stress – Grow Mindfulness

Moving from Trauma in a Relationship to Trust

Dr. Aimie Apigian recently offered a Trauma to Trust Masterclass in which she discussed the body’s response to trauma, ways to recognise if a relationship is causing trauma and ways to move from trauma in a relationship to trust. Aimie is a Preventative Medicine physician with Masters in Public Health and Biochemistry. She specialises as an addiction, trauma and attachment physician – a career that resulted from her desire to heal from own traumatic life experiences and attachment issues and to help other people to achieve healing and recovery. She shares her career story and her work with Guy Macpherson on the Trauma Therapist Project podcast. Her experience with foster-parenting led to her consuming interest in helping children experiencing pain and suffering from trauma.

On her YouTube© channel, Aimie provides videos where she discusses topics like addiction, trauma, nervous system, negative thinking, inflammation and emotional regulation. She draws heavily on her personal experience of adopting a son from her foster care – a child who was traumatised by his insecurity, constant mobility and uncertain future. She found that love and nurture and time together by themselves did not help to heal him – the manifestations of love themselves became a trigger for his trauma response.

The day Aimie’s six-year old adopted son told her that he would kill her the following day was the catalyst for a lifetime of study, research and specialisation in helping children and adults recover from trauma. To help her son, she researched multiple modalities including nutrition, somatic experiencing (developed by Dr. Peter Levine), and Neuro-Affective Touch. For other parents in a similar situation with a traumatised child, she created the not-for-profit organisation, Family Challenge Camps, that are designed to help families deal with trauma and attachment issues.

3 steps to the trauma response

Aimie drew on her training in the Instinctual Trauma Response Model to explain how the body responds to trauma. Initially when the body experiences a perceived threat (including a “trigger”), it goes into a startle response (envisage a deer in the wild hearing or smelling the presence of a lion). This is followed by the stress response which energises the fight/flight response.

When the stressor(s) are perceived as overwhelm (we sense we are unable to cope), the body adopts the freeze response which constitutes the “lowest energy state” (in comparison to the “high energy state” of the fight/flight response).

Recognising trauma created in a relationship

Aimie provides three ways to recognise if a relationship (that we are part of) is a source of trauma for us. At the foundational level, the early indicators relate to a lack of energy. So the first step is to check our bodily sensations – is the relationship energising or depleting us? This can be an early indicator of trauma in an emerging Controlling Relationship.

On the second level, is exploration of our thoughts about our relationship. Do we perceive that being in the relationship is too much and beyond us? Do we feel safe and supported? Are we wondering why we have built up a dependency in the relationship to make up for some personal deficiency?

The third indicator is how we feel health wise – are we constantly feeling sick in the relationship? Does the relationship “make us sick” (with worry, anxiety or fear, for example). Aimie reminds us that sometimes we can delude ourselves when our mind says “I love them” but our body gives us away through constant sickness.

3 step approach to releasing stored trauma

Aimie has developed a 3 step approach to assist people to release stored trauma. She argues that the release process requires certain actions completed in the right order. In fact, from her own experience and research, she has found that the order of the required steps is the reverse of the trauma creation process described in the previous section (startle, fight/flight/, freeze).

Aimie argues that the trauma release process involves (1) developing a personal sense of safety, (2) building a sense of support and (3) expansion where we begin to lead “the life we’ve always wanted”. She provides an explanation of the 3 step process in her publication, The Essential Sequence Guide: How to release stored trauma, that is available as a free e-book from her website, Trauma Healing Accelerated™.

Aimie offers specialised training for individuals who want to deal with trauma in a relationship in the form of a 21 Day Journey that provides a somatically-based process of addressing stored trauma in the body. Each of the three steps of trauma release are addressed by providing seven somatic exercises for each step (safety, support, expansion). Aimie and an online community provide the supportive relationships necessary to enable people to heal and recover. During the Trauma to Trust Masterclass, Aimie provided an experience of one of the somatic exercises designed to develop a sense of safety. It involved linking the stomach to the heart by placing one hand on each body part and exploring the nature of the felt connection (e.g., rejection, resistance, warmth, welcoming, disrupted, undulating).

Aimie provides other experiential and educational workshops, a certification program for practitioners and one-on-one coaching by a certified trauma-informed health coach. She is also the Creator and Host of the Biology of Trauma Summit.

Reflection

Each of us have had our own experience of personal trauma from challenging life events – whether a car accident; death of a child, spouse or parent; a relationship breakdown/breakup and/or divorce; loss of work through redundancy; chronic illness or cancer; loss of a home through fire or flood; adverse childhood experiences or a combination of these (or any other traumatising event).

Aimie and her colleagues provide a clear pathway for trauma release by focusing on the body and providing somatic healing. Her dedication to releasing trauma in others (whether parents, children or professionals) is a lifetime and whole-hearted commitment. She offers insights from her own traumatic life journey and in-depth study and research.

As we grow in mindfulness through somatic experiencing, meditation, connecting with nature and other mindfulness practices, we can develop greater self-awareness, a stronger sense of safety and support and build the confidence and creativity to explore our potential and life purpose.

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Image by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay

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

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

What Happened to You?

I have been listening to the CD-audio version of What Happened to You? – Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing. In the audio, the creators Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey, share their experiences and insights – Bruce from a neuroscience and clinical perspective and Oprah from the stories she has gleaned from thousands of interviews of traumatised people. The audio represents the crystallisation of ideas resulting from an ongoing conversation between the two creators over more than thirty years. It highlights the complexity of trauma and the multi-faceted nature of effective healing from trauma.

In listening to the audio, you automatically explore, “what happened to you?” in your own early childhood. The prevalence of trauma and its impacts suggests that most of us in some way experienced one of more adverse childhood experiences (ACE). Every day you hear of traumatic events globally as well as locally – such as the Sea World helicopter collision on the Gold Coast. Survivors and witnesses, as well as grieving relatives and friends, would have been traumatised by the accident. Some of the survivors have to experience the trauma of multiple surgeries as well.

We are frequently exposed to the traumatic experiences of others, including prominent people who describe their upbringing and provide insights into trauma and its impacts by way of their memoirs. For example, Bertie Blackman, singer and artist, writes in her memoir, Bohemian Negligence, that she was sexually abused at a young age by a “friend of the family”. Tove Ditlevsen, famous Danish poet and author, explained in her memoir, Childhood, Youth and Dependency, that she had a violent mother who beat her indiscriminately and was unpredictable, inflexible and critical. Tove’s dream of becoming a poet was a source of belittlement by others, and disbelief and denigration from her parents and beloved brother. She was also ostracized at school because she was seen to be “different”.

