Mindful Happiness

Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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Stress in America – 2019

Stress in America – 2019

Every year the American Psychological Association ( November, 2019) conducts an extensive survey to determine the levels of stress in America. The data below does NOT include children; therefore, the already high numbers would be much higher. Here are some highlights. Stress levels are quite high but stable. Increased concerns about the health status of Millennials and GenZ are noted.

71% of Americans are stressed about mass shooting in this country. This number is up from 62% in 2018. 75% of GenZ are stressed about this, while 62% of adults are.

74% of GenZ are stressed about work issues and 82% about money problems, while 64% of adults are.

69% are stressed about health care issues (insurance coverage, costs, etc.). 38% are stressed about the costs of health care. 75% of GenZ are stressed about health care issue.

62% of Americans are stressed about the last Presidential election and politics in general. This number was 53% in 2018.

62% of GenZ are stressed about suicides, while 44% of adults are.

64% of Americans are stressed about discrimination (especially LGBT issues).

60% of Americans are stressed about terrorism. The number is 2018 was 55%.

56% of Americans are stressed about climate change and global warming. In 2018 the number was 51%.

54% of Americans are stressed about news coverage and social media.

45% of Americans are stressed about sexual harassment. This number was 39% in 2018. For GenZ it is 53%.

Feeling that their personal mental health is good: 74% older Americans, 79% of Boomers, 56% of Millennials, 51% of GenX, and 45% of GenZ.

62% of Republicans feel America is on the right track. Only 25% of Democrats feel this way.

WebMD data (September, 2019) adds to this disturbing picture of stress in America.

68% of Americans feel burned out and fatigued.

48% feel burned out and depressed.

65% have job-related anxiety, while 53% have job-related anger.

55% of Americans feel stressed as a norm. This number is the highest in the entire world.

33% of children suffer from anxiety disorders.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon

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The Lotus Sutra and Meditation Practice

The Lotus Sutra and Meditatin Practice

The Lotus Sutra is one of the most important and sacred of Buddhist sutras. It is often considered a summary of The Buddha’s teaching, presented many years after he began to teach and share his experiences. The version considered here is the Kumarajiva translation,  as translated by B. Watson; it may also be known as The Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Law. I will not present the many core teaching noted in this sutra; instead I will focus on the end, about How to Practice Meditation. Since this is such an important sutra, you are strongly encouraged to look into the vast content in it on your own. One important thing I will note is that in this sutra The Buddha notes a unified, single path to enlightenment.  In the past he noted that monastic practices, forest practices, and bodhisattva practices all held potential for all people to achieve enlightenment or awakening. Experts suspect that The Buddha taught this sutra in the 6th to 5th century BCE. Here, however, he emphasizes the bodhisattva path as the most important single path. Let us move now into the meditation instructions.

  1. Stand in prayer pose and circle the teacher three times. Another option would be to circle each person in your group; this fits well within the Buddha’s view that we all are buddhas.
  2. Bow, and kneel on one knee to signify readiness to pursue instructions on meditation practice.
  3. Close your eyes and sit (cross-legged) quietly.
  4. Remain in a dignified posture.
  5. Re-commit to your vow to reduce the suffering of others.
  6. Practice this meditation deeply. “Practice with…[your] entire mind…”(p. 370).
  7. As you sit contemplate how meditation is helpful in reducing earthly desires, especially six-senses contact conditioning.
  8. Imagine that your body holds 50 shades of white light.
  9. Make a profound assumption that this white light has healing properties.
  10. Now notice that the white healing light has taken on a golden-white shade.
  11. Feel this healing light in your body and on your skin. Notice how it sparkles.
  12. Imagine the golden white healing light coming to you from The Ten Directions (N, S, E, W, NE, SE, NW, SW, and UP and DOWN).
  13. Allow! Allow! Allow! Stay out of simple thinking. Just be!
  14. Feel inner joy, compassion for others/yourself, and tranquility.
  15. Simply allow yourself to be bathed in the healing golden white light.
  16. Now a big step: practice emitting the healing golden light from your inner body and into the room. This itself is a bodhisattva act.
  17. Add your own loving kindness.
  18. Do your best to detach from attachment, even attachment to this wonderful experience.
  19. Give repentance for any wrongs you are connecting with at this time.
  20. Improve your Karma by doing this as strongly as you can.
  21. Take refuge in The Buddha, in The Dharma, and In The Sangha.
  22. Now sit in utter silence for a longer period of time – just notice without any evaluation. Just be!
  23. When you hear the sound of the singing bowl, gently and slowly open your eyes, orient yourself, and prepare to enter a full conscious state
  24. The Buddha. (B. Watson, Trans.). (1993/1994). The Lotus Sutra of the Wonderful Law. New York: Columbia University Press,  pp. 369-396. Nichiren Buddhist Library.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

