Happy New Year

     May I abandon every variety of time wasting, and open-heartedly ride the razor's edge of now.

Thriving at the Growing Edge

     "It is so easy to banish areas of pain from the warmth and love of my heart. Aversion to discomfort is a rejection of the pain. It also marginalizes a central part of the truth of what is happening. Opening to pain is a persistent practice, and at this edge I learn much. 
     I have found that it is vital to touch discomfort with an awareness that is forgiving, accepting, and loving.”

       Harrison G. “In the lap of the Buddha.” Shambhala, Boston, 1994.

emilyaharrington, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Self-respect

     "I used to think that people who regarded everyone benignly were a mite simple or oblivious or just plain lax — until I tried it myself. Then I realized that they made it only look easy. Even the Berditchever Rebbe, revered as a man who could strike a rock and bring forth a stream, was continually honing his intentions. 'Until I remove the thread of hatred from my heart,' he said of his daily meditations, 'I am, in my own eyes, as if I did not exist.' "

       Marc Barasch "The Compassionate Life: Walking the Path of Kindness"

denjw   www.dpreview.com

What is a University's Mandate?

     “The thing being made in a university is humanity…. [W]hat universities … are mandated to make or to help to make is human beings in the fullest sense of those words – not just trained workers or knowledgeable citizens but responsible heirs and members of human culture…. Underlying the idea of a university – the bringing together, the combining into one, of all the disciplines – is the idea that good work and good citizenship are the inevitable by-products of the making of good – that is, fully developed – human beings.”                     Wendell Berry

        Palmer PJ, Zajonc A. “The heart of higher education: A call to renewal. Transforming the academy through collegial conversation.” Jossey-Bass, San Francisco, 2010. 


     Teaching Wisdom: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2014/01/teaching-for-wisdom-urgently-needed-now.html
     Distraction OR Wisdom?: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2014/02/allergy-allert-penicillin-peanuts-wisdom.html

 

Self-awareness, Introspection, Meditation, Mindfulness ...

     "we all have to look with awareness and compassion at our own inner suffering and violence. ... this is the only way to set ourselves free from the automatic behaviors that so often govern our lives."                                                 Roberto Mander, Shambhala Sun, September 1999

Bess

Emotionally Intelligent Healthcare Professionals?

• Self-awareness and self-management skills. Identifying and self-regulating emotions, managing stress, and evaluating how emotions and behaviors may affect others; assessing personal strengths and limitations; seeking help and making effective use of external resources to achieve personal and academic goals.
• Social-awareness and interpersonal skills. Recognizing feelings and perspectives of others, including those from different cultures and backgrounds; effectively communicating and resolving interpersonal conflicts in constructive ways.
• Responsible decision-making skills. Making ethical decisions; evaluating the consequences of choices, and how virtue (e.g. honesty, justice, compassion, courage) enables us to recognize the needs of others when making decisions; recognizing how individual students can contribute to the well-being of the school and broader community.
- See more at: http://wisdomresearch.org/forums/t/1486.aspx#sthash.NmQwByzS.dpuf

• Self-awareness and self-management skills. Identifying and self-regulating emotions, managing stress, and evaluating how emotions and behaviors may affect others; assessing personal strengths and limitations; seeking help and making effective use of external resources to achieve personal and academic goals.
• Social-awareness and interpersonal skills. Recognizing feelings and perspectives of others, including those from different cultures and backgrounds; effectively communicating and resolving interpersonal conflicts in constructive ways.
• Responsible decision-making skills. Making ethical decisions; evaluating the consequences of choices, and how virtue (e.g. honesty, justice, compassion, courage) enables us to recognize the needs of others when making decisions; recognizing how individual students can contribute to the well-being of the school and broader community.
- See more at: http://wisdomresearch.org/forums/t/1486.aspx#sthash.NmQwByzS.dpuf

• Self-awareness and self-management skills. Identifying and self-regulating emotions, managing stress, and evaluating how emotions and behaviors may affect others; assessing personal strengths and limitations; seeking help and making effective use of external resources to achieve personal and academic goals.
• Social-awareness and interpersonal skills. Recognizing feelings and perspectives of others, including those from different cultures and backgrounds; effectively communicating and resolving interpersonal conflicts in constructive ways.
• Responsible decision-making skills. Making ethical decisions; evaluating the consequences of choices, and how virtue (e.g. honesty, justice, compassion, courage) enables us to recognize the needs of others when making decisions; recognizing how individual students can contribute to the well-being of the school and broader community.
- See more at: http://wisdomresearch.org/forums/t/1486.aspx#sthash.NmQwByzS.dpuf

