In this interview, Toni talks to us about how she learned to live with chronic illness, how developing equanimity can help, and her favorite quote. She also shares some advice for those who are suffering.  

Elisha: There are so many forms of chronic illness that come in the form of physical and emotional manifestations. How did you learn “How to be Sick?”

Toni: To a large extent, the Buddha taught me “how to be sick.” He’s often called the great psychologist because he had such a keen understanding of how the mind works. Everyone’s life has its unique mixture of joy and suffering. The Buddha focused on suffering because it’s a truth about life that we tend to turn away from. For me, it has included this illness. For others it could be difficulties at work, tension in a relationship, even not being able to find your car keys!

We can’t always fix our physical suffering – the Buddha experienced great bodily pain at times – but he said that we can relieve our mental suffering. Mental suffering includes both painful emotions (worry, anger, resentment) and stressful thoughts (thoughts that, when left unquestioned, can lead us spin elaborate stories about our life and our future that have little basis in fact).

The book contains many practices that help loosen the grip of painful emotions. We can bring them into awareness (sometimes called mindfulness). This allows us to see them for what they are – impermanent for one thing (thank goodness!). We can also loosen their grip by learning to cultivate calm and gentle mind states such as kindness, compassion (for ourselves first), and equanimity. (And, since emotions manifest in the body, this can even lessen our physical symptoms.)

The book also contains practices to help us question whether our stressful thoughts – the stories we spin about our lives – have any basis in reality. There’s a chapter in the book devoted to Byron Katie’s remarkable technique for questioning the validity of our thoughts. Some Zen practices are helpful here too . “Am I Sure?” I’m always asking myself (thanks to Thich Naht Hanh). Am I sure the doctor I saw doesn’t care about me? Maybe she’s terribly overbooked today. Am I sure my friend has lost interest in me? Maybe she has family problems of her own. Being sick or otherwise disabled is hard enough without adding mental suffering to it. Learning to work with painful emotions and stressful thoughts is the principal way I’ve learned “how to be sick.”

Elisha: In your book you say that “Dwelling in equanimity, we are able to face life’s difficulties with a mind that is at peace.” This is easier said than done. Tell us a bit how you’ve worked through this.

Toni:  In Buddhism, equanimity is one of four sublime emotional states. The dictionary defines it as “mental calmness and evenness of temper, especially in a difficult situation.” Some Buddhist teachers even equate equanimity with enlightenment. No wonder it’s easier said than done! Here are some of the ways I cultivate equanimity.

First, the Buddha’s teachings on impermanence (anicca) help me maintain “mental calmness and evenness of temper” when the going gets rough. If my symptoms are in a bad flare, I take up what I call “weather practice,” recognizing that my physical symptoms and my mental suffering are as changeable and unpredictable as the weather; they blow in and blow out like the wind. Just knowing this is a big relief, partly because it helps me not to follow that tendency to identify with a particular physical symptom or negative emotion as all that I am. When I see that I am not just pain, I am not just sick, I am not just frustration, I am not just sadness, it helps me calmly wait for things to change.

Second, I fall back on the Buddha’s teachings on suffering. By suffering, he was referring to dissatisfaction with the circumstances of our life. We’re familiar with this dissatisfaction whether we’re sick or not. It’s our constant longing for things to be other than they are. I like to consciously drop, just for a moment, the desire for my life to be other than it is. When I do this, I instantly feel a great sense of relief. I’m at peace. These “wants/don’t wants” (a phrase I use to refer to desire) may almost immediately pop back into my mind, but that taste of peacefulness lingers and inspires me to keep working to attain calm acceptance of my life just as it is.

Third, I’m content to take baby steps in the direction of equanimity. In the book, I draw inspiration from those who have tread this path before me – from Thai forest monks to a Christian theologian to the actress Susan Saint James who talked in a television interview about finding peace with having lost her teenaged son in an airplane crash. There’s a quotation on equanimity from the Thai forest monk, Ajahn Chah, that I’d committed to memory before I got sick:

If you let go a little, you will have a little peace. If you let go a lot, you will have a lot of peace. If you let go completely, you will know complete peace and freedom. Your struggles with the world will have come to an end.

Little did I know that these words would become essential to me as I face the difficulties of chronic illness. If I can’t “let go” a lot, I let go a little. I can almost always nudge my mind a bit toward letting go of the desire for my life to be other than it is. Each baby step makes it a bit easier to take the next one. My personal definition of enlightenment is to not be dissatisfied in any way with the circumstances of my life. I’m certain that if this were the case, my “struggles with the world will have come to an end.” (I assume it’s obvious that, on this score, I’m a work in progress!)

Elisha: You have many good quotes at the beginning of each chapter. What is your favorite quote in there and let us in on what meaning it has for you?

Toni:

One, seven, three, five –

Nothing to rely on in this or any world;

Nighttime falls and the water is flooded with moonlight.

Here in the Dragon’s jaws:

Many exquisite jewels.

—Setcho Juken

I don’t remember where or when I found it this 1000 year-old poem but sometime in the middle 1990s, I copied it by hand onto a slip of paper and stuck it on the wall in front of my desk at work. At that time, it served as a gratitude reminder. Even in the dark of night, the moonlight lit my way, giving me much to be thankful for. Even when I was having a tough time, my life was full of exquisite jewels if I just took the time to look. Moonlight and jewels.

Then, in 2001, I got sick. For six months, I didn’t see my little poem. But, unwilling to accept that I wasn’t regaining my health, I returned to work on a part-time basis. There on the wall were Setcho Juken’s words again. However, now all I could see was the nighttime falling and the Dragon’s jaws clenched tightly around my body and my mind. When illness forced me to trade my office for my bedroom, I stuffed the little slip of paper into a drawer by my bed where it stayed for six years.