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Amitabha Buddha – Pure Land Meditation

Amitabha Buddha – Pure Land Meditation

The following meditation had been modified by me to make it a more specific self-healing meditation and to better fit the time we now live in.

  1. Sit quietly and complete 3-4 deep, calming breaths.
  2. Pay attention to the quality and density of the light you see outside of your body.
  3. Do your best to “feel” the presence of this light.
  4. Become familiar with using the light of the earth, sun, moon, and stars to heal.
  5. Notice closely the absolute boundlessness and emptiness of the healing light.
  6. Imagine taking in the full colored light of a rainbow as your breathe in and out.
  7. Do your best not to worry; be as content as possible with this experience.
  8. Go into your memory or do this on a clear day/night – see and internalize the healing light in the rising and setting sun, in the full moon, and in all the stars above you.
  9. Do whatever you must to transform this light energy into pure healing light. Let go of doubt, defensiveness, and resentment. Be one with the healing light.
  10. Use your imagination to see/feel the light entering all of your sense one by one. Notice! Take it in!
  11. See, hear, feel, smell and taste the beauty of this ever-healing light. Let it all in!
  12. Allow in the healing light and sense its unconditional love for you.
  13. Let it enter your mind, body, soul, heart – your whole and beautiful self.
  14. Work hard to radically accept the healing light’s gifts to you. Accept it!
  15. Be with and be the healing light without clinging to it, attaching to it, or seeking it.
  16. Now breathe fully and smile fully, allowing yourself to be lit-up by the healing light.
  17. Be one with it in your inner body and mind. Be open!
  18. Experiment: Let inner darkness represent your deep, personal suffering – then allow tears and feeling of the healing light to “bless you.”  Allow, allow, allow!
  19. Feel the healing light calming and soothing your afflictive emotional states.
  20. Relax into the light as it penetrates into you and your suffering mind and body.
  21. With each breath go deeper into your relaxation and appreciation.
  22. Feel and be the deep tranquility you are experiencing. Thank the healing light!
  23. Chant: “Om Mani Tabba Be.” Repeat the chant if you wish to do so.
  24. Now rest in complete healing light and inner contentment. Just be!
  25. For more information refer to DEMI (2010). Amitabha: The Buddha of Light and Life. See also Atone, J. (2011). The Promise of Amitabha Buddha…

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

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“i Rest” Yoga Nidra Practice (Richard Miller, Ph.D.)

“i Rest” Yoga Nidra Practice (Richard Miller, Ph.D.)

All regular meditation and yoga practices are capable of bringing us closer to our true self and our relationships in the world. A by-product is deep relaxation and equanimity. Richard Miller, Ph.D. (Clinical Psychologist, yogic scholar, spiritual teacher), has created a yoga nidra practice that promises to return us to our authentic self and provide deep, relaxation and inner peace in the process. The iRest method is based on long-term practice and research. Yoga nidra is a pathway to improved health, awareness, and inner healing. It has been effective in problems related to stress, anxiety, sleep, trauma, and physical pain. I suggest it may be equally effective in all psychological pain. In neuroscience theory yoga nidra may reset your central nervous system, improve coping capacity, and open doorways to spiritual development.  In the following yoga nidra meditation I have integrated my own yoga nidra practices with the iRest method presented by Dr. Miller. Let’s begin!

