Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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

December 31, 2015 By Admin

Ideas about Attitudes of Gratitude – M. J. Ryan

Attitudes of Gratitude Thoughts and Applications

M. J. Ryan presents some interesting practices in the book, Attitudes of Gratitude (1999).  Here are some ideas. Hope you will practice some of them soon. As The 14th Dalai Lama and Thich Nhat Hanh suggest, MindfulHappiness-Gratitudewe should always appreciate the preciousness and miracle of human life – our own life no matter what the challenges are.

  1. Understand that your emotional mood and the quality of your thoughts depend on where you place your attention and reflection.  Do your best to pay more attention to the softness and warmth of your human heart and soul. Pay more attention to positive experiences and less attention to negative experiences.
  2. When you are plagued with GIANT problems or BIG emotional reactions to not-so-giant problems, look into the nature of the problem itself to see if any solutions arise.  Life is all about arising and falling experiences – both good and bad. Causes and conditions present and lead to pleasure, pain/suffering, or neutrality.
  3. Pay much more attention to the little joys (“wonderment”) you may be missing by being on autopilot and rushing around trying to be happier trough material gain. Wealth and fame are nice, but they DO NOT bring lasting, inner happiness. Your happiness is an INSIDE JOB!
  4. Do your best to be in the present moment of experiences.  The past is gone; you cannot change it.  The future is not here yet; you cannot control it.  Your real power comes from responding to whatever is now in your present moment experience.
  5. Pay much more attention to what is working for you now rather than what you desire and crave from the past or the future. If you are not present-minded, you cannot appreciate and have gratitude for what exists now.
  6. Reflect upon and honor your close friends, your family, and your ancestors.  Use any of their spiritual supports to do well in adversity and to do great in happy experiences.
  7. Practice meditations on appreciation, gratitude, and loving kindness.  These practices build your capacity to be happy.  These practices also improve compassionate actions and self-compassion. Do you have self-compassion?
  8. Periodically, live a whole day as if it were your last day living on earth. Notice! See what you decide to do.
  9. In the final analysis, Buddhism informs us that life on earth will contain suffering, joy, and neutrality.  All three conditions will occur in your experiences.  You cannot escape suffering! How you respond will determine your level of satisfaction or your quality of life in the long run.  Be happy! Be at peace! Be in the present moment!

For more information refer to Ryan, M. J. (1999). Attitudes of Gratitude: How to Give and Receive Joy Every Day of Your life. New York: MJF Books.

mindfulhappiness

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  or any image below to Order 

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

MindfulHappiness_Amazon           mindful-happiness_barnes_and_noble

Filed Under: Compassion, Dalai Lama, Featured, Gratitude Meditation, Happiness, Human Needs, Inner Peace, Joy and Suffering, Meditation, Meditation Activities, Mindful Awareness, MIndfulness, Nhat Hanh Thich, Practices, Training Tagged With: ATTITUDES OF GRATITUDE, DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, M.J.RYAN, MEDITATION, MINDFULNESS, TRAINING

Twitter

Mindful Happiness -Currently in Production

Mindful Happiness Posts

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 […]

More RESPECT Needed for People Being Served Recently, I read a post by William White, the well-known Recovery advocate.  The post dealt with the troublesome area of language used to describe, refer to people suffering from various conditions – addictions being only one.  While some may respond to his post by thinking it is simply […]

Vipassana Meditation:  Impermanence Although standard vipassana meditation practice leading to insight about the true nature of reality does not recommend what I am about to do, I plan to do it anyway. This meditation center is all about innovation in practice and generalization regarding the benefits of meditation for both regular meditators and novices.  Below […]

A major part of suffering comes with the inability to shift unhelpful, negative focus on troubling thoughts and feelings.   This cognitive reality is common in all the major mental health problems people suffer from: anxiety, depression, trauma, substance abuse, and eating disorders. Due to the lack of “wise-mind” skills most people suffering from these […]

A Tribute to Ram Dass (Richard Alpert) Recently Ram Dass died at his home in Maui. He was 88 years old.  He was born into a well-off Boston family, and enjoyed materialism in his early professional years.  When completing a Ph.D. in Psychology at Stanford University he was still into material things. His spiritual awakening […]

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 […]

