Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

  • Home
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
    • About
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Contact

May 26, 2016 By Admin

Meditation on the Feeling of Letting Go

Meditation on the Feeling of Letting Go – Pacification!

Pacifying the mind is a desired outcome of regular, stable meditation practice.  Pacification may be done via meditating on the breath, general mindfulness awareness, vipassana, and various other forms of  meditation.  However, the wise mind skill of “letting go” of unhelpful, negative, and harmful thoughts and emotions may bemindfulhappiness-meditation-monkey-mind more difficult for many people, even many meditators. In this post I hope to teach you how to LET GO.  Since letting go is much more than a cognitive action, it is necessary to examine other human processing channels – especially sensation, body movement, and emotion.  “Monkey Mind” can be pacified! Pacifying “monkey mind” when it contains strong negative objects of awareness will require a bit more practice and determination. Discernment of finer details in thoughts, sensations, body movement, and emotions will be necessary. Let’s begin.

  1. Begin with a comfortable but functional meditation posture.
  2. Pay close attention to your breath just as it is. Do not try to control it.
  3. Now slowly begin to slow and deepen your breathing, noticing breath passing in and out of the nostrils, the chest area, and how your lower belly moves in and out.
  4. Continue with abdominal breathing as long as it does not cause the opposite effect – making you anxious.
  5. Now become aware of your mind, and the thoughts that are passing through it right now.  Practice bare attention without making any evaluations or stories about the thoughts.  Just let them pass.
  6. Check your personal stability in posture, breath, and clear seeing regarding the coming and going of your thoughts.  Still no judgments or analysis – just moving thoughts like a leaf in a stream.
  7. At this point make a conscious effort to produce a negative thought you would rather not have in your mind.  Just notice it!  Drop judgment and the need to respond to the thought.   Just allow it to be.
  8. Notice that it tends to produce unwanted sensations and/or emotions – feeling associated with negative thoughts.  Just notice.  No need to respond.
  9. It is important that your realize just how easy it was to intentionally produce a negative thought in your consciousness.  Yes, we have automatic negative thoughts, and we have intentionally created negative thoughts.  Both are unhelpful, unwanted and uncomfortable.  The important thing is that thoughts – like breathing – can be under both voluntary and involuntary control. Positive thoughts are the same way.
  10. Now give yourself a SUDs score (0 to 100) regarding the negative thought. The higher the score on Subjective Units of Discomfort, the stronger the unpleasantness is.
  11. Let’s practice. Make the negative though more clear in your mind, then let it go. Just use your intention to let it go cognitively.  Add sensation: get the thought going again, and feel it in your body.  Intentionally let it go, and focus on the subtle change in sensation.  Do it once again, but this time focus on the emotion the negative thought produces in your body. Focus on the thought; let it go, and notice the subtle emotional shift.  Let’s add body movement to this process.  This time let the thought go, and make an arm gesture as if gently flicking the thought away.  If it helps use both arms at once.
  12. Now practice it all at once. Produce the thought. Intentionally let it go cognitively, and notice the subtle shifts in sensation and emotions.  Add you arm flicking movement.  Really get into letting it go, over and over again.  Do it one more time. Include cognition, sensation, emotion and the body movement. Now give yourself another SUDs score from 0 to 100 to see if the overall discomfort has been reduced.
  13. Practice this skill often!!!!! If you relapse into autopilot mind, STOP and intentionally make a new thought.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

CLICK HERE  or any image below to Order 

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

MindfulHappiness_Amazon           mindful-happiness_barnes_and_noble

Filed Under: Activities, ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Benefits of Meditation, Featured, Ideas & Practices, Letting Go, Meditation, Meditation Activities, MIndfulness, Mourning, Practices, Training Tagged With: ACTIVITY, LETTING GO, MEDITATION, MINDFULNESS, MONKEY MIND, PACIFICATION

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

Tips for Improving Your Mindfulness Practices The following practices may improve your mindfulness skills.  It all depends – it all depends on whether or not you will do regular, daily practices.  If you desire to improve your mindfulness skills, consider following the tips noted below.  Most of the practices below involve sitting meditation.  Likewise, regular […]

Using Your Compassionate Mind in Psychotherapy For you to become a more compassionate therapist, follow the details noted below. These preconditions, skills, and practices are required as a baseline for  compassionate practice. You need the ability to access calmness in an environment of emotional suffering, chaos, or conflict.  Most people do this by breathing in […]

Mind Training Over Our Impulses Mindful awareness of our impulses is a very important pathway to improved emotion regulation and, perhaps, more happiness in life. It can be unusually helpful to people suffering from anxiety, depression, and substance misuse. Vedana refers to the feeling tone in our body.  It is one of the foundations of mindfulness […]

