ACTIVITY Archives - Mindful Happiness

October 4, 2016 By Admin 33 Comments

Needs of Traumatized Children and Youth

The Needs of Traumatized Children – Learning Activity

As a means to hone in on your helping behaviors, complete this learning activity.

NEEDS

List a Concrete Example for Each Unmet Need.

Biological _______________________________________________

Psychological ____________________________________________

Social __________________________________________________

Emotional _______________________________________________

Educational ______________________________________________

Spiritual ________________________________________________

Attachment ______________________________________________

What can YOU do to help meet the concrete needs noted (behaviorally)?

Biological ________________________________________________

Psychological _____________________________________________

Social __________________________________________________

Emotional _______________________________________________

Educational ______________________________________________

Spiritual _________________________________________________

Attachment _______________________________________________

Think seriously about HOW you might measure your effectiveness in these corrective interventions.

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!

May 26, 2016 By Admin 216 Comments

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

December 23, 2014 By Admin

Mindfulness and Concentration – Body Awareness Activity

Mindfulness and Concentration – Experience Differences

In this post I will explain some basic differences between mindfulness and concentration, both of which are required for effective meditation practice. This will be the first of three posts dealing with what mindfulness and concentration are, how to experience them briefly in a body-based activity, and how to improve them in practice. We will begin with the body mindful awareness activity as outlined below.

Introduction to Mindfulness

First, a brief introduction to mindfulness. Mindfulness brings initial, usually neutral, attention to your awareness of some object, experience or phenomenon. It also signals you when your mind has wandered off the target or object of attention. When the mind wanders, gently bring attention back to the selected object of your attention. Mindfulness skills build the foundation for concentration skills, or the sustained strong attention of the mind on an object you have purposely selected to pay attention to. Mindfulness often includes mind-wandering with gentle return of attention back to the object, while concentration often includes stronger and stronger focus and attention on the object. There is less distraction in concentration, and usually more depth to your awareness.

Body Awareness of Mindfulness in Time and Space: Now we will use your body to become aware of a mindfulness moment in time and space. While standing or sitting in a state of gentle attention, place your hands in a prayer pose or mudra. Your initial intention is to observe and maintain attention on your hands in this pose. Now take a few deep, slow, cleansing breaths and pay full attention to your prayer-posed hands in front of you. You may also become aware of the interoception of how the hands feel to your body as they touch in prayer posture. Really focus full visual-mental attention on your hands and feel the sensation of them touching. Then open up your hands and break the prayer mudra; move your hands and arms upward and outward so there is no direct contact between the hands. Make a big circle with your arms. NOTICE what this change feels like; notice what is different once you break your focused attention on your hands in prayer posture. Repeat this movement several times – from prayer mudra to opening up the hands and moving your arms outwardly and upwardly in a slow but deliberate fashion. Notice carefully the differences in awareness in the prayer mudra versus the change in hand-arm position. This is an example of impermanence in awareness of hand postures. Be aware of the tendency to return your posture to prayer mudra each time you change it from still, prayer position to open moving position up and out. Continue for a few more minutes just to be sure you notice the differences in awareness.

Body Awareness of Concentration in Time and Space: Now we will practice concentration on prayer posture. Have an initial intention to place complete concentration on your hands in prayer mudra in front of you. Remain fixed on concentrating on your hands in this posture. Each time you notice that your attention has weakened or wandered off into some other awareness, simply place a slightly stronger mental focus on your hands in prayer posture in front of you. You may also want to pay more attention to the sensation of the hands touching each other. Do not change the position of your hands; remain in prayer mudra. Notice each time your concentration has weakened or moved away, and again place stronger more forceful effort into concentrating on your hands in prayer position. NOTICE the differences between your more stable concentration here and the flow of mindfulness above in the first activity. This is a more stable and forceful level of intense concentration. It feels quite different in the body; it has a more energetic feel to it. If you are experiencing difficulty maintaining a strong intensity of concentration, it may help to increase pressure just a bit stronger – one hand against the other hand in the prayer position.

Repeat concentration on your prayer mudra a few more times, and Notice!

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!

November 11, 2014 By Admin

Contemplative Practices of the Skillful True Self

Contemplative Practices – Affirmative Self-Inquiry

Contemplation and affirmative self-inquiry may be helpful in improving your awareness of your better parts of self – your positive strengths and traits. Our self-critical mind often causes us to spend far too much time on critical, negative thinking about ourselves and about others. The practice below may be helpful to you in shifting your mind to a happier, more productive, positive stance. This approach combines some of the processes found in adaptive lectio divina, contemplative inquiry, and appreciative inquiry. Some aspects of these approaches to creative cognitive processes have ancient roots.

Simply follow the steps below.

Step One) Simply sit in mild meditation. If you are not a meditation practitioner, simply sit quietly with a cup of tea and look out a window or look at a neural object in your home. Just sit! Relax! Notice! Do your best to stay focused on an object of meditation (your breath or object at home) or the scene outside your window. Do your best NOT to evaluate anything. Remain in the present moment of just sitting. Simply rest.

Step Two) Within your deeper, meditative state simply ask yourself (inquire) WHAT is your most positive, meaningful trait as a person. Do your best NOT to be too perfectionistic OR too devaluing in this inquiry. Find the middle way – What is your most positive or most meaningful strengths or trait?

Answer here:_____________________________________________________________

Step Three) Repeat step two.

Answer here:______________________________________________________________

Step Four) Contemplate when, where, why and how this positive trait activates itself in you. Are there any patterns? If so, what is the pattern?

Answer here:____________________________________________________________________________

Step Five) Focus on your innermost feelings when this strength activities in you. What is that feeling?

Answer here:____________

Step Six) Going deeper into yourself in a meditative state, what is your most important, meaningful strength as a person?

Answer here:

___________________________________________________________________________________________

Step Seven) Simply sit in the feelings of joy with the reality of having that strength. Allow!

Step Eight) Stop! If you keep a journal, write a statement in your journal about this personal experience of positive inquiry.

Note: This inquiry contemplation may also be done in dyads or with a significant other. One person thinks and speaks; the other person listens (no comments). Then switch roles.

For more information refer to Appreciative Inquiry into Organizational Life: Toward a Theory of Social Innovation.

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!