What happened to you or did not happen for you?

Bruce and Oprah explain that the more we understand the nature of trauma and its many forms and manifestations, we are better able to be compassionate towards others and ourselves when we observe aberrant behaviour on their part or our own. This can lead to forgiveness of others and ourselves, as well as healing from the impacts of trauma which are pervasive and influence our relationships and communication.

Oprah and Bruce explain that trauma shapes “our brains, our biases, our systems” – it influences our worldview and the way we perceive ourselves. A teenager, for example, who experiences roughness and brutality by a policeman when innocent or engaged in some trivial misdemeanour, will view police as “fearful”, not trustworthy and cruel. This traumatic experience builds an implicit bias on the teenager’s part in respect of all police. Our experience (or lack of direct experience) of people of a different race or nationality to our own can shape our biases. These biases can be confirmed by observing non-conformist behaviour or seeing images of adverse events involving people of that race or nationality.

Our own trauma is unique in that traumatic experiences and their impact vary from individual to individual in terms of their nature, intensity, diversity and duration. We each bring to the table of life imprinting from our early life experiences that shape who we are and how we respond under stress. People with unresolved trauma have “sensitised stress responses” which can be manifested in overreaction, aggression, physical withdrawal, anxiety or dissociation.

Bruce and Oprah make the point that our modern day living conflicts with what is necessary to achieve healing from trauma. They highlight the emphasis today on superficial relations and communications (e.g. selfies, likes, texts) at the expense of reciprocal relationships involving conversation, sharing, storytelling and empathy. They discuss the “sensory cacophony of the modern world” – creating discordant sounds, confronting images and information overload. Oprah and Bruce maintain too, like Johann Hari, that the disconnection and isolation of modern living contribute substantially to the growth of depression, anxiety and suicide.

In contrast, Bruce recounts his experience of Māori culture through an intensive immersion over two days – experiencing firsthand their holistic healing approach and the centrality of relationships characterised by “rich relational density [versus superficiality] and developmental density [involving ages ranging from babies to the aged]”. Given the nature of trauma, Bruce argues for the development of “stable, supportive, patient and consistent” relationships to offset the impact of developmental relationships that were unpredictable, inconsistent, hurtful, demeaning or neglectful

Reflection

If we reflect on our actions and reactions to daily events and interactions with other people, we can begin to see patterns in our behaviour, e.g., avoidance of conflict, the need to please, or implicit bias in relation to particular groups of people. Gaining an understanding of trauma, its impacts and conditioned behavioural responses, will enable us to establish causal links between what has happened to us (or “not happened for us”) and how we behave in specific situations, e.g., when criticised, threatened or praised. Memoirs can be instructive in this regard.

If we consciously grow in mindfulness through reflection, meditation and other mindfulness practices, we can gain the self-awareness necessary to understand ourselves and to develop loving kindness towards ourselves and others. If we also consciously try to build and sustain supportive, enduring relationships we can move along the path to self-regulation and healing from trauma. These healing relationships can extend beyond our immediate family to colleagues, friends, our extended family and interest groups (such as hobby, book, faith or aged-based groups).

Bruce and Oprah reinforce the importance of the mind/body connection and highlight the value of movement such as dance, Tai Chi, movement meditation, exercise and reconnection with nature for healing from trauma. They also advocate bodily-oriented approaches such as massage, somatic meditation, and resting in your body/breath. There are many resources available to help us heal from trauma and develop resilience to face life’s challenges. Sounds True, for example, offers a Healing Trauma Program involving some of the world’s top trauma recovery experts. They also provide a Trauma and the Embodied Brain course led by Bonnie Badenoch, author of The Heart of Trauma: Healing the Embodied Brain in the Context of Relationships.

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Image by Ben Kerckx 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.

Simple Steps for Self-Care

These are challenging times that place stress on every aspect of our lives. The natural human tendency is to go with the flow and try to keep up with all kinds of commitments – family, community and work. We can succumb to the pace of modern life and the expectations of achievement that we place on ourselves and that we think others expect of us. However, there are real physical and mental costs associated with engaging life at an unnatural pace. Psychologists, for example, warn of ‘emotional inflammation’ resulting from the pandemic and, more recently, from the war in Ukraine. Self-care is now more important than ever.

In these times of endless challenge, self-care becomes critical for our mental and physical welfare. The Self-Care Summit (May 10-16) sought to identify the issues involved, the personal and social barriers and ways to achieve self-care in everyday life. The first speaker at the Summit, Renée Trudeau, provided a solid foundation and strong motivation for self-care. After more than 20 years working with individuals and organisations on self-care approaches, she was able to distil the wisdom of her research, of workshop participants and of her own practice, into simple steps for self -care. Some of her suggestions are discussed in this blog post.

Self-care in everyday life

Renée asserts that self-care is “not about self-improvement or self-indulgence” but “meeting yourself where you are” at the moment by “pausing, tuning in and asking, What do I need ?”. It entails having the courage to break out of the expectation bind that locks you into unhealthy pursuits and giving yourself “what you most need” at the time. So, for Renée, self-care is a moment by moment endeavour, not a ritualised practice developed by someone who is peddling self-care products. Renée is the author of two books including Nurturing the Soul of Your Family: 10 Ways to Reconnect and Find Peace in Everyday Life. In her books, blog, workshops and presentations, she offers many simple steps for self-care that you can undertake at any time in the midst of everyday life. Some of her suggestions include the following:

