MIndfulness Activities Archives - Page 3 of 8

May 5, 2017 By Admin

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 in Buddhist Psychology and traditional practice. Through sense-door experiences, the mind evaluates personal experience in the body as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant; virtually all human experiences fit into these categories. When we evaluate personal experiences as unpleasant, we tend to act more impulsively to escape from the painful feeling tone or to quickly improve it. We tell ourselves stories about “how bad it is” as we immediately work to reduce the psychic suffering. This is where so many common human problems are born; this is where we may begin habitual behaviors around eating, consuming, angering, isolating, acting out, acting in, using mind-altering substances, and greediness, etc. There are ways to reduce this kind of mindbody stuckness and misery.

With strong application of mindfulness, we can train ourselves to simply label the experience as a short-term pain or suffering. We can practice radical acceptance and wait it out without emotional and behavioral impulsive actions. Simply practice labeling negative feeling tones with words like “temporary unpleasantness.” External and internal stimuli can be calmed by labeling without storylines and escapist behaviors. You do need to conserve a bit of tolerance for the unpleasantness; as you cope better and wait out the feeling tones, you will become more skilled in coping with them. From maintaining a quality of relaxed awareness – even in the chaos of chaos – simply ask: “What is this feeling?” What is this that I am feeling? Without strong conscious evaluation, just note it as a temporary experience of living. Pain and suffering cannot beat out the reality of impermanence. Stop your storyline; stop going into the past and future; stop judging as good or bad. Simply BE fully with your feeling tone, pause, and know it will pass without you having to avoid or self-medicare it. As Rolo May and B. F. Skinner have suggested – we increase personal freedom with the skill of pausing between stimulus and reaction. Become more liberated by practicing your PAUSE, then label in a neutral manner – just wait it out. No need to avoid or to self-medicate the unpleasant feeling. This is our best HOPE to master choiceless awareness, especially when it leads to unpleasant feeling tones. Simply pause and label: “I am feeling unpleasantness in my body.” This too will pass. Try NOT to be more specific, since doing so may lead to stories and avoidance behaviors (negative reinforcement). Negative reinforcement by way of quick relief from suffering WILL cause unhealthy habits to form. The more you avoid or self-medicate painful feelings, the stronger the habit will become. This is a path to powerlessness NOT liberation. Just pause and label “I am feeling unpleasantness.” WAIT! Get stronger is your tolerance. Become a more satisfied and happier person. Just keep labeling without actions.

If you become overwhelmed with your unpleasant feeling tone, you may also want to practice loving kindness meditation as part of your training. In this case you might say the following: “May I pause. May I be free from suffering. May I be well. May I become stronger. May I liberate my mind from fear and reaction. May I be happy.” Good luck on your personal path toward liberation.

For more information refer to King, R. (March 17, 2017). Notes on – Ungripping Heart and Mind – Intimacy with Impulses. Retrieved from tricycle@tricycle.org on March 27, 2017.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

March 11, 2017 By Admin

Object Relations Therapy for Trauma

Trauma: Object Relations Therapy

Object relations therapists, D. W. Winnicott especially, have presented a logical analysis on how to provide object-relations-oriented therapy to people suffering from the effects of psychological trauma. Such attachment-based trauma therapy provides support and healing from trauma, loss and long-term trauma-effects. The interventions below combine the best of object relations therapy, mindfulness therapy (MBSR, ACT), and cognitive-behavioral therapy. Here is the listing of therapeutic functions and interventions.

