Training Archives - Page 3 of 9

June 18, 2016 By Admin Leave a Comment

Two Brief Mindfulness-Based Contemplations

Mindfulness Based Contemplations

Best to practice both of these contemplations using the lectio divina method, that is each time you contemplate the content of the two messages concentrate a bit more, go a bit deeper into your mind. Concentrate! Concentrate! Concentrate! Go deeper into your mind to discover your answers.

Contemplation 1 – Who Am I?

If I am NOT my thoughts, my breath, my body, my sensations, my emotions, my sensory awarenesses, my intuition, my joys and sorrows, and ALL of my memories – then, WHO AM I? Contemplate this question deeply and repeatedly until you come up with an insightful and personally meaningful answer.
Write your answers down.

Contemplation 2 – Buddhism, A Universal Philosophy of Life or a Religion?

Jon Kabat-Zinn, in Coming to Our Senses, defined practically the more universal meanings of mindfulness and dharma. His comments suggested that both were about the deeper functioning of people, especially the quality of attention and experience in suffering and happiness. The core important variable was one’s personal relationship with the outcomes of the experiences. He also suggested that if we desire more and more people to benefit from mindfulness and it’s Buddhist dharma, we Buddhists may have reconsider our strong attachments to Buddhism as religion.

Read this statement a few times, and then write your response/reaction to it in the space below. Contemplate deeply exactly what the meaning of the statement is for YOU. Personalize it!

Write your answers down.

For more information refer to Shambhala Sun (November, 2015), pp. 11-12 and Kabat-Zinn, J. ( 2005). Coming to Our Senses…New York: Hyperion.

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 26, 2016 By Admin Leave a Comment

Meditation on the Feeling of Letting Go

Meditation on the Feeling of Letting Go – Pacification!

Pacifying the mind is a desired outcome of regular, stable meditation practice. Pacification may be done via meditating on the breath, general mindfulness awareness, vipassana, and various other forms of meditation. However, the wise mind skill of “letting go” of unhelpful, negative, and harmful thoughts and emotions may be more difficult for many people, even many meditators. In this post I hope to teach you how to LET GO. Since letting go is much more than a cognitive action, it is necessary to examine other human processing channels – especially sensation, body movement, and emotion. “Monkey Mind” can be pacified! Pacifying “monkey mind” when it contains strong negative objects of awareness will require a bit more practice and determination. Discernment of finer details in thoughts, sensations, body movement, and emotions will be necessary. Let’s begin.

Begin with a comfortable but functional meditation posture.
Pay close attention to your breath just as it is. Do not try to control it.
Now slowly begin to slow and deepen your breathing, noticing breath passing in and out of the nostrils, the chest area, and how your lower belly moves in and out.
Continue with abdominal breathing as long as it does not cause the opposite effect – making you anxious.
Now become aware of your mind, and the thoughts that are passing through it right now. Practice bare attention without making any evaluations or stories about the thoughts. Just let them pass.
Check your personal stability in posture, breath, and clear seeing regarding the coming and going of your thoughts. Still no judgments or analysis – just moving thoughts like a leaf in a stream.
At this point make a conscious effort to produce a negative thought you would rather not have in your mind. Just notice it! Drop judgment and the need to respond to the thought. Just allow it to be.
Notice that it tends to produce unwanted sensations and/or emotions – feeling associated with negative thoughts. Just notice. No need to respond.
It is important that your realize just how easy it was to intentionally produce a negative thought in your consciousness. Yes, we have automatic negative thoughts, and we have intentionally created negative thoughts. Both are unhelpful, unwanted and uncomfortable. The important thing is that thoughts – like breathing – can be under both voluntary and involuntary control. Positive thoughts are the same way.
Now give yourself a SUDs score (0 to 100) regarding the negative thought. The higher the score on Subjective Units of Discomfort, the stronger the unpleasantness is.
Let’s practice. Make the negative though more clear in your mind, then let it go. Just use your intention to let it go cognitively. Add sensation: get the thought going again, and feel it in your body. Intentionally let it go, and focus on the subtle change in sensation. Do it once again, but this time focus on the emotion the negative thought produces in your body. Focus on the thought; let it go, and notice the subtle emotional shift. Let’s add body movement to this process. This time let the thought go, and make an arm gesture as if gently flicking the thought away. If it helps use both arms at once.
Now practice it all at once. Produce the thought. Intentionally let it go cognitively, and notice the subtle shifts in sensation and emotions. Add you arm flicking movement. Really get into letting it go, over and over again. Do it one more time. Include cognition, sensation, emotion and the body movement. Now give yourself another SUDs score from 0 to 100 to see if the overall discomfort has been reduced.
Practice this skill often!!!!! If you relapse into autopilot mind, STOP and intentionally make a new thought.