When I thought about writing a book, the title, How to Be Sick, came first. But when I began to write the text, my Setcho Juken poem was the first thing I put on the page. The moonlight was starting to light my way again. I was once again noticing the sparkling jewels in my life: the birds and trees outside my bedroom window; a newfound love for classical music; heightened compassion for those with chronic illnesses and conditions; and overwhelming gratitude for my husband who suddenly and without warning had become the most conscientious and loving of caregivers.

My guess is that my journey with this poem is not at an end yet!

Elisha: If you were sitting across the table from someone suffering with a chronic condition right now, what advice would you give them?

First, I’d say: Try as best you can to find a doctor who sees your relationship as a partnership, meaning a doctor who listens to you; is willing to do research and consult with others if necessary; and is flexible about treatment options (that is, he or she doesn’t take the position, “This and only this is what you must do”).

Second, I’d say: Remember that suffering from a chronic illness or condition is not a personal failing on your part. Despite the barrage of advertising claims to the contrary, everyone is going to face health problems at some point in his or her life. This is just the way it’s happened to you. With the right tools, you can learn to live gracefully and purposefully with this unexpected change in your circumstances.

Thank you so much Toni for the wisdom you share.

To the readers: Please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction creates a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

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

We all suffer in life. Whether it’s deep emotional pain, physical pain, or just wanting to avoid an upcoming work project, the mind is constantly on the lookout for how to fix this suffering.

However, what we are often times offered is a romantic version for how to alleviate the suffering. We read the book or watch the programs that tell us simple steps on how to change our lives. These in themselves can be helpful, but not if we don’t do the work.

The truth is, real transformation and change takes a kind of discipline and can be hard work. The mind wants to rebel against this and tell us it’s not true. We can change at any time, witness it in someone who smokes cigarettes and says, “I can quit at any time, I’ve done it hundreds of times.”

Through the course of our lives we’ve developed an internal monitor in our minds that views life in a particular way and makes decisions below our awareness that is based on past experiences. The beliefs are deep, “I can’t do this” or “I have no time for that” or “I haven’t spoken to my sister in a while, but I’m just too busy right now.”

It’s almost as if we need to retrain our brains to see life differently and that doesn’t happen at the surface. That happens at a deeper level and in the same way that it was trained before. We need to learn new ways of relating to life, practice and repeat them.

Over time, we’ll more automatically be present to life, more compassionate, more flexible in mind, and have greater clarity on what is most important.

But it can take hard work, we must not fool ourselves. Anyone can read a book, go on a retreat, or watch a movie and feel changed for that moment.

But once we get back into the routine of life, the automaticity of the mind guides us back into the well worn grooves that have been practiced over and again. Before we know it, we aren’t viewing life from that place of insight and wonder how we ended up in the same place again.

The mind may protest, it’s OK, that’s to be expected as there is a big part of us that doesn’t want to change. There’s a certain comfort to status quo. However, for many of us, it’s just not where we want to be anymore.

So, whatever change you want to make, you may need to leave the mind behind for a bit and allow action to speak for now. Set up a schedule, get a buddy, and stick to it.

Only through practice can we grow new neural connections in the brain that creates new well worn grooves in the mind and makes healthier decisions more automatic.

As you do this, you may be pleasantly surprised at the fruit that is born.

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interactions create a living wisdom that we can all benefit from.

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

Whether our minds like it or not, this is the reality. We all share a common truth in this life and that is the truth of impermanence. But it is this very truth that frees us up to recognize the wonders of everyday life.

Life becomes more routine when we deny or avoid this reality.

John wished that we “experience each day as sacred gift woven around the heart of wonder.”

How could we possible do this if we’re not aware of the preciousness of life? Things are precious because they don’t last. Think about a butterfly or a flower. Many of us view these as precious because of their short lifespan.

In the context of this planet, we have a very short lifespan. In the context of the universe, this planet probably has a short lifespan.

Our moments in this life, in this day, right now, are precious and may even be considered a sacred gift.

Have you ever looked at the trees outside and truly wondered how it is that they grow? Or closed your eyes and listened to the birds chirping only to open the eyes back up again and sit in wonder about how we have all these different animals on this planet?

Have you ever wondered or been amazed at the fact that you have the ability to view the words on this page, read them, comprehend and make meaning? The complexity of our biological makeup is astounding our ability for consciousness and reflection has yet to be truly understood.  

One thing that I am clear on is that behind everyone’s emotional walls sits a wise self that is there to love and receive love and it seems from the accounts of many on their deathbeds when life gets simple that this is truly what is most important. 

Time is like fine sand slipping through our fingers, why not open our eyes to come in touch with what is most important right now.

Make this a reflection for today that you come back to.

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

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

There are lots of troublemakers in this world that really rile us up. What would you say if I told you the moment you noticed tension rising in your shoulders and your face becoming pursed is a moment of opportunity.

Here is a video by a wonderful teacher named Pema Chodron:

We can allow ourselves to be victim to our automatic reactions or we can learn to become aware of them so that we don’t become so hooked.

When thoughts come up, we don’t have to rise to the bait!

“I’m a failure,” “I’ll never get things right,” “Today is going to be awful” need only be mental events that have an emotional charge. They don’t need to determine our fate, but instead can teach us about how to gain freedom from the automatic aversions we have in life.

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

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

Reconciliation is a practice. There are three aspects to cultivate reconciliation. The first is to cultivate self-compassion for our own self negative talk. Second, to the pain you caused another and lastly for the times others caused you pain. May we all discover the gateways to our own hearts and open to compassion and peace

Take a moment to sense what happened in your mind before reading any further.

