Compassion Archives - Page 3 of 3

August 20, 2015 By Admin

A Self-Compassion Meditation for Counselors and Therapists

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 ethically, and befriending so many people with so much emotional pain. You practice a sacred profession!

Let’s begin our meditation. STOP at any time if you feel strong discomfort doing this practice or if you simply are not yet ready for it. Loosen your jaw.

As you sit open up your heart to both self-respect and self-love (at least liking yourself) for the sacred help you give to people. You provide huge reserves of compassion for others in your work.
Imagine a person’s face. A person you have helped in the past. Notice facial details and facial emotions.
Mellow yourself back a bit and take several slow, deep, calming breaths (polyvagal and unresolved trauma cautions). Feel the breaths going in and out at very slow rates. Feel the breath at your nostrils, in your chest and in your abdomen. Notice the movement.
Be ONE with the inner gratitude you may feel, and find deeper silence in the spaces between thoughts and between breaths. Focus on the quiet spaces!
As you sit and breath be in private solitude. Enjoy being here now, and take just a few moments going beyond cognitive noise and rest deeply as you can in self-compassion about your own suffering and self-care in your own meditation. Now it is your time for self-compassion.
You may contemplate a bit about your own experiences of suffering, but PLEASE do not get into story-lines and strong images about it. In fact, do your best to ALLOW your own pain to drift gently out of your body on each out-breath you make. Gently and lovingly extend your out breath at an even amount on your exhalations. Breathe in to the count of 5; hold to the point of five; and, exhale to the count of eight. Practice a little in inner silence.
As you breathe out ALLOW the feelings of your inner pain and suffering to leave your body (if you wish) and enter the vast, endless, universe. The universe contains all it needs to hold your negative energies. Let the negative energies GO on the exhalations!
Radically accept that you will be mindful of joy, boredom, and suffering in the future. Now, however, you have a new tool to use that empowers you to reduce secondary suffering (what our thoughts and emotions do with primary, unavoidable suffering to prolong our pain). Take a few more slow, deep, calm breaths. Be with it! Be it!
Take a few more calm breaths and slowly open your eyes. Return your body, mind and soul back to this group – here now.

Limited processing to follow.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

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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 worry 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.

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, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

June 23, 2015 By Admin

Engaging Your Emotional Dragons

Making Boundless Space for Your Emotional Dragons

In the past I have offered posts about radical acceptance and ways of dealing with your personal dragons or demons. Here I will offer a more advanced perspective on how directly engaging your emotional dragons is a very important part of your spiritual path – your spiritual journey no matter what form it may take. Those of us on a formal spiritual path are seeking some form of ultimate truth. Reaching this goal, just part of the path itself, is hampered when we take evasive actions regarding our emotional dragons, our emotional suffering. The human tendency is to avoid, deny, suppress all forms of suffering; we do not not to feel pain in any form. Such habitual behavior hinders your enlightened self-development. When Buddhism moved to China as Chan Buddhism, there was a need to figure out what to do with the “good” and “bad” dragons the Chinese had believed in for many years. Consider this: ALL your emotional dragons are good dragons, because they make you whole (an unavoidable part of you) and they teach you much about becoming enlightened, about gaining wisdom. The dragons, or shadows (C. Jung) provide a serious learning opportunity; when we open up our soft and tender heart to our suffering, we enhance the true inner self – we make the true self stronger and more complete. Clear seeing in the present moment of dragon engagement integrates the disavowed parts of self, and thus opens up deep, inner space and peace. Like the cave-living Milarepa’s dispute with his dragons, you too will find that once you let go of fear and engage your emotional dragons with an open submitting heart the emotional impact of the dragon/s will be reduced.

So what is your most important emotional dragon – unhelpful early attachment experience, depression, loss, mourning, anxiety, fear, trauma, substance misuse, eating problems, anger, resentment, self-hate, self-harm…? What are you self-medicating MOST to enjoy brief joy and avoid immediate suffering, only to discover long-term suffering even from the self-medication process itself? Perhaps it is the experience of greed, hate, resentment, impulsivity, loneliness – not fitting in – whatever ails you is a form of an emotional dragon. Dragons may also be the biopsychosocial-spiritual outcomes of long-term physical and psychological illness. You will find ultimate truth ONLY by sharing real-time space and experience with them. Your journey to ultimate truth is not simply experiencing “spiritual materialism” (Chogyam Trungpa) and taking part in the huge menu of enlightenment training or “student hood.” Your path must be fully integrated within yourself – even if you believe in no-self. Courageous engagement with your emotional dragons helps you to better understand why they exist, and to realize your reactions are more in your mind and body than in ultimate reality. You need to slowly cultivate fearless awareness (Pema Chodron) of the permeating feeling of personal unworthiness. Yes, you can do this! You must apply a large dose of self-compassion so you dare to welcome into your being the unwanted guests of your inner suffering. Part of the journey is to allow the unwanted visitors of emotional challenge into the home of your heart, mind and body (Rumi). The Buddha noted that all that happens to us begins in the mind; he noted that thoughts, words, and actions are the end-effects of our process. With the current knowledge of 21st century neuroscience, I dare to add to this formula for human behavior. The absolute root is based on thoughts, words and actions. However, we cannot forget the major impact on behavior caused by feeling/sensations, emotions and rewarding or punishing consequences of our behaviors. We are attached to outcomes that are pleasant; we hope to avoid those that are unpleasant; and, we become trapped in the cycles of the samsara treadmill when we pursue such goals.