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 25, 2016 By Admin Leave a Comment

Human Beings Having Trouble BEING Human! Mindful Happiness Offers Some Help.

Human Beings Have Trouble BEING Human –

Some Sound Advice from Dr Anthony Quintiliani

The world today appears to be even more destructive than ever before in human history. However, historians and violence researchers inform us that we as average persons are safer today than we were in the past. Finger-tip access to world-wide media leads us into the conclusion that the whole world is falling apart. In some cases, it is! Let’s look at some obvious problems, problems especially current in the United States. In my opinion massive mindfulness and wise mind adoption and regular practice in our culture may be an answer to the turmoil we face. Here is a short list of OUR problems.

Problems We Face Are:

Rugged individualism, sometimes over-dependency, a separate self, material gain and greed, rising fear, rising intolerance, strong striving, learned helplessness, I/me/my entitlement, narcissism, conditioned limbic dominance, norms of defensiveness, the GREAT rush, craving and desiring, corruption of power and money, corporate influence in government, more smartphone less face-to-face communication, greed-based climate change, endless wars, Big Pharma-made opioid overdose crisis, increased white working class premature deaths, growing personal and national debt, earlier onset of serious mental illness in children and youth, earlier onset of suicide risk, weak self-esteem, earlier onset of medications use in children and youth, declining standard of living, racial and ethnic hatred, increased mental illness in college-aged populations, declining physical health status, an inner emptiness for many, loss of hope for many, more anxiety, depression, trauma, and substance misuse, rampant self-medication for short-term relief of our suffering, etc.

Need I go on? Hopefully not. These are the more severe norms of American suffering.

Yet in spite of this cultural mess we still produce vast achievements, great wealth, many goods, vast opportunities, strong caring, generosity, philanthropy, and HOPE for so, so many people who wish to come here to improve their lives.

Mindfulness and Wise Mind Traditions That Can Help Us –

Some Common Outcomes from REGULAR Practice of Mindfulness, Meditation, Yoga, Even Exercise Are:

Mindfulness awareness, improved attention, improved concentration, the ability to pause before reacting, emotional slowing, inner calm, compassion, self-compassion, executive strengthening, limbic weakening, mindful responding, kindness, impermanence, interbeing – the Golden Rule, dependent arising, no independent self, non-material authentic happiness, contentment, skillful reduction of suffering, ultimate emptiness (non-nihilistic), personal responsibility for doing good, etc. etc. I will not continue the list. You get the picture.

It is highly unlikely that American leaders will guide us into becoming a nation of reasonable, mindful beings. However, we as individuals and groups may pursue life-changing opportunities through the regular practice of mindfulness, meditation, yoga, etc. Such practices and skills will improve our inner emotional lives and inner/outer peace. Yes, this is possible. If you doubt it, search the many, many research studies on the positive effects of mindfulness, meditation, yoga and exercise. I dare you to try!!!! Go ahead. You have nothing to lose.

For more information refer to Alper, S. A. (2016). Mindfulness Meditation in Psychotherapy…Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.

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 20, 2016 By Admin

Self-Reality Checks in Mindful Clinical Practice

Self-Reality Checks Are Needed in Your Mindful Clinical Practice

It is highly important for helpers working in the co-occurring conditions field to become keenly aware of their own realities in practice and life that impact clinical effectiveness. Below I have listed four areas that show up in clinical surveys and added four more that I have found to be important in my 32 years of clinical practice and clinical supervision. You may already be mindfully aware of these realities of self, or you may not be aware of them at all. Although the answers to the questions noted are highly subjective, can you identity any objective evidence to support your answers?

So let’s get on to taking the self-reality check-up.