Various thoughts may have arisen in connection with uncomfortable emotions:

• “What did I do wrong?”
• “I’m worthless.”
• “I knew it, nobody likes me.”
• “What the hell is wrong with her?”
• “What’s the point, really.”

OK…now let’s say you’re boss just told you what a fantastic job you’ve done and how she’s going to give you a 15% raise and an extra week vacation. This is great news…as your mind is spinning around all the ways this will enhance your life, your friend walks by and as you raise your hand to say hi, she just walks by.

Now what comes up in your mind?

Many people might have an alternative viewpoint here.

• “I wonder what’s wrong with her.”
• “I hope she’s ok.”
• “Maybe she didn’t see me.”

Same event, different precipitating event and mood, different interpretation.

The bottom line: Thoughts simply aren’t facts, they are mental events that pop up in the mind and are dependent on our mood. In this case, dependent on the precipitating event that led to the mood of feeling depressed versus excited.

Next time your mind jumps to a conclusion that inevitably sends in you in a spiral toward depression or anxiety, check to see where your head was at the time of that interpretation. What just occurred prior? There may be some clues as to why the interpretation was made that way.

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

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

Ioften say that there are two things that are unavoidable in life besides death and taxes and those are stress and pain. Pain is prevalent, be it physical pain and/or emotional pain. So we can all relate. But what if we could use our minds to change our brains and actually relieve our perception of pain this way.

Jeffrey Schwartz is a psychiatrist and researcher in the field of neuroplasticity and has written on Mindfulness and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. In a 2006 article titled “Plasticity in Brain Processing and Modulation in Pain” with Donald Price and Nicholas Verne, they said:

When sufficient attention is focused on the experience of pain relief, the associated brain circuitry becomes dynamically stable. This acute effect of focused attention can then enable the well-validated principle of Hebb (1955), namely that repeated patterns of neural activity can cause neuroplastic changes and new connectivities to form in well-established neural circuits (‘‘cells that fire together wire together’’). This type of attention-based mechanism of neuroplastic change has been termed self-directed neuroplasticity to emphasize that alterations in CNS function can be readily driven by and dynamically modified by willfully directed mental events (Schwartz and Begley, 2002; Schwartz et al., 2005). As was stated above, mental events change the activity of the brain in a dynamic manner. Basic principles of contemporary physics now enable us to place this empirically well-validated fact within theoretically coherent, scientifically grounded, and technically described context.

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) was first designed as a systematic program to work with Chronic Pain. Perhaps the people who have taken that course actually changed their brains so that their perception of their pain has changed. That would be truly amazing, and if that’s true, we can all take a step back, pause and sit in awe that we have the power to change our brains.

Here’s the rub: In a recent post Neuroplasticity: The Good, The Bad & The Ugly, I discussed how we can also place our attention in ways that change our brains in the direction where we perceive greater pain. In other words, what and how we place our attention affects the growth of our brain, which then automatically shifts our minds and vice versa in a cycle.

So when it comes to our pain, it’s important to pay attention to how we’re paying attention to our pain. Are we damning it or trying to ignore it? Research has shown that bringing the attitudes of mindfulness (e.g. beginner’s mind, non-striving, letting be, etc. …), all serve to change our perception of pain. So can this then, in effect, change the way our neurons fire automatically so the perception of pain lessens? That’s what neuroscientists are saying.

What do you think? 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

Morrie Schwartz was living his final days as a result of Lou Gehrig’s Disease. When Mitch Albom found out about this he spent every Tuesday with him learning the lesson that in this life you must learn to love yourself and those around you. He went on to write Tuesdays with Morrie.

It’s really interesting how western culture often doesn’t value our elderly – oftentimes where life’s lessons are held. We seem to get caught in a trance of automaticity and routine and life passes by without recognizing what’s most important.

One reason for this may be because of our denial of death. If you are a person who has someone close to you who has been dying or if it is yourself, you may notice many people not wanting to talk about it. Death makes people uncomfortable; it’s a reminder that we are all impermanent here.

This denial of death is one of the main culprits for not recognizing how precious life really is. When we avoid what we’re uncomfortable with, we close ourselves off to something very important.

I’ve quoted this before, but it’s a good reminder. Rumi says,

“Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.”

We can take a lesson from those who are dealing with the passing of life; things seem to become a lot clearer. All the erroneous baggage we carry seems to slide off as life’s essence emerges. Of course this doesn’t always happen, but enough of these stories have emerged that makes it worth paying attention to.

Randy’s and Morrie’s messages are not unique, it’s just that our minds make the snap judgment that it’s bad to have that reality in our awareness and so auto-pilot takes over and we avoid it. At the same time, we avoid seeing the wonders of everyday life.

We can learn from the fact that life is impermanent.

As author and meditation teacher Stephen Levine says, “If you were going to die soon and had only one phone call you could make, who would you call and what would you say? And why are you waiting?”

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

Elisha: What are Pocket Practices, and how can they help people find peace?

Allan: Pocket practices are concise, incisive versions of the Buddhist teachings known as the “Parami” (Pali) or “Paramitas” (Sanskrit) that can help us think, speak, and act wisely under pressure. They are compact but effective practices that we develop slowly so that we can call upon them quickly, instinctively. They are light, responsive, and powerful.

Some pocket practices uplift the spirit, while others provide a method for dealing with disappointment, anger, insecurity, reactive patterns, and judgmental tendencies. Others simply bring us more in contact with the person we want to be––our kinder, more compassionate, more generous self––our true self. They don’t require a meditation cushion, sacred space, candles, incense, or a holy attitude, just a desire for a greater sense of inner peace and happiness.

Elisha: You had a long career in the performing arts before becoming an Interfaith minister and the guiding teacher for Manhattan’s Community Meditation center. What compelled you to pursue spiritual studies?