Monitoring your self-talk: we often talk harshly to ourselves when we make a mistake or fail to realise an outcome. We can denigrate ourselves in an uncaring and unkind way. Negative self-talk includes the harsh tone of voice we use when we speak to ourselves about our shortfalls. Renée maintains that we would not talk like that to a 3-year old child. She suggests having a picture of yourself when you were between the ages of 3-5 years and think about how you would talk to your young self in the picture. Being conscious of our inner dialogue is very important for self-care – kindness begins at home! Self-care includes not putting yourself down.
Cultivating a desired way of showing up: Renée alluded to Michael Phelps’ rigorous routine before starting a swimming race at the Olympics. His established routine included eating a set breakfast, stretching, mix-style swimming and listening to music – all designed to enable him to show up for his race in his very best condition and frame of mind. Renée suggests that you could establish a morning routine so that you can “cultivate a state of being to show up the way you want to” – in other words, having the presence of mind, focus and calmness to be the best you can be for your day’s endeavours. Your routine may entail mindfulness practices such as yoga, Tai Chi, meditation or mindful walking. Whatever you choose needs to be practised consistently to achieve the desired benefits. Interestingly, I have adopted the practice of Tai Chi as a preparation routine before I play social tennis so that I show up in the right frame of mind and with my body and mind attuned to concentration, bending, balance and conscious breathing.
Starting your day intentionally: forming a clear intention for the day can shape your words and actions and have very positive effects on your outcomes. The catalyst for this intention-shaping can be a prayer, inspirational reading, mindfulness practice or gratitude journalling (so you turn up from a place of appreciation). The practice of intention-shaping can extend to your work by forming a clear intention before a meeting – How do I want to show up for this meeting?; Should I go out of my way to include a team member who always seems excluded?; Can I relate to the person I tend to ignore?; Can I consciously practice active listening during the meeting?.
Giving and receiving morning hugs: Renée also suggests that giving and receiving hugs in the morning with your partner, other family members or your favourite pet, can have a very positive benefit for your wellbeing. This tends to reaffirm to yourself that you are lovable and loving. The hugs with family members can be accompanied by words of endearment, encouragement or well-wishes for the forthcoming day.
Early morning body scan: Renée indicated that she undertakes a body scan before getting out of bed of a morning. A body scan enables you to locate points of tension in the body and release them through consciously paying attention to them. The process increases body awareness by identifying how your body is manifesting any felt stress or challenge. This practice can enable you to start the day in a state of calm rather than being uptight from anticipatory stress.
In-the-moment journalling: Renée describes this as “quickie journalling”. The idea is to tap into your feelings, needs and wants at any moment of time, particularly if you are feeling stressed, out of balance or upset. She suggests that you ask yourself the following three questions to get you going with your self-insight journalling and then choose one thing to work with:
How do I feel?
What do I need?
What do I want?
Really listen to your body: You may often notice when other people are stressed when they sigh, loudly exclaim something like “Damn!” or throw something down heavily on the desk. But how often do you monitor your own bodily signs of stress? Renée encourages you to really “listen to your body”. She stated that sighing is a signal for her to attend to her needs to de-stress and recover her calmness.
Monthly intention: At the start of each month, Renée reviews her physical, emotional and spiritual needs at the time to identify one simple thing to do for the month to act out of self-care. The process involves tuning into yourself and identifying “what is calling you to do” for your own self-care. One of her decisions was “to do less” which resulted in an “expanse of unscheduled time” and more time for self-care.
Personal Planning Retreat: Every 90 days, Renée takes a full 9 to 5 day to step away, move to a different environment and identify what is draining her. She offers hints on how to undertake such a personal retreat in a place that you find inspiring and energising.

Reflection

It is so easy to be captured by the to-do list, work and family pressures and the social “shoulds”. Taking time out for self-care is essential for our wellbeing. As Renée points out, the way forward does not require big steps or expensive options, but simple steps for personal self-care, taken in the moment.

A nutritionist recently advised a member of our family that they are not digesting their food properly and need to chew each mouthful of solid food up to 30 times to aid digestion. I have started to adopt this practice as a form of mindful eating and nutritional self-care. I’m finding I am more conscious of the different textures and flavours of the food I eat when I adopt this practice.

As we grow in mindfulness through consciously exploring self-care we can enrich our self-awareness, expand our response options, regulate our stress and emotions and increase our calm, confidence and courage.

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Image by Frauke Riether 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 in Everyday Life

Rachel Kable – author, podcaster, blogger and mindfulness coach from Victoria in Australia – recently participated in a podcast interview with Dr. Justin Puder. In the course of the interview, she explained that when she first started out practising mindfulness in the more formal way of meditating (e.g. focusing on her breath), she had great difficulty and did not like it at all. At the time she lived very much in the past and the future, not the present. She would review past performance and prepare to-do lists for future activities to the point where she would lie awake at night, not being able to quiet her mind. To sit still and focus on the moment was a real challenge and counter-intuitive.

However, Rachel persisted with formal practice because she had heard of the benefits of meditation and mindfulness and wanted to experience them for herself and to share them with others. As she persisted in her more formal efforts, she found that mindfulness practice increased her ability to focus and concentrate, enabled her to sleep more restfully and fully, enhanced her relationships (e.g. through being present to the person speaking and listening actively, not distractedly) and improving her capacity to be creative in her career endeavours.

Rachel also discovered that she could bring mindfulness to everyday life and the things she already did each day, e.g. cleaning the house, washing the dishes, preparing the meal, driving the car, eating her meals, or sitting on her deck (which provided the opportunity for engaging in “natural awareness”, taking in the sounds, sights, and smells already present to her). Consequently, she decided that the focus of her mindfulness coaching would be on helping people to bring mindfulness to the activities of everyday life. To this end, she has developed her blog covering things like self-care, meditation techniques, and simple living. Rachel’s podcast series, which at the time of writing has 322 episodes, provides lots of practical advice on how to be mindful in everyday life, dealing with issues such as challenging emotions, expectations, stress, decision making and negative self-evaluation.

Rachel has also written a book, The Mindful Kind Book, wherein she provides practical advice and tools to manage overwhelm and stress, enjoy life more, improve resilience to handle setbacks and to practise mindfulness as a form of self-care when engaging in everyday activities, including work. Her interview is one of many conducted by Dr. Justin Puder who has developed the podcast series, Drop In with Dr. J.

Reflection

Tennis is a very important part of my life and my exercise activity and has been since I was in Primary School (about 10 years of age). Rachel’s podcast interview reminded me that I need to bring mindfulness more to the fore when playing tennis. I have certainly used reflection-on-action in the past when looking at how I play tennis. Through reflection, I have become more conscious of the importance of savouring the moment when playing tennis; addressing my “habit loop” (and related reward system) when experiencing blockages to trying out new tennis strokes; being able to constructively manage mistakes when playing social tennis; and identifying the behavioural and cognitive blind spots that are impeding my tennis performance.

