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Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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March 6, 2018 By Admin

Mindful Equanimity and Homeostasis

Mindful Equanimity and Homeostasis

Neuroscientist Antonio Demasio’s new book  The Strange Order of Things: Life, Feeling, and the Making of Culture. (2018) New York: Pantheon Books notes the very important role homeostasis plays in human life and well being. In some ways homeostasis is about the arising, falling, and balancing out of all things important to human life. Homeostasis plays vital roles in human feelings and emotions, motivation for actions, identification of internal states, monitoring positives and negatives, and the realities of progressively positive human development. It is also important in experiencing joy and happiness. Let’s review some core characteristics of homeostasis; it will soon become clear that meditative equanimity and homeostasis have many things in common. Perhaps human homeostasis and equanimity have deep innate, naturalistic tendencies in some people. Here are some characteristics.

  1. Homeostasis is the ultimate balancer of all things, causes, conditions, and outcomes.
  2. It relates to all bio-psycho-social-spirtual conditions in life.
  3. This inner self-balance allows us to cope better with suffering, and also allows us to fully experience joy and happiness – all of which arise and fall, thus balancing out.
  4. From a survival perspective homeostasis enables the propagation of species. It is the key driver of our evolutionary processes and change. Impermanence is in place here.
  5. It enables us to evaluate positive/pleasant, neutral, and negative/unpleasant experiences.
  6. Such judgments become part of our on-going consciousness.
  7. Sounds somewhat like the Middle Way in Buddhist Psychology.
  8. It is the stabilization of all life systems – the master regulator of it all.
  9. Much of it in autonomic/unconscious, but eventually a good deal of it enters our consciousness.  We use it!
  10. In energetic ways homeostasis manages all our mind-body energies toward equilibrium, but it is beyond maintaining the status quo.
  11. It is a highly positive force working to maintain healthy life and development.

Now that you have a good idea about what homeostasis is, you may want to meditate on it and notice it in your mind and body. After that meditation, enter deeper practice and notice the homeostasis of your equanimity when you encounter it.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton SanghaChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Balance, Equanimity, Featured, Homeostatis Tagged With: ANTONIO DEMASIO, BALANCE, EQUANIMITY, HOMEOSTATIS, MINDFULNESS

November 21, 2017 By Admin

Making the Best of the Holidays

Making the Best of the Holidays

Thanks to Sounds True, we have many good suggestions for making the most of the holidays.  It is a norm for the holidays to be happy and joyous, and it is a norm for many people for the holidays to be filled with emotional and behavioral challenges.  To reduce your stress and reactivity over the holidays and time with family, see the edited listing below.  I have added some skills that were not included in the Sounds True listing.

  1. Selfcare may require that you practice meditation, yoga, tai chi, qi gong and other forms of concentration and movement during the holidays. Do these practices more often if possible.
  2. Practice preview in the morning by noting one thing you look forward to in the day. Practice review in the evening regarding one thing you enjoyed during the day. Stay with the positive.
  3. Practice helpful breathing techniques often during the holidays. Take a breathing break. Smile as much as possible.  Allow this “mouth yoga” to help you when encountering interpersonal challenges.
  4. Use your own mantra. Make one up that helps to keep you stable and say it to yourself often. This is especially important during times/events when stress reactivity may occur.
  5. When your mind and body begin to tighten up as stress precursors, go directly to your heart. Fine a soft and gentle place there to rest, and forgive others if ready and able to do so.
  6. Practice the thymus rub or thymus thump as a self-defense practice. Rub hard and long or thump moderately to reduce building emotional reactivity or anxiety.
  7. If you know the old Callahan Technique or current emotional freedom methods, tap on essential relief areas/points and use your mantra to support cognitive modifications in thoughts.
  8. Recognize that sometimes to protect yourself, you will have to say “NO.”  Do  so softly and respectfully. But do it when necessary.
  9. Monitor your emotional eating and alcohol consumption as forms of self-medication during the holidays. The American norm of “excess” also happens when we sit down for family meals, especially if there is unresolved emotional tension  between people.
  10. Use grace a lot during the holidays. Become familiar with your own form of grace. Be generous with it during the holidays. Add some gratitude practice.
  11. If you know how to do it, practice loving kindness meditation. For example, May I be safe, healthy, free from suffering, happy, and live with ease.  Do so for others in your family, especially people who may trigger your emotional reactivity. Remember that all people suffer.
  12. Be generous with your time, space, affection and love during the holidays. Be certain these expressions  are authentic, but know that they does NOT have to be 100% authentic.  Do your best. Fake it if necessary until you make it!
  13. Go outside at night and get in touch with the winter sky. Look at all those stars with utter amazement. Enjoy them!  You may want to practice outdoor meditation on the sky, stars, moon, etc.
  14. What ever happens remain in the present. Do NOT fall back to past painful memories and experiences; do NOT fast forward to fears and apprehensions about the future. Stay in the present moment, breathe, and make the most of it all.
  15. Practice random acts of kindness during the holidays. Small meaningful things can produce great emotional rewards when they come from the heart.
  16. Before bedtime, practice calming body scanning.  Do this practice slowly, and do your best to “feel” the soothing, calming sensations in your body.