Allan: There is no simple answer to that question. I was happy with the earlier part of my life, but of course, one cannot sing beyond a certain age (unless one is Placido Domingo). Sometimes I think it was just a calling. In Buddhist terms, it was the coming together of various conditions and events. I met a few people who seemed to be at peace in a way I had experienced. When I spoke with them they all referred to spiritual aspects of their lives. I became intrigued and began to attend retreats, read books, work with teachers, meditate––that was the biggest factor, meditation. It has been transformative. Now it is my great joy to share the teachings with others in both the spoken and written word.

Elisha: If you could recommend just one Pocket Practice for every reader to try today, what would it be?

Allan: We are all subject to conditions and events outside of ourselves, and within, that can cause stress, anxiety, and turmoil. I would suggest that readers sit quietly for five minutes a day for a week and remind themselves that many things happen that are beyond our control. How we perceive these things, what our experience is of all events, is totally in our control. The specific pocket practice reads, Only I can destroy my peace and I choose not to do so. It is a good idea to do this practice every month or so until one truly owns it.

Elisha: Q: If you were sitting across the table from someone right now who was going through a difficult time, what advice would you give them?

Allan: The first thing I would do is listen. It is sad how many people go through life without someone who has actually listened to them. I believe we have the answers we need within us. Often, when we have someone who listens, without trying to fix, correct, or assist, we are able to find our way. 

A universal truth, of course, is that all things are impermanent; this too will pass. If we have courage and look directly at our suffering we will see its cause. Often as we see the cause of our suffering we also see how to alleviate it.

Thank you Allan!

To the readers: As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction creates a living wisdom we can all benefit from.

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

Mind traps are those habitual thinking styles we get caught in that inevitably trap us into a cascading snowball of reactivity that leads us to greater distress. Look this over, see if you identify with any of them and then we’ll get back to 5 Short Chapters.

These include, but are not limited to:

• Catastrophizing is a style of thinking that amplifies anxiety. In challenging situations, it expects disaster and automatically imagines the worst possible outcome. It’s a what-if game of worst-case scenarios. An example would be telling someone that it’s raining pretty hard, and they respond with “Yes, it seems like it will never stop. It’s going to flood, and we’re going to lose all our crops.”
• Exaggerating the negative and discounting the positive go hand in hand and contribute to anxious and depressed moods as positive experiences are downplayed or not acknowledged while negative details are magnified. An example is when you say something positive, then use the word “but” to lead in to a negative statement, such as “I’m doing better at work, but I’m still making mistakes.” This discounts the positive and gives more power to the negative. Experiment with replacing “but” with “and” to give both aspects equal weight.
• Mind reading involves convincing yourself that you know what other people are thinking and feeling and why they act the way they do, without actual evidence. For example, you may incorrectly assume that someone doesn’t like you or is out to get you. Such interpretations tend to cultivate anxiety or depression.
• Being the eternal expert is a recipe for heightened stress, as it necessitates being constantly on guard. When being wrong isn’t an option, you’re continually on trial to defend your opinions and actions.
• The “shoulds” are an all-too-common thought pattern that can lead to guilt or anger in addition to stress. Shoulds involve having a list of unbreakable rules for yourself or others. If you break your rules for yourself, guilt often arises because you haven’t lived up to your own expectations. If others break these rules, you’re likely to become angry or resentful.
• Blaming involves holding others responsible for your own pain or holding yourself responsible for the problems of others. With blaming, there’s always someone or something outside of yourself that’s the cause of your suffering and pain. However, you generally can’t change others, and you may not be able to change circumstances—you can only hope to change yourself. If you perceive that the solution lies outside of you, you deprive yourself of the power to effect change.

*Adapted from A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

In Portia Nelson’s poem she begins the first chapter saying how she walks down a street and falls into a hole. She has no idea how she fell in and says it isn’t her fault. It takes her “forever to find a way out.”

In the second chapter, she only pretends to not see it, still falls in, and still says it’s not her fault. In chapter 3, she still falls, in but now recognizes it’s a habit, takes responsibility, and gets right out. In chapter 4, she is able to see the hole and walk around it and eventually in chapter 5 she simply walks down another street.

Mind traps work the same way. At first we might not even be aware of them happening and how we get stuck in them. Then we are able to notice them, but still get stuck in them. Eventually we can notice them and begin to shift our attention so we don’t get caught in the snowball reaction. Finally, with awareness and practice, we’re able to see them from afar and walk down a different street.

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

Busyness seems to be a growing epidemic. Even though we seem to have lots of gadgets that are meant to make us more efficient with our time, the gadgets all draw our attention and life seems to speed up. What happens when life speeds up? Well, often times what’s best for us goes to the bottom of the “to do” list.

I might ask people, “So you have this seemingly unending to-do list. Where are you on this list?” This is often met with either a quizzical look or a moment of reflection where the answer is almost always, “I’m not on it. There’s no time for me.”

Now there have been enough people writing about time management and I’ve written a few times about attention management, but today I want to bring up something different and that’s the idea of flexibility.

While I do believe that a flexible body lends itself to a flexible mind, here I’m focusing on the mind and our behavior.

If you had the time, what are some things that you’d like to do in the day? Would you like to have more time to yourself to just relax? Would you like to learn the guitar? Would you like to fit in more exercise? Would you like to be more social?

We often times have these rigid ideas in our minds about what it means to do any of the things above. For example, in order to exercise you might think you need an hour or more to go to a gym or to play guitar there needs to be time set aside for 30 minutes or more in a quiet place. Or maybe to be social you need to set up events or go out to more gatherings of some kind.

What if you flipped your mind about and thought more micro? What if we were more flexible with what we could do with our time?

For example, is there anywhere in your day you have 5 minutes to do some push-ups or sit ups?  Or perhaps is there a 20 minute time at lunch to just take a walk around your building or block?

