Would love to get some feedback from readers on the recurrent series of posts I am leaving with tips for people who are new to meditation. Please feel free to leave a comment or to drop a note on the Ask Here tab on the blog.
“Meditation teaches us safe ways to open ourselves to the full range of experience — painful, pleasurable, and neutral — so we can learn how to be a friend to ourselves in good times and bad. During meditation sessions we practice being with difficult emotions and thoughts, even frightening ones, in an open and accepting way, without adding self-criticism to something that already hurts.”
~~ Sharon Salzberg, Happiness
Mindfulness has such huge implications for things like working with what we label mental illness — our afflictive states such as anxiety, depression, despair, angst, sadness, phobia, stagnation, boredom, false euphoria, lack of concentration and mindlessness.
It also plays a major part in everyday life-like relationship, loss, illness, dying, communication, community, family, work, and just simply living.
This quote by Sharon Salzberg reminds me of Frank Ostaseki’s and Roshi Joan Halifax‘s teachings on being with dying.
I would love to teach every therapist and every teacher out there. . . in addition to every caregiver, every doctor, every patient. . . well, that could be all of us, couldn’t it?
Imagine teaching our children how to stay with their problems without running, hiding, drinking & druging, without losing themselves in peer pressure, sex before they are ready, self-mutilation, or eating disorders.
What would it do for our self concept?
Or our ability to make choices (really informed choices?)
Or create healthy relationships. . .
work spaces
neighborhoods
families
towns
I have to believe that we would grow a different world. . .
one where people could have time and space to explore what ails them rather than push it away
one where loved ones could be present to the needs of our children, the elderly, and ill
one where we didn’t go running for the bottle or the prescription pad
but rather
moved toward the meditation cushion, using walking meditation
or held the space for people to creatively and compassionately deal with their difficulties and those of others.
or foster open-hearted communication, group problem-solving, and nurturing for all.
So much good could come from those two minutes of breathing at your desk.
Or 10 minutes on your cushion
Or the walk where I listen to the rustling of leaves below my feet
Or that plate of food I savor and eat, bite by bite.
So what keeps us from it?
How do we teach others?
How do we model what kind of world we could have and what kind of world we want?
The answer (and the power) lies in the space between our exhale and inhale. . .
Does that sound cryptic? It really isn’t. Pick up a book about meditation and then try it.
You’ll get it!
Related articles
- What is Meditation? (namasteconsultinginc.com)
- Listen to Unlearning Meditation (namasteconsultinginc.com)
- Om: Meditation a big help for emotional issues (eurekalert.org)
- Meditation Improves Emotional Behaviors (scienceblog.com)
- Meditate Throughout Your Busy Day in 3 Not-So-Calm Places (massageenvy.com)
- Meditation Health Benefits – Harness the Soothing Power of Meditation (massageenvy.com)
- What we talk about when we talk about meditation: Days One Hundred Fifteen – One Hundred Sixteen (slowbreathsoftheart.com)
- New to Meditation? Where to start? (namasteconsultinginc.com)
- New to Meditation? Looking for a Peace and Calm? (namasteconsultinginc.com)
- Need more proof? (namasteconsultinginc.com)
- “Forgiveness is not a mandate” (namasteconsultinginc.com)
- Sharon Salzberg Video On Fearless: Redefining our Relationship with Fear (mariewetmore.com)
- Worth Pitching? Why Did A Meditation Story Get Repeatedly Rejected? (blogs.scientificamerican.com)
- Meditation takes the stress out of multitasking (nyrnaturalnews.com)
- New to Meditation? Lovingkindness Meditation (namasteconsultinginc.com)
- This is true meditation (beyondmeds.com)
I’m not new to meditation but this post is such a loving and helpful invite to those who are. Thank you for the important work you are doing.
Thanks Thomas! I think we need to encourage ourselves and others to take the 2, 5, 60 minutes to sit on the cushion or walk or whatever else we do mindfully. It is about our health, sanity, community, and planet, no?
I appreciate the comments and that you have been following.
Metta, Jen
Meditation has been a issue for me, that is trying to say online a description so others could meditate. hard almost impossible in print to teach someone to meditate. Way to abstract and time consuming in print.
Then I developed a breathing track model for novices. I found out you do not have to be a skilled meditator to heal and improve from PTSD, trauma, depression of anger. It was simple.
Here is my simple model which can be used with eyes open first to trace the breath. it is simple concrete and brings in two more senses sight and touch.
Here is the model
http://ptsdawayout.com/2012/06/15/mindfulness-meditation-the-simplest-description-ever/
http://ptsdawayout.com/2012/05/31/c-ptsd-my-healing-model-the-differences/
It does not change our breath but makes it easier to reach a thoughtless space.
I agree to a certain extent Marty. I learned to meditate by books… reading Thich Nhat Nhan but then it wasn’t enough. I was lucky I was a psych major and so things like biofeedback weren’t that weird. I also bought a lot of audiobooks and practiced.
I know that people like Mark Thornton talk about finding teacher and not relying on books but that’s not practical. I’ve lived in Pittsburgh, outside Denver, Nashville, and now out in the sticks. When I have been around large cities, I’ve tried to at least find communities. Now, the closest group of “lay” people is 45 minutes. I don’t know what I would do without the internet, audiobooks, etc.
