A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

There are a lot of reasons to feel overwhelmed right now for most of us. A difficult economy, natural disasters, oil spills, war, family drama, personal conflicts, among other things. When the mind is focusing on the negative details of life, it is practicing seeing things through this lens and a cycle ensues where we even start seeing the future with this lens leading to feelings of anxiety or depression.

Mindfulness is about being aware of what lens we’re wearing when looking at life, so we can be more intentional. The unintentional act of looking toward the future with a negative lens can really sap our motivation to make any progress toward a more fruitful and positive future. After all, if its doomsday, what’s the point in even trying? This is major fruit for procrastination too.

I want to introduce you to or remind you of a practice that will help you intentionally engage your mind in a way that could lead to a more fruitful future.

Albert Einstein said:

“Imagination is everything. It is the preview of life’s coming attractions.”

So here’s a practice is using our imagination for good.

Envisioning

1. Set aside at least a few minutes (this could even be right now) for this practice. You can do this in your mind while closing your eyes, write it out on a piece of paper, or create a vision board where you get pictures that illustrate this vision.
2. Envision what life would be like if you were taking these steps or if you did accomplish this project. When I say envision, I mean actually take a few moments to either close your eyes or get out a piece of paper and imagine what life would be like if you dropped your anxiety or your imperfections? Or what would life be like if whatever overwhelming project you have, personally or professionally was complete? 
3. Take a moment to feel the feelings of this envisioned future?

 Envisioning can help your mind spur up the imagination and motivation to start moving forward.

One step at a time

Once you’ve done this, consider the words of Martin Luther King Jr.:

“Take the first step in faith. You don’t have to see the whole staircase. Just take the first step.”

This piece of wisdom has been said in so many different ways, maybe the most famous being “The longest journey begins with a single step,” which was attributed to Lao Tzu.

In times of depression, when it comes to being in a moment when an onslaught of thoughts are telling you it’s overwhelming or you’ll never get it all done, having Martin Luther King Jr. or Lao Tzu in mind might be helpful.

Let’s face it, there’s times where it’s a success to take a shower or get out of bed. That is a single step.

I ride a single speed bike at times over a hill. There is a substantial difference when I do it looking up at the hill engaging thoughts of disbelief at how much of the hill there is left to go versus focusing on one pedal at a time. I actually time the pedals with my breathing. When I do it like this, it seems like much less effort and I’m at the top of the hill before I know it.

This is a truism whether someone is depressed and needs to see some movement or accomplishment to get the engines going or whether there is a feeling of overwhelm in life due to a personal or professional project.

So, try out this combination. Take a moment to envision what life would be like and what the feelings would be having moved passed this overwhelming situation and just take that first step in faith.  

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

In a recent posting Forgiveness Means Giving Up All Hope for a Better Past, one reader left a comment highlighting a lifelong experience he had that gives us some insight into how forgiveness really happens and its transformative effect.

Robert described his experience so beautifully that it would do it injustice to paraphrase it so I’m just going to quote him:

“A very long time ago, my next youngest brother, throughout our childhoods and after, performed the worst possible acts of psychological torture on me and our other brothers, who he most intensely hated for reasons we have never known. Other people simply cannot know the kind of pain he intentionally caused. And we never, ever reconciled, and I never, ever forgave him, even after his death at age 47, twenty years ago. Up until last year my hatred for him survived at 2000 degrees Celsius. And he was the only person I’ve ever hated. I really wanted to be at peace with him, which involved acknowledging the utter misery he must have been in to act that way, though I’ve never understood why he did it. And I did it. I did it sincerely. I tried to imagine the level of misery any person would have to be in to act the way he did. And I think I did get close to feeling like he must have, close enough, at least, to feel with him, and to walk away from that hatred. It always helps though, even now, to read material like your article of today, which soothes a large scar.”

How is this a teaching for many of us?

Robert acknowledged his aspiration to “really be at peace with him.” In a recent interview with Chopra Center Director, David Simon MD, he gave the advice of charting two points on a map, where you are and where you want to be. It seems that Robert was clear about this.

It seems that Robert began to put himself in his brother’s shoes “which involved acknowledging the utter misery he must have been in to act that way…I did it sincerely.” I would argue that this is the great art of compassion.  Through this process Robert got close enough to “walk away from the hatred.”

Sheila followed with the insight that forgiveness often begins with ourselves first and offers the lovingkindness practice as a path toward doing so. In the full lovingkindness practice, there is also opportunity to work with compassion for those we have difficulty with as well.

In practicing this art, it’s also important to acknowledge timing and that it may not be time to engage in forgiveness or lovingkindness if the trauma is still very fresh or overly intense and this may very well be best practiced with a trusted healing professional.

However, at the end of the day, when we carry grudges or hate, there is no way around it, we are the ones carrying it and it has negative psychological and physiological effects on our health and well-being. It’s a worthy endeavor.