For guitar, there are so many YouTube instruction videos that are free now that offer little 5 minute instructions. Pick up your guitar and play for 5-10 minutes; that is perfectly fine. Doing that a number of times will either get the engines revving to make more time or will simply improve your playing.

To relax, there are plenty of opportunities during the day to do this, you don’t need to go on vacation or have an entire afternoon to yourself (while that has its own merits). You can allow stop lights to be a reminder to breathe and relax the body; you can choose to wash dishes without the fervor of getting them done, but more with a mindful lens. The shower can also be a mini-retreat if practiced with mindfulness. We have many more of these examples in A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook.

Allow your mind to entertain the idea that we can do the things we like in the small moments of the day.

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

Busyness seems to be a growing epidemic. Even though we seem to have lots of gadgets that are meant to make us more efficient with our time, the gadgets all draw our attention and life seems to speed up. What happens when life speeds up? Well, often times what’s best for us goes to the bottom of the “to do” list.

I might ask people, “So you have this seemingly unending to-do list. Where are you on this list?” This is often met with either a quizzical look or a moment of reflection where the answer is almost always, “I’m not on it. There’s no time for me.”

Now there have been enough people writing about time management and I’ve written a few times about attention management, but today I want to bring up something different and that’s the idea of flexibility.

While I do believe that a flexible body lends itself to a flexible mind, here I’m focusing on the mind and our behavior.

If you had the time, what are some things that you’d like to do in the day? Would you like to have more time to yourself to just relax? Would you like to learn the guitar? Would you like to fit in more exercise? Would you like to be more social?

We often times have these rigid ideas in our minds about what it means to do any of the things above. For example, in order to exercise you might think you need an hour or more to go to a gym or to play guitar there needs to be time set aside for 30 minutes or more in a quiet place. Or maybe to be social you need to set up events or go out to more gatherings of some kind.

What if you flipped your mind about and thought more micro? What if we were more flexible with what we could do with our time?

For example, is there anywhere in your day you have 5 minutes to do some pushups or sit ups?  Or perhaps is there a 20 minute time at lunch to just take a walk around your building or block?

For guitar, there are so many YouTube instruction videos that are free now that offer little 5 minute instructions. Pick up your guitar and play for 5-10 minutes that is perfectly fine. Doing that a number of times will either get the engines revving to make more time or will simply improve your playing.

To relax, there are plenty of opportunities during the day to do this, you don’t need to go on vacation or have an entire afternoon to yourself (while that has its own merits though). You can allow stop lights to be a reminder to breathe and relax the body; you can choose to wash dishes without the fervor of getting them done, but more with a mindful lens. The shower can also be a mini-retreat if practiced with mindfulness. We have many more of these examples in A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook.

Allow your mind to entertain the idea that we can do the things we like in the small moments of the day.

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

I would argue that as Viktor Frankl says, there are many spaces that occur in our lives between moments of stimulation and moments of reaction where there is power to choose a response. “In that response lies our growth and our freedom.” In the unfolding of moments, we have the power to become present, gain clarity, change our minds, change our brains, incline our minds toward the good, and even learn how to relate to our difficult feelings differently to realize a freedom from the confines of our habitual thoughts and reactions.

I’m currently writing an upcoming book called The Now Effect: How this Moment Can Change the Rest of Your Life (Atria Books, 2011). The premise of this book is based on moving beyond some promised pathway to enlightenment and turning the wheel of mindfulness one step further to learn how to specifically engage the space “between stimulus and response” to gain more clarity and choice in various facets of everyday life. My goal here is to write it in a very practical and accessible way so we move beyond the intellectual game with engaging the now and readers can realize its effects.

I’ve often told the story of how my father used to visit people on their death beds and one man had a very telling story. He spent his entire life stepping on other people to get to what he perceived to be a man of high value (e.g. power and wealth). Unfortunately there were no people around him at this time. At the end of his life he was forced to stop and reached a moment of clarity. He realized it was about who you love and how you love them and the rest of it never mattered. This man reached this clarity at the end of his life, but it was too late to make use of it.

This is about gaining clarity in our lives about what is really most important right now so we can live life with this intention. We don’t have to wait for a 9/11 or a heart attack to recognize that we don’t “have to” be a slave to this habit energy of rushing around and distraction. However, without a practical knowing of where these spaces lie, we are destined to be driven by an auto-pilot in our minds as that’s just the way things go.

It makes sense. Our brains are designed to handle more and more complex information and as more complex avenues of information has become available (e.g., PDAs, internet, etc..), our brain adapts and we can’t help but live in shallow noisy waters and lack a sense of depth of what is most important. It’s not really our fault, our brains adapt to handle the complexity of the situation and at times to simply try to avoid pain.

But there is another choice and the only way we can truly realize it is through some kind of intentional practice that brings us here.

Consider this:

As you’re reading these words you are living in a space between where you were previously and to where you’re about to be. 

What is most important for you to be paying attention to in this next moment? Recognize right now that you have a choice onto where you can intentionally place your attention.   

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

“Amidst the worldly comings and goings, observe how endings become beginnings.” 

Underlying this quote is an important message that often times the mind is too quick to fully grasp.

“Yeah, yeah,” it says, “one door closes another one opens, I get it.”

No, no…take 20 seconds right now after you read this next sentence to become present. Close your eyes, notice your body, notice how you’re feeling and become aware of your breathing. Go ahead and do this now before continuing.

Now,

“Amidst the worldly comings and goings, observe how endings become beginnings.” ~ Tao Te Ching

We might look at this quote and see an important message to any of us who are struggling with a current situation where it seems like the end is at hand; whether this is a job, a relationship, or even the death of a loved one. We might see that it’s asking us to look beyond the ending and see that inevitably there is something new that is about to be in front of us.