Three Meditation Practices to Further Your Expansion Based on the ongoing “bad news” about various domestic and world events, and the knowledge that people DO NEED more compassion and self-compassion in their hectic and challenging lives, I am writing three brief meditation practices on different aspects on compassion-wisdom as noted on my site.  Hopefully, these […]

Meditation Process in Chan Buddhism Chan Master Changlu’s The Deportmant for Sitting Meditation  (12th century China) is a clear and helpful set of instruction. 1) It begins with the making of a personal vow for great compassion, personal liberation, and samadhi – all for the purpose of delivering sentient beings from their suffering and to their […]

-The Word, Sound, Meditation, and Music are all Timeless A Tribute to Elvis Presley and his Music The word has been associated with human consciousness.  The word requires the energy of sound to hear it.  Meditation places us in a most receptive state of mind and body; it allows us to be open to our […]

Breath, Mindfulness and Liberation J. Goldstein, (2007).  in volume two of Abiding in Mindfulness – On Feelings… brings clear focus to the infinite importance of feelings – the sensation-based associations of various emotional and physical states. Via on-going and regular practice of mindfulness and contemplation we may access the four areas of human awareness: body, feelings, heart-mind, […]

Mindful Happiness Explores – The Miracle of Mirror Neurons Between 1996 and 2000 researchers (Gallese and Rizzolatti) at the University of Parme in Italy discovered what are now called mirror neurons. Neuroscientists speculate that mirror neurons (reportedly in the Broca’s area of the prefrontal cortex) activate perceptual responses for internal motor-emotional responses.  Thus mirror neurons […]

Expanded Lectio Divina for Self-Development In this post I will provide an expanded version of this process by combining information from Origen,  the Carthusian  Monk  Guigo II,   and  Augustine of Hippo.   The presented process of 12 steps may be used  to enhance internalization of sacred writing and/or to support internal healing of the participants. […]

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 […]

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 […]

Mindful Happiness – Brain on Meditation Reports from various MRI and self-report measure studies support the proposition that your brain changes (neuronal plasticity) when you practice meditation on a regular (daily) basis.   The same is likely true when you practice yoga on a regular basis. Here are some noted changes in brain functioning that […]

Interpersonal Mindfulness Various forms of mindfulness-based compassion training help us to care more about the needs, happiness, and health of other people. However, direct applications of interpersonal mindfulness activates these influences into direct action on behalf of others.  Thus, if lucky, we learn to care more about others and less about ourselves.  The self-centered ego […]

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 […]

Advanced Buddhist Practices Abiding in Emptiness The various impediments (enemies) to abiding in emptiness are noted below. We have strong attachment to objects of mind and our sense door pleasures. We experience strong desire and cravings as our norms. We over-attach to forms of affection. We may become stuck in grief related to our experienced […]

 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 for Managers and Helpers  Let’s Talk – Contact Me – Click Here I am a Licensed Psychologist-Doctorate and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor with 35 years of clinical experience in community clinics, schools, professional organizations, and universities (OSU, UVM, etc.). I have been the past Clinical Director of Howard Center, and Past President […]

Mindful Happiness:   Joy is Within Reach – It is Up to You to Choose It! We all live in a very troubled world with lots of greed, hate, warfare, and danger. Many of us use distractions (addictions, cell phone habits, eating, gathering, games, etc.) to make it through the days. This is true!  However, […]

  My blog site mindfulhappiness.org has many posts on meditation, Buddhism, education, clinical practices and self-activated emotional health practices.  Perhaps you may wish to initiate a Reflective Journal practice after you do practices presented on the site.  There are many  benefits from maintaining a written journal about personal experiences and practices.  Not only does a […]

Self-Care as Ritual Self-care for Americans is often considered a luxury.  Due to our technological demands and addictions (Demons as they are), and the slow slipping of our economic structures, we are often at the mercy of the bottom line at work. Over-paid CEOs and CFOs and their many assistants eat up so, so much […]

Mindful Happiness Tags

VERMONT WALKING MEDITATION SELF MEDICATION PSYCHOTHERAPY BUDDHISM ADDICTION MINDFUL HAPPINESS ANTHONY QUINTILIANI SELF SELF ESTEEM MINDFULNESS TRAINING THERAPY. EMPTINESS CONSCIOUSNESS DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI MBSR ENLIGHTENMENT VIPASSANA MEDITATION MEDITATION PRACTICE COMPASSION COVID-19 PRACTICE SELF COMPASSION ELEANOR R LIEBMAN CENTER ACTIVITY BREATHING BRAIN ACTIVITIES MINDFUL TRAINING SUFFERING HAPPINESS MINDFUL MEDITATION MINDFULNESS TRAINING VIPASSANA TRAUMA MEDITATION THICH NHAT HANH PRACTICES MINDFUL JOURNALING WISE MIND CLINICAL SUPERVISION EXERCISES SELF CARE

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Site Map

Copyright © 2023 · Mindful Happiness