April 25, 2018 By Admin

happier-mindfuhappiness

Amitabha Buddha – Pure Land Meditation The following meditation had been modified by me to make it a more specific self-healing meditation and to better fit the time we now live in. Sit quietly and complete 3-4 deep, calming breaths. Pay attention to the quality and density of the light you see outside of your […]

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 […]

College Students – Mental Health in The US R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC The Association of University and College Counseling Center Directors has released data on the mental health status of American college students. Two survey between 2016 and 2018 yielded results from as far back as 2014. Here are some selected statistics (rounded): Anxiety 47-61%; […]

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 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 […]

Mindful Happiness – Happiness – Guided Imagery of Your Life This experience will include guided imagery and multi-sensory memory of happy experiences in your life. At time, shadow experience may pop up, in which a happy memory has an unhappy component. Your mindful concentration will be needed to remain on track with only the happy […]

Preverbal Trauma – Therapy Problems A. R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC Preverbal trauma (hereafter PVT) is one of the most pervasively troubling human conditions. PVT occurs when a preverbal child is exposed to parental, caretaker, or other forms of abuse. This abuse may be sexual, physical, or emotional. This form of abuse is so destructive because […]

Meditation for Health Improvement It is estimated that between 10 and 15 million Americans participate in some form of regular mindfulness or contemplative practices; secular-based meditation and yoga may be the most common of these practices. Many others practice tai chi, qi gong, forest-based contemplation, Taoism, etc. The US National Institute of Health has been […]

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 […]

More on Self-Compassion Practices Suffering and happiness represent opposites in human emotional experience. In our culture we often equate happiness with what we HAVE and suffering with the GAP between what we have versus what we want. Material possessions tend not to lead to intrinsic happiness; joy based on materials gains is often short-lived – […]

Help For Therapists: Working with Diversity Clinical interventions, especially strongly evidence-based interventions, impact clients via new skills and practices in mind-body clinical realities. No matter how good (or “good enough” ) a clinical intervention is it requires a highly positive, active therapeutic relationship. As ample research suggests, a strong and positive therapeutic relationship in therapy […]

Stress In America – How to Deal with it Effectively The American Psychological Association just released the results of its annual stress survey for 2014. This comprehensive study of stress in America has some serious implications for our health and happiness. Although self-reported stress levels in many categories are lower than in 2013, the overall […]

Loss, Grief and Suffering in America By Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC Other than our nation’s suffering during The Civil War, The Great Depression, and World War II this past year has been one of the most stress-filled, fear-filled times in our history. Here is a list of the reasons behind it all: the COVID-19 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

My third posting on self-medication- Comes from the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont. Now we will turn our attention to how people become habituated to self-medication to obtain brief moments of joy and/or to avoid emotional suffering. Recall that self-medication becomes a habit (dopamine released in reward centers of the […]

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 #5 – Last Post on Characteristics This will be my last post for a while on the important topic of happiness. Here I will hit a few highlights about simple joy and lasting inner experiences of true happiness. Simple Joy – We experience simple joy in simple experiences, small sometimes subtle events in our […]

Plasticity – The Amazing Human Brain We humans are very fortunate in that our brain is one of the most complex entities in our known universe. Natural selection, genetic modifications, and use-related neuroplasticity have blessed us with a brain quite capable of some of the most complicated tasks imaginable. Some of these tasks (medical miracles, […]