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Anthony Quintiliani, Ph.D, LADC

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April 4, 2016 By Admin

Mindful Actions to Improve YOUR Self-Esteem

Practice:  Mindful Actions to Improve YOUR Self-Esteem

Improving Your Awareness with Practice

  1. Remain mindfully aware of the content and meta-cognition regarding the “speaking” of your inner, self-conscious critic.  Note what trends appear in the conversation.
  2. Remain mindfully aware of the reactions your mind and body experience regarding the activity of your inner self-critic in dealing with day-to-day life stressors.
  3. Carefully note the fluctuations in your self-esteem inner experience in reaction to the destructive rampages of your inner self-critic.
  4. Mindfully note the emotional impact your inner self-critic has when you experience anxiety, depression, traumatic memories, substance use/ eating issues (self-medicating), and harsh interpersonal relationships.
  5. Make a list of the cognitive and affective content that are the consequences of your negative emotional experience with your inner self-critic.  These will be your targets over the next few weeks and months.
  6. As strange as it sounds, begin to befriend the targets you noted. Slowly, graciously, and compassionately make space inside your heart for these not-so-pleasant inner experiences. They are part of you.

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Using Wise Mind Mindfulness to Transform Your Inner Self-Critic and Improve Self-Esteem

  1. When the thoughts, images and emotions come up regarding what is NOT ok with you, use your imagination to paint over them with your favorite color.
  2. When you encounter these negative introjects, use your imagination to make them smaller in size so your mind’s eyes see less mass.
  3. When you encounter these painful inner experiences, use a split screen technique to place the negative in one section and an opposite positives YOU DO POSSESS in another section of what you see with your mind’s eyes.
  4. Important – DO meditation or yoga or exercise for at least 10 minutes EVERYDAY. Do your best to slowly expand your time in these very helpful and emotionally self-regulating activities.
  5. Radically accept what you cannot change, but work very hard on changing what you can change.
  6. Forgive yourself for all past actions that have resulted in you experiencing shame or guilt.
  7. Foster positive relationships where there is mutual social and emotional support, and discard those that are negative and unhelpful for you.
  8. If you are in psychotherapy make self-esteem improvement a part of that process, and encourage your helper to measure the outcomes over time.
  9. Assertively “talk back” to your inner self-critic, and find the middle way, middle ground between extremes.
  10. Learn about and practice self-compassion when you suffer from the voices of your inner self-critic.
  11. Smile more (brain feedback realities) and work hard to find things to enjoy and/or laugh about.
  12. Use images and metaphors for both the concrete “things” in your inner self-critic and their improvements.
  13. Practice more positive psychology: random acts of kindness, gratitude lists, generosity, being kind to others, paying more attention to positives, etc.
  14. Consider writing in a self-esteem and/or happiness journal daily.  Write at least one positive, helpful sentence each day, then go back and re-read it after each week of journaling.
  15. Practice letting go of the past, which you cannot change.
  16. Practice planning for the future, but know you cannot control it.
  17. Practice active participation in the present moment, which is the only moment of experience you have direct emotional control over.  Be present for both positive and negative experiences in the present moment.
  18. STOP upward comparison with others, who you think have what you want.
  19. Practice downward comparison with others, who you know have lees than you have.
  20. Practice any helpful spiritual or religious activities that you find helpful.
  21. Learn and practice self-soothing and emotion regulation skills from Dialectical Behavior Therapy.
  22. Learn about and practice using your core values in your own life experiences (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy).
  23. STOP struggling to get what you crave, thinking that it will make you happy. Research and thousands of years of human experience have shown this desiring/attachment does not bring lasting, internal happiness.
  24. Read good books about how to improve your own self-image and be happier in your life.
  25. Practice effective stress reduction skills whenever you feel mental/bodily stress reactions as the cue to practice Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction).
  26. VOW to pick 10 things to practice, and practice them one by one for ten full weeks – one practice per week.

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For more information refer to Quintiliani, A. R. (2014). Mindful Happiness... Shelburne, VT: Voices of Vermont Publishing, pp. 20-41;Bradshaw, C. M. (2016). How to Like Yourself…Oakland, CA: New Harbinger; Marotta, J. (2013). 50 Mindful Steps to Self-Esteem…Oakland, CA: New Harbinger.

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 

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Filed Under: Activities, ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, Benefits of Meditation, Featured, Meditation, Meditation Activities, Mindful Awareness, Mindful Loving, MIndfulness, MIndfulness Activities, Mindfulness Training, Self Esteem, Training, Wise Mind Tagged With: MINDFULNESS, SELF ESTEEM, WISE MIND

September 7, 2014 By Admin

Choice-Making Skills

Using Meditation, Yoga and Breathing…

You can Anchor your Choice Making

A key outcome of serious practice is  that you now reduce auto-pilot reactivity to people, places, things, emotions, sensations, craving, and memories and at the same time notice your mind CAN BE in charge of your brain-body reactions.  Yes, regular daily mindfulness practice allows you more mind-power to make decisions on how to respond to unhelpful events in life.   You notice that you are less apt to react impulsively (with habits of anger, anxiety, depression, avoidance, aggression, self-medication, etc.) and more apt to respond thoughtfully, even compassionately.  To enhance these changes in HOW you live your life, how your mindful-mind helps you to respond constructively to challenges, I will suggest several regular practices below.mindfulhappiness_Choices-anthonyquintiliani

