Classroom Archives - Mindful Happiness

February 22, 2018 By Admin

The Reality of Experience

What is deep mindfulness? Deep mindfulness is the concentrated awareness of all experiences, preferably without evaluating as pleasant or unpleasant. Deep mindfulness is pure awareness as it becomes part of personal consciousness. We humans, however, are always evaluating our experiences and phenomena as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant – often getting hooked into wanting the pleasant to remain and hoping to avoid the unpleasant. Such patterns make both mental and physical phenomena and our self-perceptions conditioned on outcomes of experiences. All experiences are within deep feeling of the mind and body; cognition, emotion, and behavior become one with related consequences of our actions. All too often, without wise-mind mindfulness skills and wisdom, we make our lives more unsatisfactory. Happiness is there but for our mindlessness about it.

Try this mindfulness challenge!

ALL experiences and phenomena occur in Time, Space, Place, Dimension, Evaluation, and Mind-Body Awareness. Brain-Mind-Body-Heart-Soul awareness of experiences color our reactions to them. We want more of what we desire/crave and less of what we hope to avoid – all depending on our evaluations of experience as pleasant or unpleasant. Go into a deep contemplation on how time, space, place, dimension, evaluation, and mind-body experience impact every single thing you are aware of. Contemplate very deeply HOW these understanding may help you to become a happier and more peaceful person. What did you uncover? You may wish to record your findings in a journal if you keep one.

For more information refer to Spira, R. (2017). The Nature of Consciousness…Oxford, UK: Sahaja Publications, pp. 151-165.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton Sangha

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

November 22, 2016 By Admin Leave a Comment

Using Mindfulness and Contemplation in Education and Therapy

During the past few months I have been engaged with four small groups regarding how to use mindfulness and contemplation in education and/or therapy. The groups have variations: two groups are university faculty members meeting to discuss specific books related to these topics; one group is in a medical technician training program; and, another group is in a community setting. Aims include uses of mindfulness and contemplation in teaching, in therapy, and in self-care. I have had many years of experience training educators, therapists and the public on such topics. Here I plan to simply list 20 ways to use mindfulness and contemplation practices in education and therapy. I will not differentiate between the two; I assume educators, university faculty, and therapists can figure out on their own the contextual, topic-related, and age-appropriate implementation realities. Here is my list.

Before you begin any new activity or transition, simply sit quietly in complete silence for 2-3 minutes. Process what was experienced.
Before educational tests or significantly emotional content in therapy, practice grounding strategies. Some examples are: feel your body being held at the surface of the seat or chair, or feel your feet connected to the floor or earth, or feel the inner sensation of long, deep, slow breathing, or look around and note something each of your senses perceives .
Practice abdominal breathing – slow, deep, breathing all the way into the lower belly and out. Note that people with unresolved trauma or polyvagal system problems may experience an opposite effect – anxiety.
Practice four-part breathing by noticing the movement of breath in and out of the nostrils, the throat, the chest/lungs, and lower belly. Then a little later, extend the exhalation slightly to enhance relaxation effects.
Use your senses. Use each of your senses one by one, and notice what you notice but without any evaluation or judgment.
Multi-sensory memory regarding a substance-free pleasant or happy experience in your life. Rest, use one sense at a time, and connect to the experience. Be with it! If a “shadow” come up – some negative issue associated with the memory – do your best to stay present in the re-experienced memory and deal with the shadow later.
Focus attention and contemplation on the reality of impermanence in human experience. Everything changes! Pleasure comes and goes; neutrality/boredom comes and goes; and, suffering comes and goes. Hang around a while, and your current experience will change.
Use the ancient Christian meditative process called lectio divina. Concentrate your contemplation on a single thing, topic, reading, formula, or task – AND revisit it by concentrating your contemplation on/about it again, and again, and again. Go deeper each time.
Have an attitude of gratitude. Sit quietly and contemplate something you have gratitude about NOW. Rather than endlessly wanting/grasping something else, something new, be with deep gratitude for something you already do have right now.
Practice loving kindness meditation for yourself. Say the following to yourself, silently. May I be safe. May I be healthy. May I be free from suffering. May I be happy. May I live with ease. Continue to practice for ten minutes or more.
Just sit! Simply stop all behavior and focus thinking on just sitting in quietude. Breathe slowly, deeply, and calmly. It may help to gently gaze at a clear wall.
Friendly contemplation – simply contemplate on any positive interaction you experienced this week with another person, a pet, the environment, etc.
Practice the half-smile. Generate positive proprioceptive feedback to your emotional brain by simply finding something to smile about. Even if you fail to discover a reason to smile, smile anyway. Notice.
Practice caring compassion. Sit quietly and contemplate the suffering a person experienced. You may know or not know this person personally, but you do know they have suffered. Have an open-hearted heart-mind experience abut the person’s suffering. Care! Later you may be able to actualize this by doing something helpful to that person or persons.
Practice self-compassion. This is a bit more difficult. Sit quietly and realize that you also suffer. Select a specific experience of suffering, and recognize that many humans suffer the same way you do. Just be with your soft-heartedness about your own suffering for a few minutes. Care about yourself! Be your own best friend.
Practice some quiet meditation for a few minutes.
Practice some gentle yoga for a few minutes.
Do some walking meditation outside for a few minutes.
Practice skipping as if a child – and notice. Most of the time all of your negative thoughts and painful emotions will leave your awareness.
Practice a calming body scan for a few minutes
See Quintiliani, A. R. (2014). Mindful Happiness… Shelburne, VT: Vermont Voices Press. See also mindfulhappiness.org for more practice activities.

