The Revolution of Tenderness – Part 2 - Tara Brach

The Revolution of Tenderness – Part 2 –

These two talks explore our capacity to be tender – sensitive and responsive to ourselves and others. This capacity marks a radical evolutionary shift from a self-centered existence shaped by fear, to a life lived from the realization of our collective belonging and the preciousness of all life. The talks examine the conditioning that inclines us toward dissociation and emotional reactivity, and the practices of presence that evolve our heart and awareness.

photo: Jon McRay (Solstice evening)

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Mindful’s Top 12 Posts of 2016

Here are the top 12 most popular stories from Mindful.org in 2016:

Free Mindfulness Apps Worthy of Your Attention

Mindfulness apps are trending in a big way. Here are three we’re happy we downloaded.

 

Feeling Overwhelmed? Remember “RAIN”

Four steps to stop being so hard on ourselves.

 

Five Steps to Mindfulness

You can learn how to create a moment of joy at any time of the day. Explore these 5 simple steps to enjoy more mindfulness.

 

How to Teach Your Kids about the Brain

Laying strong foundations for emotional intelligence.

 

Mindfulness—How to Do It

By following these simple mindfulness meditation steps, you can get to know yourself up close and personal.

 

Remedies for Your Anxious Mind

Elisha and Stefanie Goldstein offer 11 ways to slow down and stay steady when anxiety trips you up.

 

A 5-Minute Breathing Meditation To Cultivate Mindfulness

Reduce stress, anxiety, and negative emotions, cool your temper, and sharpen your concentration skills.

 

Meet Your Second Brain: The Gut

How what’s going on in your gut could be affecting your brain.

 

3 Mindful Things to Do to Start Your Day

Taking a few moments to pay attention to the body can have a strong impact on how the rest of the day unfolds.

 

Three Simple Ways to Pay Attention

Practicing meditation doesn’t involve a whole new set of skills. It works so well because it enhances life skills we already have.

 

How to Create a Glitter Jar for Kids

The glitter jar represents the mind settling. It’s a great mindfulness activity that your kids can keep coming back to.

10 Mindful Attitudes That Decrease Anxiety

By exerting more conscious control over our behaviors and attitudes, we learn to work with our intention, wise effort, and capacity to be kind to ourselves.

 

 

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Meditation: Breathing into Presence (19:23 min) - Tara Brach

Meditation: Breathing into Presence ~

The breath can be our gateway into the boundless awareness that holds all life. This meditation begins with a breath that calms our nervous system, and then invites a relaxed presence with the breath and sensation that open us to the “universe breathing.” Resting in awareness, we realize the wakefulness, peace and vitality of pure presence.

“The whole universe is the body breathing…”

photo: Elaine Hunter

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3 Ways Mindfulness Can Help You Survive Family Occasions

If you think you’re mindful, go to a family reunion, says Google’s mindfulness mentor, Chade Meng-Tan. The stress and tension can put our skills to the test.

Meng shares 3 tips to stay sane over the holidays:

1) Self honesty: Acknowledge to yourself, this is hard. Even people with 10,000 hours of meditation practice find themselves ruminating over fights with relatives, replaying past hurts in their minds, and trying not to get caught up in their triggers. Knowing this, don’t give yourself too much blame.

2) Practice loving-kindness: Look at everyone in the room, and no matter how difficult your relationship may be, just think to yourself, “I wish for this person to be happy, I wish for my mother-in-law to be happy.” This thought sets an intention and causes a warmth of heart and it goes a long way to reducing negativity and stress.

3) Awareness of mortality: You begin to see a situation differently when you think about the fact that you have a limited amount of time with someone. If mom was to die tomorrow, how would you feel today? You’d want to give her all your time and love. You begin to see the person differently, and the situation differently. Most importantly, you begin to feel differently.

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An Appreciation Game for Kids

Painful thoughts and emotions sometimes show up when children and teens practice appreciation and children can easily misinterpret parents’ reminders to be thankful as an indication that we’re minimizing their challenges, even when that’s not the case. When painful emotions do come up, encourage kids to view how they feel through a wide lens, not to gloss over their feelings or push them aside. When kids acknowledge their hurt feelings and remember the good things in their lives, they embody one of the themes they’ve been exploring—an open mind. Three Good Things gives children a chance to practice this holistic mind-set when they’re upset and they need it the most.

The point of this game isn’t to pretend they’re not upset when they feel upset. It’s to remember that they can 
feel two things at once.

Appreciation Practice: Three Good Things

When faced with a disappointment, we acknowledge our feelings, and then we think of three good things in our lives, too.

Leading the game:

1. Ask your child: “Do you ever feel disappointed by something or someone?”
   Listen to children’s stories.
2. Ask: “How did that make you feel?
”
   Acknowledge children’s feelings and, if appropriate, talk about them.
3. Say something like: “I bet even when you’re feeling disappointed there are good things happening in your life, too. Let’s name three good things together.”

Tips for naming three good things:

1. Remind children that the point of this game isn’t to pretend they’re not upset when they feel upset. It’s to remember that they can 
feel two things at once: they can feel grateful for good things while feeling sad, hurt, or disappointed by challenges.
2. If children or teens have trouble thinking of three good things on their own, brainstorm and help them discover some.
3. When kids understand that this game is not about sweeping their feelings under the rug, the phrase “three good things” can become a playful and humorous response to the minor gripes that show
up in family life. For instance, if a young child spills a glass of apple juice and looks like he’s going to cry, you can respond with something like, “Ahhh, that can be frustrating. Can you name Three Good Things while we wipe the counter?”
4. Parents can encourage kids to remind them to name Three Good Things when they’re stuck on a trivial disappointment or minor annoyance, too.
5. To develop a habit of thankfulness, play Three Good Things around the dinner table, before bedtime, and at other times when the family is together (and no one is upset).

The more families carve out time to practice appreciation when life is good, the easier it is for parents and children to be thankful for the good things in life when times are hard.

At first, appreciation and thankfulness may feel like a mere intellectual exercise. Yet the more families carve out time to practice appreciation when life is good, the easier it is for parents and children to be thankful for the good things in life when times are hard. When that shift happens, appreciation becomes an integral part of a family’s worldview and is no longer just an intellectual exercise.

 

This article was excerpted from Mindful Games by Susan Kaiser Greenland © 2016 by Susan Kaiser Greenland. Illustrations © 2016 by Lindsay DuPont. Reprinted in arrangement with Shambhala Publications, Inc. Boulder, CO.

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Building Resilience: How to Shift Mental Gears

Imagine two equally talented graduates at their first job. Within a year, both are laid off due to downsizing. One becomes caught up in thinking he’s failed: “I was never good enough, my boss hated me.” The other decides, “I wanted this job so badly, I better fix my resume and learn how to deal with a difficult boss better.” Who do you think moves through adversity more quickly?

The same attitude carries over for parents around daily routines, school, or anything else. If one parent expects bedtime to be stressful at first and another feels it should happen without much adult effort at all, who has a harder time sticking to sleep training when it gets challenging? Our perspective toward whatever we encounter in life fundamentally changes how we experience it.

Redefining Stressful Setbacks

Stress itself can be defined as the perception that something is more than we can handle.   When we frame challenges as surmountable, we more easily surmount them (or at least begin to work our way forward). When we frame them as opportunities for failure, we more easily fail. That may sound like the most hackneyed, clichéd advice ever—but it is a foundation of resilience research.

