January 17, 2018 By Admin

gratitude-mindfulness-mindful-happiness-tools

A Buddhist Sutta on Your Desires and Suffering This post is about the Buddhist Sutta called The Gilana Sutta (SN 35:74). It is a touching story about a young monk, who became very ill. Another monk informed The Buddha of the young monk’s health conditions. Buddha visited and hoped he had improved and held on to […]

Poem on the Wind I am quite pleased with my experience on BEING in the wind today. This poem will suggest that you allow the wind to be a metaphor – even a fantasy – that allows your pain and suffering to be swept away by the endless, gentle, blowing wind of nature. We […]

Quasi Self-Hypnotic Pain Relief To be successful in this intervention you will have to let go of ego-based defensiveness and remain quite focused for quite some time. These are not easy things to do. DO NOT do this intervention if you are feeling highly vulnerable at this time, or if you are not working with […]

The Great Mother of Gratitude Meditation Sit in silence and take a few very slow, very deep breaths in and out. Relax within your personal comfort with eyes opened or closed. If you prefer your eyes to be open, hold you head level and gently gaze down a few feet in front of you. Continue […]

Pursuit of Happiness – Mindful Happiness Gilbert, a professor of Psychology at Harvard University and the author of Stumbling on Happiness, implies that we make mind-errors in our search for happiness. Happiness is a core human emotion, most often activated into consciousness via the midbrain reward centers and dopamine activation. Perhaps our hardwired brains are made to […]

Personal Happiness in the Age of COVID-19 We are all in this together! However, wealth and employment status do play important roles. RTI International and the Consortium for Implementation Science have serious concerns about the links between racial equity, social justice, and personal responses to COVID-19. Neuroscience notes that personal happiness in a brain-mind-body thing. Its […]

Using Mindful Movement as a Form of Meditation Practice with the Body In Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction practices Hatha Yoga has been used as part of the recovery process from both psychological and physical suffering. In my own clinical use of mindful movement with children, youth and adults, I found that basic Qi Gong/Che Kung, Walking […]

Using Lectio Divina to Enhance Your Happiness Lectio Divina is an ancient Christian (Benedictine) meditation; it is a form of meditative prayer called “sacred seeing.” We will use a modified version of the process here. Follow the steps noted below. Sit quietly in meditative form, calmly abiding yourself here now. After a […]

Mindfulness and Concentration – Experience Differences In this post I will explain some basic differences between mindfulness and concentration, both of which are required for effective meditation practice. This will be the first of three posts dealing with what mindfulness and concentration are, how to experience them briefly in a body-based activity, and how to […]

Mindfulness in the NFL Yes, mindfulness as part of sports psychology programming is being used in the NFL. Yes, big and physically tough football players are being helped via a mindfulness component of sports psychology. There are some important roots here. Dogen, the famous ancient Japanese Buddhist meditation master, brought Chan Buddhism from China to […]

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, […]

Deepak Chopra Ideas on “The Future of God” – Part 1 Deepak Chopra’s new book, The Future of God… (2014) presents some very challenging perspective on spirituality, atheism, and formal religion. Here I will simply present some paraphrased details and my own ideas on these topics. Basic Foundations Human beings have special talents for searching […]

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 […]

The Principles of Nature and Natural Healing This is an advanced post on Eastern views of healing. From ancient shamanic traditions all the way to today’s AMA approved procedures in energy medicine, healers have been trying to discover and integrate the foundations of nature into healing. This reality exists from shamanic rituals all the way […]

Counseling/Psychotherapy with Self-Compassion Please begin by ending all conversations, and PLEASE shut-off your phones and/or laptops. Simply be for a moment in the quietude of your inner self. Please close your eyes if you wish to do so. Contemplate the sacred nature of your profession – saving lives, reducing suffering, being a constant object, practicing […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]