  1. Place your body in a comfortable positions sitting, lying down, or standing. Enjoy silence in the pause. Close your eyes if ok.
  2. Allow your body to settle down and simply notice your full awareness. Notice silence in the pause.
  3. Open up your senses without evaluation, and notice delicately your body contact with parts of the world beyond the body boundary. Pause.
  4. Be open to noting the contact experience, and prepare to go inward inside your body. Notice as we pause in silence.
  5. Gently notice without evaluation the sensations you feel as we move up and down the body. Quickly at first. Up and then down!
  6. Starting with your toes, simply notice sensations; then move up slowly all the way to your hips, noticing sensations as you move your intentional kinesthetic awareness. Be with the silence in the pause.
  7. Continue your inner, private body scan moving from the hips all the way up your chest and to the top of your head. Silence!
  8. Just notice sensations and continue to be aware without judging.
  9. Now move  slowly from the head back down your back to the hips. Notice the quality of the silence in the pause.
  10. Again, with intentional attention without thinking move down from the hips all the way back to the toes. Remain silent inside.
  11. Now ever so gently notice your intentional in and out breaths. Breathe deeper, slower. Notice.
  12. Notice and allow the sensations of breath passing into your nostrils, down the throat, into the chest and lungs. Notice the rise of the belly on the in-breath.  Do all this without thinking – only noticing the sensations your feel. Enjoy this silent pause. Let go.
  13. Now notice the out-breath and follow the same sensation track as your exhale. Notice! Remain silent inside and outside.
  14. At this point in our process, bring attention gently to an area of the body where you feel discomfort, pain, or suffering.
  15. Simply allow and welcome this sensation as if it were simply sensations – like those you just experienced. Pause in silence.
  16. Blend the earlier pleasant sensations with this uncomfortable sensations. Notice!  Settle deeply into the silent pause.
  17. In your effort to accept all sensations, notice the discomfort and note if it is stronger at its center or at the periphery. Where?
  18. Focus more attention where there is less discomfort. Go deep into the silence here.
  19. Does your unpleasant sensation have a color? Focus on the color. Now focus on an opposite color or your favorite color. Notice.
  20. Let go of reactions to the discomfort on each and every exhalation, and especially in the gaps/spaces between breaths and awarenesses.  Be with the silence now.
  21. Continue to let go in the longer silence here.
  22. Does the sensation have a character texture?  Is it dense or loose? Heavy or light? Sharp or dull? Go to where there is less discomfort. Be in your inner most silence now.
  23. Radically accept all your bodily sensations – the pleasant along with the unpleasant. It is only sensation; it is your reaction to it that causes you problems. We wish to flee discomfort and hold onto pleasure. Just be with what is!  Just be in silence now.
  24. Allow your body to remain aware, accept, integrate all the forms of sensation you are experiencing.
  25. Examine your control by bringing focus to the pleasant sensations, now to the unpleasant sensations. Accept them all as simply sensations without evaluating. This may be challenging. Find some peace in the silence.
  26. Now allow your senses to open up and notice what you feel, hear, see, taste, smell. etc.
  27. Use the power of your inner spirit to help you improve this moment of perfect being. Empower spirit! Sit in silence now.
  28. When you feel ready slowly bring yourself to a full alert state. If your eyes have been closed, gently open them.
  29. Now just rest!!!!! Enjoy the silence. I will cue you when we are ready to end yoga nidra.

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!

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Self-Care to Reduce Compassion Fatigue

Self-Care to Reduce Compassion Fatigue

First let’s begin with what some people do to counteract the stressors of living in a hurried,“over-technologized” world. Technically, “technologize” is not a popularly accepted word, but it is a sad  reality. We live in a time when texting while driving may become the new addiction-based cause for many, many deaths. This addiction is so strong people do it in situations that could case their injury or death, or the injury or death of others. Sound familiar! It should. Cellphone “abuse” is not so different from the plans of cigarette producers to “hook” us on something we will pay for during many years. So here is a partial list of what people tend to do when faced with severe stressors.