Resilience relies on how we perceive our lives. So maybe we get queasy watching our child on stage for the first time; anxious and concerned, we start ruminating. Within those thoughts exist layers of assumptions, perspectives, and mental filters: I didn’t prepare her enough, she’s going to embarrass herself, I must do something to save her. If we feel our role is to protect kids from everything, that moment on stage becomes miserable. If we recognize we cannot shield our children from every hurt but we’ve done our best, the experience changes: I’m almost as stressed as she is! Hope it goes well, but I’m here if it doesn’t.

Perception itself is malleable—a focus of the military’s resilience training for soldiers. Participants explore mental traps—habitual distortions that undermine emotional well-being. These “icebergs” can be as simple as thinking asking for help is an admission of failure. They might include catastrophizing the worst possible outcome of every situation, or alternatively, minimizing and ignoring whatever overwhelms. One might be an overly active inner critic, letting us know we are not good enough to manage. All represent filters that twist perspective and pull us away from resiliency.

With mindfulness practice, we learn to hold these patterns to the light and question ourselves: What is valid, if anything, and what isn’t useful? Is our view inflexible, reactive, or full of doubt?  Without belittling ourselves or forcing ourselves to be unnaturally positive, we observe with curiosity, and redirect ourselves until new habits develop. Right, she’s on her own up on stage now; I’m nervous but need to let go. It’s not that every challenge leads to growth; it’s more that whatever happens, we’ll get through it somehow.

Without belittling ourselves or forcing ourselves to be unnaturally positive, we observe with curiosity, and redirect ourselves until new habits develop.

Uncertainty and change are inevitable in life—doubly so for parents. Instinct drives us to worry and protect endlessly, because we care more than anything about our families. But if the only relief we seek is striving to battle uncertainty into submission, that causes needless stress since certainty never happens—and too much stress changes not only how we feel but the choices we make day to day.

When we try to fix all we face and reach for a perfect picture of happiness, we often undermine our best intentions. There’s a time for action, but quite often there’s benefit from pausing and letting things be. Laboring under the often unconscious sense that all parenting worry will go away as soon as we master this “parenting thing” only makes us feel worse. Rather, we can shift our perspective to accept that not knowing everything and every outcome for sure is the norm. The perception that parenting, or any other part of life, can be anything other than uncertain and changing pushes us far from our most skillful and resilient selves.

Mindfulness Practice: 10 Ways to Build Resilience into Your Day

1) Pay attention to how you experience challenges. We often add to unpleasant moments in ways that make them even more difficult. Note how your body feels, your emotions, and where your thoughts go. Are you projecting difficulty years into the future? Are you caught up in regret or resentment? Also, begin to separate your perspective (This shouldn’t be! Nothing ever changes. I should be able to manage this on my own) from the experience itself. Children learn more from what you do than what you say, so your resilience—the way they watch you approach adversity—affects theirs.

2) Pay attention to your attitudes around setbacks. Many attitudes toward adversity seem like factual statements. Those people are like that. My child will never ….   I’m not the sort of person who ever … . Notice those habitual thoughts, and ask of them, Is it true? Recognize your assumptions and predictions for what they are and see if anything changes when you open to other possibilities.

3) Catch yourself with the STOP practice: When feeling off-balance because of a challenging situation, pause. Stop whatever you’re doing; take a few slow breaths; observe what’s going on around you and in your mind; and then pick how to proceed.

4) Insert mindful moments into your day to build resilience. These suggestions, adapted from recommendations of the American Psychological Association, provide a framework for shifting perceptions and building resilience:

5) Make connections and accept help. Value relationships with close family members and friends, and reach out for support when needed.

6) Monitor for mental traps. Whatever your mental icebergs, pause, label them (catastrophizing again), and redirect. For example, if you feel shut down by fear, acknowledge that fact, then refocus on something useful to be done as a first step. If nothing else, I’m calling the pediatrician today and getting a referral.

7) Nurture a positive view of yourself. Catch your inner critic in action, set it aside, and focus on your own strengths instead. Thanks anyway, I wish I’d done it differently but I didn’t. What would be the best thing to do now?

8) Aim to accept that change and uncertainty are a part of living. One common misperception that undermines well-being and resilience is fighting with whatever is truly beyond our control. Even when something upsetting happens, separate the experience from a broader expectation that it ‘shouldn’t’ have happened in the first place.

9) Develop step-by-step goals and take decisive action. Rather than detaching and wishing stress away, stay proactive. When tasks seem unachievable, ask, What’s one small thing I can accomplish that moves me in the direction I want to go?

10) Take care of yourself. Engage in activities that you enjoy and find relaxing. Taking care of yourself helps to keep your mind and body primed for resilience.

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Getting Beyond The Grudge

Family conflicts are as old as Cronus consuming his offspring, Cain slaying Abel, and having to sit at the kiddie table during holiday meals. When we feel boundaries being crossed or the sting of familial insensitivity, it can give rise to hard-heartedness and an unwillingness to see each other anew. Those feelings can last decades, even lifetimes. I know this because when I was 18, my sister and I got involved with the same guy.

Rob was a sexy British vagabond, and my time with him was short and educational in the way my flaming teenage libido longed for. But it turned out the charms of an eager amateur had limited appeal next to the hot-blooded worldliness of an older, beautiful sister. They met when Rob dropped me off at home just before I got on a plane and left town for Christmas break. When I returned, Rob and my sister picked me up at the airport…together. As I sat in the back seat of the car, contemplating double murder, the seeds of family strife were sown.

Years later my sister was living abroad and, without investigating why, I found the infrequency of our visits a great relief. Then war broke out around her and she had to come home pronto, and she moved in with me—just before I was diagnosed with cancer.

My sister lovingly insisted on accompanying me through my entire cancer carnival. But all I could see was how much I didn’t trust her. Her care, her tenderness, were no match for my reptilian responses, secretly holding on to hazy, decades-old wounds like fresh meat. I had made up my mind as to who my sister was—selfish and self-absorbed—so I didn’t bother looking at the person in front of me. Then one day we were cabbing home from surgery and, in a moment of great vulnerability, she looked at me with such genuine love and concern that I finally acknowleged she wasn’t who I thought she was and let the murky past go.

That was years ago, but as the current holiday season approaches and I find myself surrounded by people struggling with their relatives, I recall that moment with my sister in the taxi and the joy of being able to start fresh.

As you head into the gatherings of the festive season, should you find yourself faced with old resentments and tense relationships, consider that you may be the one holding on to past hurts and keeping the pain-train going. People can (and often do) change—so give yourself permission to see it.

Human development takes time and experience. Part of our discomfort comes from knowing our families have a front-row view to our awkward progression toward maturity. Childhood bullies can become compassionate adults, ignorance can become awareness, but along the way we may harm one another. When our bodies perceive or interpret a threat (like a possible boyfriend-stealer), adrenaline kicks in, cortisol is released, and our fight-or-flight response often categorizes that threat as unsafe and forever-bad. We risk getting stuck in a trap where we impulsively act out our unexamined gut responses and, ultimately, we miss out on the wisdom that comes from seeing how things really are, right now. More to the point, when families are unwilling to see each other anew, they hold each other prisoner with no chance of parole. But if we can connect with our higher functions, like curiosity, we can set one another free.

As you head into the gatherings of the festive season, should you find yourself faced with old resentments and tense relationships, consider that you may be the one holding on to past hurts and keeping the pain-train going. People can (and often do) change—so give yourself permission to see it.

