Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

  • Home
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
    • About
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Contact

November 11, 2014 By Admin

Contemplative Practices of the Skillful True Self

Contemplative Practices – Affirmative Self-Inquiry

MindfulHappiness_Candles

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, VermontChiYinYang_EleanorRLiebmanCenter

Author of Mindful Happiness

CLICK HERE to Order!

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

Filed Under: Activities, ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Contemplative Practices, Featured, Meditation, Meditation Activities Tagged With: ACTIVITY, ADVANCED MEDITATION PRACTICE, CONTEMPLATIVE PRACTICES, DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, PRACTICE

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

Mindfulness-Based Emotion Regulation The following emotional regulation practices (also called emotional balance skills) have been supported by over 2500 years of mindfulness training and current psychological research on human emotions.  These practices/skills are to be practiced before they are needed, and directly applied when they are needed.  Here is the list. 1) Practice noticing and […]

Stress in America – 2019 Every year the American Psychological Association ( November, 2019) conducts an extensive survey to determine the levels of stress in America. The data below does NOT include children; therefore, the already high numbers would be much higher. Here are some highlights. Stress levels are quite high but stable. Increased concerns […]

Basic Self-Compassion Process Practice: To practice self-compassion as needed, follow these specific self-compassion steps. Sensitize your mindfulness skills to become aware of your immediate experience of suffering. Hold a strong intention to respond with self-kindness. Use self-talk to be kind to yourself. Begin by softening your body. Relax your muscles, tendons, joints. Hold a natural […]

Plasticity – The Amazing Human Brain We humans are very fortunate in that our brain is one of the most complex entities in our known universe. Natural selection, genetic modifications, and use-related neuroplasticity have blessed us with a brain quite capable of some of the most complicated tasks imaginable. Some of these tasks (medical miracles, […]

Taoist Meditation on Healing Colors of Light In Taoist views the four seasons (five if you include “Indian Summer”) are strongly associated with emotional moods and bodily energies. Healing colored light is also part of this viewpoint. For each of the colors we use, follow the process noted below. Sit quietly and breathe calmly. Circle […]

How Suicide impacts Psychotherapists One of the greatest fears of psychotherapists is that one of their clients will commit suicide.  Here are some common reactions of psychotherapists when one of their clients commits suicide.  In some ways these reactions are sequential, but no exact concrete sequence is well documented. Here is a list to consider. […]

Trauma Therapy:  Basics from Some Expert Clinicians For many years trauma therapist have used many approaches in their psychotherapy. Most of these approaches lack strong empirical support for outcomes, and are often the “favorites” of these therapists.  One might wonder what benefits therapists derive from using approaches that are not evidence-based. If an intervention fails […]

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 […]

Anahata – Heart Chakra Meditation Practice Rumi noted that to reach the sky we must use our hearts. The Heart Chakra is a very popular focus of meditation practice.  Here we will simply review some characteristics and then move on to a meditation practice. Specific characteristics: Green color, YAM sound (say at least three times […]

  Mindfulness – Self-Kindness Practice Befriending the self is one of the most difficult things for Americans to do.  It is probably true that self-kindness is difficult for most people; however, the current rampant criticism (I am right! You are wrong!) and extreme greed manifesting in the United States tends to produce two opposite extremes: […]

The Heart Sutra – Thich Nhat Hanh “Gate Gate Paragate Parasamgate Bodhi Svaha.” This ultimate mantra is one of the most important in Buddhism. Thich Nhat Hanh’s new translation of The Heart Sutra offers a great deal of enlightened, sometimes more advanced, information and process. Avalokitesvara and other great Bodhisattvas present important views of this […]

“The Other Shore” to Happiness and Enlightenment Thich Nhat Hanh’s book, The Other Shore: A New Translation of The Heart Sutra…Berkeley, CA: Palm Leaves Press brings us on an inner journey toward a happier, more peaceful and enlightened life. Wisdom implies that we understand that life is made up of mental formations, no-self (more clarifications later), […]

Subtle and Direct Experiences of Happiness Khenpo Sherab Zangpo’s 2017 publication The Path: A Guide to Happiness, Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications has much to offer about how to become a happier person.  Read over the listing below and see what you may be missing. Try this mantra: “I am happy the way I am.” “I am happy […]

Loss, Grief and Suffering in America By Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC Other than our nation’s suffering during The Civil War, The Great Depression, and World War II this past year has been one of the most stress-filled, fear-filled times in our history. Here is a list of the reasons behind it all: the COVID-19 […]

Mindfulness Training  From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton,Vermont The Problem:   Many people become stuck in the suffering of their past, and they continue to re-experience an event in the futile hope to better understand it, or to find an escape from it.  Many of the same people become fixated fearfully […]

Trauma Informed Care – The Absolute Basics This post aims at providing a very basic introduction to Trauma Informed Care.  Advanced versions of this information are available from the author.  So what is Trauma Informed Care (hereafter TIC)?  Below I have listed rationales of need and core characteristics of TIC in organizations. Why We Need […]

Meditation for Managers and Helpers  Let’s Talk – Contact Me – Click Here I am a Licensed Psychologist-Doctorate and a Licensed Alcohol and Drug Counselor with 35 years of clinical experience in community clinics, schools, professional organizations, and universities (OSU, UVM, etc.). I have been the past Clinical Director of Howard Center, and Past President […]

Money and Electronic “Friends” Are They Real ? The Sutta Nipata  (4.15, Translated by Thanissaro Bhikkhu) noted “Seeing people floundering like fish in small puddles, competing with one another…fear came into me. The world was entirely without substance….Wanting a haven for myself, I saw nothing that wasn’t laid claim to.  Seeing nothing in the end but […]

Interpersonal Mindfulness Various forms of mindfulness-based compassion training help us to care more about the needs, happiness, and health of other people. However, direct applications of interpersonal mindfulness activates these influences into direct action on behalf of others.  Thus, if lucky, we learn to care more about others and less about ourselves.  The self-centered ego […]

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, […]

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

  • About
  • Contact
  • Dr. Anthony Quintiliani
  • Mindful Expressions Meditation CD
  • Mindful Happiness
  • Site Map

Copyright © 2023 · Mindful Happiness