August 21, 2014 By Admin

mindfulhappiness_joyandsorrow

About Interoception and It’s Importance Interoception (some may also call it neuroception) is the conscious detection and perception of sensory signals in the body and on the skin. Most often these signals are processed as sensations. Sensation, as the foundation of emotional experience, is always there in our bodies; however, we are not always fully […]

Forgiveness Meditation Practice – Mindful Happiness – Dr Anthony Quintiliani Sit comfortably in a meditation posture. Allow your breath to remain natural without any intentional modification. Allow your body to relax, and allow your mind to be open to and to expect forgiveness. Focus attention on your heart area deep within your soul, and allow […]

Mindfulness, Movement, and Meditation Practices Meditation Master Thich Nhat Hanh offers some of the most helpful mindfulness, movement, and meditation instructions available today. His themes here are about reducing your suffering, increasing your satisfactions, and expanding your happiness as a result. Please do not note that “I do not have time to do these things!” […]

Vipassana Meditation Practice – Introductory Journey 1 This is the first of a series of posts on vipassana-based meditation practices. The introductory journey set will not be pure vipassana; rather this set of meditations will be about practice with core principles and learning experiences in regular vipassana meditation. Rather than explain background information, I will […]

Effective Clinical Supervision Perhaps other than the mental health status of the therapist and her/his ethical clinical skills, there is no more important variable in successful clinical work than effective CLINICAL supervision. I emphasize “clinical’ because in today’s bureaucratic systems, so much supervision tends to be about required procedures like utilization level, reporting requirements, and documentation for services […]

Meditating in the Gap of Nothingness The Buddha taught about your four best friends, that is how the body changes physiology when you sit, stand, walk/move and every time you are lying down. Modern Western neuroscience now supports this statement of 2500+ years ago. Thich Nhat Hanh added the importance of your breath, walking meditation, […]

Looking at Early Judeo-Chrsitian Meditation Practice An early description of enlightened liberation in Buddhist meditation practice reads like this: Birth is destroyed, the spiritual life has been lived, what had to be done has been done. There is no more coming back to any state of being. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness […]

The Failed “War on Drugs” – Let’s Try Treatment On Demand and Fund It The New York based Drug Policy Alliance (drugpolicy.org) and other sources have provided some important information about our failed drug and alcohol policies. Here are a few astounding facts. The United Stares has about 5% of the world’s population, but it […]

Happiness #3 – More Characteristics Here I will continue the discussion on common characteristics of personal happiness. As you read these posts, please do your best to experiment with these characteristics. See if you can experience more happiness without a frantic search for it. Ultimately it is about a special form of human love. Here […]

Vipassana Meditation – Emptiness One of the great insights from regular, long-term vipassana practice is the experience of emptiness. The actual knowing of it by the experience of it. This is not your typical conceptual emptiness of the West; it is not total void, negative beings, or nihilistic pit, or suffering in endlessness. It is […]

Essential Knowledge for Clinical Supervisors This post will include information and skills dealing with research on role induction practices, quality of clinical supervision, psychodynamics of alliance, and progress measurement. Since the information and skills for all these topics is complex, I will do my best to keep it as clear as possible. This information aims […]

An Advanced View on Meditations on Emptiness An earlier post on the Dalai Lama’s book, Meditations on the Nature of Mind, ended with suggested meditations (my own personal contemplation’s) about emptiness. I will first review those contemplations. Contemplate deeply on what emptiness means personally to you. Contemplate about a time when you received a glimpse of personal emptiness. […]

A Practice To Help Prevent Alzheimer Disease Kirtan Kriya meditation is part of the ancient Kundalini yoga tradition. Current clinical research dealing with prevention of Alzheimer disease supports its use in medical meditation. As G. Harrison (The Beatles fame) noted: As you move attention beyond yourself, you may find peace of mind is there. Sanskrit root […]

Journaling and Grief Process Regular brief journaling may be helpful in your grief and horror regarding significant personal losses of self and/or others. Here are the various ways it may be helpful to you. Writing and reading about your personal loss experience may help you to make sense of the process, and at the same […]

Wise Mind and the Neuroscience of Mindfulness Practice What is wise mind? Marsha M. Linehan developed this clinical process in her work on dialectical behavior therapy. Wise mind is the middle way between rational/reasonable mind and emotional mind; it allows us to live with balanced reason and emotion in daily interactions. When practiced regularly, it […]

The Reality of Experience What is deep mindfulness? Deep mindfulness is the concentrated awareness of all experiences, preferably without evaluating as pleasant or unpleasant. Deep mindfulness is pure awareness as it becomes part of personal consciousness. We humans, however, are always evaluating our experiences and phenomena as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant – often getting hooked […]

Buddhist Thought on Joy and Suffering 1) You actually DO have some control over your emotional destiny. 2) The core “conceptual” view of reality is that your inner emotional experience – especially negative afflictive emotional states related to people, places and things you REACT to – are perceived as totally true. 3) In a non-conceptual […]

Advanced Practice in Tara Brach’s RAIN Protocol So often we humans find ourselves in a state of limbic disarray, with ego defenses stimulating our need to protect ourselves from others – even from ourselves. We feel something is very wrong in this moment, and we allow separateness to pull us into a frenzied effort to […]

A Radical Feminist in her Time Over 800 years ago Hildegard of Bingen presented radical viewpoints on women-power and male-dominance in the Christian Church, stone/gem healing, meditation, insight and intellect, the web of life or planetary oneness, being in nature, environmentalism, and personal stories of suffering, etc. Despite her outspoken manner and her popularity among […]

The Needs of Traumatized Children – Learning Activity As a means to hone in on your helping behaviors, complete this learning activity. NEEDS List a Concrete Example for Each Unmet Need. Biological _______________________________________________ Psychological ____________________________________________ Social __________________________________________________ Emotional _______________________________________________ Educational ______________________________________________ Spiritual ________________________________________________ Attachment ______________________________________________ What can YOU do to help meet […]