October 29, 2014 By Admin

COMPASSION-mindful-happiness

Enhancing Hope in Psychotherapy The enhancement of personal hope is a key part of successful psychotherapy practice. Some view this requirement as a foundational aspect of the therapeutic alliance; others do not hold the same view. In the case of serious co-occurring disorders, especially trauma and substance misuse, initiating, developing, and sustaining a hopeful future-view […]

Finding Your Seat with Your Demons and Dragons: Resolutions You may think the creation of the Gestalt-like therapy activity of sitting in different chairs and acting “as if” the you in that personality-chair is the source of your responses is a relatively new psychotherapy intervention. However, some roots of this process may go back as […]

How to be Happier in a Relatively Unhappy World In today’s fast-paced, digitized, unstable world – with it uncertainty, childish tweets from on-high, and general dissatisfaction with things as they are – how may one become a happier person. It is clear that isolation will not work; it is clear that aggressive actions in opposition […]

A Primary Source of Unhappiness Self-medication to reduce or avoid pain and suffering is a major unhelpful habit in the United States. It is a desperate human effort to reduce pain and suffering in physical and psychological experiences. Therefore, we humans may be hard-wired for it. When we suffer and do not utilize effective wise […]

Mindfulness Training From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton,Vermont The Problem: Many people become stuck in the suffering of their past, and they continue to re-experience an event in the futile hope to better understand it, or to find an escape from it. Many of the same people become fixated fearfully […]

Interoception and Your Inner Self-Helper Interoception (sometimes called neuroception) is a sensory experience, in which you feel sensations in your body (viscera, heart, throat, etc.) that may be warning signs of limbic surveillance or inner continuity of your inner self-helper – that part of you and your brain that hopes to help you in whatever […]

The “I AM THAT” Meditation Elena Brower’s new book, Practice You: A Journal (Sounds True, 2017) has many thoughtful suggestions on how to connect with the true inner self, and – more importantly – how to improve your self-views and the experience of your deep inner self. Below I have modified her presentation of the “I Am […]

Meditation at the Deepest Levels In 2007 M. A. Singer’s The Untethered Soul: The Journey Beyond Yourself, opened up a whole new, deeper perspective on why consciousness or pure awareness is the root of self. Even in a Buddhist “no-self” view, Singer’s inquiries leave us with a great deal to unravel. Here are some reasons why […]

-Steps to Mind Training Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC To pacify your mind you need to train your mind. Mind training leads to liberation from brain-mind-heart-body automatic processes and reactions. A well-trained mind allows you to utilize executive functions (attention and concentration) to alter auto-reactions of the brain, body and heart. A trained mind liberates […]

Practice: Yogi Deep Meditation on Inner Listening Carl Jung noted: Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakens. The Katha Upanishads (800-400 BCE) noted: One path leads outward and the other inward. [The] way inward leads to grace. The Mind Cave Focus instructs us to close our eyes and expand your third-eye space to the back of […]

Participate in Groups for Meditation, Problem-Solving, and Task Completion Meditation With The Sangha Among regularly practicing meditators and various meditation traditions, the sangha is the social, emotional and spiritual collective that continues to support ongoing serious practice and progress along the Path. Given that so much has been written about the many benefits of practicing […]

Many Benefits of Mindfulness and Vipassana Meditation The Dalai Lama (Gyatso, Tenzin), the world leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and Paul Ekman, the world famous Psychologist of human emotions, have teamed up to discuss how to use mindful emotional awareness skills to become more emotionally balanced and compassionate. These two highly skilled practitioners have listed 21 […]

The Tao of Nature I have two interesting stories about nesting robins. These stories tell of the bonds of birds and their young, and how intelligent these birds can be. The first story happened to me abut 15 years ago. The second story happened today, July 27, 2017. Story 1 I was working in […]

Mindful Observation Through Mindful Breathing The following guided meditation is a combination meditation from Asanga’s Grounds of Hearers, Jam-Yang-Shay-Pa’s concentration meditation on the breath, and the Anapanasati Sutta. These guided meditation instructions have been simplified and combined for contemporary use by lay meditators. Observation of Observation – Mindfulness in Breathing Contemplate breathing in and out with complete […]

Wind Ridge Press NEW Publication! Author Anthony Quintiliani, a licensed psychologist with more than 35 years professional clinical experience, casts a wide net into the personal, clinical, and societal causes of prolonged human suffering and unhappiness in his book Mindful Happiness. The book’s guided interventions are aimed at helping to relieve depression, anxiety, traumatic reactivity, and […]

Tips on Practice During These Troubling Times Some people are religious, and I am sure turn to those sources for support and hope. Others are spiritual, and I hope also pursue those sources for emotional stability and closeness to the “their” divine. Other people may be Agnostic or Atheist; I am certain such people also […]

Deepak Chopra’s Ideas on “The Future of God” – Part 3 of In this third and last post I will discuss Deepak Chopra’s views of the three worlds of human experience: Material, Subtle, and Transcendent. As usual, I will paraphrase and add my own comments as appropriate. Belief in god or a higher power has […]

Drink a Cup of Tea with Thich Nhat Hanh According to the article “A Perfect Cup of Tea” by Noa Jones, The Great Meditation Master offers this sage advice about the best way to enjoy a great cup of tea. I suppose if you would rather drink coffee, the same suggestions may apply. Recognize that […]

I Have Questions Our spiritual traditions have many sources of powerful spiritual origination: Shiva, Buddha, Jesus, Saint Francis to note just a few. The Roman thinker Seneca noted that our most feared day is our last on earth, but this is also the beginning of our eternity. As a practicing Buddhist, a secular meditation teacher, […]

Tonglen Meditation or Giving and Taking I have added various posts about many compassion practice. Earlier posts have covered a range of practices – from super-easy to more demanding. Here, I will add a more advanced practice. This Tibetan compassion meditation practice has been taught often in the Vajrayana school of Buddhism. In my opinion […]