Today, my sister is a trusted friend. I am so fortunate to really see her as she is: wonderful and insightful; someone I can laugh with, and share the unique perspectives of growing up in the same family. As I was writing this piece I decided to ask her, after all these years, why had she done that? I could see her reaching deeply to answer my question. “Done what?” “You know, stole Rob.” “Who?” she asked. “The British guy, the guy I was seeing a billion years ago, for a second. Remember?” Finally she seemed to recall someone. “That guy? Were you two dating?”

This article originally appeared in the December 2016 issue of Mindful magazine. Subscribe now and choose Digital or Print + Digital for immediate access to the December issue.

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Guided Meditations from Urban Meditation Studios

Urban meditation studios might just be the coffee shops of the future. Offering impeccably designed contemplative spaces and access to the best mindfulness teachers, beginners and seasoned meditators alike can pop in for a group mediation session and connect with their community in a whole new way.

In the February issue of Mindful, you can read our feature article about how some urban meditation studios are meeting the needs of their unique—and growing—communities. Below you’ll find guided meditations from some of the studios so you can get a feel for what happens inside their classes.

Guided Meditations from Urban Meditation Studios:

1. Intro to Breath, from MNDFL
New York, NY mndflmeditation.com

“This basic mindfulness of breath meditation is a way to cultivate peace, clarity, and generally a good way to get to know ourselves better.”
—Lodro Rinzler, co-founder of MNDFL

 

2. A Joy Meditation, from The DEN Meditation
Los Angeles, CA  denmeditation.com

“The best thing about joy is that nothing has to happen in order for us to be able to rejoice. There are moments and conditions throughout our day, all day, that we can rejoice in.”
—Heather Prete, of DEN meditation 

 

Subscribe now to read our urban meditation studio feature in the February 2017 issue of Mindful magazine. 

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A Holiday Gift for Your Stressed-Out Self

It’s said that expectations are resentments waiting to happen. And there’s no other time of the year quite like the holidays for high expectations: “It’s going to be amazing to have the whole family together,” declares one chorus of holiday revelers. “This family weekend will be an absolute disaster,” thumps a crew of bah-humbuggers. And as we think and act, our holidays become self-fulfilling prophecies.

No one is immune to the call of unmet expectations during the holidays. A few years back was our first holiday season with our new baby. The chaos of packing for three, first flights with a baby in the family, and managing simple travel logistics left us underprepared for self-care heading into the holidays. We were too busy to even hear the deep wisdom of the preflight announcements “Place your oxygen mask on yourself first, before assisting others…”

It’s said that expectations are resentments waiting to happen. And there’s no other time of the year quite like the holidays for high expectations.

Things started out well enough, chatting with in-laws and relatives, and proudly showing off our new child. By night, however, our dream child, who had been a miracle sleeper since birth, decided to show everyone in the small house his displeasure at sleeping in a strange new place.

The next day began as a continuation of the day before, but with a heavy dose of exhaustion in the mix. We fielded complaints and passive aggressive comments about everyone’s lack of sleep, as if there were anything we could do. I found myself fluctuating between hot flares of shame and anger. The small talk strained as guests stretched topics of common interest and steered away from hot button issues. Then claustrophobia and boredom from the cold rainy day settled in.

Some relatives offered to babysit Leo so we could meet up with friends (and escape the closing walls). I spent the day fixated on the promise of relief from a crying baby from the newest generation and passive aggressive parent shaming from the oldest.

That is until a few minutes into the afternoon, the babysitting volunteers poured themselves “just one drink” in the form of 8 ounce glasses of vodka that they proceeded to polish off before opening the wine. I watched, tired, impatient, counting on that escape—I was ready to snap.

May I see the suffering of others and the ways that manifests in their behavior…

Then I started becoming angry with myself. What was I thinking? I knew these relatives had a terrible track record with drinking and being unreliable. How could I ever trust them with my child? I was not just a fool but a terrible father to boot, I told myself.

Then the rage turned outward toward all the guests, toward my relatives. I was a mess.

It was a moment when I could have used what my friend Chris Germer calls a “Self Compassion Break.”

That was a while back. I’ve stepped up my mindfulness, compassion, and self-compassion game since then, especially at holidays, practicing self-care, getting enough sleep, eating good food, and balancing my expectations with a healthy (and humor-filled) dose of reality.

Since that time I’ve come up with a quick mindfulness tool I keep in my pocket for times when I’m triggered, tired, frazzled, or ready to fight. I call it my ACE in the hole. Here’s how it works:

PRACTICE: A mindfulness ACE in the hole

Find some space to yourself, (if you can) and gently place a hand over your heart, on your belly, or your cheek. This is a caring gesture toward ourselves that instantly calms and consoles, quelling the cortisol rush. Then acknowledge, connect, and extend compassion. This can be your ACE in the hole for moments of suffering.

A- Acknowledge

C- Connect yourself to the human experience

E- Extend yourself whatever compassion you need in the moment

….

Here’s how it might look in practice:

The Basics:
A: “This is a moment of suffering.

C: We all suffer.

E: May I be kind to myself in this moment.”

 

The Holiday Stress Version:
A: “This is a moment of holiday stress…

C: We all experience holiday stress to the point that it’s become a cliché of TV holiday dramas and standup comedians…

E: May I just give myself a break and relax…”

 

The “Things Are Insane” Version:
Or maybe that’s not enough. Because sometimes, like that one year, it could be more along the lines of:

A: “This is a moment that feels like a complete rage-storm of insanity…

C: We have all, as humans, experienced our own moments of complete rage-storms of insanity…

E: And so, given that, may I be kind to myself in this moment…

May I move forward with high holiday hopes but with neither high nor low expectations…

May I enjoy the food…

May I allow the gratitude of this holiday to sink in…

May I have the courage to ask myself and others for what I need…

May my child and family be safe…

May I see the suffering of others and the ways that manifests in their behavior…

 

And may we all have happy holidays…

And may we all make it home safe, and even somewhat sane, this holiday season.”

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The Space Between Stories - Tara Brach

The Space Between Stories ~

These days we are seeing all around us a lot of turbulence, inner and outer. The tendency when we get stirred up – and this is for all humans – is to go into a kind of habitual “jungle mentality,” also known as our stress reflex. We get anxious or upset and we try to sense where we can throw blame for what’s wrong. There is a polarizing.

Mostly what we are doing when we are in stress-reactivity is trying to find certainty. We are trying to find some ground again; and everything we try to do then is, on some level, trying to frame things so we have a stable ground – something that allows us to say, “Oh, here is what’s going on!” We try to define it, as a means of regaining a sense of certainty and security – an illusion of control. Charles Eisenstein calls this place “the space between stories.” And if we grab on to the next story and act from that, then we don’t wake up.

Now, we need to act, always; we need to act in our families to take care of our loved ones, and we need to act at work, and we need to act in terms of our social consciousness to move towards healing and change. The big question is this: From what consciousness are we acting?

We want to really watch this, because there’s such a tendency to act from habitual old states of mind where we perceive hatred (for example) and we respond to it with blame, aversion and hatred of our own. So: do we want to keep the whole game on the same level? Do we want to keep re-arranging the furniture on the decks of the Titanic? Or do we want to have a real paradigm shift and wake up consciousness? How can we really bring a presence to what is going on between the stories, so we can see the future we really long for – with awareness, with love, with justice? It is how we are now that will seed the future.

