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Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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November 26, 2020 By Admin

Personal Happiness in the Age of COVID-19

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 formula is hard-wired in our brain. In difficult times, it is even more important to figure out your personal formula (without self-medication) to satisfactory levels of joy and happiness. Because happiness is physical, psychological, emotional, and spiritual (in ways) we need to focus more now on experiencing it. We cannot be happy if we focus more on fear, anxiety, and depression; we need to make happiness a personal priority. According to a poll by the American Psychiatric Association, over one-third of Americans noted that the pandemic has impacted their mental health in negative ways. According to the American Psychological Association, two-thirds of adults experience better well-being in post-traumatic growth. Here are some things you can do to improve/expand your personal happiness in these times.

  1. Do your best to find positive and helpful interpretations of your experience.
  2. Maintaining a hopeful attitude is important.
  3. Hold on to empathy for yourself and for others.
  4. Spend some time relaxing with your favorite music.
  5. Watch lots of comedy.
  6. Happiness is an inside job, so end the blame game. This is not to say unfairness does not exist.
  7. Do your best to eat well, sleep well, exercise and use proven stress coping skills daily.
  8. Connect with other you care about – and who care about you.
  9. Move your body!
  10. Practice proven breathing techniques that calm us – and or excite us.
  11. Follow Thich Nhat Hanh’s advice and savor anything you can – do not rush it.
  12. Keep in mind that Buddhism implies impermanence is primary – nothing stays the same over time.
  13. Get qualified/licensed professional help when you need it – do not delay.

Since the list of courses for this information is plentiful, I will not list them.  Google the topic if you wish.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

Filed Under: Activities, Buddhism, Covid-19, Featured, Happiness, MIndfulness, Self Care, Spiritual Energy, Thich Nhat Hanh Tagged With: COVID-19, MINDFULHAPPINESS, PERSONAL HAPPINESS

January 30, 2020 By Admin

A Tribute to Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)

A Tribute to Ram Dass (Richard Alpert)

Recently Ram Dass died at his home in Maui. He was 88 years old.  He was born into a well-off Boston family, and enjoyed materialism in his early professional years.  When completing a Ph.D. in Psychology at Stanford University he was still into material things. His spiritual awakening did not exist.  He was once known for his psychedelic drug experimentation while teaching at Harvard University. This experimentation occurred in the 1960s and 1970s, and in 1963 he was fired from Harvard for related reasons. In 1967 he went to India to study under Hindu Sadhu Neem, Karoli Baba, also known as Maharaj-ji. Before his teacher died, Alpert was named Ram Dass (Servant of God). He practiced bhakti yoga – pure love on the spiritual path. In 1974 Ram Dass returned to the United States, where he developed his own style of meditation, a style that radically integrated various forms of spiritual traditions.  In 1971 he published his first book, Be Here Now;  this book helped open up higher consciousness to others without the use of drug and expounded a life role of service to others. In 2004 Ram Dass relocated to Maui, where he remained for the rest of his life.  In 1997 he wrote Still Here. In some ways this book helped to clarify his deeper understanding of himself; the depth was the result of a serious stroke he suffered. His cerebral hemorrhage forced him to go deeper into self-understanding. In 2004 he survived a near-fatal infection. From his stroke on Ram Dass  was mainly homebound. His last book (with Mirabai Bush) was Walking Each Other Home:Conversations on Living and Dying. 

To the end he faced his death with great human grace, and he never gave up his view that to live must involve to love and serve others. Ram Dass, sometimes with the help of others, also established various organizations to provide teachings and service to others. Here is a short list: Hanuman Foundations (the teachings of Neen Karoli Baba); Love Serve Remember Foundation; Prison Ashram Project; Co-creating Living Dying Project and Doorway to Light; Seva Foundation (healthcare for underserved areas); and, Social Venture Network (for businesses). Yes, Ram Dass lived his talk – he walked the walk!

With the passing of Ram Dass, we have lost a great spiritual and meditation teacher. There are few and far between equivalent replacements. May he rest in great inner peace as he travels the bardo.