But this isn’t relegated to large events like the examples above. As soon as you finish reading this post, there is a new beginning, a new opportunity to engage life in the way that aligns with your values.

Yes, that’s right, every moment we become present is a “choice point.” Because our minds have an automatic negativity bias, we’re likely to recognize most of these choice points during difficult times.

Choice points lie all around us, but because we’re inclined to live in a state of auto-pilot, we don’t recognize these choices, the spaces between the stimulus and response.

I would argue that in the moment we become present and wake up to the automatic reactivity that is happening in our minds, we sit in a space, and as soon as that happens, that may be an ending and what follows is a new beginning to that moment that with awareness, we can choose a different response and influence a new unfolding of life.

Here’s an example. When the mind is nagging, we automatically judge it as bad and then become frustrated which kicks the mind into “fix it” mode to try and get away from the nagging mind. What we find is that this automatic process only adds aggravation to a nagging mind and it turns into a splitting headache. Another scenario might be noticing this reaction occurring and recognizing in that space is a new beginning. An opportunity to notice how this frustration manifests in the body and just explore the sensation as if it was the first time you noticed it. What this does is interrupts the cycle and feeds kindness and gentleness into you instead of warring factions.

There are lots of examples like this.

However, easier said than done ofcourse. That is why it’s important to practice becoming present and being aware of these spaces so that when difficulty arises, it’s more on the tip of your mind.

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

Gina has adapted MBSR to MBSR-T for the adolescent population and conducted a randomized control trial assessing the efficacy of this program with significant results. She has published an article about her findings in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology (JCCP). Gina is also currently conducting a formal research study to assess the efficacy of the Mindful Schools program.

Today, Gina talks to us about how to teach mindfulness to teens to help them focus and be happy.

Elisha: What is the difference between teaching mindfulness to adults versus teens?

Gina: I think the most important thing to pay attention to when you are using mindfulness with teens is assessing whom you are working with developmentally.  For example, are you working with teens in middle school or those in their senior year of high school?  There are many differences to notice with these two groups of teenagers.  Also, in terms of emotion regulation and coping strategies I find that teens are not as able to respond to life’s stressors, both large and small, with the same ability an adult.  It’s important to keep in mind that teens from every region of the world, nationally and internationally are going to come from a multitude of different backgrounds (e.g., socioeconomically, ethnically etc.).  It’s necessary to look at teens as a population, but within this population consider the unique aspects of the group all the way down to each individual you are exposed to.  Additionally, I find that teens are very open to mindfulness skills and to learning something new.  To many of these teens, the skills they need to become socially and emotionally balanced young adults is not where I believe they should be and mindfulness is a pathway to this and if you can plant seeds that later grow into flora all the better.

Elisha: One of the practices you have in your book is Doing Schoolwork Mindfully. Since this is such a prevalent issue among teens (and their parents), can you give us a sample session here of what this looks like?

Gina: I encourage teens that have difficulties with focus, concentration, and/or overload from anxiety before a test or with doing homework:

1. First start and just notice their breath as it already is.  This will first, connect their head to their body, and if they are noticing their breath they hopefully aren’t noticing worry thoughts or focus on self-judgments that they “can’t pay attention,” to take a break from these thoughts even if for a brief moment. 
2. Once they have noticed a few breaths, I encourage them to do a brief body-scan meditation, and I will offer this meditation in the room with them. 
3. Next, I ask them to visualize taking the test or doing their homework, and to see them completing it with ease and to remind themselves that they can do their best.  This can assist in reducing the added pressure they have from themselves and from their parents. 

Once they have gone through this process, they can then begin, and if they start noticing difficulty again, to take a pause and go through this process again.  It is also a practice in being kind to the self.  For more details on this practice, teens can follow Activity 18 in my workbook or audio track 13.

Elisha: In your book you say, “Being happy and enjoying your life takes more than just a passing thought or statement; it is about actively noticing and doing what makes you happy.” How do you teach teens to do this?

Gina:  There is a saying in the mental health field, something to the effect, “if it is working do more of it.”  I notice that some teens who are suffering from depression, anxiety and the like, at times add to their suffering or make their problem(s) worse by engaging in negative-coping strategies and self-judgments. If there are things that they can do that make them happy, then do more of it.  I encourage teens to notice what healthy activities they engage in that make them happy, whether they take up a short or long period of time or if they are free or expensive.  Once they have this list, they can always turn to it when they feel like nothing in their life brings them happiness or calms them and do something from the list.  If we don’t teach someone how to be happy how can we expect him or her to automatically be happy?  We encourage teens to take a foreign language in high school, preferably for three years; I believe we need to teach them the foreign language, to most teens, of mindfulness.

Elisha: If you were sitting across the table from a teen who was stressed out right now, how would you engage him or her?

Gina: The most important thing is to be yourself!  I hope that I don’t come across with an all-knowing attitude instead I try to view myself as just another person on their path and if I can help in some way then that is wonderful and if I can’t, then I accept that as well.  I look at work with teens as being part of their journey.  I try to give them a different experience with an adult and not create, as much as possible, a 1-up position that can so easily be taken advantage of.  I would like to meet teens where they are.  For example, I like to use their language and share age-appropriate anecdotes that hopefully they will be able to relate to.  I also use a comfortable body posture.  After all of the aforementioned, I would mention what I notice, “It seems like you are stressed right now, what is going on… do you feel like talking about it?”  If the teen opens up then we go from there, if the teen on the other hand says, “I don’t know” or seems closed off, I might offer some red flags to notice what might be a response to stress both physically and psychologically and share with them what led me to think they might be stressed in the first place.  A few other tips would be to use mindful listening and offer respect to the teen sitting across from you; he/she might not often get listened to or treated with respect.