The Reality of Experience What is deep mindfulness?  Deep mindfulness is the concentrated awareness of all experiences, preferably without evaluating as pleasant or unpleasant. Deep mindfulness is pure awareness as it becomes part of personal consciousness. We humans, however, are always evaluating our experiences and phenomena as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant – often getting hooked […]

Buddhist Thought on Joy and Suffering 1) You actually DO have some control over your emotional destiny. 2) The core “conceptual” view of reality is that your inner emotional experience – especially negative afflictive emotional states related to people, places and things you REACT to – are perceived as totally true. 3) In a non-conceptual […]

Mindfulness in the NFL Yes, mindfulness as part of sports psychology programming is being used in the NFL.  Yes, big and physically tough football players are being helped via a mindfulness component of sports psychology. There are some important roots here. Dogen, the famous ancient Japanese Buddhist meditation master, brought Chan Buddhism from China to […]

Happiness Characteristics – Post #2 Below I will note a few key characteristics of experiences and attitudes associated with happiness. Do your best to experience some of these each day – as much as is possible. Here is the first list. Being Fully Alive to Experiences – Do your best to be fully involved in […]

Common Barriers to Meditation Practice Dan Harris, an ABC news anchor, has just published a book on Meditation for Fidgety Skeptics. In his book Harris notes several common barriers to regular meditation practice, and what to do about them.  Since I have been meditating since the early 1980’s I have added additional suggestions. Here are the barriers […]

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 […]

Personal Experiences When in Longer-Term Silence The luxury (or horror depending on your perspective and psychological structure) of being in long-term silence is a rare thing in today’s noisy, super-active and reactive world. The experience is difficult to describe verbally. The best we can do is count on our own experiences and the writings of […]

More Psychoanalytic Gems – In an earlier post, I noted a list of Psychoanalytic Psychotherapy Gems, including a later post on D.W. Winnicott’s approaches to building a therapeutic alliance.  My general aversion to this form of therapy has more to do with its slowness and high costs than to its effectiveness. It is effective!  However, […]

Using Mindful Movement as a Form of Meditation Practice with the Body In Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction practices Hatha Yoga has been used as part of the recovery process from both psychological and physical suffering. In my own clinical use of mindful movement with children, youth and adults, I found that basic Qi Gong/Che Kung, Walking […]

America’s Opioid Problem-2020; A Brief Update Unfortunately, Opioid Use Disorder (OUD) is alive and well in 2020. Today approximately 150 People are dying each day due to opioid overdose. The CDC noted that from 1999 to 2017 approximately 399,000 people died in the United States from Opioid overdose. Related to chronic pain, this is one […]

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 […]

Zen Buddhist Practices – Egolessness In our practice we often inquire, and sometimes experience, the no-self and/or egolessness. What is egolessness? Who and what do we think we are? Some say that when we die the essence but not the ego lives on into new experiences. Karma and re-birth are givens in this spiritual view. […]

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 […]

Happiness #5 – Last Post on Characteristics This will be my last post for a while on the important topic of happiness.  Here I will hit a few highlights about simple joy and lasting inner experiences of true happiness. Simple Joy – We experience simple joy in simple experiences, small sometimes subtle events in our […]

Mindful Happiness Tags

ACTIVITIES SELF MEDICATION DR ANTHONY QUINTILIANI SELF CARE MBSR COMPASSION VERMONT JOURNALING MEDITATION SELF ESTEEM CLINICAL SUPERVISION SUFFERING THICH NHAT HANH WALKING MEDITATION SELF COMPASSION EMPTINESS CONSCIOUSNESS PSYCHOTHERAPY MEDITATION PRACTICE WISE MIND BRAIN ACTIVITY ADDICTION HAPPINESS COVID-19 ELEANOR R LIEBMAN CENTER BUDDHISM TRAINING ANTHONY QUINTILIANI SELF THERAPY. PRACTICES VIPASSANA MEDITATION MINDFUL HAPPINESS MINDFUL TRAINING MINDFUL BREATHING PRACTICE MINDFUL MEDITATION TRAUMA MINDFULNESS ENLIGHTENMENT MINDFULNESS TRAINING EXERCISES VIPASSANA

Mindful Categories

Mindful Happiness Pages

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

Copyright © 2022 · Mindful Happiness