For more information refer to Sounds True (2017).  A Holiday Companion.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Activities, ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Benefits of Meditation, Benefits of Mindfulness, Breathing, Featured, Holiday Blues, Holiday Coping, Meditation, Meditation Activities, MIndfulness Tagged With: MAKING THE MOST OF THE HOLIDAYS, MINDFULLNESS DURING HOLIDAYS

November 26, 2016 By Admin Leave a Comment

Holiday “Blues” and a Few Antidotes

Holiday “Blues” and a Few Antidotes

It is common for many people to experience a full range of emotions during the holiday season.  It is also quite common for many people to experience holiday “blues.” In a more clinical understanding, this condition often includes both sadness/depression and anxiety/apprehension. Ideally, we should be able to experience thankfulness, gratitude, kindness, and joy; however for a myriad of reasons (family-of-origin issues, sibling rivalry, family systems “stuckness,” attachment problems, health issues, emotional problems, addictions, worries, etc.) many people do not look forward to the holidays. Buddhist Psychology offers a taste of reality: life is made up of suffering, joy/happiness, and neutrality/boredom.  That is it! THIS is the WAY it is! As has been stated over 2,500 years ago, the mind/thought can either be our best friend or our worse enemy. Add to these holidaynlues-mindful-happinessrealities the issues of rampant self-referencing and entitlement seen in so many people today – “Me/Mine Mind” (my terms). As we make our way through samsara, we condition/reinforce ourselves to the desire/attachment for sense pleasures; we understand that such states are temporary, and that we cannot hold onto them. Thus we are soon back in dissatisfaction as a norm. We crave too much; we crave too often.  We lack mindful abilities and skills to be content and satisfied with what we have right now.  This does not imply that you not work at personal improvement; it does imply that to do so in an authentic manner, requires great mindfulness, self-understanding, and patience.

Lucky for us, many enlightened beings from a long time ago have passed down teachings that will help us with these conditions. First, is awareness: we must become aware of the realities noted above.  We need to be willing to allow life to be our teacher; we need to be willing to learn from whatever happens to us – pleasant and unpleasant. Primary suffering will occur – we cannot avoid it in life.  Secondary suffering, however, does not have to exist.  As the story of the “two arrows” goes, we get hit by primary suffering, which is out of our personal control. That painful arrow should cue us to not allow habitually reactive thoughts, emotions, and escape behaviors to dominate our experience at that time.  It requires great mindfulness and determination (skills and practices) to keep the second arrow out of our future.  I am sure you know a person (perhaps it is you) who suffered from the first arrow many, many years ago and has been unable to free her/himself from the second arrow – habitual reactive, negative mindfulhappiness-holiday-bluesthoughts, emotions and behaviors associated with the first arrow. Second, is life purpose. Why are we here? We are here to live, to be, to learn, to experience, to cope, to love, to be spirit, and to find our deeper personal meanings. Impermanence is third. Nothing stays exactly the same; everything is in a state of change. Bad experiences do not last forever, and good experiences do not last forever – in fact because we desire them they may be more short-lived. Ultimate reality is next. All the problems we face (troubled love, the lack of it, finances, jobs, family relations, loneliness, illness, etc.) test our resolve and skills. To use the true ways of reality or the way things are (impermanence, emptiness, dependent origination, and no-self) in our service is to become more resilient to our suffering. These teachings and ways of being require much practice and understanding. It is not that you will not suffer; it is hoped that you will not react so harshly to your suffering and see it as simply one form of our temporary reality. Gratitude is the next doorway. Do your best to have gratitude and contentment with what you do have now – whatever the immediate personal experience is. We humans often take for granted many positive aspects of our lives, until we lose one of them. Have gratitude as your norm. Next to last, be in your true self. Yes, you will have negative emotions and suffering. And yes you will have joy and happiness.  The highest form of happiness is to learn not to suffer so much even when you are suffering.  Live in full honesty with who/what you are.  Also seek to find meaningful pathways to lasting happiness, which is most often not attached to possessions. Love yourself more, and love others as well. Lastly, be and act in compassionate ways to yourself and to others. This is the most true pathway to lasting happiness. Be kind, and act to put the interests of others ahead of your own self-interests.

Happiness follows such sacrifice. I hope you will try some of these wisdom teaching during the holidays, especially if you experience “the blues.” After the holidays keep living this way.   You will become a happier person.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Commentary, Featured, Holiday Blues, Human Needs, Ideas & Practices, Inner Peace, Mindful Awareness, MIndfulness, MIndfulness Activities Tagged With: COPING, HOLIDAY BLUES, MINDFULNESS, PRACTICE

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