I am often conscious of the technical aspects of playing tennis, e.g. keeping your eyes on the ball, preparing for a tennis shot, choosing the right shot, deciding the stance and position to receive a serve, and identifying the gaps in which to play a shot. I can become more conscious of when my attention strays to what is happening on one of the other eleven occupied courts and bring my attention back to my own tennis game.

What Rachel’s comments remind me to do is to face my emotions in the moment when playing tennis (e.g. anxiety, fear), name them and decide how to manage them – rather than ignore or suppress them. It also means acknowledging to myself (and challenging) my self-imposed expectations that impede my performance and enjoyment of the game.

Rachel reminds us that mindfulness can be practised in every aspect of our life, even having lunch. For me, for example, that means eating my lunch mindfully, savouring the taste, texture and aroma of what I am eating – not processing emails or planning my day as I eat.

As we grow in mindfulness through formal processes such as meditation, Tai Chi, or yoga, we can more readily bring mindfulness to our everyday life whether that is driving a car in traffic, sitting on our back deck, working in our garden or just taking a walk. Mindfulness can accompany us wherever we go and whatever we do – if we only let ourselves drop into present moment awareness.

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Image by Peter H from Pixabay

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

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

Aging: Being Open to Opportunities

Day four of the Radically Reframing Aging Summit challenged us to be open to the opportunities that aging presents. Each of the four presenters in their own lives and their own words demonstrated that they had reframed aging and viewed it positively as a period of possibility and creativity. They reinforced the view that aging requires personal adaption and a resetting of expectations as there are some things that they can no longer do. However, this does not preclude the potentiality of exploring new opportunities in work, play and life generally.

The interviewees – Lottie Tartell, Joseph C. Maroon, David Sinclair and William Shatner – stated that what is required to be open to opportunities as we age is not only examining our blind spots but also building mental and physical fitness to undertake new endeavours. William Shatner reinforced the mental openness required by reiterating the exhortation of Viktor Frankl to “Say Yes to Life” in spite of what happens when we are aging. Each of the interviewees have demonstrated in their own lives and their exploratory pursuits that physical age does not define us and our capacity to be open to opportunities. However, our mind plays a key role in what we enable ourselves to do and pursue.

Lottie Tartell taught at Hofstra University for four decades and became an Adjunct Associate Professor in Economics and Geography. She indicated that even at age 96 she still undertook exercise classes, had an active social life and was engaged in community service as well as playing the violin. She had to deal with grief with the loss of her husband, Dr. Robert Tartell, in 2013 (after 65 years of marriage), as well as the loss of friends and other family members. She indicated that she did not dwell on getting old but did what she had to do each day. Lottie has been active in the Women’s Movement through Planned Parenthood and with Robert had set up the Tartell Family Foundation providing funds to many charities.
Dr. Maroon is a neurosurgeon and author and completed a triathlon at the age of 81. He is noted for his research work and innovations in the area of concussion and neurotrauma. His recent book (2020), Square One: A Simple Guide to a Balanced Life – 2^nd Edition, provides insights into his own early setbacks and resultant depression and encourages people to experience a joyful and creative life by achieving balance and avoiding burnout by prioritizing health, meaningful work, relationships that are strong and spirituality. In his interview, he urged people who are aging to “be mindful and aware of where they are“ in everyday life, especially in relation to sleeping patterns, exercise and diet. In his earlier publication, The Longevity Factor, he highlighted the beneficial effects of Resveratrol and other related natural substances found in red wine, green tea, berries and dark chocolate. Dr. Maroon is a strong advocate of mindfulness as a means of achieving awareness and life balance and living a long and healthy life. In his Summit interview, he maintained that the harmful effects of stress, such as elevated cortisol in our bodies, could be controlled by mindfulness practices such as Tai Chi, yoga, meditation and prayer.
Dr. David Sinclair, genetics professor at Harvard Medical School, is the author of Lifespan: Why We Age – and Why We Don’t Have To. He maintains that the goal of research into genetics is not to prolong a life of suffering and disease but to achieve “prolonged vitality” – more active, happy and healthy years of life. In other words to “live younger longer”. Like Dr. Maroon, David takes a Resveratrol supplement daily and in his book on lifespan he explained in detail how the beneficial effects of this natural molecule were discovered, including in his own laboratory and in experiments on his kitchen table. He suggests that the beneficial effects of Resveratrol in extending lifespan can be enhanced when combined with intermittent fasting. In the interview, it was clear that “he practices what he preaches” in terms of exercise, diet, and lifestyle. He also spoke passionately about new discoveries in the area of “reverse aging” which he discussed at length in his lifespan book as well as the benefits of “delayed aging”, including the economic benefits for society.
William Shatner epitomised the philosophy of “seize the day” (carpe diem) and spoke enthusiastically about the need to be open to the opportunities that aging presents. At age 90, he was the oldest person to travel into space and this was for him a life-changing event. He spoke passionately about his deep insight into the beauty and fragility of earth, a theme he had recounted in many other interviews. Bill, as he is known, is a prime example of living younger, longer – he is a multiple best-selling author, highly-awarded actor, film director, song-writer, charity worker, and rides horses competitively. He is a living inspiration of what is possible as we age. His positive philosophy on life is reflected in his latest album, Bill, and his latest book (2022), Boldy Go: Reflections on a Life of Awe and Wonder. In his Summit interview, he spoke extensively and enthusiastically about the wonder of earth and every living thing and demonstrated a “don’t know mind” as he marvelled at the unending mystery of life and earth’s ineffable beauty.

Reflection

To some extent the revelations on Day 4 of the Radically Reframing Aging Summit were overwhelming but also immensely inspiring. There was so much to think about and take on board. The presentations were energising and empowering in terms of living a fuller life, longer. There was very strong encouragement to be open to the opportunities afforded in aging which enable us to explore personal freedom and pursue unfettered creativity.

There was also very strong reinforcement of the message that as we grow in mindfulness, we enrich not only our mind and body but also increase the quality of our life and extend our lifespan. We can stay younger longer as a result of mindfulness practices that help us to manage stress effectively in our life, build a positive attitude, enhance our emotional regulation, develop wonder and awe, actively engage in social networks and undertake compassionate action.