I think the important thing is to practice and to develop patience for an imperfect practice. The practices of metta and compassion go a long way in our development and well, I have to admit, when I went to a pain psychologist a few years back, he wanted me to practice breathing. He didn’t give a care if I was angry at myself or feeling ease. . . it was rote, mechanical, and behavioral for him. So, really I would have been better off dusting off Jon Kabat-Zinn and spending the time it took me to go to Chicago, see the guy, and drive home, listening to Jon and practicing at home or at a state park somewhere.
Point is? Practice, practice, practice.
(And luckily we have innovative people like you who are coming up with ways to help everyone out!)
I agree, you were on a journey, but my experience these days are most people do not take any action. people with childhood PTSD grow up with low esteem because of coping mechanism to survive.
most live with a flawed self images and suffer. Worry and doubt prevent them from trying. many end up agoraphobic and will not try or take responsibility.
So something needing concentrated reading or abstract counting of the breath is way to involved for them. Most do nothing but take pills or visit a therapist and wait for them to heal them.
These individuals have no interest in sacrifice or a spiritual journey. relief from chronic depression and anxiety would be a miracle for them.
So my breathing track so simple but most will not even place ten minutes of effort in getting better.
The mind scares some to death. it is not only fight or fligh it is freeze also.
I do agree Marty. I was reading books on wicca and crystals when I was in elementary school. I was searching.
I am hopeful that with people like Congressman Tim Ryan writing about it will help. Who knows where we can go?
We just have to keep getting the word out. . . Green Lantern is now gay, may be we need to find an Xmen who practices mindfulness?
Bottom line, the people who really need it don’t have access without people like us (therapists, doctors, current meditators) and we need to keep modeling and putting the word out there!
It is so misunderstood, it has power to soothe the nerves and dissolve worry and doubt.
We could be introducing a mindfulness practice in elementary school. Does not have to be long or detailed. Why not teach kids to be able to let emotions and judgments go and be able to center and rest. Wow
Good work Jenifer
Right On Marty!
https://www.facebook.com/events/349553181780332/?ref=ts
Lesley Grant is doing early childhood mindfulness education out in Marin, CA!
Someone will discover my little model and use it someday maybe after I am gone. mindfulness could heal most suffering by humans. Well we create 95% of our own do we not.
it is simple slow the mind to match the breath. The mind always wants to race and be clueless, that is why wesay it is an awareness practice.
We need people to know about your model NOW!
Hhaha
We need cheerleaders also
I responded to that mindfulness site and they deleted it. Not very open for a mindfulness practice center.
Which site Marty?
https://www.facebook.com/events/349553181780332/?ref=ts
That sucks. I’m sorry. I only know her “through” others, not directly.
Well in my new way of using mindfulness, judging why others are closed minded or just in a different mood or whatever is their concern does not happen or is vacated quickly. letting others own their own behavior lets PTSD die. Weare perfect if we are here empty of thought, doubt worry or regret
Goals and success is not my concern anymore. I wake up and as you say I am a strange combination of some smarts, and a knack for simplifying things like I had OCD traits. I am direct, simple and passionate and then I relax.
Not judging or caring if someone has a negative opinion of me has freed my soul.
I do not need approval or disapproval. oh I do not mean to say I do not have issues or make mistakes but I accept that I am perfect and I try my best to live in this moment. I support others like every morning is special, so this kind of trivia does not move the meter.
Hahhahahaha
We write about being mindful, then we lead by
Icing it.
Youdo a wonderful job, jenifer. You are one of the kindest people I have met on the net.
Marty
Thank you Marty. You are very sweet. My mom would be proud of the comment. I think more than anything else in this world, fame, money, etc…. mom would want to have raised a kind child. I guess my best foot is forward here.
Many hugs, Jen
Great work, a noble cause. Because so many people still believe that meditation is connected with religious beliefs, it’s important for them to understand that meditation as a place for peace and rest, is available to all – without any strings attached.
I love Sharon Salzberg’s work and can very much relate to the quote in my personal experience as a long time meditator, but once again, I believe that the idea for some, that meditation has to be a place where anxiety or frightening feelings have to be dealt with can keep some away from the beneficial experience.
You are so right. There are so many misconceptions out there! It’s only navel gazing, it’s only for people with shaved heads, I need to go on retreat, etc etc. It’s about the in breath and out breath and learning to dwell in the space in between.
I think that it is a noble cause to let people know that it literally changes our physiology and that it is really not what most people think.
We can’t keep waiting for a great innovation to come our way. I hope with mindfulness now being pursed on the lips of every CBT therapist out there, every neuroscientist, coach, etc that hopefully we will get through to more people and make a critical difference.
Thanks for putting your work out there and making a difference yourself!
peace, Jen
What you write is good for beginners, intermediate, and seasoned practitioners…
I needed to be reminded in such a gentle way once again WHY. Not just how. I love Sharon Salzberg’s quote!
I agree we need ‘to grow a different world’ and that it is fully possible! I know when I’m a therapist, I will teach about mindfulness. It is a very useful tool for anyone to use.
Thank you. You bring peace and joy to me.
That was about the nicest thing anyone has ever said and I truly am blessed to receive it today!
Thanks for making my week!
Jennifer
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