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Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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November 29, 2016 By Admin

Basics of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

Basics of Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

reducestress-mindfulhappinessMindfulness-Based Stress Reduction is, perhaps, one of the major contributions to evidence-based mindfulness therapies. Jon Kabat-Zinn’s development of this model of intervention was both timely and exquisite.  In clinical care of psychological
and physical problems, these skills and practices are of utmost importance for improving (according to the most recent meta-analytic reviews in 2014 and 2016)
depression, anxiety/stress, chronic pain and emotional regulation – so important in various addictions and improvement in physical illnesses. Below I will list the most basic components to the MBSR model of practice.

These include:

  1. Clear understandings of mindfulness in theory and in everyday life;
  2. Mindfulness and mind-body interactions;
  3. Selected breathing practices;
  4. Mindfulness meditation;mindfulhappiness_stress-reduction
  5. Mindfulness walking;
  6. Haha yoga practices;
  7. Body scan practices;
  8. Extensive home practice of skills;
  9. Mindful eating practices (may be included);
  10. Loving kindness meditation (may be included);
  11. Compassion and self-compassion practices (may be included);
  12. Modifications of RAIN (recognize, allow, investigate, dis-identify) may be included;
  13. Cognitive aspects of the mindfulness-based path to practice (especially mindfulness-based cognitive therapy) may be included; and,
  14. Spiritual experience in the mindfulness-based path may be included, especially in more advanced Buddhist path practices.

Research has consistently supported MBSR (as noted above) for improved outcomes in various physical and psychological problems. Once people become involved in regular home practice (or group practice with a sangha), improvement are generally maintained. You may want to search for “MBSR research support.” I will not document the numerous studies here. The single most important variable in success is regular daily practice of core skills (mindfulness, meditation, yoga, etc.). Ideally, such practice would range from at least 20 minutes to an hour each day.

For more information refer to Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990, 2009). Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. New York: Delta Trade Paperbacks. See also Kabat-Zinn, J. (2005). Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World Through Mindfulness.  New York: Hyperion.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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New Edition in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Activities, ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Breathing, Featured, Meditation, MIndfulness, Stress Reduction Tagged With: JON KABOT ZINN, MINDFULNESS, STRESS REDUCTION, TRAINING

October 17, 2016 By Admin

Introduction to Vipassana Meditation

Vipassana Meditation and Introduction

Vipassana meditation, as taught by S. N. Goenka, has been practiced in India, Europe, the United States and in many other parts of the world. There are various claims for effectiveness when used as a form of meditative treatment with various populations (often correctional and substance using populations); however, there is generally a dearth of research with strong empirical controls and designs. Since goenka_vipassana_meditation-mindful-happinessVipassana is a very old form of meditation, there must be something helpful about practicing it. A key principle in Vipassana is that as people learn to refine perception of awareness – in this case usually of bodily sensations – they also begin to realize a key tenet of meditative theory. That tenet is: all experiences and phenomena of the human mind and body are impermanent. Awareness and the experience itself simply arise and fall away. Mindful attention and refined concentration on personal experiences (including joy and suffering) augment understandings that all human experience (including human life) is impermanent. Readers are advised to read Goenka on your own. In that way you will obtain a well-informed cognitive explanation of the process. Here I will provide a few Vipassana guidelines and training suggestions.  I hope you will try them.

Reported Outcomes of Vipassana Meditation

  1. There may be greater insight into the reality of experienced phenomena via impermanence.
  2. There may be enhanced awareness of immediate experience.
  3. There may be a calm or nervous experiential process.
  4. There may be non-judgmental observation of WHAT you are experiencing NOW.
  5. Over time, you may learn how to become liberated from negative emotions and cravings.
  6. If you experience personal liberation, you may reduce attachment and aversion.
  7. You may develop wise-mind skills to radically accept whatever you are experiencing now without evaluation or reactions.
  8. Ultimately, you may become personally aware of your own transformation.

intro-vipassana-meditation_mindfulhappiness

Some Basic Rules in Vipassana

  1. Quietly maintain a prolonged, non-evaluative focus on the feeling of your breath.
  2. Be open and let go – expect nothing specific.
  3. Do your best to stay in the middle way – not attaching or avoiding whatever comes into your awareness.
  4. Expand pure awareness, attention and concentration on what you are experiencing now – especially sensations.
  5. Do not problem-solve, that is do not analyze, associate, chase/avoid your thoughts and emotions – simply continue to refocus your non-evaluative attention on your sensations.
  6. Stay out of your past and future; just be here now with a focus on sensation.
  7. If you become distracted, simply return a strong focus on your immediate experience and the sensation of it.
  8. Although various postures have been used in Vipassana, a basic sitting meditation posture may be best for you.