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Image by Patrik Houštecký 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 Well-Being

Deepak Chopra lays out a pathway to well-being in his multiple books (80 in total), his online courses and his many videos on Chopra’s YouTube Channel. Chopra also provides a podcast focused on meditation and well-being with daily meditations grouped by weeks. His approach is backed by current research and neuroscience – he is an active researcher and publishes research results with his colleagues on the Chopra Foundation website. The information that Deepak offers is comprehensive, combines the practical with the theoretical and is inspirational. However, the vastness of this information can be overwhelming. One way forward is his Radical Well-Being online course which integrates a lot of this material and provides meditations, practical exercises and a clear pathway to well-being.

Foundational to Deepak’s approach is the science-based recognition that our genes account for only 5% of our overall well-being – the remaining 95% is governed by lifestyle. Hence Deepak states that “genes are not our future”. Underpinning this recognition is the knowledge that our body while seemingly remaining the same is undergoing continuous change, e.g. our skin is replaced once a month, our skeleton once every three months and, over a year, 98% of the atoms in our body are replaced. Deepak concludes “our suitcase has a longer shelf-life than our body”.

Deepak maintains that our “soul”, our core consciousness, creates our body. While the soul is invisible it can be experienced through our memories, thoughts, feelings, sensations, and images. While stress is often considered to be a perception of threat of some kind (physical, emotional or psychological), Deepak argues that a wisdom perspective sees stress as “interference with the soul’s spontaneous expression” thus impeding creativity and generativity.

Practical steps on the pathway to well-being

Deepak’s resources are replete with practical advice and tips for well-being, so I can only hope to cover a sample here and link them to resources that he provides:

Meditation – Deepak draws on extensive research that confirms the benefits of meditation. In particular, he notes that meditation positively impacts our entire genome – the complete set of instructions/information found in the cells of our body. Also, because of his abiding interest in aging and the impact of stress, he stresses that meditation increases the protection for, and length of, telomeres – leading to increased well-being and improved biological aging. A core meditation that he proposes for inner peace is a form of meditation that explores the fundamental question, “Who am I”, and progresses through the various levels of consciousness that he identifies. Deepak suggests that we can gain the benefits of meditation even by spending just 10 minutes a day in meditating, e.g. through focusing on our breathing. Throughout this blog, I provide multiple meditation methods and links to sources of meditation processes.
Sleep – a minimum of 7 hours a night, ideally 8 hours. Deepak draws on the science of sleep to reassert its beneficial effects, including its capacity to “restore, repair and conserve energy”. He also reinforces the power of deep sleep to consolidate our long-term and short-term memories and to connect us more fully with the natural rhythms of the universe. Sleep facilitates the operation of our subconscious mind and its information processing capacity. Deepak stresses the negative impacts of sleep deprivation, including confusion,, inability to concentrate and irritability. He describes his daily process of aiding his sleep through “recapitulation” – by reviewing his day as if watching a video and then letting it go while saying to himself, “I don’t hold onto anything”. He states that this process of daily reflection and review develops emotional freedom and well-being. The day has become a dream and it is in our dreams that we process our daily emotions. Deepak stresses the Buddhist principle of the impermanence of everything, including our experiences – a principle that is reflected in the fact that we cannot hang onto a single breath, we have to let it go to live.
Movement – movement generates energy and activates our brain. Here Deepak is not just talking about exercise in all its forms but also yoga, Tai Chi and breathing techniques. Movement leads to attunement with our body, self-awareness and overall well-being (both physical, mental and psychological). The benefits of Tai Chi, for example, have been well researched and documented by the Harvard Medical School. Locating movement in nature provides added benefits.
Managing emotions and stress – take responsibility for our emotions and proactively deal with the stressors in our life. Daily we have choices about what we will watch and/or read – we can feast on the news with deleterious effects or do the things that engender happiness or a sense of satisfaction and achievement. We can wallow in anger or resentment or develop our sense of appreciation and gratitude. If work is a source of stress, we can explore our work stressors and develop strategies to address them or seek to change our job.
Earthing – involves grounding through direct contact with the electromechanical field in the earth. Earthing can be achieved by walking barefoot on the ground and/or sitting down with hands or feet on the ground. Deepak has reported the research that shows the benefits of earthing including better balance, reduced tension and being more centred. The Earthing Institute emphasises the capacity of earthing to reduce inflammation, the major source of many illnesses. Forest Bathing is another form of earthing that can enable us to access the healing power of nature.

Reflection

One thing that Deepak stresses throughout his resources is the power of intention. Through intention, we can shape our perception and our reality. To achieve overall well-being it helps to form the intention to develop a “joyful, energetic body”, ‘a loving compassionate heart” and a “reflective, alert mind”. The practical steps that Deepak identifies can put us on the pathway to overall well-being.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, earthing and reflection, we can identify the obstacles to our well-being, form positive intentions to take practical steps and progressively review our processes while maintaining patience and self-compassion (not beating up on ourselves for self-generated setbacks). We cannot do it all at once, but we can work progressively on one thing each day that will contribute to our overall well-being.

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Image by SplitShire 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.

Illness and the Impact of Our Psychological and Social Environment

Over the past couple of blog posts, I have focused on the manifestation of trauma and adverse childhood experiences in our negative self-thoughts and addictive behaviours. Drawing on the work of Dr. Gabor Maté in the area of compassionate inquiry, I have also discussed how the compassionate approach to addiction is to look beneath the self-destructive behaviour to the person and pain that lies beneath. In this post, I want to explore more of Gabor’s ideas about the negative impact of adverse psychological and social environments and how they lead to chronic disease.

Gabor suggests that a fundamental flaw of the traditional medical model is the separation of mind and body and viewing a person in isolation from their psychological and social environment. This leads to a symptomatic perspective on illness and the use of medications to redress the symptoms. He suggests that these deficiencies in the approach of traditional medical practice are no more highlighted than in the pursuit of the search for a cure for cancer. He draws on the work of a holistic wellness expert who illustrates this flawed thinking by arguing that the research of individual cells for the source of cancer is like exploring the combustion engine as the cause of traffic jams.

Gabor strongly maintains that his years of family medical practice and his role as Coordinator of palliative services (end-of-life care) for a hospital have convinced him that underlying all chronic disease, without exception, is a deficient psychological and social environment of the individual involved. His assertion is based, in part, on the assumption that a defective social and psychological environment negatively impacts the immune system as well as other bodily systems (such as the respiratory and cardiovascular systems) that are inextricably interconnected. He asserts in live with Buddhist philosophy that everything is connected to everything else and that “nothing exists on its own”. He cites the Buddhist concept of life as the “interconnection of co-arising phenomena”.