Self-awareness and self-management skills. Identifying and self-regulating emotions, managing stress, and evaluating how emotions and behaviors may affect others; assessing personal strengths and limitations; seeking help and making effective use of external resources to achieve personal and academic goals. - See more at: http://wisdomresearch.org/forums/t/1486.aspx#sthash.NmQwByzS.dpuf

     Documents listing minimal competencies for graduating healthcare professionals are peppered with references to emotional intelligence (EI). Yet students and faculty alike continue to strongly resist attempts to include EI-related subjects in the healthcare curriculum. Their reasons typically include: 
          • no room in an already packed curriculum; 
          • it's already covered (presumably by parents, places of worship, & earlier education); 
          • not directly applicable to the "science" we teach;
          • outcomes from teaching such "soft subjects" can't be measured; 
          • "we're not training them to be social workers".

     Students continue to gain admission to coveted spots in health-care professional education almost entirely by obtaining high marks on multiple-choice tests (MCTs). Even in science-related subjects, MCTs poorly assess depth of knowledge. How much do we know of these students' self-knowledge, character, psychosocialspiritual maturity? Embarrassed avoidance *** is how admissions & curriculum committees "deal" with these critically important characteristics. Then why are we repeatedly surprised when a proportion of these students "handle their stress" in outrageously dysfunctional ways?
    
      "Ignoring the shadow side of our personalities can only lead to what Freud once called 'the return of the repressed'.”                    Mark Epstein MD

     Comprehensive, integrated Behavioural Sciences curricula could provide students in health-care professions with explicit guidance & practice to intelligently deal with their own & others' emotions - a MUST in order to minimize the frequency & gravity of grossly unprofessional behaviour, not to mention a host of mental health issues, burnout, and suicide. 

     Professionalism includes being explicitly aware of & embodying the highest level of EI and practicing appropriate self-care. Unfortunately, students only take these matters as seriously as their educators.

     *** more on avoidance: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2014/11/avoidance-is-easier-than-wisdom-hows.html
          fearing introspection: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2014/12/608-fearing-shallows.html
          ethical infants: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/09/do-we-need-more-nuclear-giants-who-are.html

koasiausad.blogspot.com

Intelligently Savoring, Kindly Engaging Life

     "Well, I don’t know many people who still believe in art for art’s sake. You know, we have flowers for that. Most people that I know who are artists really are dedicated to trying to change people and to change minds and hearts. A lot of it has to do with just survival, that we, as a species, can survive and thrive. And so, people are putting their hearts into their work in a way that I think they haven’t done in a very long time."

     "It is the worst of times. It is the best of times. Try as I might I cannot find a more appropriate opening to this volume: it helps tremendously that these words have been spoken before and, thanks to Charles Dickens, written at the beginning of A Tale of Two Cities. Perhaps they have been spoken, written, thought, an endless number of times throughout human history. It is the worst of times because it feels as though the very earth is being stolen from us, by us; the land and air poisoned, the water polluted, the animals disappeared, humans degraded and misguided. War is everywhere. It is the best of times because we have entered a period, if we can bring ourselves to pay attention, of great clarity as to cause and effect. A blessing when we consider how much suffering human beings have endured, in previous millennia, without a clue to its cause. ... We have only to open our eyes, and awaken to our predicament. We see that we are, alas, a huge part of our problem. However: We live in a time of global enlightenment. This alone should make us shout for joy."           Alice Walker, from her book "We Are the Ones We Have Been Waiting For"
http://www.democracynow.org/2006/11/17/inner_light_in_a_time_of

The Choice to Open to Reality

     “By adulthood, we have developed sophisticated psychological strategies and patterns to deal with the uncertainties and unpredictability of life. These strategies shape the person we become and, unfortunately, can do so in increasingly limiting and rigid ways. 
     As our personality and ego-identity become stronger, they can also become less flexible, so that our capacity for adaptation and change also slows and freezes. What were once natural mechanisms for adaptation, growth and survival can begin to be limitations that actually accentuate our suffering. Life then presents us with a further challenge. Are we ready and willing to wake up, to let go and open to our intrinsically fleeting, illusory nature and allow ourselves to change? If we do not do so willingly, then it is inevitable that life circumstances will eventually demand that we face ourselves and shed the skin of our limiting self-conceptions to discover our true nature. Some may take up this challenge, this call, while others choose to do otherwise.”