Provide support for “going-on-being” in the therapeutic alliance and the therapy itself. (Winnicott)
Unconditional positive regard is a must. (Rogers)
Recognize, work with and work through the splitting process as it activates in therapy. (Lineman)
Safely and with effective skill help to re-connect the person with safe transitional space. (Winnicott)
Carefully build and monitor the emotional “holding environment” in both alliance and therapy. (Rogers, Winnicott)
Include contextual stimuli and symbols of the traumatic experience, from very general to specific and shift slowly over time. (Briere)
Once there is a firm alliance and safety in the therapy, be more specific in exposure to traumatic experiences – monitor carefully. (Briere)
In all exposure work, best to utilize SUDs scores from 0 to 100 – larger range between numbers allows deeper investigation and specificity.
Work hard to understand and utilize body-based communications. (Ogden, Fisher, van der Kolk)
Use mindfulness attention and skills (MBSR, ACT) to remain in The Middle Way between traumatic re-exposure and the safety of “going-on-being.” (Briere, van der Kolk)
Check in with the experiences of transference and countertransference as you use images and defenses to support progress. (A. Freud)
Use multi-sensory interventions in gentle, safe, re-exposure to traumatic materials – using one step removed and cognitive processes first. (Quintiliani)
If skilled in its use, utilize the Attachment-CABs-VAKGO-IS-Rels formula for interventions. (Quintiliani – see mindfulhappiness.org for more details)
Using items #s 8-13 above, aim for development of a safe cognitive schema and narrative clarification about the traumatic event/s.
Work closely with the person to help them internalize the growth-benefits of all of the above. Take time with this process.
Be a “good object” and always return to safety over and over again – check-in and stabilizes often.
Slowly and with safety move up the hierarchy of trauma exposure process, possibly experiencing the full array of sensory experience. (Briere, Foa)
Listen, support emotionally, radically accept, validate and understand the process and the person. This is your best way to develop a “good enough” self-object via “transmuting internalization.” (Kohut) Various mindfulness and CBT skills will be used here.
Use mindfulness and good CBT to make space for acceptance and validation for post-traumatic growth. (Lineman)
Help to impact these positive changes into a “different” memory system as you expand and deepen the narrative.
Support and directly reinforce (behaviorally) the improved self – a “felt sense” of a healthier self psychologically and physically.
Place more and more safety into the transitional space, and generalize this process into therapy and life practices.
Finally, expand the person’s capacity for pleasure, joy, self-esteem, success and HAPPINESS before therapy ends.

For more information refer to Savage Scharff, J. and Scharff, D. E. (1994). Object Relations Therapy of Physical and Sexual Trauma. Northvale, NJ: J. Aronson.

Note: The ideas have been presented in this text, but I have added more current interventions and details based on new research and treatments.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

February 4, 2017 By Admin

Using Mindful Movement as Part of Practice

Mindful Movement as Part of Practice

Mindful movement is an accepted part of regular practice. Such practices as walking meditation, more vigorous yoga asanas, qi gong, and tail chi are all part of this respected mindfulness tradition. Here I will introduce you to a very simple pre-meditation movement sequence. Hope you practice it very soon.

Stand in horse posture, with your body erect, back straight, and your feet shoulders’ width apart. Just remain still and quiet for a moment. Be soft in your muscles.
Fold your hands together with fingers interlocking, and raise your arms up over your head. Stand quietly for a moment.
Begin to breathe in and out at a slower, deeper rate. SMILE!
As you breathe in bend your body so your arms/folded hands sway to the right – stretch a bit; then breathe out and bring your arms/folded hands to center again over your head.
Breathing in again, bend to the left as above – stretch a bit; breathing out come to center again.
Repeat this breathing movement in to the right, out center, in to the left, out center for ten times. Remember to continue smiling.
After ten times, slowly bring your arms to your sides, and allow your body to sway gently in any direction you wish.
Now stop swaying, and be in full awareness with your still, quiet body and mind.
Notice your current state of mind-body being.

For more information refer to Bradley, C. Try this movement practice before you meditation. www.mindful.org/mindful-moveent-practice…Retrieved January 10, 2017. This post is a modified version of the noted instructions.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

January 16, 2017 By Admin

Significance of Beads in Spiritual & Religious Practices

Beads: Significance in Spiritual and Religious Practices

The significance of religious and spiritual practices in the world is enormous. Christian, Muslim, Hindu, and Buddhist practitioners make up the overwhelming majority of the world’s population. The CIA estimates are that Christians (33%), Muslims (23%), Hindus (14%) and Buddhist (7%) make up the majority of religious followers. Atheists and non-religious believers make up only 12% of the world’s population. About 11% of the world’s population practices other spiritual and religious traditions. ALL of the major spiritual and religious traditions have used beads in their practices. Below I have listed some details about the nature of spiritual/religious beads used by major groups. As you will see the use of beads in spiritual and religious practices is very common.