For more information refer to Duncan Oliver, J. (January, 2020). Ram Dass, beloved spiritual teacher, has died. In Tricycle. See tricycle.org/trikedaily/ram-dass-dies/.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon

Filed Under: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Featured, People, Ram Dass, Spiritual Energy, Spiritual Experience, Spiriuality Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI.MINDFUL HAPPPINESS, RAM DASS, SPIRITUALITY

June 12, 2018 By Admin

Calming Your Self-Critical Self with Mindfulness

Calming Your Self-Critical Self with Mindfulness

A core problem for many people is their incessant self (or other) criticism. This is a major part of our psychological mind suffering today. In the past life for most people was more difficult, so human basic needs were the energized priorities; today so many of us have been “spoiled” by having basic needs met and lingering with more time to worry about usually less important things.  Observe the number of TV ads aimed at improving how you look, or improving what others may thing about you. Note how the aim of some ads is to improve your perceived status, but not your inner reality of who you really are.Yes, looking ok, being healthy, and more importantly being happy are all important to our successful functioning. However, we tend to be dominated by limbic-brain survival mechanisms that boil down to interpersonal attraction and feeling liked by others. We ask: Am I good enough?  D. W. Winnicott may have some answers for us, and he would be more apt to focus on psychological well-being above superficial qualities – how we look, status,  etc.

Our competitive world and the American economic rat-race cause many to suffer from on-going “red ants” – what I call automatic emotionally loaded negative thoughts. Cognitive Therapy, Recovery Oriented Cognitive Therapy, Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy all can help reduce our thought-caused suffering. These approaches when implemented correctly work much faster than psychodynamic methods, which tend to prolong and deepen  dependency on therapists and serve mutually self-rewarding experiences (some unconscious for therapists). All evidence-based approaches work, but how well and how fast do they work? There may be a moral question involved when a therapist uses a much slower method with outcomes that are no  better than more efficient methods. They all involve a strong therapeutic alliance and clinical relationship. That also all involve a deeper change process not simply symptom reduction.

Why do we suffer so much from our own thoughts? Why do we sometimes project our own feared or actual character flaws onto and into others? There are so many causes. It all begins with the quality of our early attachment experiences. How good was the quality of your own early attachment experience with parental before thinkers like Freud came to the same conclusion. And, what about the level of your own self-medication? Do you self-medicate to reach some short-term joy or perhaps to just feel a bit better? In self-medication we eventually learn that it just works for a brief period and almost always leads to more serious problems – addictions of all kind including to our “I-Smart” phones.  figures and other caretakers? Were you reasonably satisfied and nurtured, or were you experiencing what The Buddha called dissatisfaction with what is. Did early life experience leave you craving for what you did not receive? We seek pleasure and hope to avoid pain; The Buddha noted this 2600 years ago – way, way

Below I have listed various self-critical patterns that we human have befriended. I also note some mindful ways to counteract their unhelpful emotional effects. Sometimes is means just taking better conscious control overs our CABS – cognition, affect, behavior and sensory sensations. Other times to means learning and using regularly new skills. At times it means we need professionally competent therapeutic help to improve our lives.

Do what is needed! Here the list.

  1. Self-Devaluing thoughts – STOP and be mindful of your strengths. Use the ‘doing” of your strengths as antidotes.
  2. Feeling inadequate – STOP and recall times when you had a lived experience with success no matter how small.
  3. Deep distortion of self-disdain (even self-hate) – STOP and do your best to practice
  4. mindful self-compassion.
  5. Not being “good enough” – STOP and recognize this is a social construct of unhealthy competition. Use strengths.
  6. No spiritual self – Consider what if any spiritual practice you might explore or do more of. Being in nature helps.
  7. Feeling you do not have enough – Recognize that if basic needs have been met, it is time to work harder on higher emotional needs. Stop thinking – only if I had… then I would be happy. This is almost always untrue.
  8. Hopeless perfectionism – STOP and recognize this is also a social construct based on the projections of others, who believed they were not perfect enough. These introjects became your beliefs. There is NO perfectionism; it is totally impossible to achieve it because it does not exist. Think: I am good enough as I am now!
  9. Stuck in conditioned life (samsara) – where when you are happy you become dissatisfied because it does not last, and when you are suffering you become dissatisfied because you are not happy. Craving and trying to prolong happiness and being without happiness both lead to just more suffering. Find small things to have gratitude for.
  10. A list of more mindfulnesss-based “things” you can do to counteract automatic negative thinking and feeling: live in the present moment; stay grounded with helpful cues – things are ok; allow negative thoughts to pass – do not get hooked by them; Un-trap yourself from a painful past by living presently with what is; practice radical acceptance of what you cannot change; meditate and do yoga a lot to cultivate more inner peace; practice self-efficacy in a very conscious manner; learn and live by the Four Noble Truths; let go of your shame so you can flourish; learn and use The UCLA four step process; use cognitive disputation and reframing more and more often; DO better self-care and learn to locate and “feed” your protective dragons; ask your inner self-helper for guidance on how to be healthier and happier; seek out and learn from an ethical mindfulness mentor; if possible, practice more self-love and less self-doubt. Do more of these practices more often; I believe you will find things will improve.
  11. I realize that some of you may not be aware of some of the terms noted above, so do some good “Googling” about them. When you have a set of practices you like – practice them every single day of your life.

