Tag: turmoil

Using Meditation to Let the Light In

Lynne Goldberg presented at the 2020 Mindfulness & Compassion Global Summit on the theme of Leonard Cohen’s words, The Crack is Where the Light Gets In.  Lynne spoke of her life experience where meditation enabled her to find joy, happiness and holistic success after a dark period of pain, grief, and anxiety.  The “crack” was the fracture of her external, projected veneer as the perfect wife, mother and businesswoman (Vice-President of a retail store).  Lynne epitomised what Harriet Braiker called The Type E Woman who had to be “everything to everybody”.

Lynne’s world fell apart when she lost her mother through cancer, her marriage through divorce and her twin daughters who died two days after their birth (after she had tried to conceive for six years).  Despite the turmoil in her life, Lynne tried to keep it together and be the perfect executive but lost her position.  Lynne numbed herself to the physical, emotional and mental pain she was experiencing.  It was only through meditation and improved nutrition that she was able to restore her equilibrium and find peace and happiness.  Up until then, she was full of self-loathing and self-recrimination.  She had to acknowledge to herself that “position and possessions” do not guarantee happiness – they were only the external trappings of “success”.  Meditation enabled Lynne to loosen the hold of false beliefs and let in the light of self-belief and self-esteem. 

Meditation to let the light in

Through meditation and nutrition Lynne found her balance and love for life and others.  She became a certified meditation teacher and described her odyssey in her book, Get Balanced, Get Blessed: Nourishment for Body, Mind, and Soul – a life journey that shares strategies and tools to overcome the stress of trying to be perfect and “control the uncontrollable”. Lynne is also a co-creator of the Breethe app.

In a recent interview with Beau Henderson discussing meditation’s role in challenging times, Lynne offered five steps to help us overcome fear and anxiety and achieve mindfulness and serenity:

  1. Set your intention – be very clear about why you want to develop a meditation practice and find ways to remind yourself of this intention.  Clarity of intention energises the discipline to maintain practice.
  2. Stay present – avoid wandering into the past and the uncertain future and practise restoring your focus to the present.  Some simple mindfulness practices such as mindful walking, focusing on the sensation of your fingers joined together or deep listening, can be helpful here.  You can also monitor your own words, e.g. when you say, “I can’t wait till the weekend!” or “I wish it was Friday”.
  3. Practice non-judgment – be with what is happening rather than judging it to be good or bad, e.g. the weather. 
  4. Let go of control – give up on trying to “manage the unmanageable” but do what you can to the best of your ability, given limited resources, time and understanding. 
  5. Go from “me” to “we” – help other and in the process help yourself to overcome fear and self-absorption. Compassionate listening in times of anxiety and uncertainty is a bridge to self-compassion and compassionate action towards others.

Lynne offers a 5-minute meditation that can be used at any time during your day to let the light in and bring peace and tranquillity to your life.

Reflection

There are many simple meditation practices that can help us to become grounded and to rest in equanimity.  The starting point is a clear intention to undertake a core meditation practice on a daily basis. Starting small enables us to build the discipline of consistency.  The core practice, even five minutes a day, can be supplemented by other mindfulness practices to build and sustain the momentum. 

Revisiting the benefits of our meditation and mindfulness practices helps to reinforce our intention and reward our discipline.  As we grow in mindfulness through meditation and mindfulness practice, we can overcome false beliefs, experience serenity, access our creativity and achieve holistic success.

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Image by Mabel Amber 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.

Cultivating Attention Through Mindfulness

Matthew Brensilver, in a guided meditation provided through MARC UCLA, emphasises the essential character of attention and its role in building our inner and outer awareness while contributing to a life that is fully lived.  In his preliminary discussion as an introduction to his meditation on Attention as Our Most Basic Currency, he highlights the erosion of our attention span, the “fragmentation of our attention” and the resultant turmoil of many lives today. 

In Matthew’s view, mindfulness practice “cultivates attention”, builds resilience and engenders peace and tranquillity.  He suggests that attention is “our basic currency” – it provides the means for us to be fully human and experience life in all its richness.

Distraction creates a low attention span and devalues our “currency”

There are so many things that compete for our attention and distract us from the inherent potentiality of the present moment.  Our everyday behaviours contribute to this erosion of attention. For example, while we are waiting for a bus, a service or a friend, our default is to pull out our phone rather than to take the opportunity to increase our awareness through focused attention.  Our mobile phone leads us down the path of endless distraction – it’s almost an escape route from the reality of our daily lives. 

We might feast on the news, get lost in the external (but empty) validation provided by social media “likes” or explore the endless trails offered by disruptive advertising.  This simple device that has become known as “Wireless Mass Distraction” (WMD) erodes the power of focused attention and reduces the opportunities to grow in inner and outer awareness.  The obsession with “selfies” via the phone is an emerging social behaviour that intensifies the power of phones to be a source of mass distraction and to create a low-attention-span culture.

Distraction is used as a way to free us from boredom, rather than embrace it and savour the freedom it provides.  So, instead of taking the opportunity to harness our attention and grow our awareness, we resort to activities that take our mind elsewhere and fragment out attention and diminish our attentional power.

Mindfulness practice and attention

While there are numerous mindfulness practices and meditations, Matthew suggests that mindfulness, in essence, is “paying attention to our lives”. This allows us to accept “what is” (with all its challenges and imperfections) and to experience the richness of our life more fully.   Distraction, on the other hand, fragments our attention and blinds us to our inner and outer reality.  It’s almost like we are constantly running away from what is within us for fear that we may not like what we see. 

Mindfulness practice enables us to pay attention to – to face up to – what we are really thinking and feeling, the expression of these thoughts and feelings through our bodily sensations and the impact we are having on others.  Through mindfulness practice, we can learn how our past plays out in the present.  It also enables us to draw on the healing power of nature, the personal empowerment of appreciation and gratitude and the stillness that enables us to access and grow our creativity.

As we cultivate our attention and grow in mindfulness, we are better able to experience the richness of our human existence, enjoy greater peace and harmony and access our endless inner resources to meet the vicissitudes of our daily lives.

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

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

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