By 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!

August 12, 2016 By Admin Leave a Comment

Teaching Mindfulness in Therapy Part 2

Teaching Mindfulness in Therapy – More for you to consider-

New Harbinger Publications has just issued a blog post on problems encountered when teaching mindfulness to clients in therapy. After over 30 years of using mindfulness and meditation in psychotherapy, I have a few words of advice to add. Following these advisories may help to ensure successful implementation of mindfulness interventions and skills with your therapy clients.

From an ethical and effectiveness perspective, you should NOT be teaching mindfulness and meditation to your clients unless you have your own regular mindfulness and meditation (or yoga) practice.
Personal practice helps to ensure effectiveness, and it helps to prepare you for thing that could come up with your novice client-practitioners (“dark nights of the soul” regarding some possible documented negative effects). There is no substitute for personal experience in practice.
Remember, these are embodied practices and skills. They have specific cognitive components (intention, attention, concentration, self-talk to count breaths and allow thoughts to pass, etc.). However, these are embodied practices and skills – “felt sense” in the body while practicing.
Be certain mindfulness, meditation, mindful movement (yoga only if you are a yoga instructor) are in the client’s treatment plan. Or use a therapy approach that includes these practices, but be sure that therapy in in the treatment plan. Always measure desired outcomes from all clinical interventions.
Use tasks analysis to teach these skills. Begin with simple steps and short time periods. Always allow the client complete control regarding participation, and always seek feedback on the experience. As the client becomes more attuned to these embodied processes, agree mutually on extending time in practice (in session) and the depth of the skills.
It may be wise to begin with simple awareness activities and basic breathing techniques. Some clients with untreated trauma and/or polyvagal abnormalities may have great difficulty associating breathwork with relaxation and body/emotion regulation. If this occurs, work with the client so they can practice breathing skills that do not cause emotional dysregulation or anxiety. Include psychoeducation.
Never introduce a practice to a client if you have not, yourself, mastered the skill. In my own meditation teaching practices (outside of therapy) , I always practice a new meditation skills for months before bringing that skill to my secular meditation sangha.
Be sure you make it clear what “hat” you are wearing when you combine general therapy with mindfulness/meditation training. There are various mindfulness-based therapy approaches (MBSR, DBT, ACT, MBCT, etc.); however, if you are not using any of these and prefer to introduce a skill/practice as adjunctive therapy clarify the role you are playing in the moment (therapist, trainer, teacher).
Remain mindfully aware that you need to model acceptance and kindness in your therapy work, especially when mindfulness and meditation are included.
While leading mindfulness and meditative interventions as skills, practice being the human being simply being in the practice. Reduce the hierarchy if possible, and yet maintain a responsible role as an evidence-based clinician. You are partly responsible for all outcomes, good and bad.
If teaching such skills in group format, be clear what the differences are in group process and group practice. These experiences are different. When things go smoothly, these subtle realities blend nicely. When this are not going smoothly, you need to recognize what you are doing as the leader – is it a group process issue, or is it a group practice issue? They require different corrective experiences.
You have clear responsibilities for safety in your therapy, and this safety extends into teaching mindfulness and meditation skills. However, you do not have to comment, expand, pontificate about what clients share regarding their practice with you. I find this problem difficult to avoid in my own meditation training sessions. One is always tempted to add something that you hope may improve the person’s practice. Best to add only when necessary and keep it brief.
If you use a script to guide mindfulness and meditation training as part of your therapy work, be careful to use it gently. This is not a mainly cognitive/verbal process. It is an experiential/bodily process. Learn the practices well so you do not need to read the “how to” steps in your therapy. However, if you are using a more complex meditation practice, it is be a good idea to guide your own teaching role via a script.

For more information refer to Quintiliani, A. R. (2014). Mindful Happiness…Shelburne, VT: Voice of Vermont Publications. See also Teaching Mindfulness? Avoid These Common Traps for Therapists. Professional Blog, New Harbinger 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 or any image below to Order

May 28, 2016 By Admin Leave a Comment

Mindfulness, the Brain, and Education

Mindfulness, the Brain, and Education – The Benefits are Many!