He argues that in line with this perspective which reflects the reality of human existence, that a leaf and raindrop should be viewed not as isolated occurrences but as resulting from the interplay of soil, compost, sky, sun, rain and atmospheric conditions. Louie Schwartzberg would add the role too of mycelium (mushrooms and their internet-like connected tentacles beneath the earth). Gabor maintains that we have to take a “biocycle, social approach” to really address the causes of chronic illness.

The impacts of injurious psychological and social environments

Gabor in his YouTube© talk on “When the Body Says No”, draws on scientific studies to demonstrate the connection between stress and disease. He maintains that an injurious psychological and social environment has major implications for the development of illness. He illustrates this interconnection, for example, by discussing the impact of stressed parents on the physical welfare of a child. Parents themselves can be stressed by their environments (economic and social systems, the presence or threat of war, racism) and/or their own lived experience of trauma or adverse childhood experiences. The child, in consequence of this psychological/social environment, is stressed and scan suffer from asthma (which itself is treated with stress hormones to open the airways and reduce inflammation, resulting in the adrenal system becoming overcharged).

The parents’ stress is contagious – the child is aware of their own body and the impacts of parental stress on their bodily sensations. The pain of the parent, mother and/or father, is experienced by the child but the real problem is that this pain “never gets discharged”. Gabor cites Australian research that demonstrates that our bodies adapt to our psychological and social environment (as well as our physical environment). He maintains that some of this adaption is helpful in the short term but in the longer term results in adverse bodily manifestations such as elevated blood pressure, heightened stroke risk, unhealthy sugar levels, arteriosclerosis and defective immune system.

Gabor also refers to research that shows that if a woman is both stressed (psychological environment) and isolated (social environment) her chances of a lump in her breast being diagnosed as malignant are increased immensely. This research reinforces the interplay of illness and the psychological/social environment of an individual. Other research shows that if one partner of an elderly couple dies, and the other partner is left bereaved and isolated, there are deleterious changes in the surviving partner’s immune, nervous, hormonal and cardiovascular systems, resulting in a “significant risk of dying”.

The development of illness through the suppression of challenging emotions and our own needs

Gabor demonstrates that suppression of challenging emotions such as anger negatively impacts the immune system and other connected bodily systems. A person may suppress expressions of anger to gain and/or maintain parental affection and affiliation (because their absence is too painful). The result of suppression of challenging emotions is “suppression of the immune system”.

Gabor argues that a key contributor to disease is a personal stance that is forever worrying about other people’s psychological needs while “ignoring your own needs”. This can manifest as feeling responsible for the feelings of others and avoiding any words or actions that might disappoint them. Gabor argues then that there are four significant risk factors that contribute to chronic illness and are life-threatening (18 minute mark of his talk):

Ignoring your own emotional needs to cater for the perceived needs of others
Identifying yourself with duty and responsibility in a way that is rigid (at the cost of your own authenticity, thus creating an external locus of control)
Repressing challenging emotions such as anger or resentment
Believing that you are responsible for how other people feel and, in consequence, trying assiduously not to disappoint them (and, as a result, never saying “no” when you should do so for your own health and welfare).

Gabor contends that “attachment” is the “most important dynamic in human life”. Without it, we cannot survive as infants or adults. We seek “closeness and proximity” with another so that we “are taken care of”. He maintains that pathologies arise when our attachment needs are not met. This, in turn, leads to frustration of our other basic need, the need for “authenticity” – which he expresses in terms of our ability to be in touch with, and listen to, our “gut feelings”. Gabor instances the “please love me syndrome” of Robin Williams as an underlying cause of his depression and chronic illness, leading to his death by suicide.

Reflection

We cannot ignore the impact of our psychological and social environment on our physical health. At the same time, we have to recognise that we are contributing to the creation of a psychological and social environment that could be healing or harmful for others, especially if we are in a caring or managerial role. Gabor explains his ideas about stress and illness in his book, When The Body Says No: The Cost Of Hidden Stress. He also provides training and further resources on his website, The Wisdom of Trauma.

As we grow in mindfulness, we can become increasingly self-aware and aware of our impacts on the physical health and psychological welfare of others. We can be more determined to take compassionate action, to look beneath self-destructive behaviours to find the person desirous of wellness and associated ease.

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Image by Pete Linforth from Pixabay

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

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

The Dark Clouds of Expectations

Expectations, our own or that of others, can be good. They help us to extend ourselves, go beyond our comfort zone and realise our potential in the various endeavours of our life. However, when expectations become too great, they can be disabling and damaging to our physical and mental health. Excessive expectations can lead to unhealthy levels of stress and the attendant negative impacts on our bodies and minds.

Previously, I discussed the tyranny of expectations, drawing on a blog post by Phillip Moffitt, author of Emotional Chaos to Clarity. In this post, I want to focus on the disabling effects of expectations when expectations become too great. Recent events at the 2020 Tokyo Olympics is the catalyst for this reflection.

Impact of excessive expectations on elite athletes

During the Tokyo Olympics what struck me was the number of elite athletes whose performance was adversely affected by excessive expectations, their own and that of others. An athlete who readily comes to mind is Ash Barty.

Ash Barty, world No. 1 tennis player, was beaten in the first round of the Olympic women’s singles by world No.48, Sara Sorribes Tormo. The straight sets loss created a media storm. Barty commented after the match that “she wanted to do really well” at the Olympics but her game was “too erratic” – she made an uncharacteristic 55 unforced errors. The expectations of others around Barty’s performance prior to the Olympics constantly made headlines in the press – she was Australia’s only guaranteed gold medal hope and would meet Osaka in a classic final that would decide who was the real world No.1 tennis player. Barty admitted after the match that she felt the stress of expectations but did not perform at her normal best.

What was interesting as an observer, was her failure to demonstrate her normal trade-mark skill of being able to assess an opponent’s strategy and adjust her own game if things were not going well. As Phillip Moffit points out in his book, excessive expectations can lead to “emotional chaos” at the expense of clarity – the resultant excessive stress can lead to “frazzle”, a state of conflicting thoughts and emotions, blocking out access to personal creativity in the situation.

