January 7, 2015 By Admin

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The True Nature of Phenomena Here I will present common steps in the process of vipassana meditation. My presentation will end with a brief discussion of nirvana (enlightenment). 1) It will be helpful not to have strong conceptual intention about your goal of attaining insight. You will know when you have entered it via your […]

More on Mindful Breathing Whole-Heart Breathing – I have modified and expanded this great process from Thich Nhat Hanh. If comfortable close your eyes and simply breathe calming and deeply for a few breaths. Add you personal half smile and allow the soothing (sometimes very subtle) sensation to spread all over your face. Do not […]

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 […]

Mediation: Conscious or Not? A true, in depth understanding about what human consciousness is and how it works has eluded mind and brain scientists for many years. A few very interesting ideas have been presented by Stuart Hameroff, professor emeritus and director of the University of Arizona’s Center for Consciousness Studies. Consciousness rests in the […]

Money and Electronic “Friends” Are They Real ? The Sutta Nipata (4.15, Translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu) noted “Seeing people floundering like fish in small puddles, competing with one another…fear came into me. The world was entirely without substance….Wanting a haven for myself, I saw nothing that wasn’t laid claim to. Seeing nothing in the end but […]

Intervention Skills to Calm Your Anxiety It is estimated that approximately 40,000,000 American suffer from an anxiety disorders, especially generalize anxiety and panic disorder. Sometimes general “talk therapy” fails to help improve your condition; you may need cognitive-behavioral therapy with research-based mindfulness skills or dialectical behavior therapy. CBT, MBSR, ACT and DBT are the evidence-based, […]

Mindfulness On Loss, Grief and Mourning Mindfulness about personal loss, grief, and mourning may encompass many things. Here I will focus on the process and what people can do to better handle their suffering and pain. One way to look at it is through the lens of radical acceptance; another is via the reality of […]

Expanded Information about Your Compassion Practices and Benefits Compassion Practice Tips and Exercises The Buddha noted that one should not dwell on the past, become too attached to future outcomes, but instead concentrate our mind only on the present moment of our experiences. The Dalai Lama noted that compassion is a necessary condition for inner […]

More Psychoanalytic Gems – In an earlier post, I noted a list of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Gems, including a later post on D.W. Winnicott’s approaches to building a therapeutic alliance. My general aversion to this form of therapy has more to do with its slowness and high costs than to its effectiveness. It is effective! However, […]

“Ignorance” of Requirements Could End Your Clinical Career Recently various insurance, Medicaid, and Medicare fraud cases have been in the national headlines. Although these fraud cases grab headlines, the truth is that many clinically licensed helpers still do not understand clinical/legal documentation requirements. In Buddhism, “ignorance” gets in our way; we never approach true liberation […]

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 […]

Human Needs and Spiritual Experience and the Need for Supportive Rituals From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont Recently the Human Givens Blog in the United Kingdom presented a post about human needs. I will paraphrase their information as well as information from other sources for Mindful Happiness. Having such […]

Consciousness, Emptiness, and Well Being This is an advanced post on the complex relationship among consciousness (awareness), emptiness, and well being. Readers with advanced understanding of Buddhist Psychology will recognize the inherent relationships among consciousness, emptiness, and well being and interactions with core Buddhist concepts and experiences such as happiness and suffering, impermanence, non-dual nature, […]

Risks and Solutions for Compassion Fatigue Perhaps nothing more than compassion fatigue causes more helpers to prematurely exit their fields. First responders are generally seen as the most at risk for compassion fatigue (and possibly PTSD), followed by emergency room medical staff. A third group, medical and clinical staff working with high risk terminally-prone patients is […]

Poem on Nature – Haiku-Like As I sat peacefully by the westward window of my sunroom at my retreat center, I noticed! I noticed the restless, natural movement of a tormented sky trying to calm itself. Here is my poem. “The Sky, the Lake and the Mountains” Sitting at our home, alone – […]

Meditation Guide to Getting Started Since just sitting in basic (mindfulness or vipassana) meditation is such an important practice on your way to emotional regulation – and possibly and eventually to Enlightenment – I decided to offer a quick review of this skilled practice. Practice every day! 1) Sit comfortably with your back softly errect […]

Helper Self-Care is Important In the most current issue of The National Psychologist (July-August, 2019) an article linked helper effectiveness, risk management, and clinical outcomes to helper self-care. To make a long story shorter, I will simply paraphrase and re-word the suggestions. These recommendations support YOUR emotional survival and successful risk management as a helper as […]

Understanding Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy? Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (or Cognitive-Behavior Therapy, hereafter CBT) has been noted as the most common evidence-based therapy approach used in the United States. That said, the most common “therapy” approach used here remains generic talk therapy with more or less psychodynamic characteristics. Given the absolute limited level of outcome-based evidence for effectiveness of […]

Very “SAD” Facts about the Addictions Field A recent issue of the Addictions Professional presented very disturbing news about how clinicians in the field are doing. NOT WELL! Addictions clinicians treat people with addictions but mainly people with co-occurring disorders – addictions with trauma, depression, anxiety and/or eating disorders. Often there is also a co-occurring medical […]

Building Emotional Resilience On a personal note, right now I am suffering. Its April 15th and I have a terrible viral infection (sore throat, chest congestion, and fever). I feel weak and miserable. Perhaps all that frigid air we endured in New England this Winter also kept infectious “stuff” under control for a while. However, […]