Current research on mindfulness, brain science, and education suggests that mindfulness-wise application of neuroscience in the classroom may improve social-emotional and educational outcomes for students. Here I will simply review current scientific information about how the human brain learns. Hopefully, this information will be applicable to educational environments where informed mindfulness is being used. Informed mindfulness may be defined as mindfulness applications carried out by teachers who are, themselves, mindfulness practitioners. The experience of mindfulness is what is most important in the classroom. It is far beyond a purely cognitive endeavor. The same applications of brain science noted here are also valuable in the psychotherapy relationship. This reality moves far beyond psychoeducation; it contributes to the quality of the relationship.

The human brain is a psychosocial organ. Therefore, individualized learning should also include supportive group and relational learning interactions. Helpful social learning makes learning easier and more accessible for most students students.
We have multiple brains. We have two hemispheres working in very different ways, and we have three core levels of brain structure and function. The left hemisphere works best with language, linear models, executive functions, and social learning. The right hemisphere works best with more private internal experiences, emotions, and visual-spatial relationships. Our brain also functions regarding reward centers (direct reinforcement), fear-emotional learning related to survival (including emotional and social), and, core executive functions. Therefore, learning tasks need to include various brain-based applications (left and right hemispheres) as well as executive-prefrontal, emotional-limbic and habitual incentives.
Due to plasticity and early exposure to effective learning, the brain becomes more skilled at educational tasks. Therefore, early learning errors and omissions contribute to future learning problems for students.
The brain also includes conscious, more executive awareness (basic mindfulness) as it develops into personal consciousness about how the world works and one’s place in that world. There are also potent unconscious and autonomic functions that have strong impacts on successful learning. Some highly important areas to consider in both conscious and unconscious functions are personal self-esteem status and vulnerability, family process variables, bias and prejudice, etc. One’s true self (internal, more personal experiences and meanings) and one’s false self (externally presented characteristics of expected social status and capacities) are both quite real. They play huge roles in learning and psychosocial adjustment.
The brain, the mind, the body, and the heart (soul?) are interconnected. Brain-mind-body-heart interactions are a given in life and especially in educational endeavors. Current neuroscience research supports this reality. Teach content that relates to neuronal functioning, executive-cognitive awareness, bodily responses, and emotional responses. Teach to the whole person. Use well-informed mindfulness applications as a way to reach the five-part processes of learning. This is even more necessary when students are suffering from various forms of mental and emotional struggle.
The brain has a really short attention span. It loves to jump around and get into and out of various areas of attention, awareness, concentration and learning. Therefore, informed mindfulness in the classroom may be helpful ion the attainment of intention to learn, attention to what is to be learned and concentration on content of learning. Tasks also need to be repeated and aspire to various learning styles and multi-sensory channels of human learning.
Fear, not-belonging, stress reactivity, unhealthy home and school environments dramatically impair one’s learning capacities. Hungry, fearful, stressed students DO NOT LEARN WELL. Again, a special place for informed mindfulness skills in the classroom to keep it calm, safe, and supportive.
The brain does better on understanding more global realities than it does on the details of the same realities. So discovery learning and mindful awareness may be helpful in improving educational outcomes. Students, especially working in cooperative groups, tend to discover the details well enough – better than the teacher telling students about all the details. Thus, experiential learning is important. Mindful awareness is important.
Projection and introjection are alive and well in the American classroom. We are social! We internalize the emotional-valued inputs from others (especially praising or negative and fearful conditions), and we project outwardly our personal analysis of what others may be up to. We do not do a good job in self-understanding, and we place our own emotional interests in social interactions. We project out the internal emotionality of our true self in the present moment. Once again, a good place for informed mindfulness training and skill development in the classroom.
Lastly, always remember that a learning brain is generally a happy brain. A learning brain works best under conditions of caring, nurturing, safety, empathy, kindness, support, and understanding. Thus, the best teachers – the teachers that are remembered by their students for years to come – are teacher who know how to show compassion as well as expertise. Happy brains are motivated brains!
So, to experience a better day in the classroom or the therapy office adhere to the neuroscience applications noted here. You will improve the moment and the day. You will feel GOOD about yourself.

For more information refer to Cozolino, L. (March, 2013). Nine things educators need to know about the brain. greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/…brain. Retrieved May 11, 2016. See also Ward, T. (May, 2016). Dean Ornish on love and connection (the touchy-feely stuff). www.medscape.com/viewarticle… Retrieved May 24, 2016. See also Norden, J. (2007). Understanding the Brain. Chantily, VA: The Teaching Company.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE or any image below to Order