Trying to avoid, deny, suppress, or self-medicate your emotional dragons will do nothing to soften your suffering; your dragons know how to find you no matter where you hide. Their roots may rest in your “seed consciousness” (Thich Nhat Hanh), so they are always with you – just not always so active. He offers additional advice on handling difficult emotions: imagine holding them lovingly in your arms as if a newborn baby, and bring them close to you with love and caring. Your spiritual development will not be complete until you carefully and lovingly make space inside your awareness for all of your emotional dragons. Are you ready to engage with one of your dragons? Best to begin with one that is least scary and work your way up in emotional energies.

Here is a way to prepare yourself. STOP fleeing! Have a strong intention to gently encounter the emotional dragon. If you think having a loved one or good friend present to witness this process, do that also. Breathe calmly, slowly, deeply. Loosen your body muscles, tendons, and joints. Imagine yourself a “fearless warrior” (Vajrayana) and welcome the specific dragon into your mind’s eye. With ample self-compassion witness it. Use radical acceptance and open up your loving heart to welcome in this disowned part of self. Remember that Prajna wisdom transcends all things – there is only ultimate emptiness. You may also wish to follow the example of Marcus Aurelius (The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius). In the first few pages of his meditations, he give great gratitude to the many positive things he has received from his ancestors, family, friends, teachers, etc. Without these many strengths, he would be helpless in pursuing self-improvement. You may also wish to utilize a First Nations tradition of imagining a long line of ancestors (many never known by you personally) standing directly behind you and each supporting the other by placing their hands behind the shoulders of the person in front of them. You have thousands of years of ancestors standing behind you as you open up to the wholeness of allowing in your dragon. Yes, thoughts, words and actions are very important – but the EXPERIENCE of doing this is what really counts. You need mindful willingness to achieve this action. Allow the dragon’s emotional self to enter you, even if it rides on your tears to do so. Fully open up your heart, mind, soul, inner-self to this experience. May your path bring you experience in happiness, wholeness, and enlightenment.

CAUTION –Since I have no idea what your psychological health is like, you may wish to consult your healthcare provider about doing this meditation. Although I believe we all have strengths to allow in our emotional dragons – slowly, one by one – sometimes we are not ready to BE in this powerful experience. You may wish to consult Aura Glaser’s A Call to Compassion or The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius before you begin this process. There are many other self-compassion resources that may be helpful to you (refer to works by Germer, Goldstein, Salzburg, Brach, etc.).

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

June 9, 2015 By Admin

The Growing Need for More Compassion & Self-Compassion

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 brief meditations may help you enter a space of compassionate emotions and actions – thoughts, words, feelings and behaviors. The first meditation practice deals with some of the serious problems facing humankind right now. The next two meditations deal with practicing compassion and self-compassion as a form of meditative action. The noted problems are quite real, but there is hope that our expanding compassion skills will help us cope better with challenges and find inner peace in our soft hearts. I recommend that there be a five minute practice time (in silence) after each guiding statement in these three meditations.

1) Contemplation on the Problems Facing You Today in this World:

a) Begin with a brief practice of loving kindness meditation with special emphasis on yourself and the people you care about.

b) Now begin by contemplating about the extreme greed and strong entitlement that harms all people everywhere. Focus on the “me-first” attitudes of those with narcissistic grasping at materialism, a materialism that IS NEVER ENOUGH!

c) Now shift your contemplation to the increasing levels of mental health problems we face, especially the extent of psychological stress in the lives of most people.

d) Again, shift your contemplation to things that deeply concern you – climate change, terrorism, the eventual devaluation of the American dollar, bad American banking practices, etc. Notice as you get into these realities there is a tendency to experience increased inner insecurity or fear, perhaps a desire to run away or to hide from these realities.

e) Lastly, focus your contemplation on the increasing levels of both digital/electronic addictions as well as the increased online hacking that threatens our national security very directly. One wonders if our federal government is “asleep at the wheel” on this issue.

f) End this difficult contemplation by doing another brief practice of loving kindness meditation.

Yes, this first contemplation has been very harsh – but each of the items noted is a reality. Now let’s move on to compassion as a wisdom skill to deal better with such calamities.

2) Meditating on Your Own Compassion and Self-Compassion Here and Now:

a) After a few self-calming breaths, let’s focus attention on the 14th Dalai Lama’s advice: That the serious, daily practice of meditation, compassion and/or yoga will help you to better deal with the problems existing in this world today. We are reminded that without self-compassion, it is highly unlikely you will be able to “deliver” compassionate action to help others.

b) Now focus attention on your personal strengths and self-confidence. Use these attributes to serve as your own best friend, feeling growing inner kindness in your own body and mind. Gently coach yourself into doing this to expand your inner feelings of well-being. FOCUS only on your strengths!

c) Now practice just paying attention to ONLY positive thoughts, and let go of all criticism and negativism. This is quite challenging to do.

d) Develop and repeat a self-mastery mantra about being a compassionate person – and most of all being more kind to yourself in thoughts, words, feelings and actions.

e) Practice finding INNER PEACE in the spaces between your thoughts and the spaces between your breaths. Push hard to find the self-love within yourself right her, now. Work on it!

f) End this meditation with a brief practice of loving kindness meditation.