       Preece R. "The Wisdom of Imperfection. The Challenge of Individuation in Buddhist Life." Snow Lion Publications, Ithaca NY, 2006. 

"The Hydrostone" district of Halifax, Nova Scotia

Homo sapiens sapiens - OR - Mindless Consumers?

     "Our society values alert problem-solving consciousness and it devalues all other states of consciousness. Any type of consciousness that is not related to the production or consumption of material goods is stigmatized in our society today."

       Graham Hancock, writer, "DMT: The Spirit Molecule" 2010 movie.


     "What scares me the most ... is that I think we live in an age of complacency. What we're being told is that what we are good at is to sit and watch television or movies. And I guess that stops you from taking risks and facing fears. ... we're being told that what we're capable of is just taking stuff in and buying stuff."                Jason Segel, actor, writer, producer

       Jason Segel interview on CBC radio November 26, 2014: http://www.cbc.ca/q/blog/2014/11/26/jason-segel-nightmares/

Michael Wood   https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10152770060165664.1073741832.628775663&type=1&l=dd02666ee1

Existential Freedom

     "The term 'existential' derives from Latin exsistere, which means to come into being or to have real being whether material or spiritual. By the existential philosophy, we do not experience ourselves as our essences or principles, but as individuals living in the world, always facing our own fragility and mortality. It is precisely this 'passionate anxious freedom toward death' that enables us to construct a sense of purpose, freedom, and authenticity in life, the fundamental existential attributes."

 

       Okon TR. Palliative care review. Spiritual, religious, and existential aspects of palliative care. J Palliative Med 2005; 8(2): 392-414.

jp wildlife   www.dpreview.com

Loving-kindness - an Open Mind-Heart

     “Loving-kindness means … true friendliness to the reality of all things and all events – in their joy, in their suffering.”
 
        Halifax J. “Fruitful darkness. Reconnecting with the body of the earth.” HarperSanFrancisco, NY, 1993. 

 

Busy, Busy, Busy!

     “…how we have filled our world with a multiplicity of noises, a symphony of forgetfulness that keeps our own thoughts and realizations, feelings and intuitions out of audible range. Perhaps we fear that with silence we might hear the cries of our own suffering and the suffering in the world.”

        Halifax J. “Fruitful darkness. Reconnecting with the body of the earth.” HarperSanFrancisco, NY, 1993.

1 of 19 toxic tailings ponds in Alberta, by Garth Lenz, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Avoidance is Easy - but NOT Sustainable

     As with one's personal issues, dealing fully consciously with organizational problems is potentially gut-wrenchingly difficult.
     Can an organization's problems - even theoretically - be unrelated to its members' personal problems? Could an organization possibly remain the same if all its members were replaced by 
1) wise, mature, emotionally-intelligent people; 2) robots; 3) psychopaths?
     Many of us avoid addressing personal and organizational difficulties until the shit hits the fan. The most common vehicle for avoidance is frantic busyness. Cynical demeaning of attempts to address the real issues is another popular way of fearfully avoiding our own incompetence. Timely expert guidance helps thaw the glacial gridlock of psychological rigidity, allowing normal personal & organizational evolution to occur.

     "Ed Deming used to say that 97% of what matters in an organization can't be measured. Only maybe 3% can be measured.
     But when you go into most organizations and look at what people are doing, they're spending all their time focusing on what they can measure and none of their time on what really matters - what they can't measure. Why would we do this? We're spending all of our time measuring what doesn't matter. In fact, it's part of avoiding a lot of the really difficult and important issues, like virtue."
     Peter Senge in "Reflections of a Recovering Management Accountant"                     www.wisdomatwork.com

Mindless Consumerism & Unsustainable Global Misery

     Marx said religion was the "opium of the people" - and for some, it remains a stupefying force. Entry-level religion for the masses differs qualitatively from what the Buddha, Jesus, Mohammed and other founders of wisdom traditions intended. It's like comparing fast-food-induced morbid obesity with the ideals of nutrition - no comparison.
     But the masses today are under an additional devastating stupefying force - materialism. The answer to all our problems, including 9/11? - "Go shopping - to show the world what America's made of!" Yikes!!!!
     Multinational business, with the help of advertising psychology, is turning the masses of humanity into a herd of dumb cattle. Industry was supposed to make life better and easier for humanity. Instead we have hoarders, stress from too much choice(!!!), child labor, outrageous rich:poor disparity, and garbage that's smothering the land, air, oceans and groundwater. 
     We must WAKE UP - NOW - and be responsible caretakers of the earth and each other.