Thank you so much Gina! 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

As the gaze of the groom and bride met I couldn’t help but notice a welling up of emotion in my heart and felt the tears come to my eyes filled with joy and hope. There was something just so beautiful about that moment and the moments that unfolded. I could sense by their smiles and the look in their eyes that the bride and groom were enshrouded in the present moment, deeply in touch with the meaning that was there (especially with the contrast of all that had just gone through).

What is it about the moment a bride and groom catch each other’s gaze that wells up those feelings in us? As I reflect on this what first comes to mind is a sense of hope, possibility and promise for the future and there’s something beautiful about that alone.

But that doesn’t seem to hit the core of it. As I inquire deeper, I can’t help but think that there is something deep inside each one of us that wants to feel a sense of belonging and acceptance and that moment is the ultimate fruition of that longing.

As this is occurring, there seems to be a deep sense of belonging and acceptance that goes deeper than just an intellectual understanding, but seems to be felt on a soul level. A commitment is being symbolically made that says I accept you and you accept me for the entirety of this life. We are partners in this life together.

In the Jewish tradition there is a saying that in this case, the bride recited as she looked into her soon-to-be husband’s eyes:

“Dodi li, va’ani lo (My beloved is mine and I am his…)”

This speaks to the core of acceptance and belonging. All the love that had been felt in the relationship up to this point is peaking in that moment as the gaze locks and the ceremony unfolds.

This longing is so primal in each of us that that moment pulls on our heartstrings as a loving resonance occurs of what is so beautiful before our eyes.

Ofcourse this reaction is going to vary from wedding to wedding and from person to person (with some seeming to go in the opposite direction), but there is enough of a common reaction to these moments that seems to make it a shared truth among many people for a longing for love, belonging and acceptance.

Now, if we can get the couple to share with us how they dealt with their stress management leading up to the wedding, that’s fuel for another post.

In the end, this is a truth we want to remind ourselves of as the marriage continues and children start becoming part of the picture. We can all take a lesson from these big moments.

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

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

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TodayI bring Jeff back to tell us about how mindfulness and his 4 step process can not only help us break free from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) but be a path toward greater stress management and well-being.  

Elisha: In your book Brain Lock you present a four step process for working with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) that has gained prominence and is being used by therapy centers around the world. Tell us a bit about this 4 step process and why it works?

Jeff: The four steps came out in brain lock published in 1996. I have a new book that’s going to be out in the beginning of 2011 and the co-author, Rebecca Gladding, is former Chief Resident in Psychiatry at UCLA and now UCLA faculty. In this new book we apply these same 4 steps in OCD to a much broader application and really use it as a means for stress management.

I’ll give you both versions.

First step is the same in both, Relabeling. There’s been great work by Matthew Lieberman OF UCLA on the tremendous power of labeling on emotional faces and other things to manage Amygdala hyper-responsiveness, in other words to manage fear and stress responsiveness. This research says if we put a label on our emotion, we can help manage our response to it. So Step 1 is Relabel.

Step 2 is called Reattribute, which in the original 4 steps means attribute the fact that the troublesome feeling or a bothersome emotion that you are feeling is a manifestation of your brain sending you a false message. So don’t attribute it to yourself, your psyche, or your upbringing, but actually attribute it to a maladaptive brain circuit. This helps give you some distance between the sense of who you are and the troublesome feeling which again helps you manage it. Then apply the impartial spectator, which is another term for mindful awareness. We’ve actually just broadened that term to be reframe in the new book.

Reattribute is good in OCD to say “it’s the brain.” In using the brain in a more abstract way we thought the word reframe might be more general than the term reattribute.

The other 2 steps are exactly the same.

Refocus is the 3^rd step. Given what I had said about Quantum Zeno Effect and Hebb’s law and self-directed neuroplasticity, it should be pretty clear why refocus is very important. If you change your focus from a negative maladaptive response to a positive wholesome response that’s going to be conducive to well-being. Refocus will rewire your brain in ways that will be conducive and wholesome and adaptive to your well-being.

Then when you do this regularly, you get to the 4^th step which is Revalue. In Revaluing you change the valuation you put on the initial experience. Revalue is a deeper form of relabeling, so you don’t have to go through a whole linguistic process, but you actually just get a sense of immediacy in knowing this is not a good thing to be focusing on. In other words, these feelings are a destructive brain message and I can manage my responses to and focus away from in an adaptive way.

Revalue just means you put a different valuation on the initial negative experience so you no longer need to use the linguistic cognitive reframing, you do it automatically. From a neuroscience perspective we would posit that this means that instead of needing to primarily use the cortex to do that process, it now becomes a wholesome habitual response because doing it repeatedly and intensively actually gets the basal ganglia or the habit center of your brain to take over the process. So Revaluing is basically all the steps being done by your basal ganglia in ways that would be much faster and much more automatic.

Elisha: If you were sitting across the table from someone struggling with lots of stress in their life, what would be your initial approach, what advice would you give to them?

Jeff: Well I’ve almost answered that in the 4 steps. There is a tremendous power to using labeling. Putting a linguistic label on it and doing it with a cognitive reframe. Here’s the heart of the answer, as you do these steps you begin using your impartial spectator or mindful awareness. What you want to do is get that 3^rd person perspective on 1^st person experience. All of these techniques are really geared toward enabling people to get a 3^rd person perspective on 1^st person experience.

Now being a serious Christian, I’m certainly more than happy for people to bring Jesus in as the impartial spectator. I believe this will be more than just a cognitive reframing, but certainly also a cognitive reframing. It’s probably the best way to get a real 3^rd person to have a perspective on your 1^st person experience. Because Jesus has access to that and Jesus can help you manage it.

