EXERCISE Archives - Mindful Happiness

April 23, 2016 By Admin

Improving Self-Esteem – An Action Contemplation

Improving Your Self-Esteem – An Action Contemplation

The UCLA Higher Education Research Institute’s surveys and V. Mamgain’s ideas about neoclassical economics of happiness help provide a means to deconstruct improved learning in higher education and also personal happiness in the process. According to the UCLA research surveys, higher education students want more spirituality and personal meaning from their educational experiences. They also desire employment after their education. Combining these experiential and concrete goals is no simple matter. Here I will focus on one major roadblock for many students: their dearth of positive self-esteem in learning and life.

Simply contemplate then answer the questions noted below. You may wish to use the ancient method of sequential, separate episodes of deep contemplation on each question before answering it.

Read the question then contemplate on it. Then contemplate on it again, and again, and again for a deeper understanding of meaning and a more useful answer.

After successive contemplations, answer each question.

What are the causes and conditions that lead to you feeling happier?
- List three

Take a deeper look at your happy experiences. What is your “felt” personal experience of being happy?
- List three.

Is your personal happiness simply pleasure, or is it more than pleasure?
- If it is more than pleasure, what is it.
  - List three insights about your happiness.

Some researchers believe that your perception and interception of personal happiness are simply explained as sensory-perceptual functions of your brain and mind.

If you think it is more, what is it?
- List three

Often humans require more mindful contemplation and insightful action to enjoy their lives. Since happiness that is a natural state is not dangerous, the brain’s self-protective areas (limbic system) tend to ignore it. So to become a happier person you do need to be more mindful and serious about practicing happiness.

So, what are the deeper and personal meanings that happiness satisfies in you as a person?
- List three

What are the personal and deeper values that happiness satisfies in you?
- List three

What are your emotional purposes in experiencing happiness?
- List three

Now that you probably have a better understanding of your personal happiness, what experiments and/or experiences will you engage in to expand your happiness in life?
- List three

When will you begin?

To help ensure that you practice mindful ways to become happier, write a brief summary of the main changes you intend to make in the near future.

For more information refer to Palmer, P. J. and Zajonc, A. (2010). The Heart of Higher Education: A Call to Action. San Francisco, CA: Jossey Bass, pp. 79-193.

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

November 15, 2015 By Admin

Yogi Deep Meditation on Inner Listening

Practice: Yogi Deep Meditation on Inner Listening

Carl Jung noted: Who looks outside dreams; who looks inside, awakens.

The Katha Upanishads (800-400 BCE) noted: One path leads outward and the other inward. [The] way inward leads to grace.

The Mind Cave Focus instructs us to close our eyes and expand your third-eye space to the back of the skull, then with your eyes still closed focus on the space in front of you. Then go inside!

Patanjali’s Yoga Sutras (300-200 BCE India) tells us to transform the present moment with your breath (long and even). Being in this condition may bring you a better future.

Buddha noted – To find silence look within. Jesus noted – The kingdom of heaven is within you.

These preliminaries prepare us to do inner deep listening using our tongue. Mindful yogi ancients believed that the tongue was part of the emotional brain. We will use that principle here. Take a few relaxing breaths; close your eyes; relax your jaw; and, rest your tongue softly on the lower base of the mouth. If you become bothered by inner/outer noise or sensations, you may wish to say SOM (bija mantra – sohm) to yourself.
Now bring your gentle attention to your heart area. See if you can notice subtle vibrations there.
Use inner vision to experience who sees the self become the self. Who Am I?
Using the power of prana, breathe slowly, deeply, calmly. Notice the subtle feeling of unblocking your inner energy as you become your higher self.
Patanjali notes that you may wish to use a stone or bead in your hand to anchor you to the earth.
In Pratyahara lead your consciousness inward, and concentrate fully on inner experience. Let go!
Concentrate even more in your inner listening meditation. Experience oceanic awareness (samadhi).
Using Kumbhala yoga, breathe in deeply to the count of five. Hold for the count of five, and exhale to the count of six. Notice the subtle change into relaxation of mind, body and spirit. Experience the energy of your mind at peace. Experience the energy of your body at peace. Experience the energy of your spirit at peace. Find that space between the breaths where you know you are at total inner peace.
Look into your heart chakra, and if you know the symbol for the anahata chakra see it and say YAM to yourself. Be at perfect peace.
Follow Swami Sa’ Premananda notation: Practice love until you remember that you are love.
Now just rest in yourself, with yourself, in complete peace and safety.