In 1995 T. K. V. Desikachar noted that having the capacity to intentionally direct one’s mind is a fundamentally important core mindfulness skill.  I have often reminded my own secular meditation students that “You are not your thoughts, emotions, behaviors, sensations, or memories.  You are beyond, more than, these random firings of brain cells.”  True, all these experiences may shape us in both positive and negative ways, and if unhelpful they may cause higher levels of stress, angst, and despair.  However, mind training via regular meditation or yoga practice allows your mind to slow the impulsive reactions and to THINK about (contemplate) what an appropriate response might be.  As you become more wise-mind skilled, your repeated and improved responses eventually compete with habitual impulsive reactions – thereby creating helpful brain plasticity for a calmer and happier life.  These changes take time to normalize in our mind and body.  It is very wise to use selective attention – paying more attention to neutral and positive/helpful experiences than to negative/unhelpful experiences.  Do not avoid corrective changes you may need to make, but do not focus attention on unhelpful events and realities.

Samatha-Meditation-Mindful-HappinessThe practice of Samatha or calm abiding meditation, in which your single pointed concentration is on more positive/helpful thoughts, emotions, and memories may be helpful here.  Likewise practicing various meditation and yoga breathing patterns will help calm your reactive body and center you mind’s attention.  Often an effective mantra can be helpful: when I notice the arising of unhelpful energy in my mind or body I often say to myself “be calm, be kind.”  What mantra self-talk might be helpful to you?  Sometimes bringing your focus of attention to your soft heart energy can help.  Many major spiritual traditions practice contemplating/imagining white or golden-white light coming from the heart area.  It may help to gently place both hands over your heart.  Try this, and allow the healing light to soothe you.  Other helpful practices that reduce your suffering and may increase your joy are: thinking radical acceptance regarding things you cannot change; finding more personal meaning in your life; being more self-compassionate; practicing slow, full-body body scans; doing spiritual rituals; and, resting in shavasana (lying resting pose) or yoga nidra may comfort you.

Try some of these practices. on a regular basis.  

See what improvements you notice.

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 to Order!

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

For more information refer to Nurries Stearns, M. and Nurries Stearns, R. (2013).  Yoga for Emotional Trauma: Meditations and Practices for Healing Pain and Suffering. Oakland, CA: New Harbinger, pp. 170-191.  See also Miller, R. (2005). Yoga Nidra: A Meditative Practice for Deep relaxation and Healing. Boulder, CO: Sounds True.

 

Filed Under: Breathing, Featured, Meditation, MIndfulness, Practices, Training, Wise Mind, Yoga Tagged With: ANTHONY QUINTILIANI, BREATHING, CHOICE MAKING, ELEANOR R LIEBMAN CENTER, MEDITATION, MINDFULNESS, SAMANTHA, TRAINING, WISE MIND, YOGA

September 6, 2014 By Admin

Mindful Leadership Skills

Mindful Leadership Skills:

How to Lead in Wise Mind Ways

mindful-leadership_Mindful-Happiness-Dr-Anthony-Quintiliani

Researchers dealing with leadership skills have noted several acquired characteristics of effective leaders.  These same skills may be used in spreading “the word” about how mindfulness and wise mind practices reduce stress reactivity, enhance compassion, and expand the possibilities for human happiness, inner peace and equanimity.

So here is the list.  It has been compiled from research in The Harvard Business Review and other sources.

 

Effective leaders are able to:

1) Motivate others without fear of punishment;

2) Use helpful communications to influence others;

3) Build positive relationships, especially in goal-directed behavior and the development of others;

4) Act with integrity;

5) Practice and model adaptability;

6) Act to maintain good physical and emotional health, and help others with this goal;

7) Focus attention on customer and/or client needs;

8) Provide clear and helpful directions to others;

9) Provide direction and strategies to reach established goals;

10) Measure outcomes with good data;

11) Understand and Utilize systems theory;

12) Understand the influences within different and changing contexts (and cultures);

13) Use Best Practices in mindfulness and other areas, and adapt them as needed;

14) Use technology effectively;

15) Effectively use mindful attention, concentration, emotion regulation, and joy;

16) Practice compassionate leadership, influencing people with honey NOT fear.

The next time you are in a leadership role alone or in a group, do your very best to practice these skills and abilities.mindful-happiness_Mindful-Leadership_Dr-Anthony-Quintiliani

Share your mindful leadership stories with us!

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 to Order!

Mindful Happiness cover designs.indd

Filed Under: Featured, Leadership, MIndfulness, Stress Reduction, Training Tagged With: HARVARD SCHOOL OF BUSINESS, LEADERSHIP, MINDFUL, TRAINING, WISE MIND

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