Action needs to come from a more evolved consciousness; and mindfulness & compassion training is what evolves the brain. If we don’t know how to pause and deepen attention in the space between stories, we won’t connect with the very presence and compassion that can inform intelligent action. We need to pause, and be able to feel what is here. That’s not so easy – which is why we have to train in it!

For a long time I have heard the story about Gandhi, who was known to take a day each week for prayer and meditation. He said, “I need to make sure that my actions come from the deepest, most awake part of my Being.” In these turbulent times… can we give ourselves some true pauses each day to come home to our hearts?

From: Play a Greater Part – Bodhisattva for our Times – Part 1
a talk given by Tara Brach on November 16, 2016

photo: Shell Fischer – www.mindfulvalley.com

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The Top 10 Mindful Books from 2016

1) MAKE PEACE WITH YOUR ANXIOUS MIND

How Mindfulness and Compassion Can Free You from Your Inner Critic
Mark Coleman (New World Library)
This book is about waging peace with the voice in our head that constantly battles with us—to our detriment and to the detriment of those around us. “Inner critic” here is not just a tool for marketing a generic meditation book. Coleman takes apart the critic and assesses its origins, its pros, and its cons with curiosity and insight. He unravels it and makes it possible to see it not as a big, bad monster, but simply as human intelligence run amok. With a bit of love and care, it can fall away of its own accord.

2) THE POWER OFF

The Mindful Way to Stay Sane in a Virtual World
Nancy Colier (Sounds True)
Having a universal communicator, satellite- driven locator, and encyclopedia of all knowledge everpresent at our fingertips is making us a bit crazy, and, according to Colier, a bit unkind. As a therapist she’s seen how a “techedout mind” can make you unhappy. Her stories—warm, sad, and funny—make you examine what “convenience” really means. Dipping in here now and then will offer a reminder to take a well-earned tech break.

3) SMARTER, BETTER, FASTER

The Secrets of Being Productive in Life and Business
Charles Duhigg (Random House)
What separates “the merely busy from the genuinely productive”? They don’t work harder, Duhigg says; they make the right choices. Using big-name examples like Disney, he reveals which choices lead to true success.

4) START HERE

A Groundbreaking Science-Based Program for Emotional Fitness
Eric Langshur and Nate Klemp (North Star Way) 
Self-care is the health care of the future. And here’s an early entrant in the field: a secular, research-based regimen for body-mind fitness that would be the envy of any trainer.

5) CURE

A Journey into the Science of Mind Over Body
Jo Marchant (Crown)
In Cure, Jo Marchant explores research into the placebo effect, meditation, prayer, conditioning, and more as she aims to reintroduce “mind” into conventional science and medicine, since “body”—a more measurable unit of study—has “sidelined the more intangible effects of the mind.”

6) MIND

A Journey to the Heart of Being Human
Daniel Siegel (WW Norton)
The mind, Siegel explains, goes beyond brain function; it’s a wondrous process that regulates the flow of energy and information residing in our whole body and yet remakes itself anew every moment.

7) THE MINDFULNESS-BASED EATING SOLUTION

Lynn Rossy (New Harbinger)
A chance to examine eating habits and views and get practical tips for stopping the autopiloting at the core of so many of our challenges with food.

8) IT DIDN’T START WITH YOU

How Inherited Family Trauma Shapes Who We Are and How to End the Cycle
Mark Wolynn (Viking)
New meditators often discover how vulnerable they are as old neglected wounds re-emerge. Wolynn offers methods to examine where this pain resides and find healing and resilience.

9) TRIBE

On Homecoming and Belonging
Sebastian Junger (Harper Collins)
Every once in a while a book comes along that takes a topic on everyone’s mind and asks you take a really fresh look. Junger does that for the issue of returning veterans and PTSD. In Tribe, he celebrates something that soldiers learn to appreciate: the value of loyalty and belonging.

10) THE HAPPINESS TRACK

How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success
Emma Seppälä (Harper Collins)
Taking a deep dive into cognitive psychology and neuroscience, Seppälä shows how we can flourish in the face of life’s overwhelming demands by tapping into reserves of calm and compassion instead of stress and anxiety.

Bonus Reading

1) MINDFUL ECONOMICS

How the US Economy Works, Why It Matters, and How it Could Be Different
Joel Magnuson (Seven Stories)
Like so many elections, the 2016 national election in the United States was heavily influenced by citizens’ perceptions of their own prosperity and their prospects for the future. To measure how well we’re doing and what we can expect in the future, we’re asked to turn to economics, but economics is known as the dismal science for good reason. Most of us avoid it like the plague. Part of the problem is that economics has come to be defined as purely about money and mathematics. Yet, in the original sense of the word, in Greek, it referred to ordering of the household. And the household was understood to be the very earth itself. The ultimate economic question when the word was coined, and still to the present day, is: How do we manage, share, and exchange our resources for the good of all over the long term?

Joel Magnuson’s ambitious work, Mindful Economics, tries to answer that question in the US context and to tackle the vexing question of rising income inequality. His mindful economics is not the simplistic variety where all we need is a few deep breaths before we make a big purchase. That might be a good idea, but Magnuson means mindful in the largest sense: being aware of how interconnected we are and how solutions may spring from paying close attention to that fact. It also tries to be an economics for real human beings with feelings, recognizing that money and emotion are deeply intertwined. The book is a bit of a door stopper, but a few of the chapters really make you think. It’s an admirable effort that hopefully will begin a trend toward books that examine mindfulness in a societal context. We need it.

2) THE TELOMERE EFFECT

The New Science of Living Younger
Elizabeth Blackburn, PhD; Elissa Epel, PhD (Grand Central)
What does a scientist in the esoteric field of telomere research have to say to us about improving the quality of our day-to-day lives? Turns out, a lot. Elizabeth Blackburn won the Nobel Prize for determining that chromosomes are capped off by tightly wound telomeres, which play a critical role in the aging process. The shorter they become, the less capable they are of maintaining the integrity of our cells. Short telomeres are precursors of a host of ills, including dementia, heart disease, asthma, and lung disease. The good news is it’s possible to slow or even reverse that attrition. How? By reducing harmful stress, exercising, eating healthfully, meditating—in short, living mindfully.

3) THE MINDFUL TWENTY-SOMETHING

Life Skills to Handle Stress… & Everything Else
Holly B. Rogers, MD (New Harbinger)
Don’t be misled by the book’s title. True, those of us under 30 would no doubt benefit from the suggestions here. But this is a book for all of us who would like practical, clear, doable advice on starting or deepening a mindfulness practice. Perhaps its main value for younger people on the go is how pithy it is. Much of what Rogers writes about will sound comfortingly familiar to many readers. Anyone can live mindfully, she writes, “but it takes practice, and meditation is the way you practice mindfulness.” Her book serves as an effective reminder of the value of mindfulness practices—and as a guide to keeping at them.

This article is a sneak peek from the February 2017 issue of Mindful magazine. Subscribe now and start your subscription with the February issue: choose Digital or Print + Digital.

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The Revolution of Tenderness – Part I - Tara Brach

The Revolution of Tenderness – Part I ~

A two-talk series explores our capacity to be tender – sensitive and responsive to ourselves and others. This capacity marks a radical evolutionary shift from a self-centered existence shaped by fear, to a life lived from the realization of our collective belonging and the preciousness of all life. The talks examine the conditioning that inclines us toward dissociation and emotional reactivity, and the practices of presence that evolve our heart and awareness.

