ELENA BROWSER Archives - Mindful Happiness

September 30, 2017 By Admin

The “I AM THAT” Meditation

Elena Brower’s new book, Practice You: A Journal (Sounds True, 2017) has many thoughtful suggestions on how to connect with the true inner self, and – more importantly – how to improve your self-views and the experience of your deep inner self. Below I have modified her presentation of the “I Am Exploration” meditation. My modifications bring in very subtle Vedanta and cognitive-behavioral implications. This is a quick, useful, and relatively easy meditation to practice. Here are the modified instructions.

Sit in a comfortable meditation posture and add a hand mudra of your choice.
Become as grounded as possible, and begin to breathe slow, deep, rhythmic breaths.
Continue to deepen and slow your breathing, and be inside your present moment body.
Be your slow, deep breath. Decide if you wish your eyes to be opened or closed.
Now contemplate how you view yourself. Do so in a general manner for now.
Decide on a few key words and images that you feel define you – the “I Am” part of you.
Decide what your current attitude is about who/what you are.
Are you satisfied? Are you content? Are you happy? Are you overly anxious or depressed?
Regarding who you are now and what you wish to become, what is your most powerful emotional need right now?
Contemplate meeting this emotional need. What have you noticed about your inner peace and wisdom?
Now deeply meditate on how you will make one change that brings you closer emotionally to your most pressing emotional need. What do you need to do? When will you do it? Who will help you?
Notice any insights and body-based sensations that have come up during this process.
Sit quietly for a moment before ending this meditation. Contemplate the implications.

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!

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 […]

My blog site mindfulhappiness.org has many posts on meditation, Buddhism, education, clinical practices and self-activated emotional health practices. Perhaps you may wish to initiate a Reflective Journal practice after you do practices presented on the site. There are many benefits from maintaining a written journal about personal experiences and practices. Not only does a […]

From The Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation We humans have a unique way of perceiving and processing emotional experiences. Years ago I developed a formula to understand the perception and process of emotional experiences: CABS-VAKGO-IS/Rels. The C stands for cognition; we spend a great deal of time thinking about pretty much everything we […]

Participate in Groups for Meditation, Problem-Solving, and Task Completion Meditation With The Sangha Among regularly practicing meditators and various meditation traditions, the sangha is the social, emotional and spiritual collective that continues to support ongoing serious practice and progress along the Path. Given that so much has been written about the many benefits of practicing […]

Self-Help in Mind-Body Medicine In this brief post we will review several specific ways that may improve your psychological and physical health. The post will be short, sweet, and simple to encourage participation. Here it is. Affirmation – “I am learning to love myself just the way I am.” Repeat this mantra sub vocally over […]

Building Healthy Intimate Relationships: Intimate relationships are often the source of many years of happiness and satisfaction, and sometimes the cause of great pain and suffering. It depends! I will list various realities of initiating and maintaining a positive intimate relationship. After reading these, ask yourself: Where is my relationship? If you are unhappy, do […]

Our Brains React to Worry According to research by The American Psychological Association in 2015, some of the core sources of severe stress reaction for Americans are: financial problems, job-related problems, family problems, and health problems. Our lives are complete only with joy/happiness, suffering and boredom – sometimes referred to as pleasant, unpleasant and neutral […]

Mindful Happiness – Brain on Meditation Reports from various MRI and self-report measure studies support the proposition that your brain changes (neuronal plasticity) when you practice meditation on a regular (daily) basis. The same is likely true when you practice yoga on a regular basis. Here are some noted changes in brain functioning that […]

Mind Training Over Our Impulses Mindful awareness of our impulses is a very important pathway to improved emotion regulation and, perhaps, more happiness in life. It can be unusually helpful to people suffering from anxiety, depression, and substance misuse. Vedana refers to the feeling tone in our body. It is one of the foundations of mindfulness […]

Walking Meditation with Gratitude Upasika Kee Nanayon (1901-1978) was a famous laywoman on the spiritual path of Buddhism. She noted some very powerful suggestions on how to improve walking meditation in nature. I have added a few more ideas of my own and from others. See the informative list below. Remain present-minded when you walk […]

Self-Care as Ritual Self-care for Americans is often considered a luxury. Due to our technological demands and addictions (Demons as they are), and the slow slipping of our economic structures, we are often at the mercy of the bottom line at work. Over-paid CEOs and CFOs and their many assistants eat up so, so much […]

Retreats and Therapy: The Power of Silence E. Kubler-Ross once noted that people need to more often revisit silence within themselves and realize all of life’s purposes include learning from our despairing experiences. Suffering may be a hidden source of being blessed with new inner knowledge. Personal suffering if not too, too great may also […]

Risks and Solutions for Compassion Fatigue Perhaps nothing more than compassion fatigue causes more helpers to prematurely exit their fields. First responders are generally seen as the most at risk for compassion fatigue (and possibly PTSD), followed by emergency room medical staff. A third group, medical and clinical staff working with high risk terminally-prone patients is […]

Use of Breathing Techniques – Do a Polyvagal Test First Polyvagal Test The polyvagal theory (S.Porges) and polyvagal functions are complex, highly important, evolutional processes with powerful influences on human survival, overall physical health, and emotion regulation. The tenth cranial nerve (from scull base to anus) functions in various ways, the most important of which […]

The Tao of Nature I have two interesting stories about nesting robins. These stories tell of the bonds of birds and their young, and how intelligent these birds can be. The first story happened to me abut 15 years ago. The second story happened today, July 27, 2017. Story 1 I was working in […]

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. […]

Looking at Early Judeo-Chrsitian Meditation Practice An early description of enlightened liberation in Buddhist meditation practice reads like this: Birth is destroyed, the spiritual life has been lived, what had to be done has been done. There is no more coming back to any state of being. Ignorance was banished and true knowledge arose, darkness […]

Vipassana for Depression, Anxiety, Trauma, and Addictions The integration of Vipassana meditation with various forms of therapy has for many years been a standard of treatment worldwide and in Vermont, especially when impulse control and emotion regulations issues are included. Buddhist Psychology offers clear explanations why this intervention may be helpful for so many suffering […]

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. […]

Many Benefits of Mindfulness and Vipassana Meditation The Dalai Lama (Gyatso, Tenzin), the world leader of Tibetan Buddhism, and Paul Ekman, the world famous Psychologist of human emotions, have teamed up to discuss how to use mindful emotional awareness skills to become more emotionally balanced and compassionate. These two highly skilled practitioners have listed 21 […]