3) Pushing Some Limits On Compassion and Self-Compassion Practices:

a) Complete a few calming breaths, and gently seek the feeling of self-empathy within yourself. Be patient. Allow it to form.

b) Recall a few times when you allowed yourself to fully experience joy and happiness, and also allow yourself to recall a time when you radically accepted pain and suffering. Without suffering, we cannot know true joy, and without true joy, we cannot know true suffering. One comes with the other.

c) See what it feels like to let go of the “I/Me, Mine” attitude so common today. Slowly and gently allow yourself to drift toward selflessness as you understand it. It is a strange non-experience. It may cause some uneasy feelings to arise. Life is all about causes and effects.

d) Contemplate a future time when you may plan to practice bodhichitta (open-loving heartedness). Perhaps there is a person you know who might benefit directly from your compassionate thoughts, words, feelings and actions. You may enjoy practicing bodhisattva ways. How might you imagine being kind as a norm. Imagine that you accept an identity aimed at reducing the suffering of others.

e) If you believe in philanthropia (practicing love for all people), you may experience deep transformation from your compassion practices. What might that transformation feel like in your body?

f) End this meditation with a brief practice of loving kindness meditation.

Please collect your thoughts and feelings about these practices, and think carefully about how they may help you navigate the world today.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

March 18, 2015 By Admin

Compassion Practices

Reminders for Your Psychological and Physical Health

If you desire to be more compassionate with others and with yourself, remember the following.

Be certain to ACT on the following.

1) Life is complete only with joy/happiness, neutral experiences, and suffering/pain. These are the realities of human existence. These are the conditions of human life. Make the most of your contentment and happiness without clinging; learn to accept and live with the boredom of neutrality; and, face mindfully with radical acceptance all forms of suffering you encounter.

2) Your genetic, evolutionary biology has much to do with the level of compassion you experience. In times of high stress reactivity, your emotional brain centers (fear, reactivity, survival) often overcome your more rational, executive brain areas. When you are reacting with dysregulated biologically-based emotional energies, stop to breathe and activate your executive brain. Then THINK how to be calmly mindful right NOW, in this specific situation. Then apply a wise mind skill. The sequence is one of stability, thought, then behaviors. No impulsivity!

3) Your psychology has much to do with your level of compassion. You will have little compassion if you are an entitled, ego-centric person, who believes the most important aspect of life is personal self-interest/greed – the “I, Me, Mine” first attitudes. If you desire more compassion – as well as self-compassion for your own suffering – there is great need to work on modifying this level selfishness. There are great emotional rewards for being a more compassionate person.

4) From Buddhism we hear that true compassion stems from thoughts, speech, and actions. When we activate compassionate thoughts, words, and behaviors we help others and ourselves. All people desire happiness; all people desire less suffering. Compassionate actions are those that place others first (before your own self-interests) and reduce or prevent suffering in others.

5) Utilize “Quintiliani’s” views on CABS-VAKGO-IS-Rels. The person I am depends upon my thoughts. emotions, and behaviors – all of which stems from sensory input, memory and experience (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory, gustatory – or sight, hearing, touch/sensations, smell and taste). The CABS-VAKGO aspects of living are influenced by out intuition and spirituality, and activate within the context of relationships with others. This is the whole story of who/what we are. Use each part of your holistic being to be more compassionate. Begin to practice with thoughts on intentions.

6) As Gilbert and Choden note: Practice “philanthropia” (love for all) and recognize that Compassion is “the fundamental agent of transformation.” (p. 93) The great hope is to experience bodhichitta, or the awakened heart-mind of compassion.

7) Neff also reminds us of some very important aspects of self-compassion. It is multidimensional, multisensory, involves kindness, and radical acceptance of human suffering – our own and that of others. We must be motivated to express compassion inwardly and outwardly. We must hold a cognitive world view on what is necessary to prevent or reduce suffering. Also, we must possess the courage to act on the intention and the caring heart. Intuition and emotional intelligence influence our actions. Without direct action there is little benefit of compassion or self-compassion. To be most powerful, compassion must be activated.

8) The Dalai Lama (Tenzin Gyatso) reminds us that compassionate action begins with self-compassion practices. Without a level of self-compassion, it is unlikely that general compassion will be effective.

9) In the end, it is active emotional and behavioral engagement with others that counts. If we ride the energetic wave of compassionate action, we help others and ourselves. We experience intense emotional rewards.

For more information refer to Gilbert, P. and Choden (2014). Mindful Compassion… Oakland, CA: New Harbinger and also Neff. K. (2011). Self-Compassion…New York: Morrow.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!