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

There is a tradition on the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog. Every Monday, I cite a quote or a poem that is related to mindfulness and psychotherapy in some way and then explore it a bit and how it is relevant to our lives. For me, quotes and poetry can often sink me into a state of greater understanding. So for today, here is a quote by Lily Tomlin:

“Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.”

This quote is often met with either people saying “aha” or laughing because it is simply so true. When we refuse to forgive it’s as if we’re holding onto the past and saying “see past, I’m not going to let you have the pleasure of me letting go of you.” Meanwhile, the past is the past, it’s not happening right now in the present moment, or is it?

We keep the past alive by holding tightly to it, so perhaps it is occurring in this present moment. Now, I’m not suggesting we forget the past for the past is our teacher, however, I am suggesting that we loosen our grip on it a bit.

In a past post I asked you to consider this experiment:

“Think of someone in your life right now (maybe not the most extreme person) who you are absolutely holding a grudge against right now. There is no way you are willing to forgive this person right now for their actions. Picture that person and hold onto that unwillingness to forgive. Now, just observe what emotions are there; Anger, resentment, sadness?  Also notice how you are holding your body right now, is it tense anywhere or feeling heavy? Now bring awareness to your thoughts; are they hateful and spiteful thoughts?”

This is what lives inside of you by holding so tightly, so the question is always, who is suffering?

Thich Nhat Hanh says, “When there is a mature relationship between people, there is always compassion and forgiveness.”

There is an understanding at some point that we are all human beings capable of all kinds of atrocities depending on our genetic makeup, the environment we grew up in and the events that have surrounded and influenced our lives.

This is not a statement meant to excuse or condone an aggressive or violent action committed, however, it is a statement meant to help cultivate understanding and compassion in order for the ones who are suffering to come to terms with the way things are and slowly let go of allowing the atrocity of the past to still be occurring in this present moment.

We can begin to forgive, even though we will never forget.

One last note about forgiveness: This is not a process that occurs instantly after reading about it. This is something that is about timing, meaning if the act is fresh, you may need some distance from it before even considering engaging in this work. Even when it is the right time, it may take time and practice as the tides of anger and hate will bring you back to holding the grudge. May the understanding of this bring a sense of patience and wisdom through this process.

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction here provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

Many of us may not think about it, but fear of flying ranks up there as a very common phobia. Today I am pleased to bring to you an interview with Captain Tom Bunn. Tom was an airline captain and licensed therapist and is President and founder of SOAR, Inc. He has helped over 7,000 people overcome difficulty with flying.

Tom was part of the first fear of flying program, which was started at Pan Am in 1975. He founded SOAR in 1982; and to offer the most effective help possible, he completed graduate school to become a therapist. He spent five additional years in training at psychological institutes, finally developing a therapy that has made it possible for everyone to fly.

Today Tom talks to us about what the fear of flying is all about, how mindfulness can help, and advice for getting through your fear.

Elisha: What are the most common symptoms you see when it comes to fear of flying?

Tom: It starts with anticipatory anxiety, mostly about giving up control, and whether the flight will be turbulent. During the flight itself, there is high anxiety or panic.

Elisha: What causes someone to have a fear of flying?

Tom: When a person’s ability to regulate anxiety when facing uncertainty does not develop properly in the first eighteen months of life, the person has to compensate. They, like Linus, have security blankets such as control, avoidance, physical escape or psychological escape through dissociation. They try to control anxiety by controlling everything in their life. When they can’t assure a perfect outcome through control, they control anxiety by having a way out. Flying allows neither control nor a physical way out. So they try a psychological way out: they isolate their awareness from the experience of flight by focused awareness, dissociation, or over-medication.

Elisha: Walk us through how you use mindfulness to work with some of those symptoms?

Tom: Their strategy for emotional control is really the polar opposite of mindfulness. The first challenge is to help them understand that mental isolation is not going to work. Turbulence, a routine part of flight, presents a problem. It, like takeoff, is dynamic, and intrudes into their isolation. Takeoff only lasts a few minutes and is over. But turbulence can go on and on. With isolation their only remaining means of emotional control, when turbulence penetrates their isolation, it causes them to experience high anxiety, panic, or terror.

It is through a form of mindfulness that is now being called “reflective function” that we are able to distinguish images produced by imagination in the mind’s eye from images produced in the eye by reality. When stress hormones increase, reflective function decreases. If stress becomes too high, reflective function fails. When it does, the person goes into a state of psychic equivalence: the contents of the mind and the contents of reality are experienced as one and the same. What the person fears is happening is experienced as really happening. They are afraid the plane will fall. When stress builds up during turbulence, they experience the plane as falling, perhaps thousands of feet. This means terror.