What people tend to do that does NOT improve their stress reactivity long-term:

  1. “Smoke and Coke” – a phrase referring to smoking nicotine and drinking sugary soft-drinks when you cannot cope well and feel dragged down with your stressful life and want to feel stimulated.
  2. Of course there is always excessive alcohol and/or drug use as self-medication.
  3. Sleeping – too little or too much, including late onset and too early awakening.
  4. Eating – too little or too much, and may include binging and purging.
  5. Hoarding for whatever security it brings.
  6. Obsessive compulsive  behaviors – as behaviors for security actions to make us feel better.
  7. Being aggressive when it is not necessary to defend yourself.
  8. Insulating yourself from contact with others.
  9. Living under a “victimhood” self-identification. This can change everything!
  10. Participating in self-harming behaviors to activate neurologic, chemical and hormonal changes in your brain and body.
  11. Engagement in unsafe sexual activities to feel “excitement” and/or “loved.”
  12. Spending too much time online or on my “I-Smart” phone. The phone becomes your life!
  13. Doing too much exercise, especially when injuries occur.
  14. Being a person of uncontrollable empathy – a clear boundary issue that wares you out.
  15. Making your job too much of your life – workaholism or compensation for poor self-esteem?
  16. Making do with professional, work stagnation.
  17. Remaining stuck in impaired practices – the most common one being emotional dysregulation.

What people can do that does improve stress reactivity and may even increase joy in life:

  1. Taking brief breaks from the “grind” of work.
  2. Recognizing and contemplating personal gratitude for what you DO have.
  3. Noticing and correcting unhelpful thoughts, emotions, behaviors and communications.
  4. Learning to hold a positive, optimistic mindset and attitude.
  5. Liberating yourself from “stuckness” in anxiety, depression, addictions, and trauma. This most often requires professional help and/or self-help.
  6. Cutting way back on your online time. Researchers suggest anything beyond 3-4 hours/day is a habitual pattern. What do our jobs, schools and parents contribute to the habitual tendencies of habit-forming digital/electronic devices?
  7. Ignoring FOMO!
  8. Spending time reading, writing,  journaling about helpful things.
  9. Spending time listening and/or playing music.
  10. Spending time dancing and/or doing regular exercise.
  11. Spending time doing regular practice of meditation, yoga, tai chi, qi gong, mindful walking.
  12. Petting your dog or cat – or horse. Looking into their eyes when they allow it.
  13. Spending time walking in nature.
  14. Learning to give/get social-emotional support.
  15. Learning to leave work at work – learn to build emotional boundaries.
  16. Practice limit-setting regarding your boundaries and what you do to help others.
  17. Making a firm commitment to improve your wellness.
  18. Taking part in constructive self-reflection.
  19. Paying more attention to positives ( natural for the brain to do the opposite).
  20. Helpful nutrition, sleep and exercise practices.
  21. Learn to play more; learn to be active in creative expression.
  22. Participating in regular spiritual practices.
  23. Spending more quality time with loved ones and good friends when helpful.
  24. Leaving some time to just be in quiet, silent solitude.
  25. Seeking professional help as soon as you “feel” you MAY need it, or when others who care about you “think” you need it.

You will notice that the helpful list is longer than the unhelpful list. However, the unhelpful behaviors are often more automatic, and the helpful behaviors REQUIRE considerable effort to carry out. Your wellness must be a priority for you.

For more information refer to Bray, B. (2019). Counselors as human beings not superheroes. Counseling Today (October, 2019), 18-25

Anthony R. Quintiliani, PhD., LADC  

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

Author of Mindful Happiness  

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New Edition of Mindful Happiness in Production…Coming soon!