A Sample of Vipassana Mind Training

In sitting position simply notice your breath as you are now breathing. Do not control your breathing, just notice it. With breath-mindful-happinessyour eyes opened or closed, relax your jaw, bodily muscles, and move into a slower, deeper breathing pattern. Refine your attention so you can become aware bio-perceptually of the feeling of your breath in your body. Many thoughts will come into awareness; simply allow them to pass and return stronger attention to the feeling of your breath as you breathe in and out. As you sit quietly paying strong attention to the feeling of your breath, notice gently what you are seeing, hearing, feeling, tasting, and smelling. Just pay close attention without judging, associating, following, expanding, or responding to whatever arises in awareness. Starting at the very top of your head, pay close attention to any sensation that arises.  You may even notice that the attention by itself may cause some form of feeling. Slowly move to the tip of your nose, then to the center front of your throat. Just noticing sensations in a more concentrative manner. Move onto another part of your body and just pay attention to the sensations as they arise and fall away.  Practice pure awareness without evaluation, seeking, dreading, etc. As you also notice thoughts and emotions arising, simply label them “thought” and “emotions.” Do nothing with them; simply continue to pay strong attention to the sensations you notice in various parts of your body. To extend this practice, select one part of your body to pay strong attention to it for 15 minutes or more.

Refer to Hart. W. (1987). The Art of Living: Vipassana as Taught by S. N. Goenka. SanFranscisco, CA: Harper Collins. Gunaratana, B. H. (2002). Mindfulness in Plain English. Boston: Wisdom Publications, pp 39-67. Marlatat, G. A. et al. (2004). Vipassana meditation as a treatment for alcohol and drug use disorders. In S. C. Hayes, V. M. Follett, and M. M. Lineman (Eds.). Mindfulness and Acceptance: Expanding the Cognitive-Behavioral Tradition.  New York: Guilford Press, pp. 261-287.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

ChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Activities, Benefits of Meditation, Breathing, Featured, Meditation, Meditation Activities, MIndfulness, MIndfulness Activities, Vipassana Meditation Tagged With: ACTIVITIES, ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, INTRODUCTION TO VIPASSANA, MEDITATION, MINDFUL HAPPINESS, VIPASSANA MEDITATION

September 13, 2016 By Admin

Deep Love & Respect for Lost Loved Ones

Showing Deep Love & Respect Loved Ones Lost

mindfulhappiness-rituals-anthonyquintlianiThis is a very brief post about love and respect for “lost loved ones” – those special people who have left their human body and mind behind.

Two Rituals

1) Loving Kindness Meditation for Lost Loved Ones

After breathing slowly and deeply for a few minutes in silence, meditate lovingly on the spirit of a lost loved one. When you are ready recite silently the following.

May you be SAFE.

May you be FREE FROM SUFFERING.

May you be at PEACE AND EQUANIMITY.

May you be HAPPIER without the continued existence of a suffering mind and body.

May you know that I WILL ALWAYS REMEMBER YOU.

May you KNOW THAT I WILL ALWAYS DEEPLY LOVE YOU.  Now sit and reflect quietly.

2)   Camp Fire Ritual for Lost Loved Ones – First Nations Inspiration

Sit quietly and breathe deeply and slowly for a few minutes.campfire-ritual-mindful-happiness

Write the name of a lost loved one on a piece of paper, fold it and hold it in your hands –  in prayer pose.

Now meaningfully place your prayer pose bands over your heart and FEEL it.

Recite silently the Loving Kindness Meditation above.

When you are ready commit the paper to the camp fire.

Sit quietly and reflect privately for a few minutes.