Ben Crowe, Barty’s mentor and performance coach, makes the point that one of Barty’s great strengths is her capacity to block out distractions which can take the form of expectations, who is watching the match or any multitude of things that draw attention away from the present moment. Ben sees his job in part as helping Barty to manage distractions and he gives her feedback after a match about his observations of how she has handled distractions during a match (drawing on both displayed non-verbal behaviour and performance level). He stated that one of her “superpowers” is to be able “to separate self-worth from expectations of others”.

As Ben explained, you have no control over the expectations of others and limited control over outcomes. So many things can impact the outcome such as the excessive heat during the Tokyo Olympic tennis matches, the absence of spectators, anxiety about the pandemic and its impacts or personal weariness, ill-health or injuries. Ben observed that being able to separate your own sense of personal worth from outcomes enables you to separate goals/dreams from whether or not you achieve them. He explained that Barty’s sense of her own self-worth is rooted in her foundational values of “being a good human being” who is both respectful and respected. He maintains that her healthy self-confidence flows from a focus on “human-being” over “human-doing” – the being vs doing focus that is prominent in mindfulness.

Reflection

If we define ourselves by our outcomes in whatever arena we operate, we will be captured by the “tyranny of expectations” – our own and that of others. However, if we focus on the process rather than the outcomes and express gratitude for what we have and can do, we are less likely to be caught up in the distraction and disablement of expectations.

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, reflection and other mindfulness activity, we can become better at paying attention in the present moment, achieve greater clarity about the present situation (however challenging it might be) and tap into our inner resources including our creativity.

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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.

Finding Your Life Purpose

In his book, The Human Quest for Meaning, Paul Wong maintains that finding a unique purpose that transcends yourself and realises your full potential as one of the pillars of a meaningful life. Identifying and pursuing your life purpose is a key ingredient to experiencing happiness in your life. People often experience dissatisfaction and unhappiness if they are not able to use their core skills, knowledge, and experience in the pursuit of something that is meaningful and transcends themselves. Each of us is attempting to create a meaningful story for our life that is not constrained by limiting, negative self-talk.

There are many pathways to identifying and pursuing your life purpose and each of us has to find our own path. For some, the catalyst for finding their life purpose is a life crisis experienced by themselves, e.g., a life-threatening illness or major job loss; for others, the catalyst can be observing others experiencing extreme or destitute conditions. Some people consciously pursue their life purpose through meditation and mindfulness practices and find the strength and sensitivity to pursue their life purpose.

Discovering and pursuing life purpose through nature

Ruth Allen, author of Grounded: How Connection with Nature can Improve Our Mental and Physical Wellbeing, tells the story of how she was totally absorbed by nature as a child and loved being amongst trees and wildlife. Motivated by this love of nature, she decided to complete a degree in geology and undertake related PhD research. However, she found that she ended up further and further away from nature as she pursued her research and work in a laboratory studying tiny samples through a microscope.

Ruth lost the sense of the expansiveness and the interconnectedness of nature and her own connection with it. She decided that to identify her true purpose in life, she had to get back into nature which she did over a number of years in forests and the wild. She had lost her way and sought to rebalance her life through her immersion in nature. She eventually discovered her life purpose as a counsellor and eco-psychotherapist helping other people to regain balance in their life through connection with nature. She is able to use eco-therapies in her outdoor practice and to motivate others to connect to nature through her speaking, writing and adventure modelling.

Discovering and pursuing life purpose through meditation and chanting

Tina Turner tells the story of how she overcame the various traumas in her life through meditation and chanting. She felt totally disillusioned with life and distressed by her abusive relationship. By persistent, daily practice of Buddhist meditation and chanting, she was able to find the energy, insight, and courage to pursue her life purpose as a singer who moved people and a social activist through her work as co-founder and contributor to the Beyond Music Project which seeks to develop connectedness and unity through the celebration of cultural diversity. Despite her adversity, she was able to develop resilience and happiness in pursuit of a meaningful and rewarding life.

Motivated to a life of compassionate action after observing the desperate plight of other people

There are numerous instances where people have discovered their life purpose by observing the destitution, desperation, or debilitating life of others. Here are some examples:

Nicolle Edwards and husband Gareth set up the domestic violence support service RizeUp Australia when they observed the plight of women fleeing domestic violence with their children. Their focus is on providing the set-up requirements for emergency housing and they have established the charity to gather donations (money and furniture) to support their work in helping domestic violence victims transition into a different housing environment. They have been surprised by the level of support that they have been able to muster through unified action in pursuit of what has become their life purpose.
Isabel Allende, in her recent book The Soul of a Woman, recounts how through her research of violence against women (including a visit to a small community of women in Kenya whose lives had been devastated by war and AIDS), she was moved to establish the Isabelle Allende Foundation whose mission is to empower women to “to secure reproductive rights, economic independence and freedom from violence”. Isabel’s poignant and soul-searching memoir, Paula, written during her daughter’s fatal, porphyria-induced coma was an outstanding success and generated the income which Isabel used to create the Foundation. She sees her life purpose as enabling women to be safe, valued and loved and to have empowerment through control over their own bodies and personal resources. Isabel pursues her life purpose through her Foundation and her writing – she has written 26 books selling over 74 million copies.
Olga Murray, a highly successful and widely respected lawyer, was moved by the impoverishment of children in Nepal when she visited Kathmandu and observed their destitute conditions, including young girls being sold into slavery and prostitution during a Festival. She established the Nepal Youth Foundation in 1990 to provide children who were the most impoverished with “education, housing, medical care and human rights.” She has continued to work to support the Foundation in her 90’s and the Foundation continues to save girls from slavery through their “indentured daughters” program.
Goldie Hawn, through her own experience of panic attacks as a child, developed a very strong empathy for children suffering unhappiness and depression through mental illness. She had used meditation throughout her own life to develop self-awareness and manage her own emotional stress and she became acutely aware of how mindfulness enables children to manage the stresses of their lives. This led her to establish the Goldie Hawn Foundation which developed the MindUP program which employs educational programs to facilitate the well-being of children. The programs for both children and teachers are soundly based on “neuroscience, mindfulness awareness, positive psychology and social-emotional learning (SEL)”.

Reflection

Many things can be a catalyst for discovering our life purpose and providing the energy and motivation to pursue it with courage and focused action. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, mindfulness practices and reflection on our life experiences, we can develop the insight to identify our unique purpose and the resilience to pursue it through compassionate action.