~ from the talk: Pope Francis invites us to “live the revolution of tenderness,” which is expressed through closeness, compassion and service…

photo: Janet

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3 Simple Ways to Settle a Busy Mind

Settling the mind is not the same as silencing the mind. When we settle our mind we put our mental chatter aside—give it a rest, if you will—so that we can be alert, calm, relaxed, and open to the moment at hand. Experiment with these three simple tips for settling the mind and see what you notice.

1) Come into your body
Research shows that there’s an inverse relationship between a busy mind and actually being present in your body. So just take a gentle scan of your body, all the way from your toes to hips to torso, arms, face, and head. Notice if there’s tension anywhere. If there is, just allow that to soften—gently stretch or adjust your body in any way that softens your body. Gentle body scan.

2) Surround yourself with green
If you’re in an office all day or in a concrete area of a big city, see if you can put more greenery around you (greenhouses count if you’re not near a park). Find ways to get out to areas that have more nature. And also, if there’s sunshine, 20 minutes of sunshine is good for a greater resiliency and a greater sense of well-being.

3) Play
Yes, play is not only for kids. Play is a natural antidepressant; play creates resiliency; play helps us integrate learning more. So, find ways to play. It’s healthy for you, it will help make you more focussed, and more productive—whether it’s getting on the ground with kids, or doing things you don’t normally give yourself permission to do, or watching a humorous video. Whatever It is, find more ways to play.

For more on how to settle the mind, try this simple practice.

—

Elisha Goldstein, Ph.D. is hosting an online course to help people fully integrate mindfulness into their lives in a deep way in order to realize more enduring change. The in-depth 6-month online course called A Course in Mindful Living  runs in January 2017. Sign up now to join a community of people growing in confidence, calm, compassion and a life you love.

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Meditation: Awake Awareness is Our Home (19:57 min) - Tara Brach

Meditation – Awake Awareness is Our Home –

This meditation guides us in awakening our awareness  by opening to all our senses and recognizing the alert presence that is always, already here. By relaxing back into the presence over and over, we become familiar with the reality that is truly our home.

photo: Shell Fischer – www.mindfulvalley.com/

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A Loving-Kindness Meditation to Cultivate Resilience

In this compassion practice, there’s no aim to force anything to happen. You cannot will yourself into particular feelings toward yourself or anyone else. Rather, the practice is simply to remind yourself that you deserve happiness and ease—no more and no less than anyone else—and that the same goes for your child, your family, your friends, your neighbors, and everyone else in the world. Everyone is driven by an inner desire to avoid suffering and find a measure of peace.

1) Find a comfortable stable position, either seated or lying down, and observe the next several breaths. Notice how you’re feeling right now, while letting go of any sense of striving or effort to feel otherwise. You cannot force yourself to feel relaxed, non-judgemental, or anything else in particular. Let yourself feel whatever it is you feel right now.

2) Picture your child. Imagine what you most wish for him or her. This unbounded affection, deeper than any surface emotion, has traditionally been encompassed within four phrases:

May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you feel safe.
May you live your life with ease.

Use these phrases or any that capture your deepest wishes, and silently repeat them at a comfortable pace, timed to your breathing.

3) Continue repeating these wishes for your child, reminding yourself of your deepest intentions: “May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you feel safe. May you live your life with ease.”

This unbounded affection, deeper than any surface emotions, has traditionally been encompassed within four phrases: “May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you feel safe. May you live your life with ease.”

4) After several minutes, move on to yourself. Your inner critic, your voice of self judgment, may resist. Yet in spite of all your seeming mistakes, you have the same rights as anyone: “May I be happy. May I be healthy. May I feel safe. May I live my life with ease.” Without any sort of demand, offer yourself the some wishes for well-being you extended to your child.

5) After several minutes, imagine a close friend or someone unconditionally supportive, a person for whom you have almost entirely positive feelings. This person also desires happiness, whether going through a stretch of relative ease or more acutely in need of your emotional support. If no one comes to mind, that’s fine and quite common; just continue with the practice for yourself.

6) After a few minutes have passed, move on to a neutral person, a stranger, someone you see around but don’t really know—maybe someone at a local store or gas station, or who works nearby. Extend the some wishes to this neutral person without judging whatever you actually feel or aiming to push yourself. You’re simply paying attention in this way.

7) Now think of a difficult person—not the most difficult, but someone you’ve disagreed with in a smaller way. Your perspectives differ and you must firmly take care of yourself, yet this difficult person’s actions are also driven by a wish for happiness. If this person found relief from his own suffering, it’s likely that his behavior would change. If it’s easier, include yourself: “May we both be happy. May we both be healthy. May we both feel safe. May we both live our lives with ease.”

8) Next, picture your entire family for a while: “May all of us be happy. May all of us be healthy. May all of us feel safe. May we all live our lives with ease.”

9) Finally, if you like, extend the same wishes to everyone in this world. In an unforced way, send this compassionate wish for well-being to anyone you imagine, anywhere.

As this practice becomes comfortable for you, you can use it to combat everyday stress. If you feel unmoored, lost, or pulled in different directions, take a moment to wish yourself peace, just as you’d comfort a friend.

Reprinted with permission: New Harbinger Publications, Inc. Copyright © 2015 by Mark Bertin, from Mindful Parenting for ADHD

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How Gratitude Helps Us Get Better at Dealing with Change

This Is Your Brain on Lies

We’ve all been there: spinning a little lie to our children, parents, friends, or boss that somehow grows and mutates faster than we can imagine. Suddenly, we’re wondering:“How did we get here?”,  and our minds are scrambling at lightspeed for an exit strategy.

So, how did this happen?

Scientists now have an explanation for how we slide down the slippery slope of dishonesty. According to a recent Nature Neuroscience study by Tali Sharot and her team at University College London, the more we lie for our own benefit, the more desensitized we become to the negative emotions associated with lying, and the easier it becomes to tell even bigger lies.

What motivates us to lie more

In this study, researchers designed a game where 80 volunteers were asked to guess the value of pennies in a jar, and send this estimated value to an unseen partner. Volunteers had to do this for many trials where the actual value of the pennies in the jar were always different. Additionally, they were told that sometimes if they overestimated the value, they would secretly earn money. Sometimes the money gained from “overestimating” was at the expense of their partner, but sometimes this would benefit their partner. Importantly, their partner would never find out about their dishonest “overestimation.”

Dishonesty escalated over time when it was self-serving, showing that the simple act of repeated dishonesty by itself is not enough for escalation to take place—a self-benefiting motivation must also be present.

What they found from the results of this game showed that sliding down the slippery slope depends on whether or not lies are self-serving. Volunteers gave bigger and bigger overestimations of the value of pennies in the jar (i.e. told bigger and bigger lies) when overestimation benefited themselves at the expense of their partner. When lying was beneficial to their partner but not beneficial to themselves, volunteers did not tell bigger lies over time (i.e. the level of overestimation stayed the same). And when lying was beneficial to both the volunteers themselves as well as their partners, the level of dishonesty was the highest. In other words, dishonesty escalated over time when it was self-serving, showing that the simple act of repeated dishonesty by itself is not enough for escalation to take place—a self-benefiting motivation must also be present.

