MEDITATIONS Archives - Mindful Happiness

May 5, 2019 By Admin

Introducing Your Clients to Brief Meditations

Psychotherapists often ask about ways to introduce mindfulness and meditation to clients. There are other posts on this Blog that offer basic introductory information on both content and process. Here I will simply introduce you to four brief, basic meditations for clients suffering from anxiety and/or depression, along with pervasive cognitive “stuckness” on unhelpful thoughts and related emotions. Once our clients – and ourselves for that matter – get stuck on unhelpful cognitions and emotions from the past, we need to move to the present moment and be there in calmness and safety. Of course other interventions are required when psychosis, intoxication, or extreme emotional dysregulation occur; meditation is not the recommended response in these conditions. One of the best ways to introduce your clients to meditation is to simply allow a gentle focus on the breath, just as it is. Relaxation-focused manipulation of the deep breath, especially for client with untreated trauma and polyvagal complications, may lead to the opposite effect – stimulating anxiety. Once your client can focus gently on her/his breath and benefit from brief exposures, he/she may be ready for brief meditations.

Below I have noted four scripts for you to use or modify as needed. Follow the rule-of-third by introducing the meditation cognitively (explain it); then with your client’s due process permission, do the brief meditation (in the body); and, after five or less minutes stop and process the meditation cognitively (talk about it). Always allow your client to stop the meditations at any time if they desire to do so. Comfort and safety are key values of psychotherapy process and relationship. If you or your client have doubts about comfortably completing the meditations, your client may prefer to be phased into them. Do this minute-by-minute by breaking down the five minutes into shorter time periods. Complete one or two minutes (half the scripts) rather than the full five minutes. Since mindfulness and meditation have been proven in thousands of studies to be helpful in anxiety, depression, chronic pain, and emotion regulation (trauma and addictions), the more comfortable your client feels, the more likely he/she will continue practicing. It is sometimes helpful to remind your client that if/when distraction occurs, that is the time to simply bring attention back to the task at hand. Return attention again.

Five-Minute Meditation for Opening Up the Flow of Energy – Sit, relax, and breathe calmly with your eyes open. If you are comfortable with your eyes closed, that is fine. If you like your eyes open, you may want to glance gently downward toward the floor about three feet in front of you. Do your best to hold your head in a relaxed and level position. Now loosen your jaw and notice. Practice releasing any tension that you may be carrying in your throat. Let it go very gently, and open up your throat. Now bring attention to the area of your heart center, and imagine a warm, glowing, gentle inner light there. Notice the feeling. Allow it to nurture you. To end simply be with your natural breath; after a few breaths, allow it to bring you to full attention. This meditation is over.
Five-Minute Meditation on Not Judging – Sit, relax, and breath naturally with your eyes opened or closed. Be as quiet inside as you can, and practice non-judging. Simply notice what comes into awareness for you, but without judging or evaluating it. Simply allow yourself to be with it. If your eyes are open, please close them if comfortable. Notice what comes into awareness BUT without judging or evaluating. If your eyes are closed, please open them; simply note what comes into your awareness BUT without judging or evaluating it. Be as quiet inside as possible – enjoy the silence if it is there. Count five breaths and end this meditation.
Five-Minute Meditation on Letting Go of Your Thoughts – Sit, relax, breathe calmly or naturally, and allow your eyes to remain opened or closed. Pay close attention to the thoughts (sometimes voices of others) in your head. If unhelpful thoughts arise, do your best not to react; instead simply notice without responding or reacting. Perhaps your thoughts are about people, places, things, images, body feeling, or personal experiences. As consciousness presents you with each item, one by one, simply notice and LET IT GO. Do your best NOT to get entangled with them; do not engage with your thoughts, or carry on conversations in your mind. Thoughts are just thoughts! As each one come into awareness, just practice non-judging and LET IT GO. Allow each thought to arise and fall – just LET IT GO! Yes, just let it go. Now complete a few in-out breaths, and end the meditation.
Five-Minute Self-Acceptance Meditation – Sit, relax, breath naturally and have your eyes opened or closed (it is up to you). As you sit simply allow thoughts, images, feelings to arise and fall; just notice them without engagement – LET EACH ONE GO. Be the “watcher.” Try not to get hooked by them. Now repeat this statement to yourself: “May I accept and love myself just as I am, with imperfections.” You may note this statement in your mind and be more specific be replacing “imperfections” with another word. Repeat this statement several times without distractions. Now rub your hands together until you feel heat. When your hands feel hot, gently place them on your face – covering your eyelids, cheeks, etc. Just sit there in your warmth and notice. Be the warmth. Feel free to rub your hands again and repeat the process. Count to five and end this meditation.