Medication makes the problem worse. It helps reduce day-to-day anxiety by reducing reflective function so the person is less aware of things inside that cause distress. But when medication reduces reflective function in flight, the result is psychic equivalence, and terror. When the medicated person gets off the plane, they may never realize the plunge they experienced was imagination. Instead, they believed they narrowly escaped death and they were only able to live through it because of the meds. So they continue taking meds when flying until they are so traumatized by psychic equivalence that they are no longer able to fly. There is research that shows medication increases in-flight panic.

Elisha: If you were sitting across the table from someone who had to get on a plane in one week and had a deep fear of flying, what advice would you give them?

Tom: Like mindfulness, the capacity for reflective function varies. Some people have little reflective function. In the long term, reflective function can be increased by therapy. But there is a problem with reflective function; it brings awareness of things inside ones self that one does not want to be aware of.

Part of therapy is coming to know and to accept more of what is inside. Until a person’s reflective function is robust, the amount a person needs to be protected collapse under the assault of stress hormones so they can recognize imagination and see it is not reality. Fortunately, I’ve found a way to train the amygdala to not release stress hormones when flying by linking each challenging moment of flight to a moment the amygdala regards as emotionally safe, such as what is expressed on the face of another person during a moment of empathic attunement. In such moments the amygdala lets its guard down, and stops producing the hormones that cause feelings of danger.

The amygdala is very interested in the human face. I would help them find a moment of profound connection with another person and remember the person’s face. When the moment is vividly recalled, it produces a bit of an anti-stress hormone, oxytocin. Oxytocin is produced when there is genuine attunement and empathy, such as nursing an infant, romantic foreplay, engagement, or wedding vows.

As they relive the moment, I would ask them to imagine a photograph of a plane about to land being held touching their cheek so their face and the flight scene are seen at the same time. I repeat this with each of the different flight scenes that could bring anxiety during the flight. They need to repeat the linking process until the links are established. This can be done on their own, with me on the phone, or with their therapist talking them through the steps.

Since giving up control is such an issue, meeting the person who has control makes a huge difference. I tell them to go to the boarding area early and ask the agent there to allow them on the plane at the beginning of the boarding process so, once on the plane, they can ask a flight attendant to ask the captain if they can come to the cockpit and meet the captain.

Since I can’t sit across the table with most of my clients, I use video. They first view video that explains how flying works, and then video that shows how to link a moment of empathic attunement to the challenging moments of flight. Then, I do a phone session with them to fine tune what they are doing to establish these links. And, if they get stressed at the airport, they call me on my cell phone. Therapists who have fear of flying clients can use the videos to learn how to use this method with their clients.

Thank you so much Tom for your wisdom.

To the readers: Please share your thoughts or experiences about this interview or fear of flying. Your interaction provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

It’s no secret that human beings are social animals and with that comes a host of potential difficulties. We can be rude, obstinate, aggressive, impatient, and sometimes just plain difficult to deal with. Sometimes when others are that way with us we take it personally and at the least it can ruin our day at the most it can stick with us for years to come.

Sharon Salzberg wrote The Kindness Handbook: A Practical Companionand in it she recites a story from the Buddha that I found a great lesson to help when people are being difficult with us.  

One day a Brahman was visiting the Buddha near a Bamboo Grove. The Brahman angered and displeased went to the Buddha and on arrival insulted and cursed him with rude, harsh words.

When this was said, the Buddha One said to him: “What do you think, Brahman: Do friends and colleagues, relatives and kinsmen come to you as guests?”

“Yes, Master Gotama, Sometimes friends and colleagues, relatives and kinsmen come to me as guests.”

And what do you think: do you serve them with staple and non-staple foods and delicacies?”

Yes, sometimes I serve them with staple and non-staple foods and delicacies.

And if they don’t accept them, to whom do those foods belong?

If they don’t accept them, Master Gotama, those foods are all mine.

In the same way, Brahman, that with which you have insulted me, who is not insulting; that with which you have taunted me, who is not taunting; that with which you have berated me, who is not berating: that I don’t accept from you. It’s all yours, Brahman. It’s all yours.

Whoever returns insult to one who is insulting, returns taunts to one who is taunting, returns a beating to one who is berating, is said to be eating together, sharing company with that person. But I am neither eating together nor sharing your company, Brahman. It’s all yours. It’s all yours.”

So what do we take away from this?

People, including us, are carrying a hold host of issues that are brought to any given interaction. If someone is being insulting, if we insult them back, we are basically accepting their insult, sitting down with them at the table and sharing company with someone who we would like rather not share company with.

So the next time someone is rude or insulting to you, remind yourself, “I am not sharing your company, it’s all yours, it’s all yours.”

Note: In this story, the Buddha was not insulting, taunting or berating prior to the Brahman’s behavior. It may be the case that we did do something prior that hurt the other person. If this is the case, then it’s important to look at our part in the picture and move toward reconciliation if possible.

Please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com