Our lying brain

The study also found that a particular part of our brains is to blame for sliding down this slippery slope. While playing the game, volunteers’ fMRI brain scans were recorded during their decision making processes. The amygdala—the brain hub for emotional and arousal processing, often associated with the fight-or-flight response—showed the highest level of activity when the very first self-serving lie was told. With every subsequent lie, however, the level of activity in the amygdala would drop. This decrease in amygdala activity even predicted how big the next lie would be: the greater the drop in amygdala activity, the bigger the next lie was going to be.

This decrease in amygdala activity even predicted how big the next lie would be: the greater the drop in amygdala activity, the bigger the next lie was going to be.

The results of Sharot’s study show that the “slippery slope” results from a disconnection between our brain and body’s signals of unease associated with engaging in deceptive behavior—this is due to a decrease in amygdala reactivity. According to Sharot, “part of the emotional arousal we see when people lie is because of the conflict between how people see themselves and their actions.” Lying triggers emotional arousal and activates the amygdala, but the level of arousal and conflict diminishes with every additional lie told, making it easier to lie. This comes down to a blunted emotional response to our decision to lie, and a desensitization of any bad feeling when we weigh up our “ideal self” versus the act of lying.

“Part of the emotional arousal we see when people lie is because of the conflict between how people see themselves and their actions.”
—Tali Sharot, study author, University College London

Mindfulness and emotional awareness

How do we prevent this desensitization to negative emotions that makes it easier to tell bigger lies? Connection to and awareness of our internal mental state, in a purposeful and non-judgemental way, is the crux of mindfulness practice. This quintessential practice of being present with our emotional state, by paying attention to our thought contents and physical sensations, leads to a more acute sense of emotional awareness. Through this, a practitioner of mindfulness may escape the snowballing effect of small lies turning into larger transgressions. As we improve our emotional self-awareness through mindfulness practice, we can combat the automatic desensitization of negative emotions and prevent repetitive lying.

True benefit for self and others

Sharot’s study is valuable for understanding the brain mechanisms that cause individuals to tell bigger lies over time when they lead to financial gains. However, the true meaning of benefit may not always be money, nor may it always mean personal gain. As mindfulness practice develops, so does the capacity for empathy and compassion, which shortens the distance between self and others. This growing ability to empathize with others can help us re-evaluate the effect our dishonesty has on others, and help us become a more honest and sincere person.

Finally, while the study is about dishonesty towards others, the need for personal honesty is equally important. Humans are not only able to deceive others, but also convince ourselves of untruths. The psychology of dishonesty, be it a child stealing marshmallows or politicians covering up large economic scams, stems from a deep primitive mechanism for self preservation, both physically and mentally. The protection of the ego, the need for others’ approval, the strong urge to escape negative and uncomfortable feelings, are all motivations for self-deception. When we gain insight into our true internal motivation for lying, it is possible to catch ourselves before we fall down that slippery slope, and it may be that the wisest move is to never tell that very first lie at all.

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Mindfulness Training for Syrian Refugee Aid Workers

Twenty-five humanitarian aid workers sat with their eyes closed, bringing a kind awareness to their breath, body, emotions, and thoughts at a hotel by the Dead Sea in Jordan. Learning to bring greater awareness, balance and connection to our life and work is hard enough for any of us, but how much more challenging for a group learning these skills just 350 miles from Aleppo.

They had recently arrived from the frontlines of the Syrian refugee crisis—Lebanon, Turkey, Syria, Iraq, and centers in Jordan—to take part in a contemplative-based resilience (CBR) training for aid workers.

The responsibilities of aid workers in the Syrian crisis are extensive and challenging, including providing medical treatment to those injured, delivering food and shelter to displaced people and those in need, providing legal support, and ensuring that donor funds are spent responsibly and accounted for. They do all of this while being targets themselves, as evidenced by the horrific aerial bombing attack on a UN aid convoy in Syria in mid-September that killed twenty aid workers unloading food at a warehouse.

While the demands placed on aid workers has increased, humanitarian workers have themselves become targets in ways that were almost unknown a generation ago.

About two-thirds of participants in the training were from Middle East nations and working in the region, and Arabic was their first language; the other third were from Europe or North America and working in the region. Over four days they explored practices of meditation, mindful movement, and ways of understanding and responding to stress that might provide them with valuable tools when they go back into their humanitarian roles.

Trauma and Aid Work

The CBR program was created to respond to the growing challenges facing aid workers today. There are now more than 60 million refugees and displaced people around the world—the highest number since World War II. But levels of support for the estimated 250,000 aid workers have not kept pace, and more and more is being asked of those working in the humanitarian field.

While the demands placed on aid workers has increased, humanitarian workers have themselves become targets in ways that were almost unknown a generation ago: attacks on aid workers grew from 41 in the year 2000 to 190 in 2014, and in that time 3,000 aid workers were killed, injured, or kidnapped.

As a result of these stresses and pressures of work, a growing number of aid workers are experiencing mental health issues: 79% of participants in a Guardian survey of 754 aid staff said they had experienced such conditions, including anxiety, depression, panic attacks, PTSD, and alcoholism. And one international medical aid organization reported that one-third of its staff drop out after just one assignment. At the same time, psychological and social support for aid workers, while often well-intentioned, is widely seen as inadequate.

The bottom line is that more aid workers are experiencing trauma and other mental health conditions, and leaving the field earlier. Aid groups are operating less efficiently with increased costs and higher turnover. And beneficiaries are receiving lower quality care because of high staff turnover, and aid workers who are less-experienced and over-stressed.

Guilt, Shame, Stress, and Mindfulness

The director of the CBR program, Emmett Fitzgerald, knows the problem from both sides. As an aid worker in Haiti, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Nepal, he helped manage the response to major emergencies. But, after months of assisting the post-earthquake response in Haiti he had a moment where he knew the stress had gotten to him: After sitting at a nine-minute traffic light, ruminating on how he would be late for a group meeting with a domineering boss, he blew up in anger at a young child begging for food money. This was a wake-up call: “Who have I become?” he wondered. A year later, he was participating in a CBR training led by Sharon Salzberg and others in Cork, Ireland.

Participants in the Jordan training shared stressors like Emmett’s, including security risks and emergencies, high workload, extensive travel often in difficult conditions, separation from friends and family, instability of funding for projects. All of this on top of the work challenges faced in other fields: such as an overwhelming number of emails, work/life balance, and difficult colleagues, bosses, and staff. One woman, who had worked for six years for a large aid NGO, also spoke of the feeling of helplessness that some aid workers experience—faced with the gap between the dire needs of the populations they serve and what they are able to provide. This can lead to feelings of guilt and shame for their relative privilege and their inability to do more.

Why “Burnout” Isn’t a Failure or a Pathology

Ola Witkowska, a mental health specialist for Doctors Without Borders (MSF) who recently returned from missions in South Sudan and Iraq to provide support to aid workers in the field, led the psychosocial part of the Jordan training and shared her reflections on the CBR program. “For me, a great strength of the CBR approach is in bringing together the understanding of stress and how we can build resilience in the face of the inevitable stresses of life and work, with experiential practices—both formal and informal—that can help build awareness, cultivate greater balance, and strengthen connection with others. These are practices that I engage in myself—and notice when I don’t—and I’ve seen their value for myself and in my work with others.”

The goal, over time, is to help build a culture of support for these practices in their organizations and more broadly in the humanitarian aid community.