In summary for all people, it’s all geared toward getting a 3^rd person perspective on your 1^st person experience which is what we mean by impartial spectator, a term I borrowed from Adam Smith, which is what we mean by mindful awareness, a term I borrowed from Buddha.

To the readers: As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction creates a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

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

This Vblog talks about important distinctions between “Letting Be” and “Letting Go” as it relates to mindfulness meditation practice and life.

There’s a funny print cartoon that has a man and woman sitting on the couch staring at a TV screen and the caption below reads, “It’s 12 O’clock, do you know where your mind is?” As time goes on and we grow up from children to adolescents to adults, for many of us, somewhere along the way life begins to become routine. Day in and day out whether we’re walking, driving, talking, eating, going to the grocery store, or being with our families our minds get kicked onto auto-pilot and continue to develop their habitual ways of thinking, interpreting, expecting, and relating to other people. These habits of the mind can keep us stuck in stress, anxiety, depression, or even addictive behaviors.

Here are a few habits of the mind and a mindfulness practice to help you break out of auto-pilot and gain more control over your life.

Common habits of the mind that are not effective for well-being:

• Catastrophizing – If you’re prone to stress and anxiety, you may recognize this habitual mind trap. This is where the mind interprets an event as the worst case scenario. If your heart is beating fast, you may think you’re having a heart attack. If your boss didn’t look at you while walking down the hall, you thinking you’re going to get fired. You get the picture. This style of thinking will support increased stress, anxiety, and even panic.
• Discounting the positive and exaggerating the negative – The news is wonderful at supporting us with this one. This is where we habitually reject or minimize any positive feedback and magnify the negative feedback. The glass is always half empty. If you catch yourself saying something positive and then saying “but” followed by a negative, you are practicing this. “I got a 95% on this test, but I didnt’ get a 100%”. Without awareness, this style of thinking will likely land you in a depressed mood.
• Blaming - Be careful of this one. We all do it, pointing the finger at someone else for our woes or point the finger at ourselves for others woes. “If my boss wasn’t so hard on me at work, I wouldn’t be so anxious” or “It’s my fault my parents got divorced”. Just check in with yourself after noticing this style of thinking. It doesn’t cultivate any solutions and just makes you feel stuck, anxious, or depressed.

Cultivating the ability to be more present to these mind traps will help you break free from them and shift your attention on more effective ways of interacting with life. If you notice catastrophizing, actually say to yourself “catastrophizing is happening right now”, then bring your attention to your breath for a moment to steady your mind and then ask yourself, “what are some other possible reasons why my heart is racing fast (e.g. , I just ran upstairs, I’m nervous)?

If discounting the positive, come back to the breath, and then switch the “but” to an “and” so at least the positive statement get its equal weight, being more realistic and balanced. If blaming, call it out, say to yourself “blaming is happening”. Remind yourself that blaming simply isn’t effective for anyone and then come back to your breath to steady your mind and bring yourself back to the task you were just doing.

This is not an easy process, yet an important one for regaining control from the ineffective habits we develop in our minds. If we’re not mindful in our daily lives, our minds could just fall into their habitual states to the point we’re on our deathbeds asking “where did it all go?”

Just check in with yourself during the day, look at the clock and say, “It’s X O’clock, do I know where my mind is?” You may catch yourself in some mind traps and if not, just notice whatever you are doing in the moment and then continue if you still want to be doing that or change if you’d rather be doing something else.

Try to be patient through this process and not judge yourself if you find the mind traps arising. Judging yourself as bad or wrong is another mind trap that holds keep you stuck. Breathe in, breathe out, and just redirect your focus.

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Do you notice when you’re on auto-pilot? What kind of mind traps do you catch in your daily life, what works for you? Writing below helps create a living wisdom that we can all share and benefit from.

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

“When we settle into the present moment, we can see beauties and wonders right before our eyes—a newborn baby, the sun rising in the sky.”

This quote directly speaks to the fact that coming down from our busy minds allows us to break out of our habitual tunnel vision of seeing and experiencing life and retreain our neural networks to open up to perhaps the pleasant things that are also occurring in our daily lives.

It’s good to be mindful of the lenses we’re using to interpret the world we live in.

These lenses are often mindlessly crafted over time through the experiences we have in the world. If we grew up in an anxious household we likely had to practice being on guard all the time creating neural networks that allowed for an anxious survival reaction to happen without the need for deliberate thought. These neural networks were adaptive when we were young, but not as adults perhaps. In fact, as adults, these networks hinder us as we find ourselves in an unconscious tense reaction to our own feelings because it wasn’t ok to express these when we were young.

Oh boy, how do we unwind these neural networks that are no longer adaptive and begin to open ourselves to pleasant events in daily life?

One answer is through the awareness of this reaction. Come down from the reactive mind and just stick to the facts of the moment, the tension in the body. In other words, interrupt the cycle between thoughts, emotions and physical sensations.  

We can also begin unpacking the pleasant moments in life to get the mind used to recognizing these. One way of doing this is thinking of moments as a collection of thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations.

Here’s an example we can use right now:

Look back on this day (if it’s early in the morning, look to yesterday) and consider, was there a pleasant event, however small, that occurred today?

If yes, do you recall how what thoughts were on your mind? What emotions were there, and what were the associated physical sensations (e.g., relaxation, softness, butterflies in the stomach)?

The idea here is not to get caught in a Pollyanna rose colored lens way of looking at life, but just to get the mind used to recognizing these moments that are also very real.

Try this out. Feel free to comment below on what your pleasant event was and the associated thoughts, feelings and emotions. Your interaction below helps others flesh it out for themselves, so in a way, it is an act of care for yourself and also an act of altruism for others.

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