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!

September 3, 2015 By Admin

Gurdjieff’s The Fourth Way Meditations

Gurdjieff’s The Fourth Way Meditations:

A way of Being and Knowing

Although Gurdjieff developed a whole way of being and knowing, including attentional practices, dance/body movements, group processes, and meditations here I will focus only on some of the suggested meditations. In particular, I include the meditations noted by his primary student (J. DeSalzmann, 2011). In fact, I found her writings more clear regarding processes than Gurdjieff’s writings. In some ways these meditations resemble both mindfulness and concentration meditations from the East, on which Gurdjieff did some of his own study. These meditation practices imply that consciousness of self is pure consciousness, and that ultimate truth cannot be attained via thoughts or perceptions. It is all about deep and personal private experience. I have made some modifications of the original writings.

1) Meditation – Discarding Your Conditioned Learning

Begin with being comfortable. Now take a few slow, deep, smooth breaths and relax your body. Recognizing and discarding of our conditioned, learned self-perceptions may be the first steps in knowing The Fourth Way. At the same time, just be, without trying to seek anything special or personal answers to life’s questions. This process is one of the highest forms of thought. Just be fully open to being with what is now – seeing and hear hearing (inside and outside) without any form of judgment or evaluation. This is difficult to do. This practice requires strong attention and concentration so as not to be distracted while in the process of meditation without an object. Remain open to what arises from within you – deep down inside you. While in this meditation on nothing (objectless attention – a form of pure awareness), begin to become freed from past learning and conditioned existence. Perhaps, there is one thing you wish to free yourself from at this time. Do you best to LET GO of the “I” and the “Me” and the “Mine” as well – all the parts of you that have been conditioned by others and society. The “I” and “Me” and “Mine” all trap us into continued existence in a conditioned self. These are the greatest obstacles to consciousness of the most true self. Where are you now? Are you experiencing anything worthwhile?

2) Meditation – Finding the Deep Silence Within Me

Being in silence is one of the best ways to connect with inner energies. Work on letting go of Ego, your “I” “Me” meanings, sensory introjections, and personal views of your functioning. These are difficult practices – do your best to approximate them. Feel the tranquility of your true self in the feelings of your resting body. See if you can experience both inner and outer space. Note that ongoing thinking about these experiential processes is NOT silence or tranquility. This experiential intelligence is very sacred, and cannot be accessed by your ego-dominated self. Be in complete submission to your inner silence, or as close to it as you can get. As you begin to experience the quietude of self, allow joy to present itself. Feel it now! Work very hard to drop all projections, and see if you can reach the feelings of the deep void of being. Where are you now? Are you experiencing anything worthwhile?

3) Meditation – Contemplation without Perception or Being in Pure Presence

Allow yourself to open up yourself without fear. We are the outcomes of many, many years of body-mind conditioning. As the Tao has no form, neither does your true self experience within in equanimity. Liberation may come to you by prolonged experiences of profound inner peace. Feel the falling away of past unhelpful experiences and the arising of quiet awareness. Dissolution of the conditioned, learned self concepts brings deep inner intelligence and tranquility. Perhaps the most important form of intelligence is deep meditation on tranquility itself, which then may open up liberation from your conditioned reactions in life. Work on becoming aware of your presence – ONLY your presence. Again, this is a difficult practice. However, if you obtain even an experiential glimpse of the purity of presence you will find inner peace and happiness. Can you feel it now?

After practicing the three selected and modified meditations, see if you have a feeling for the inner sensations of making spiritual contact with yourself and the Beyond.

For more information refer to DeSalzmann, J. (2011). The Reality of Being: The Fourth Way of Gurdjieff. Boston: Shambhala, pp. 57-58, 165-169, 278-279, etc.

By Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC

From the Eleanor R. Liebman Center for Secular Meditation in Monkton, Vermont

Author of Mindful Happiness

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