MIND TRAINING Archives - Mindful Happiness

May 5, 2017 By Admin

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 in Buddhist Psychology and traditional practice. Through sense-door experiences, the mind evaluates personal experience in the body as pleasant, neutral, or unpleasant; virtually all human experiences fit into these categories. When we evaluate personal experiences as unpleasant, we tend to act more impulsively to escape from the painful feeling tone or to quickly improve it. We tell ourselves stories about “how bad it is” as we immediately work to reduce the psychic suffering. This is where so many common human problems are born; this is where we may begin habitual behaviors around eating, consuming, angering, isolating, acting out, acting in, using mind-altering substances, and greediness, etc. There are ways to reduce this kind of mindbody stuckness and misery.

With strong application of mindfulness, we can train ourselves to simply label the experience as a short-term pain or suffering. We can practice radical acceptance and wait it out without emotional and behavioral impulsive actions. Simply practice labeling negative feeling tones with words like “temporary unpleasantness.” External and internal stimuli can be calmed by labeling without storylines and escapist behaviors. You do need to conserve a bit of tolerance for the unpleasantness; as you cope better and wait out the feeling tones, you will become more skilled in coping with them. From maintaining a quality of relaxed awareness – even in the chaos of chaos – simply ask: “What is this feeling?” What is this that I am feeling? Without strong conscious evaluation, just note it as a temporary experience of living. Pain and suffering cannot beat out the reality of impermanence. Stop your storyline; stop going into the past and future; stop judging as good or bad. Simply BE fully with your feeling tone, pause, and know it will pass without you having to avoid or self-medicare it. As Rolo May and B. F. Skinner have suggested – we increase personal freedom with the skill of pausing between stimulus and reaction. Become more liberated by practicing your PAUSE, then label in a neutral manner – just wait it out. No need to avoid or to self-medicate the unpleasant feeling. This is our best HOPE to master choiceless awareness, especially when it leads to unpleasant feeling tones. Simply pause and label: “I am feeling unpleasantness in my body.” This too will pass. Try NOT to be more specific, since doing so may lead to stories and avoidance behaviors (negative reinforcement). Negative reinforcement by way of quick relief from suffering WILL cause unhealthy habits to form. The more you avoid or self-medicate painful feelings, the stronger the habit will become. This is a path to powerlessness NOT liberation. Just pause and label “I am feeling unpleasantness.” WAIT! Get stronger is your tolerance. Become a more satisfied and happier person. Just keep labeling without actions.

If you become overwhelmed with your unpleasant feeling tone, you may also want to practice loving kindness meditation as part of your training. In this case you might say the following: “May I pause. May I be free from suffering. May I be well. May I become stronger. May I liberate my mind from fear and reaction. May I be happy.” Good luck on your personal path toward liberation.

For more information refer to King, R. (March 17, 2017). Notes on – Ungripping Heart and Mind – Intimacy with Impulses. Retrieved from tricycle@tricycle.org on March 27, 2017.

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!

April 11, 2014 By Admin

Basic Practice for Pacifying Your Mind

-Steps to Mind Training

Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

To pacify your mind you need to train your mind. Mind training leads to liberation from brain-mind-heart-body automatic processes and reactions. A well-trained mind allows you to utilize executive functions (attention and concentration) to alter auto-reactions of the brain, body and heart. A trained mind liberates you from unhelpful thoughts, emotions and behaviors via reduced attachment, craving and clinging. A trained mind liberates you! Often this liberation appears as both the dearth of cognition and the expansion of experiential awareness.

As you practice mind training, you may notice improved attention and concentration skills. These important skills allow you to have improved personal control over cognition, affect, behavior as well as sensory processing (visual, auditory, kinesthetic, olfactory and gustatory) in the present moment. Prolonged mind training enables you to better deal with such CABS-VAKGO experiences in your past and in your future. So often humans are stuck in the pain or longing from the past as well as fear/anxiety about the future. A very basic way to begin mind training is to practice breath meditation (or meditation on a selected object of mind). Let’s begin with a basic breath meditation – meditating on your breath.

Basic Steps

1) Sit in a dignified meditation posture, loosen your jaw and relax other body muscles, and begin to breathe gently in slower, calmer, deeper fashion. Do not force your breath; simply allow your intention to focus on a relaxed breath to guide you. It is rare that this form of breathing causes anxiety. However, if it does for you, you may need to find another breathing practice to do. Or you may breathe in a way that does not cause anxiety for you.

2) On each exhalation count one via your private speech. Hold your inner speech all the way to the end of the exhalation. This will reduce the possibility of other thoughts distracting you from attending to your breath. Count all the way to ten exhalations, then begin at one again. If you lose count, simply begin at one again. If you find yourself counting beyond ten, simply begin at one again. If you have difficulty doing this, you can visually imagine the number you are saying. Tracking the breath is a very common way to begin basic mind training in meditation.

3) Pay close attention to the nature of your mind. You may notice that you experience “monkey mind,” in which your thoughts just keep on coming into awareness – thus blocking you from improved attention and concentration. You may wish to practice simply observing your thoughts and letting them go. Each time bring your attention back to your breath and your counting. Be very gentle with yourself; this is not so easy to do. Use your mind-intention to remain focused on your exhalations and counting.

4) Each time you become aware of your brain’s autopilot taking over your mind, simply bring attention back to the breath and counting. Be gentle! Simply note and let go of your thoughts and allow your MIND to focus attention on your breath and counting. Becoming aware that you DO have some control over what you think may be an important discovery for some.

5) Continue this basic practice for as long as you can, but do not do it beyond your kind heartedness. If continuing this practice makes you upset or aggressive with yourself, stop and begin again at another time. Remain interested, self-compassionate and kind in this process.

6) You may note some small gratification that you were able to use your mind to counteract auto processes of the brain, heart and body. Try not to become attached to your success. Just practice more.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, Ph.D., LADC

Author of Mindful Happiness

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