Do you act consistently with empathy, respect, and appreciation for the diversities within the population you serve? If “yes” – how much so? On a scale of 0 to 100 how consistent are you here?___________
Do you form and maintain a positive, empathic relationship (psycho-dynamics and mindful awareness) with clients in your diverse served population? If “yes” – how much so? On a scale of 0 to 100 how consistent are you? ________________________
Do you consistently consider your own biases and personal preferences when dealing with the diversities of your served population, including spiritual/religious beliefs and practices as well as the Americans with Disabilities listing of differences? If “yes” – how consistent are you? Your score is:______________
Do you use mainly evidence-based clinical approaches (even if in creative ways) in serving your diverse population: If “yes” – what is your score from 0 to 100?________________
How sure are you that your own level entitlement or narcissism does not interfere with the effectiveness of your clinical services? If “yes” – how much so? From 0 to 100 what is your score?________________
Do you provide effective (measured by…) services to your diverse population. If “yes” – how much so? From 0 to 100 your score is:____________
Do you practice your own personal mindfulness (regular mindfulness, meditation, yoga, exercise, etc.) that impacts your own emotion regulation thus your services to your diverse population? Do you have a regular practice? From 0 to 100 your score:________
Do you regularly check-in with yourself to determine if your own clinical condition/s may be impacting your services to your diverse population? How do you do this?____________________________ What is your score regarding consistency? From 0 to 100 your score is:______________________

The best way to obtain an accurate determination on these powerful variables is to do regular check-ups with yourself, use peer consultation and clinical supervision, and do anonymous client surveys on these topics of practice. Now average your scores to see where you stand on a continuum of from 0 to 100.___________

For more information refer to Freeman, C. and Power, M (2007). (Eds.). Handbook of Evidence-Based Psychotherapies... West Sussex, UK: John Wiley, pp. 3-24 and 443-476; Vietan, C. and Scammell, S. (2015). Spiritual and Religious Competencies in Clinical Practice…Oakland, CA: New Harbinger; Baruth, L. G. and Manning, M. L. (2007 edn.). Multicultural Counseling and Psychotherapy…Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson/Merrill Pretense Hall.

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 9, 2016 By Admin

Grief, Mourning, and TCM

Grief, Mourning, and Traditional Chinese Medicine

Based on the Buddhist reality of impermanence – we all will someday die; it is also quite true that we all will suffer from loss, grief, and mourning when others we care about die. The typical stages in this process are Denial, Anger, Bargaining, Depression, and Acceptance. There are many psychological approaches used to support a healthy grief and mourning process. However, most approaches ignore one of the oldest healing systems known to world history – Traditional Chinese Medicine. In TCM grief and loss process involves energy flow and its quality. In TCM lung chi/qi, large intestine energy flow, the color white, and the sound of sssss are all associated with the grief and loss process. Furthermore, since breathing anchors our central nervous system, it is also involved in energetic flow in our bodies. Positive and negative energy flow has strong influence on our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors.

In the following TCM treatment for grief and mourning the exchange of life-sustaining oxygen and toxic carbon dioxide is important in the process. The lungs, the color white, and the sound of sssss are all involved in harmonizing the emotional energies of grief and mourning. It all begins with calm, deep, slow abdominal breathing. TCM for grief and mourning also includes dietary applications as well as acupuncture possibilities. Here we will deal only with using the breath and imagination.

See the steps noted below.

Sit in a calm and comfortable spine-straight meditation posture.
Complete several calm, slow, deep diaphragmatic breaths.
Once you feel relaxed, complete ten more calm, slow, deep diaphragmatic breaths.
Using your strong imagination, imagine that on each inhalation you are taking in healing white light. This healing white light enters all of your body organs and cells. Repeat for ten breaths.
Using your imagination, on each exhalation imagine that the toxic pain and suffering leave your body as carbon dioxide. Repeat the in-breath and out-breath cycles ten times.
Continue to breathe in this fashion, but now as you exhale make the sound of sssss. Do this ten times.
As you continue to breathe, make images of the healing white light moving around in your body, and the suffering and pain leaving the body. Repeat this for ten complete, full breaths with the sound of sssss.
Now slow down even more and simply notice the quality of your feelings.

For more information refer to Dr. Mark Wiley. Managing grief: Ancient practices that heal. www.easyhealthoptions.com . Retrieved April 27, 2016. See also Jahnke, R. (2002). The Healing Promise of Qi…Chicago, IL: Contemporary Books, pp. 39, 212-213. And Cohen, K. S. (1997). Qigong: The Art and Science of Chinese Energy Healing. New York, NY: Ballantine Books, pp.219-241, 237-238.

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