A helpful book to read is Brenner, G. (2018). Suffering is Optional: A Spiritual Guide to Freedom…Oakland, CA: New Harbinger Publications.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Behavior, Buddhism, Calming, Featured, Meditation Activities, Mindful Awareness, MIndfulness, Self -Kindness, Self Care, Self Medication, Spiritual Energy Tagged With: ACTIVITIES, CALMING, CRITICAL -SELF, MINDFULNESS, SELF CARE

January 4, 2018 By Admin

Liberate Yourself with Spiritual Energy

Liberate Yourself with Spiritual Energy

Cultivating authentic inner and outer peace is the only way to a happy and good future. Learn to use your spiritual higher self to let go of self-centerednesss, greed, and entitlement. Work to free yourself from the endless grasping for material “things.”  Does it really matter what kind of car you drive, how BIG your house is, or that you just purchased the newest smartphone?  NO! Personal, authentic happiness cannot be bought.  Personal authentic happiness has little to do with being wealthy. Commit to reflect deeply on your action in life, and choose your pure, clear heart to be kind, generous, good, and loving to others. In the end, great kindness and love are far more important than material wealth. These statements are the informed advice of J. M. Bergoglio, that is Pope Francis.  It does not matter if your are Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Buddhist, etc. What matters is that you are a good person, a good person leading a kind and loving life. A person who does not harm others, but instead helps others from the goodness of your heart and soul.

Learn more about your spiritual self by answering the following questions. Your immediate response should be freely associated, that is write down whatever comes to mind without much thinking about it. Then elaborate by deeper contemplation on what you have written. Fine tune your statements about yourself.  Here are the questions.

  1. What is generally in your heart?_____________________________________________________________
  2. How strong is your kindness to others?_____________________________________________________________
  3. How do you show compassion to others?_____________________________________________________________
  4. Are you generally kind-hearted with yourself?_____________________________________________________________
  5. Is there any form of transformative light within you?_____________________________________________________________
  6. When is the last time you directly helped another person?_____________________________________________________________
  7. Do you welcome honest, tears?_____________________________________________________________
  8. If “NO” – why not?________________________________________________
  9. What is your mindset (Latin: forma mentis) about being a good person?_____________________________________________________________
  10. What is the nature of your personal interest in doing good for others?_____________________________________________________________
  11. Are you more concerned with superficial appearances (physical, material, etc.), or do you care more about depth realities – the relative quality of of mind-body-heart-spirit?_____________________________________________________________
  12. What have you learned about yourself here?_____________________________________________________________

For more information refer to Bergoglio, J. M. /Pope Francis (2017). (Trans. O. Stransky). Happiness in this Life: A Passionate Meditation on Earthly Existence. Rome: Libreria Eidtrice Vaticana/New York: Penguin Random House, pp. 83-109, 159-226.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

Filed Under: Featured, MIndfulness, MIndfulness Activities, Spiritual Energy Tagged With: MINDFUL HAPPINESS, MINDFULNESS, SPIRITUAL ENERGY

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.

  1. 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.
  2. Muslims use their misbaha/masbaha, tasbih, subha  beads – usually 99 or 33 beads.
  3. Hindus (from 500 BCE) use mala beads – usually 108 (the cosmos) or 27 beads.
  4. Buddhists (mala) for 108 worldly desires, and Sikhs have generally maintained the Hindu “counts.”
  5. Baha’i uses beads – usually 19 or 99 + 5 beads.
  6. Orthodox Jews, use tassels tallit or tzitzits (Moses – to remember the commandments of god).
  7. 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.
  8. 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:

  1. To maintain your counting in prayers practices – in praising the object of your beliefs;
  2. To confirm your level of dedicated practice by repetitions;
  3. To deepen your personal belief by mantra-like or out loud speaking;
  4. To enhance your level of faith by deeper and deeper contemplations about your beliefs; and,
  5. 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:

  1. Enhanced learning in frontal and prefrontal areas by verbal/cognitive repetitions;
  2. Temporal area strengthening by hearing the words you are saying either to yourself or out loud;
  3. 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;
  4. 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;
  5. 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,
  6. 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, VermontChiYinYang_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, Children & Youth, Contemplative Practices, Featured, Meditation, Meditation Activities, MIndfulness, MIndfulness Activities, Practices, Religion, Rituals, Self Care, Spiritual Energy, Spiritual Experience, Spiriuality Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, BEADS, MEDIATION, PRACTICES, PRAYER, RITUALS, SPIRITUAL

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