Hugh Van Cuylenburg developed the GEM pathway to happiness and resilience – gratitude, empathy, mindfulness – after a visit to a poor village in India. He now pursues his life purpose as a motivational speaker and writer working with multiple organisations, including elite sport’s teams.

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Image by Vikramjit Kakati 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.

Children and Young People Need Compassionate Action in these Difficult Times

According to a report by the Australian Human Rights Commission and Kids Helpline, one of the major fallouts from the pandemic is the pervasive negative impacts on children and young people. Their report makes the point that “the health, social, educational, economic, and recreational impacts” will extend well beyond the pandemic and impact their futures. Children and youth are themselves the future of their communities so it is incumbent on people in communities to extend compassionate action to this group who are in crisis through a global event over which they have no control.

The co-authored report identifies five key issues raised by children and young people:

Deteriorating mental health
Isolation from others
Disrupted education
Family stresses
Unanticipated changes to plans, activities, and recreation

These issues are not discrete and, in fact, are compounding – each individually exacerbating other impacts.

Deteriorating mental health

A report by Headspace focused on the mental health impacts of COVID-19 on young people who accessed their services. Many young people indicated the negative impacts on their sleep, mood, and overall well-being. Young people have experienced anxiety over an uncertain future, contagious stress (from financial and health concerns of others) and disconnection from foundational supports such as family and friends. However, what is encouraging are the activities that young people undertake in terms of self-care, including accessing Headspace and its dedicated resources for youth mental health. Also, some young people saw the difficult times as a chance to re-calibrate, re-think priorities and focus on what is important in life. The problem now is that the negative impacts of the pandemic are so pervasive that organisations like Headspace are becoming overwhelmed by the demand for their services.

Isolation from others

Lockdowns and restricted movement, and the alternating on and off directives, have contributed to a sense of social isolation. Disconnection from others can lead to loneliness and depression and impact young people’s confidence and sense of self-worth. The more extroverted children and youth can experience long periods of boredom and begin to question their purpose and usefulness. Connection, on the other hand, engenders mental stimulus, energy, joy, and shared experiences – all conducive to positive mental health.

Disrupted education

With the initial limitations on face-to-face education with schools and university lockdowns, children and young people found that their education was disrupted. The impacts were experienced as a result of the variable capacity of parents to undertake home-schooling, the lack of preparation and training of teachers for online learning and delivery and the lack of technological and infrastructure support. The disruption was compounded by the inability of some children and young people to learn adequately in an online environment, influenced, in part, by the inadequacy of home computers and/or space.

Family stresses

In many instances, adults in a family were having difficulty coping with the pandemic for similar reasons to young people – isolation, mental health issues and disrupted activities. Many were forced to work at home, which suited lots of people but undermined the confidence of others. Families, too, were in crisis because of job losses, financial difficulties, challenges accessing food and essential services and overall concerns about the health and welfare of family members (including members of the extended family who were isolated locally or overseas). Adding to these stresses is the impact of grief through the loss of a friend, colleague, or family member.

Unanticipated changes to plans, activities, and recreation

For young people, recreation is an important outlet for their energy, the stresses experienced because of their age and physical development and frustration with life’s challenges (including conflict of values with their parents). Limitations on recreational activities compounded the stress felt by young people and impacted their relationships with their family. What is positive, is the number of families who took the opportunity to go for walks or bike rides together in their adjacent area.

Youth homelessness as a consequence of issues experienced by young people

One of the major impacts of the pandemic and associated stressors is the rise in youth homelessness. Mission Australia reported in July 2020 that one in six young people who completed their survey indicated that they had been homeless. The report highlights the long-term effects of homelessness on young people for whom the experience is “isolating, destabilising and often traumatic”, creating “insurmountable barriers as they move into adult life”. Homeless youth can experience a pervasive sense of sadness and hopelessness. Children and young people experience homelessness because of family conflicts, domestic violence and abuse, bullying, household financial crises and lack of affordable housing. Kids Under Cover (KUC) highlights the main causes of homelessness for children and young people and advances a very strong economic argument for preventing youth homelessness.

Addressing children and youth homelessness

Mission Australia has called on the Federal and State Governments to increase the stock of affordable, social housing as one approach to economic recovery and social accountability and to redress the growing crisis of children and youth homelessness. The report jointly authored by Headspace and the Australian Human Rights Commission suggests a range of educational, mental health, economic and informational strategies that Governments can employ to redress the situation. They particularly encourage Governments to give young people a voice in pandemic recovery planning. One recommendation of the report that is particularly critical is “prioritising services for vulnerable children and young people”.

Organisations already exist to provide the requisite services for young people and families who are struggling. BABI, for instance, located in Wynnum (Brisbane, Queensland) has provided a comprehensive range of youth and family services since 1983 to residents of the Bayside areas of Brisbane (Wynnum, Manly & Redlands). This includes supported accommodation for youth who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless, specialised family support for parents who are young or have teenagers, personal development (including tenancy training and Get Set for Work training) and youth connection and engagement through their LINX Youth Space and their Youth Voice Committee (YVC).

Organisation such as BABI, Headspace and KUC are finding that the growing demand for their services are fast outstripping their existing resources. Those who provide supported accommodation, for example, are working in an environment where so many influences are making it extremely difficult to provide the requisite housing solutions. The influences that are compounding include:

Lack of affordable housing
Rising house prices and rentals costs
Limited vacancies overall

This accommodation crisis is accompanied by the removal of economic supports instituted during the pandemic such as the Eviction Moratorium, JobKeeper payments and the Coronavirus Supplement. The removal of the JobKeeper Payment alone is expected to result in the loss of at least 100,000 jobs.

While Governments could show compassion and do many things to address homelessness amongst children and youth, there is an obvious reluctance to address the associated issues. It is clear that it is time for people in the community to take compassionate action in the form of advocating with Governments and politicians, supporting organisations such as BABI through their businesses and their personal donations and volunteering whatever assistance they can provide to enable these dedicated organisations to meet what is currently an overwhelming demand.

Reflection

Empathy developed through mindfulness can help us to feel for the plight of others, especially those experiencing homelessness. As we grow in mindfulness through loving kindness meditation, we can gain insight into how we could personally contribute and become motivated to take compassionate action for the homeless children and young people in our community – the young people who are the future of our communities.

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Image by Wokandapix 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.