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 

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Filed Under: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Breathing, Featured, Meditation, Rituals Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, BREATHING, LOVED ONES, MEDITATION, RITUALS, SHOW RESPECT

April 2, 2016 By Admin

Use of Breathing Techniques – Do a Polyvagal Test

Use of Breathing Techniques – Do a Polyvagal Test First

Polyvagal Test

The polyvagal theory (S.Porges) and polyvagal functions are complex, highly important, evolutional processes with powerful influences on human survival, overall physical health, and emotion regulation.  The tenth cranial nerve (from scull base to anus) functions in various ways, the most important of which deal with primitive survival-based immobilization behaviors and more complex processes of stress response, social communications, and emotional self-soothing practices. In clinical populations, polyvagal knowledge and skills may impact stress vulnerability, arousal, heart-respiratory rate, emotional patterns, and cortisol level. Vagal implications involve everything from complex cardiac functions (life or death) to more discrete aspects of attention, motivation, feeding, communication, emotion, vocalization, and the entire muscle array of the human face, head, throat and neck.  Since human primary emotions are directly related to various autonomic functions, right brain polyvagal_MindfulHappinessactivity, and brain stem medullary structures, the vagal nerve system can be used positively in well-informed psychotherapy for improving various emotion-regulation conditions leading to suffering.  One primary link in the polyvagal interactions deals with breathing via satisfaction of oxygen demands of the human living system.  Since it is now common in more advanced body-mind therapies to include breathing retraining, the more a competent therapists knows about using polyvagal skills the better.

I have one caution: Be sure to do a basic polyvagal test before initiating breathing retraining, especially deep, slow, abdominal breathing practices.  I have created this test to safeguard client welfare in various forms of breathing retraining as part of their therapy process. If the client’s improvement in emotional regulation requires breathing retraining, you want your client to experience only positive outcomes from the experiences. Negative emotional outcomes will dampen motivation to continue.

The Breathing Retraining Polyvagal Test (A. R. Quintiliani, 4-4-2016)

  1. Ask: “Have you ever experienced serious negative outcomes when doing deep, slow abdominal breathing? If the answer is “no” simply continue your breathing retraining process, but observe mindfully if any negative emotional reactions occur in the process. If so, discuss these reactions in detail and safely Vagus_tenthcranialnerve_MindfulHappinessproceed.
  2. If the answer is “yes” follow the steps below to ensure improved skill and protection for your client.
  3. Gently negotiate for a very brief deep, slow, abdominal breathing event – that is “one-breath” ONLY. Use a SUDs score of 0 to 100 for the experienced level of discomfort in the client during this “ONE breath” activity. NEVER force a clint to do breathing practices! Discuss the SUDs score and the client’s subjective experience in the “ONE breath” practice.  If the SUDs score is in the 40’s of below, continue the breathing retraining with caution.  If the SUDs score is in the high 50’s or more, STOP the breathing retraining for now and use shorter, far more indirect and intermittent breathing methods as part of your on-going therapy.
  4. If both you and your client are successful in phased-in breathing retraining, continue the process by slowly extending the time duration in breath retraining for abdominal breathing (as a first breath skill). For example move to two, then three or more breaths per training experience.  Eventually,  expand the depth and time in the abdominal breathing experiences.  Over time deeper and slower is the goal.  Continue to use SUDs scores for any negative outcomes, and begin to use SUPs scores (by A. R. Quintiliani, 1-1-2000) for positive outcomes. SUPs scores are also 0 to 100 but this time it measures subjective units of pleasure in the client’s experience.
  5. Continue the breathing retraining program, slowly moving to more complex and more powerful breathing techniques. Always check with your client regarding comfort and effects.  Use SUDs and SUPs scores. Go slow! Keep it positive!
  6. Note that this informal “test” is based solely on common sense knowledge about the realities of breathing retraining and not on reliability and validity studies.

For more information on breathing retraining practices refer to  Angelo, J. (2010). Self-Healing with Breathwork…Rochester, VT: Healing Arts Press, pp.28-30; Graf Durkheim, K. (2004 edn.). Hara: The Vital Center of Man. Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, pp. 122,178; Johnson, W. (2012). Breathing Through the Whole Body… Rochester, VT: Inner Traditions, pp. 238-29; and, Rosen, R. (2006). Pranayama: Beyond the Fundamentals.  Boston: Shambhala, pp. 62-68.

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 

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Filed Under: Activities, ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Breathing, Featured, Ideas & Practices, Joy and Suffering, Meditation, Training, Yoga Tagged With: BREATHING TECHNIQUES, DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, POLYVAGAL TEST

