Lindsey and Louie agreed that if you focus on what you have, rather than what you do not have, you are healing yourself, building your energy and opening yourself to creativity. As Louie stated, “If every experience is a gift, then your only attitude is gratitude”. As Jon Kabat-Zinn points out, “we become what we focus on”. Lindsey illustrates this idea through her practice of writing in a gratitude journal each morning and night. She maintained that this practice that started as a chore is now something she looks forward to and enables her to frequently be grateful in the moment.

Lindsey noted that while being able to play the violin, write songs and dance are gifts in themselves, her special gift that she realizes when performing is an “intense connection” with people in her audience as she looks into their eyes while performing. For her, this is a special place where she sees the beauty in everyone and is consumed with love.

Lindsey has established the Upside Fund to provide financial assistance to people experiencing financial difficulties as a result of the pandemic. She started this fund, which accepts donations, after her father died in hospital and she began each Christmas to pay the hospital medical bills of 10 people. The name of the fund is based on the idea that we can each “lift where stand” – we are each in a unique position to contribute to the welfare of others based on our life circumstances, location, and the gifts that we are grateful for. Lindsey particularly works through her fan base to build the fund and support people in need.

Mindfulness, music, nature, and dance

I have previously explored the relationship between mindfulness and playing a musical instrument. Lindsey stated that when she plays the violin for herself (not for her work) she finds it meditative. She is completely in the moment when she dances and particularly when she is doing so in nature.

Louie as an “action man” is not a practitioner of formal meditation – he experiences his mindfulness through immersion in nature which he contends increases his capacity for “courage, creativity, kindness and compassion”.

Both Louie and Lindsey suggest that to be more mindful and focused on the moment that we should not be obsessed with the end goal but experience the process fully, whether it is playing an instrument, learning a dance, taking time-lapse photography, or developing a video. Louie stated that after 40 years of time-lapse photography, he has only a total of 16 hours of high-quality film – he indicated that a day’s work would typically produce 2 seconds of useful film. To him the process of observing and photographing the beauty of nature is what brings him joy, healing, and happiness. He can walk in nature when not filming and notice the quality of light and how it reflects on plants and flowers. He can walk mindfully in nature, engaging all his senses.

Louie articulated his belief that nature cultivates gratitude and mindfulness when he presented a Ted Talk on the theme, Nature, Beauty, and Gratitude, which featured his movie titled Gratitude that incorporated his time-lapse photography and his fundamental belief about the need to be grateful for everything in life.

Reflection

Nature stimulates reflection, healing, energy, gratitude, and creativity. Music and dance, in their many forms, can have similar outcomes. We have a choice in terms of how we spend our time and what we consume mentally and emotionally. We can grow in mindfulness and enjoy all its benefits through exposure to nature, music and dance or we can become overwhelmed by information and the news and the negativity that they often engender.

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Image by sun liming from Pixabay

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

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

Mindfulness Meditation with Jon Kabat-Zinn

Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and meditation teacher and practitioner for over 40 years, is offering an online course in mindfulness meditation which he calls, Opening to Our Lives. Jon is the author of several books on mindfulness and the one that had the greatest impression on me is Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness. Jon explains that the title is intended to be interpreted both literally (e.g., learning how to access our “tastescape”) and metaphorically (that is waking up to the wonder of our senses and the world they give us access to).

In his 8-week online course, covering both video and audio offerings as well as resource material, Jon provides insights, practices, and encouragement to be in the present moment rather than being preoccupied with doing or lost in thought about the past or the future. He argues that we miss out on much of the richness of our life, both our inner landscape and outer world, because we are not fully present most of the time.

Jon explores key aspects of mindfulness in his course (which provides life-time access on purchase):

Mindfulness explained – Jon draws on his definition of mindfulness which emphasises being consciously and purposely present in the moment while doing so in a non-judgmental way. He addresses our tendency to be self-critical and to develop negative stories about ourselves. Jon highlights the healing power of mindfulness and its capacity to enrich relationships. He also provides a guided sitting meditation.
Mindful Breathing – we are so often unaware of our breath and its power to relax us, open us to what is happening to us and to ground us in turbulent times. Jon provides a mindful breathing practice that deepens our experience of ourselves and our world.
Developing a meditation practice: Jon stresses that establishing and sustaining a meditation practice requires clear and focused intention as well as the discipline of daily practice. Maintaining motivation is a key issue and is reinforced through continuous awareness of the benefits of meditation practice.
Body awareness – Jon stresses the importance of being grounded in our body and offers a body scan meditation to enable us to be fully aware of our own “embodiment” – being fully present to our own bodies, our senses, and bodily sensations.
Movement meditation – Jon explains the power of Tai Chi and yoga as mindfulness-in-action and their role in helping us to reduce stress. He emphasises the mind-body connection and the capacity of mindfulness to heal both the mind and body.
Relationship to the world – Jon makes the point that through self-awareness and self-regulation developed through mindfulness, we can be a positive force in the world by bringing joy, appreciation, and respect for diversity in our daily interactions. He stresses the capacity of mindfulness to build our resilience in times that are challenging.

Jon also offers two live Q & A sessions where he addresses questions about content covered in the course and offers ways to address difficulties with establishing and maintaining meditation practice.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and learning from experienced teachers and practitioners like Jon Kabat-Zinn, we can enrich our own lives and those of people we interact with. We can progressively achieve some clarity about our life purpose and how we can make a difference in the world, especially during these challenging times.

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Image by OLEKSII ALIEKSIEIEV 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.