Roman Catholics use rosary beads (from rose petal “beads” in the rose garden or rosarium) – usually 54 + 5 beads. When beads are used to recite 150 psalms, they are 150 beads long and called patermasters.
Muslims use their misbaha/masbaha, tasbih, subha beads – usually 99 or 33 beads.
Hindus (from 500 BCE) use mala beads – usually 108 (the cosmos) or 27 beads.
Buddhists (mala) for 108 worldly desires, and Sikhs have generally maintained the Hindu “counts.”
Baha’i uses beads – usually 19 or 99 + 5 beads.
Orthodox Jews, use tassels tallit or tzitzits (Moses – to remember the commandments of god).
Ortodox Greek and Russian Christians use knots as beads – Greek prayer ropes are called kombologian, and Russian prayer ropes are called chotki – Greek knots are 33, 50 and 100 while Russian knots are 33, 100, and 500.
African Masai, Native American, and Greek and Russian Orthodoxy also use beads.

So why use beads in spiritual and religious prayer practices? There are many, many reasons why beads are used in these spiritual traditions. However, I will note just a few. Here are some reasons. Beads are used:

To maintain your counting in prayers practices – in praising the object of your beliefs;
To confirm your level of dedicated practice by repetitions;
To deepen your personal belief by mantra-like or out loud speaking;
To enhance your level of faith by deeper and deeper contemplations about your beliefs; and,
To deepen practice by repeated, deeper contemplations (called lectio divina ) in Catholicism.

Here are some other reasons why beads are used. These reasons deal more with contemporary neuroscience research than with ancient and current religious practices. These are:

Enhanced learning in frontal and prefrontal areas by verbal/cognitive repetitions;
Temporal area strengthening by hearing the words you are saying either to yourself or out loud;
Multi-sensory applications to bead mantra work – using fingertips (huge representation in the brain) to touch beads as you repeat verbal statements over and over again;
Multi-sensory applications open up pathways for brain plasticity, so your brain changes over time to make your religious practices and beliefs stronger and stronger over time;
Possible multi-sensory brain coherence – lighting up neurons across various brain regions in your practices, which allows even more powerful plasticity to occur about your practices and beliefs; and,
Ritualize the spiritual or religious practices, thus making the objects of practice more sacred.

So, now you have some information about why beads are so, so common in spiritual and religious practices. This same information is the basis for use of beads in contemporary spiritual practices without religious connections.

For more information refer to Dorff, V. (2014). The Little Book About Big Things: World Religion. New York, NY: Fall River Press. See also www.dharmabeads.net for more information. Retrieved May 2, 2016.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

January 11, 2017 By Admin

The Journey of Human Compassion Practices

Where are YOU on the journey of human compassion practices? I modified interpretations of compassion to present a more formal depiction of compassionate practices and skills. Go ahead; take the compassion quiz.

Your Goal: To Reduce Human Suffering

Human Warmth Unconditional Positive Regard Human Caring Compassionate Actions

Using Key Mindfulness Practices/Skills

Attention – Concentration – In the Present

Nonjudging – Tolerance – Strong Empathy

List your current skills and practices here:_______________________________________________________________

Use Thoughts, Emotions and Behaviors to Help Others

Use Your Senses, Intuition, Spirituality, and Relationships to Help Others

To find your score, simply circle all the items (practices) that you DO in your effort to activate compassion for the benefit of others. A high score would between 10 and 18.

Where are you on the journey?

What skills/practices do you do now?

What skills/practices do you need to improve?

What will motivate you to continue with compassion practices?

For more information refer to Tirch, D., Schoendorff, B. and Silberstein, L. R. (2014). The ACT Practitioner’s Guide to the Science of Compassion… Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, pp. 25-61

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness