INNER PEACE Archives - Mindful Happiness

October 18, 2019 By Admin

Spirit Wars and “Spiritual Warfare”

This post will discuss the topic and personal strategies. Most content will relate to both physical realities and metaphorical meanings and categories. Since a person viewing their self as fighting a spiritual war most likely holds onto certain parts of self in this endeavor, it is highly unlikely that the actual adversaries are authentic entities outside/inside the self. It is more likely that personal experience has conditioned the person to understand these variable processes as quite serious and sometimes dangerous. To maintain a clear boundary, this post is not presenting a way to treat people suffering from any form of identity disorder; rather, this post offer some ideas about how one might go about becoming healthier via less targeted clinical interventions. The remaining part of the post will offer comments and suggestions for personal consideration of the reader. Most content deals with realistic natural phenomena in life. I hope I am making myself clear here. I hope you find the content helpful.

Since pure white/golden healing light has been noted in almost all major spiritual traditions, you might wish to experiment with the experiences noted below. Do your best to see the light as a potential healing ally. Allow yourself to feel the light. Do not block!
Experiment with observing the rising and setting sun. Allow the light to penetrate you; use kinesthetic awareness to do so. Do your best to feel the light and experience its healing power. Enjoy this! Do not look directly into the intense light energy of the sun.
Study basic astrophysics to learn how gravity (one of the main constants in the universe) has direct effects on dark/black energies.
On a clear night, look deeply into the starlit sky and allow the star energies to enter you. Feel it; use it. Enjoy this!
On a clear day, look into the blue sky with moving clouds. Allow the light to penetrate you and feel its power. Enjoy this!
Go for a silent walk in nature. Notice! Use all your senses to encounter all that is there. Gently gaze at a mountain, pond, lake, or stream. Notice the transparency off the clear water as it moves downstream. Send your troubles (like a leaf) downstream with the current. Make the best of your attention and intention here. Notice! Relax! Enjoy this!
You may wish to try the Ten Directions experiment. Discern carefully what directions are helpful. What directions bring you into your deep inner self ally? Stand silently and notice the healing air/wind coming from the North, South, East, and West. Notice the effects! Now stand there and bring your attention to everything inside of you. And next – to everything outside of you. Look up and look down; notice. Now use your natural ability to project and send your troubles far, far, far away. Notice! Now move your body slowly and notice; now move your body with more vigorous energy, and notice. You have completed your Ten Directions experiment. Hope it was helpful. Thank our indigenous First Nation Peoples and Buddhist concepts for this process.
Relax and begin to breathe deeply, slowly. Notice the ease and the difficulty. Continue to breathe. Allow the deeper, slower breath to calm you. Notice how the freshness of the committed breath restores your airflow in your throat, heart, soul, etc. Allow the clean flow of healing breath to cleanse you- in your throat, heart, soul.
Now do your best to engage your helpful beliefs and helpful behaviors to support your internal healing. Engage in activities/behaviors that you find helpful. Do not engage in thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that are unhelpful. Be strong.
Examine your personal space-time continuum, and pay close attention to when your time and space are safe for you. Spend much more time in this aspect of time and space. Do the same for being happier.
Practice paying more attention to the silent, still space between your breaths, between your thoughts, between your heartbeats, and between your periods of suffering. Use the energy of your attention to enhance the space, silence, peace, and tranquility.
Use your personal, natural wisdom to disempower any obstacles that hinder your progress to improved health and happiness.
Use all of the above as metaphors of self-protection against all sources of suffering.
Know that emotional dysregulation, anger, fear all feed your inner dragons. Best to starve them!
Lastly, if you are a religious person, pray more.
If you read spiritual books, you may want to try the Lectio Divina approach. In this Latin Christian Church method one reads a spiritual passage over and over and over again, each time going more deeply into the self and core religious beliefs. This form of meditation tends to enhance the power of the spiritual information being read as well as the power of the belief.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton Sangha

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

May 19, 2018 By Admin

Interoception and Your Inner Self-Helper

Interoception (sometimes called neuroception) is a sensory experience, in which you feel sensations in your body (viscera, heart, throat, etc.) that may be warning signs of limbic surveillance or inner continuity of your inner self-helper – that part of you and your brain that hopes to help you in whatever the situation you are experiencing. Interoceptive awareness is one of the most important mindfulness skills to practice. In the following meditation, we will visit your interoceptive self and augment its power by repeated the practice. In neuroscience a common understanding is that the larger number of neurons activated in more and more brain areas implies the variant of power (potentiation); more neuron firing in more brain areas results in a more significant life experience. This is one reason why PTSD is such a devastating disorder, and why it is NOT easy to treat successfully. Also, let us not forget the ultimate power of LOVE; people gives their lives for it, and people kill others over it. Let’s get into the practice.

Sit in a comfortable meditation posture, and close your eyes if you prefer to. If you like you eyes open, gently fix attention downward toward the floor and hold a gentle gaze.
Now take a few very deep and very slow breaths, in and out. Track the feelings/sensations of the movement of your breath into and out of the body. Focus attention on this for a few more deep, slow breaths.
Now fully engage your imagination and follow the next few steps. Try to think less, and try to just BE more so.
Focus full attention into your heart area and the viscera below it. See if you feel any form of sensations – even the most tiny sense of kinesthetics. Be with that feeling, and try to keep your mind on it without lots of thinking.
Please do your best to accept that this inner feeling (no matter how slight) is the home of your inner self-helper. it is your intuitive area.
Now our work begins: Using your mind’s eyes, is there a color to this feeling? Focus on it.
Does the feeling inside your body have any shape? If so, what shape is it? See it, and feel it.
How large or small is the area you feel it in?
How about texture? Is there a discernable texture to your inner sensations?
Is your feeling more hard or more softer?
Does your inner feeling produce a memory of any sound or sounds?
Now focus your energies on making that inner feeling stronger so it can have power to protect you.
Now focus on making that feeling larger – feel your self-helper power This is your self-protector.
Stay with the experience for a few minutes of silence. See what happens.
Become aware, really aware of this feeling. Befriend it fully!

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont and the Home of The Monkton Sangha

Author of Mindful Happiness

New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

February 23, 2015 By Admin

Mindfulness About Loss, Grief, and Mourning

Mindfulness On Loss, Grief and Mourning

Mindfulness about personal loss, grief, and mourning may encompass many things. Here I will focus on the process and what people can do to better handle their suffering and pain. One way to look at it is through the lens of radical acceptance; another is via the reality of impermanence. Emotion regulation with necessary grieving process (pure suffering) is yet another perspective. We humans tend to be on autopilot a lot. Then we lose someone close to us and the whole world falls apart. What I found to be most helpful to me when my loving wife died was to create and participate in ceremonies, rituals, and a good deal of meditation. For experienced meditators like myself, directly meditating into the pain and suffering helped me the most. I do not recommend this process for inexperienced meditators. Kubla-Ross and others have provided us with a reasonable set of steps to navigate this painful process. Whatever pathway you select, the following information may be helpful to reduce the intensity and duration of your suffering. We do need to allow the process until it works its way out of our life. If you get stuck and cannot find your way out, get good professional help (therapy not just pills).

Of all human emotional experiences, grief and mourning transcend general life processes. Perhaps no other emotional experience except love has such a profound impact on our emotional structure and awareness. Much of the process is about mindful awareness and how we utilize it. A typical reaction is to experience fear, anger, deep sadness, and emotional dysregulation after a significant loss occurs. The more power we use to push the pain away, the more power the pain has to come back at us. Its all about our neurons and how we use them in thoughts and emotions. Sacred recall about the loving experiences you had with this person helps to rekindle emotional connection; however, the same process may intensify the grieving process. Remember that death does end human suffering; when we die and our physical form changes we no longer suffer from thoughts and emotions related to life experiences. That is why many suicides may reflect the desire to escape the pain and suffering at hand. We need to search mindfully for the middle way; we need to find the middle path between denial and despair. We need to welcome our grief as an old friend. In genetic terms it is just that. Our gene history has much experience with loss, grief and mourning. We can radically accept the loss and simply allow the pain and suffering to become part of us. Remember, like life, suffering is also impermanent.

In The Five Ways We Grieve, S. A. Berger offer a creative perspective on the grieving process. Some of us are nomads, just wondering around for years without significant resolution. Others are memorialists, creating (cherishing and preserving) concrete and process-oriented rituals to honor the lost loved one. A third approach is to normalize by investing energy into recreating more normal functioning. One other methods is to be an activist by helping others who suffer in similar ways as your lost love object did. Lastly, some are seekers – moving more deeply into spiritual or religious involvement to find a more emotionally meaningful life. J. E. Welshons and S. A. Berger offer many ideas about how to become mindfully involved in various actions that may reduce the intensity and duration of your suffering. Remember, this information is not presented so you can cut-short your grieving process. That is not a god if. Grief is a natural process. That said, there is no need to suffer unnecessarily from the pain of loss.

Here is part of their list. May you find inner peace.

Cry when you need to.
Participate in sacred ceremonies, rituals and blessing related to your loss.
Return to positive emotional memories and let go of any residual guilt, shame, or fear.
Mindfully pray, contemplate, and meditate on both content and process of your grief.
Be as creative as you can be in pursuing joy and healing.
Do deep, slow, calm breathing often – and on each breath connect with the healing of your loving heart.
Recognize and accept the sacredness of this whole process.
Remember that all of your suffering is dedicated to the merit and value of the person you lost.
Remain focused on being involved in life , more and more over time.

For more information refer to: Berger, S. A. (2009). The Five Ways We Grieve: Finding Your Personal Path to Healing. Boston: Trumpeter. Also see: Welshons, J. E. (2003). Awakening From Grief: Finding the Way Back to Joy. Makawao, HI: Inner Ocean Publishing.

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!