Stephanie Kohler, who led the mindful movement area of the CBR training, highlighted the importance of movement in the CBR approach: “Intentional, directed movement is an essential component of mindfulness. In the CBR training, we discuss alternative ways to react to both chronic and acute stress. In my teaching, I emphasize that the body provides constant information. From that awareness, participants can use mindful movement to engage the parasympathetic nervous system, which assists in managing and recovering from stress, and thus builds resilience. Mindful movement is not only effective, but also readily available.”

The CBR program typically brings together 20-30 participants from a variety of aid groups for a training in an environment that is relaxing and restful and allows ample opportunity for participants to spend time with and get to know each other. The aim is to give participants skills and tools to build their own resilience and provide follow-up support for them. The goal, over time, is to help build a culture of support for these practices in their organizations and more broadly in the humanitarian aid community.

One participant shared that what she appreciated most about the training was the kindness and non-judging attitude that was built into the program and the way ‘burnout’ was treated not as a failure or pathology but as an understandable response to stress, particularly where skillful tools and resources are not available.

Reimagining Mental Health and Well-Being

The goal of the CBR program is ambitious, says Fitzgerald, “We want to change the way organizations treat their staff—to recognize that their staff are their most important resource. We want aid organizations to invest in the well-being and longevity of their staff, acknowledging that their beneficiaries deserve the support of passionate and clear-thinking aid workers and that passion and clarity are eroded by unaddressed stress.”

“We believe there is a moral and ethical argument for these kinds of support—as well as a bottom-line justification. Programs like CBR can help organizations reduce medical and insurance costs, minimize the loss of staff and institutional knowledge, and lower recruitment costs. And while in the business world these savings might go to an owner or shareholders, in the humanitarian field they can go to support the enormous needs of refugees and displaced people. We believe it is a winning formula all round.”

A key insight that all areas of the CBR program seek to reinforce is that the way we meet our stressors and the difficulties of life is an important determinant of our suffering and our happiness. Many participants take away with them Viktor Frankl’s powerful reminder: “Between the stimulus and the response is a space. In that space lies our ability to choose. In our ability to choose lies our growth and our freedom.” Aid workers leave the program with intentions and practices to support themselves and their colleagues in their challenging and essential work.

…

CBR trainings have taken place in Ireland, the United States, Rwanda, and Jordan. Four more trainings are planned in Jordan for 2017 to facilitate support and accessibility for refugee aid workers in the Middle East region. To learn more about the CBR program, visit the Garrison Institute website. To make a donation to support the program and make it more widely available for aid workers, visit: http://www.changingaidwork.org         

 

 

 

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Advertising Sales Manager

Join a small team of media specialists who are establishing the most trusted voice and go-to brand in presenting secular mindfulness to a mainstream audience. Collaborate with us by bringing your experience in advertising sales to our multi-media platforms, driving continuous adverting sales growth and profitability at our flagships, Mindful magazine and mindful.org. Providing a high-level of customer service to clients and potential customers, you will generate revenue through the selling of print and online advertising.

Mindful’s parent organization, The Foundation for a Mindful Society, is an independent not-for-profit registered in the U.S., with central business and editorial operations located in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. Candidates able to work remotely from the U.S. or other parts of Canada are encouraged to apply.

Key Responsibilities:

• Outbound phone/online meeting/email sales to new and existing endemic (mindfulness-oriented) advertising accounts.
• National ad sales of Mindful Magazine, Mindful.org newsletters and native/sponsored advertising.
• Renewal of existing and past advertisers, plus identification and cultivation of potential new advertisers, including cold-calling prospects and maintaining and expanding the company’s database of prospects.
• With the use of the company CRM, preparing advertising proposals and contracts, plus project short and long-term sold and pending business.
• Maintaining timely entry and ongoing updates in company CRM.
• Collaborate with ad director to determine sales strategies and priorities.
• Set up and deliver sales presentations and other sales actions as directed by ad director.
• When appropriate, attend nationals trade shows, exhibits, and other events for face-to-face selling purposes.
• Participate in professional development where appropriate.
• Understand and communicate Mindful’s brand identity.
• Service all in-bound client inquiries.
• Perform other duties as assigned by the ad director.

Specific qualifications and skills:

• Two to five years’ experience in advertising sales.
• Experience with the promotion and marketing of online offerings and content.
• Practice or interest in mindfulness and meditation an advantage.
• Comprehensive knowledge of both the media industry and the needs of advertising clients.
• Excellent sales acumen; strong communication, negotiating, and influence skills; and creative and strategic thinking abilities.

Base salary plus commission arrangement. Commensurate with experience. We offer an excellent, accommodating work environment.

Deadline for Applications: 20 January 2017.

To apply please send covering letter and resume to Cindy Littlefair at cindy@mindful.org

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Should We Always Look for Silver Linings?

Anyone who’s ever shared struggles with a friend has probably received some version of the advice to “look at it from a different perspective”:

• I know you’re overloaded at work, but think about how lucky you are to have a job.
• That was a harsh thing to say, but he is under a lot of stress these days.
• You didn’t blow your diet…holiday parties don’t count!

The Role of Cognitive Reappraisal

Called “cognitive reappraisal,” this emotion-regulation strategy is one we often use inside our own heads. When something makes us feel bad, we might try to re-tell the story to ourselves in a way that isn’t quite so painful.

While researchers have long considered this a healthy way to cope, a new study suggests that it might only be helpful in certain contexts—and detrimental to our well-being in others.

Cognitive reappraisal moderates our emotions about a situation, rather than changing the situation itself. But what if the situation—the stressful job, the unfulfilling relationship, the unhealthy eating—could be improved? In that case, alleviating our negative feelings might reduce our motivation to make those improvements.

Cognitive reappraisal moderates our emotions about a situation, rather than changing the situation itself. But what if the situation—the stressful job, the unfulfilling relationship, the unhealthy eating—could be improved? In that case, alleviating our negative feelings might reduce our motivation to make those improvements. In fact, previous research has suggested that people who are skilled at reappraisal are less depressed, but only if the stressors in their life are uncontrollable.

For this study, researchers recruited 74 young adults and asked them to complete questionnaires measuring their well-being, including their levels of depression, anxiety, stress, neuroticism (their tendency to experience negative emotions), social anxiety, and self-esteem. Then, participants downloaded a special app that periodically pinged them to answer a survey, about ten times a day for a week. The surveys asked if they’d done any cognitive reappraisal since the last ping—and how much they felt in control of what was going on.

Reappraisal vs. Action

According to the results, participants who used cognitive reappraisal more overall didn’t tend to be happier. Instead, situation mattered. People with higher well-being—higher self-esteem and less depression, anxiety, stress, neuroticism, and social anxiety—tended to use reappraisal more in uncontrollable contexts than in controllable ones. For example, they might have used it for bad weather but not for bad test grades. As well-being scores decreased, however, that pattern flipped.

“When a situation can be directly changed, reappraisal may undermine the adaptive function of emotions in motivating action,” the researchers write. If managing our emotions becomes a substitute for taking action toward a better life—for ourselves or for others—it isn’t doing us any good. Negative emotions shouldn’t always be reasoned away; they can provide the indication and the fuel to make a change.

“When a situation can be directly changed, reappraisal may undermine the adaptive function of emotions in motivating action,” the researchers write.

Because the researchers only measured well-being once, this study can’t prove that the healthy use of perspective taking causes us to be happier. (It might be the other way around, where happy people are more adept at using emotion-regulation strategies.) Co-author Peter Koval, a research fellow at Australian Catholic University, says that he and his colleagues are working on an experimental study that could illuminate this relationship.