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

Drink a Cup of Tea with Thich Nhat Hanh According to the article “A Perfect Cup of Tea” by Noa Jones, The Great Meditation Master offers this sage advice about the best way to enjoy a great cup of tea. I suppose if you would rather drink coffee, the same suggestions may apply. Recognize that […]

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Three Meditation Practices to Further Your Expansion Based on the ongoing “bad news” about various domestic and world events, and the knowledge that people DO NEED more compassion and self-compassion in their hectic and challenging lives, I am writing three brief meditation practices on different aspects on compassion-wisdom as noted on my site. Hopefully, these […]

Today’s Troubled World Needs More Self Compassion and Compassion This is an interactive activity on contemplation between your executive brain, your conscious mind, and your emotional brain areas. Looking at the world today any aware person must admit the human race is in serious trouble. This reality impacts the developing, industrial, and post-industrial cultures of […]

How We Make Habits – An Understanding Twenty-five hundred years ago the Buddha reportedly taught how humans make habits. The insights of this earliest Buddhist Psychology sheds shame on the West, with its almost-the-same version of this view in the 20th century. One must wonder if B. F. Skinner or N. Chomsky knew about Buddhist […]

Showing Deep Love & Respect Loved Ones Lost This is a very brief post about love and respect for “lost loved ones” – those special people who have left their human body and mind behind. Two Rituals 1) Loving Kindness Meditation for Lost Loved Ones After breathing slowly and deeply for a few minutes in silence, […]

Enhancing Hope in Psychotherapy The enhancement of personal hope is a key part of successful psychotherapy practice. Some view this requirement as a foundational aspect of the therapeutic alliance; others do not hold the same view. In the case of serious co-occurring disorders, especially trauma and substance misuse, initiating, developing, and sustaining a hopeful future-view […]

Counseling/Psychotherapy with Self-Compassion Please begin by ending all conversations, and PLEASE shut-off your phones and/or laptops. Simply be for a moment in the quietude of your inner self. Please close your eyes if you wish to do so. Contemplate the sacred nature of your profession – saving lives, reducing suffering, being a constant object, practicing […]

Tips for Improving Your Mindfulness Practices The following practices may improve your mindfulness skills. It all depends – it all depends on whether or not you will do regular, daily practices. If you desire to improve your mindfulness skills, consider following the tips noted below. Most of the practices below involve sitting meditation. Likewise, regular […]

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 […]

Cognitive Defusion in Mindfulness Psychotherapy A well-meaning therapist might ask: What is cognitive defusion. Well this practice, as used in Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, is beyond cognitive restructuring of cognitive distortions and automatic negative thoughts ( I call “Red Ants”). The practice concretely de-literalizes the personal truth and meaning of unhelpful, repetitive thoughts and words. […]

-The Word, Sound, Meditation, and Music are all Timeless A Tribute to Elvis Presley and his Music The word has been associated with human consciousness. The word requires the energy of sound to hear it. Meditation places us in a most receptive state of mind and body; it allows us to be open to our […]

Setting Emotional Boundaries from Work to Life Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC Sometimes setting emotional boundaries from the psychotherapy room to your life outside of work can be a difficult thing to do. Shifting from “experience near empathy” (Kohut), “unconditional positive regard” (Rogers), “hovering attention” (Freud), “the holding environment” in “intersubjective space” (Winnicott), and compassionate […]

Help For Therapists: Working with Diversity Clinical interventions, especially strongly evidence-based interventions, impact clients via new skills and practices in mind-body clinical realities. No matter how good (or “good enough” ) a clinical intervention is it requires a highly positive, active therapeutic relationship. As ample research suggests, a strong and positive therapeutic relationship in therapy […]

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 […]