June 30, 2015 By Admin

Stop Getting Hooked on Worry

Our Brains React to Worry

According to research by The American Psychological Association in 2015, some of the core sources of severe stress reaction for Americans are: financial problems, job-related problems, family problems, and health problems.  Our lives are complete only with joy/happiness, suffering and boredom – sometimes referred to as pleasant, unpleasant and neutral experiences.  Our brains have evolved to react – to worry!  Humans tend to mindful-happiness_woryworry about the worse-case scenarios. Over time, and mainly due to brain plasticity, we become highly sensitive to stimuli that may trigger limbic reactions – obsessive worrying in the executive brain area being one. Although worry itself is quite cognitive (prefrontal and frontal), the causes for this effect gains power in limbic regions of the brain – our reactive emotional survival center.  The real problem, however, is that there are real problems and worry about problems or worsening problems.  The ONLY time worry can be helpful is when it leads to some solution regarding the causes of the problem, the causes of worry.  Usually worrying is a form of secondary suffering; a real problems exists that you cannot resolve (primary suffering), and you have fears and concerns, so you move into the secondary suffering of chronic worry.  As the Buddha noted, thoughts lead to words, which may be moved by feelings into action.  The only action worthy of our effort is action that helps to minimize or solve the problem.  The most common unhelpful results of worry tend to be increased efforts to deny, suppress, avoid, flee or get hooked (Pema Chodron) on the worry. To assist you with the problem of worry as a form of hooked “stuckness,” I will note a series of behaviors that may be helpful. These suggestion come from thinkers as old as Shantideva and as current as Pema Chodron.  Here is the list. Practice every day to enhance your resilience.

1) Use what the Buddha implied are your the “best friends.”  When worrying, change your body posture and status often: sitting, lying, standing, and moving (exercise and walking). Today we believe that different body postures may change neurophysiology, thus mood.

2) Other “friends” include skills in breathing practices (meditative and yogic traditions), as well as smiling more (Thich Nhat Hanh).  Sometimes simply breathing in a calm, deep, slow fashion may improve your emotional status.  You may need to breathe in this manner for 15 to 20 minutes.

3) You may even want to practice smiling at your fear (Chogyam Trungpa).  Today we know that facial emotions impact emotional awareness in the brain, so try this.

4) Of course daily meditation and/or yoga will always be helpful.

5) Stop and distract yourself from the storyline about your worries; then apply radical acceptance for a problem you may have very little control over.

6) Apply self-compassion!  You care about the nature of or person in the problem; this is why you are worrying.  However, when you have little power to alter the problem, you must remain gentle with yourself and your inner speech.

7) Talk with other people you trust.  Use people who care about you to help support you in the problem and in your practices to reduce being hooked in it.

8) Use your ancestors (First Nation practice).  Imagine that ancestors (many you have never known) are lining up behind you to help you with this problem and the worry it produces.  Imagine the ancestors you do know lined up behind you with each person placing their helping hands on the back shoulders of the ancestor in front of them. See the caring face of special ancestors you have known.  Be in meditation with this image and its emotional supports.  Feel them!

9) Remember the wisdom of the Dharma.  Thoughts, lead to words, which are emoted into actions (like worrying).  Try to intervene in any of the four domains of ultimate action. Distraction may help with thoughts. Consciously make the words less sever, less scary may help.  Work on calming your feelings and their emotional suffering.  Do opposite action (Marsha Lineman); when an action urge comes into awareness (i.e., to worry), do something different or opposite if possible.

10) Take Indian scholar Shantideva’s advice in his writing: “be like a log” (as translation).  Work at being steady, strong, kind-hearted as you respond to a problem that causes you to worry.  Do your best to be in a calm and steady state without reacting into the worrying mode of being. Hold strong compassion for the person in the problem.

11) Practice honest forgiveness for the person and actions that cause you to worry.

12) Practice LETTING GO of the thoughts and urges related to your worrying.  Be aware of your habitual tendencies , and put your mind in another place, on another topic.

13) Join a group that may be supportive. Consider Emotions Anonymous, AA (if applicable) or Al-Anon.  Go to meetings with open-mindedness.

14) Last, but perhaps most important, teach yourself the Dharma (Shantideva, Pema Chodron and many others).  When you begin to get hooked on worry, stop and READ the Dharma.  Teach yourself the meaning of the Dharma.

Mindful-Happiness_brain-plasticity

May you be at peace!  May your self-compassion be your warrior!

More more information refer to Chodron, P. (2006). Bodhisattva Mind. Boulder, CO: Sounds True. [CDs].  See also Guide to the Bodhisattva’s Way of Life by Shantideva, (2002 translation) by Geshe Kelsang Gyatso and the New Kadampa Tradition. Tharpa Publications.

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 to Order!

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

Filed Under: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Breathing, Compassion, Featured, Joy and Suffering, Meditation, Meditation Activities, Mindful Awareness, Self Compassion Tagged With: DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, MEDITATION, MINDFULNESS, SELF COMPASSION, WORRY

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