Ultimately, one-size-fits-all advice—“If you want to be happy, change your perspective”—may be misguided. Cultivating happiness may require flexibility and agility, the capacity to employ an arsenal of techniques when and where they fit.

This article originally appeared on Greater Good, the online magazine of UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, one of Mindful’s partners. View the original article.

 

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How to Notice, Shift, and Rewire Your Brain

I am Nate Klemp.

At age twenty-seven, I had my life turned upside down.

In the final year of my PhD program at Princeton, one warm September afternoon, my wife and I were riding our bikes side by side, lost in conversation. We didn’t notice as we veered toward each other—until our handlebars locked together at full speed.

CRACK. I heard the spokes in my front wheel shatter as my handlebars twisted uncontrollably. I launched forward head first onto the gravel path.

Five seconds later I lay on the ground, staring up at the blue sky, my head, neck, and jaw throbbing, my wife leaning over me.

One month later I began to feel the full effects of the injuries to my head, neck, and jaw. The Princeton campus began to feel like a ship traversing rough seas. My world started spinning. My ears rang. Something wasn’t right.

Four months later my mental and physical condition had gone from bad to worse. Before the accident, I was a happily married, fit, razor-sharp graduate student at Princeton. Now the physical and mental aftershocks of my accident left me struggling to perform even the most mundane tasks. Picking up groceries felt exhausting. Two hours of writing my dissertation felt like twelve. A three-hour flight felt like a trip around the world. My entire life felt like I was running a marathon at mile 25. But there was no finish line in sight.

Now my challenges were practical and deeply personal. How can I part these clouds of anxiety and fatigue? How can I save my marriage? How can I salvage my career? How can I train my body and mind to live a better life?

Until then the biggest challenges I had faced were theoretical. As a grad student in political philosophy, I spent long days at the library, working to understand political rhetoric, inequality, and other abstract questions. Now my challenges were practical and deeply personal. How can I part these clouds of anxiety and fatigue? How can I save my marriage? How can I salvage my career? How can I train my body and mind to live a better life?

Answering these questions became my passion in life.

…

I am Eric Langshur.

For most of my adult life, I started each day with the same harrowing morning ritual: Wake up. Eyes open. Brain on. Then immediately, the assault of thoughts would begin:

What have I got to get done today? What balls am I in danger of dropping? What is Elizabeth thinking about what I said to her yesterday? I need to remember to call my dad. I should hurry or I’m going to be late for work.

On and on …and on.

The experience was so normal to me that I wasn’t even aware it was happening. Somewhere around my fortieth birthday, though, I did start to notice this unrelenting stream of thoughts, and I realized, is voice in my head is exhausting me.

As a corporate executive and serial entrepreneur, I knew how to build businesses and manage large organizations. But, I began to realize, I didn’t know how to manage my own mind.

Clearly, this wasn’t the kind of joy filled life I once thought I would be living when I achieved “success,” and this realization of my incessant inner dialogue wasn’t anything like the kind of “waking up” epiphany that the mystics describe. Instead, becoming acutely aware of my thoughts, worries, and anxieties only intensified the ever-present undercurrent of stress in my life. As a corporate executive and serial entrepreneur, I knew how to build businesses and manage large organizations. But, I began to realize, I didn’t know how to manage my own mind.

This jarring insight set me on a decade-long search to understand how to be happier. I sought wisdom by reading the great spiritual texts: the Old and New Testaments, the Quran, the Bhagavad Gita, and the texts of Taoism and Buddhism. These in turn sparked an interest in philosophy, turning me toward the Greeks (Plato, Aristotle, Epictetus), the Romans (Marcus Aurelius, Seneca), the modern Europeans (Nietzsche, Goethe, Kierkegaard), and the American Transcendentalists (Thoreau, Emerson).

I became a philosophy junkie in my search for meaning. My wife, Sharon, regularly laughed at my enthusiastic exploration of this literature. My head reeled with the plethora of wisdom and advice on wellbeing, and I experimented, bouncing from idea to idea during an amazing period of transformation.

…

The Art of Balance and Wellbeing

We’re not telling our stories because we think they’re exceptional. We’re telling them because we think they are utterly normal. Just about everyone these days is faced with intense demands on their time and their metal resilience as we all attempt to balance work, family, friends, and our health.

And that’s what led us to mindfulness practice.

But, with so little time for formal meditation practice, we believe the key to making lasting changes in our lives lies in infusing the ordinary moments of our lives with the practice of mindfulness. We may only have 15 minutes to meditate, but we have 16 or more hours each day that we can use for integrating the practice of mindfulness into the moment-to-moment flow of life.

This practice of integration is based on the idea that each moment offers the opportunity to notice our current state, shift our attention and then rewire key neural pathways. In the words of the 19^th century philosopher William James, “My experience is what I agree to attend to.”   We can, in other words, choose to make even the most mundane moments into opportunities for being more present and engaged in our lives.

Each moment offers the opportunity to notice our current state, shift our attention and then rewire key neural pathways.

But how practically can you transform everyday life into mindfulness practice? We’ve developed a simple strategy that has helped everyone from full time parents to 80-plus-hour-a-week consultants and lawyers become more present to each moment and, as a result, experience greater focus, productivity, and life satisfaction.

We call it Notice-Shift-Rewire.

Here’s how it works:

How to “Notice-Shift-Rewire”

Notice: The first step is to Notice – become aware of where your attention is directed. In most cases, you will likely find that your attention is scattered – involved in the ordinary mental habit that psychologists call “mind wandering.”

Shift: The second step is to Shift – to redirect your attention to the present moment. You can do this by bringing your attention to any object of focus, the breath, sounds around you, sensations in your body or even something to feel grateful for.

Rewire: The final step is to Rewire – to take just 15 to 30 seconds to really savor this experience and to reinforce the shift you just made at the level of neurobiology.

The great thing about Notice-Shift-Rewire (NSR) is that you can do it anytime, anywhere. You can do it in the check-out line, at the gas pump, or in the TSA security line. And unlike the formal practice of meditation, this practice of integration doesn’t take any time out of your day. It’s a practice you can do 10, 20, or even 50 times a day without having to stop doing all the things you need to do to meet your commitments.

One Essential Tip For Integrating Daily Mindfulness

We’ve helped thousands of people incorporate this practice, and we discovered an essential tip based on the science of habit change: identify and use a few everyday life cues as an aid to help you initiate this habit.

Just saying to yourself, “I’m going to Notice-Shift-Rewire all day,” will likely result in quickly slipping back into old mental habits.

A more effective approach, backed by the science of habit change, is to identify a few cues as habit-forming triggers. Here are few that we recommend:

• Stairs – Each time you walk up a flight of stairs, build the habit of Notice-Shift-Rewire to shift to the breath as an object of focus as you take in the present moment.
• Showering – Each time you step into your shower, Notice-Shift-Rewire to the amazing sounds and sensations happening in this moment
• Waiting – Here’s a more advanced cue. Each time you find yourself waiting – at the store, in traffic, for a meeting to start or for a friend – Notice-Shift-Rewire to your breath and enjoy the felt sense of aliveness.

We hope you enjoy this master Notice-Shift-Rewire practice as you begin experiencing the powerful benefits of integrating life and practice and practice and life.

 

This post was adapted from, Start Here – Master the Lifelong Habit of Wellbeing, by Eric Langshur and Nate Klemp, PhD.

The post How to Notice, Shift, and Rewire Your Brain appeared first on Mindful.

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