Maturation - Evolution of Consciousness

     "Once one recognizes the selflessness of consciousness, the practice of meditation becomes just a means of getting more familiar with it. The goal, thereafter, is to cease to overlook what is already the case. Paradoxically this still requires discipline, and setting aside time for meditation is indispensable. But the true discipline is to remain committed, throughout the whole of one's life, to waking up from the dream of the self. We need not take anything on faith to do this. In fact, the only alternative is to remain confused about the nature of our minds."

       Sam Harris. "Waking Up. A Guide to Spirituality without Religion." Simon & Schuster, 2014.

Resilience via Mindfulness

     "Resilience is a 'class of phenomena characterized by patterns of positive adaptation in the context of significant adversity or risk,' meaning that resilience is largely the ability to remain at one's hedonic setpoint while going through negative experiences. Psychologists have identified various factors that contribute to a person being resilient, such as positive attachment relationships (Attachment Theory), positive self-perceptions, self-regulatory skills (Emotional Self-regulation), ties to prosocial organizations (Prosocial behavior), and a positive outlook on life. These factors can contribute to maintaining a happiness set point even in the face of adversity or negative events." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hedonic_treadmill

     Mindfulness training is about developing intimate engagement with reality, as it unfolds moment-by-moment, regardless of whether we perceive reality to be pleasant, unpleasant or neutral. While this may seem like a simple concept, it requires much patient training. Yet stabilizing in awareness, even for brief periods, is to enjoy a freedom and quality of life that makes the practice abundantly worthwhile.
     A nice 2014 summary of the neuroscientific understanding about how Mindfulness works from Scientific American: http://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/2014/06/12/what-does-mindfulness-meditation-do-to-your-brain/
     Ritchie Davidson PhD and Jon Kabat-Zinn PhD concisely summarize some of the neuroscientific data in this (6 minute) 2012 YouTube video:

Power OR Love ??

     I've had several conversations with decent, intelligent, well-educated men who were absolutely convinced that being open-hearted in "the real world" simply doesn't work - the world would take advantage of them. What does this imply about the average person?

     "Power properly understood is nothing but the ability to achieve purpose. And one of the great problems of history is that the concepts of love and power have usually been contrasted as opposites - polar opposites - so that love is identified with a resignation of power, and power with a denial of love. We've got to get this thing right. What is needed is a realization that power without love is reckless and abusive, and love without power is sentimental and anemic. Power at its best is love implementing the demands of justice, and justice at its best is power correcting everything that stands against love. It is precisely this collision of immoral power with powerless morality which constitutes the major crisis of our time."        Martin Luther King, Jr.

     Mindfulness meditation is a skillful way of becoming familiar with the depth of our being, including both amazingly positive aspects, as well as "our shadow" - our less-than-flattering egocentric tendencies. By accepting, and thus clearly seeing our shadow, we're liberated from having to "act out" our shadow, and are able to awaken to our full human potential.

Shane Gross, National Geographic   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com

Reptilian Violence vs Evolved Mentoring

     The (2014) flurry about Jian Ghomeshi, the Dalhousie Dental students' Facebook group, the recurrent nightmare of "honor killings", regular gang rapes ± murders of women (occasionally of men also), are boils coming to a head from the underlying chronic, endemic psychopathology affecting too large a proportion of our species.
     The Oscar-nominated 2013 movie "The Invisible Woman", http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1700845/ based on the true story of Charles Dickens' secret affair with a young woman, is a brilliantly crafted study of an infinitely more subtle form of violence against women.
     In this movie, the 18-year old female was fascinated by literature. Dickens could have easily mentored her to help her realize her full professional potential as an author - ideally, to surpass him. Instead, he abused his wealth and position in order to subjugate and keep her as a hidden possession. Dickens was blindly indifferent to her plight & ignorant of the violence he was unknowingly inflicting on himself.

     When a spiritually-mature person sees another who is relatively immature, the desire to mentor arises (rather than the predatory reptilian instinct to seize & control). An evolved, civilized human being nurtures fellow human beings (instead of enslaving them).
     Our own, individual spiritual maturation requires the urgency of attention "as if our hair were on fire". Mere identification with a religion or philosophy, by and of itself, does NOTHING for our individual spiritual maturation - it can even worsen our complacency or much worse. Waking up can't wait. Sleepwalking our way through life is causing tremendous suffering for all of us.

     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/04/hatred-of-feminine-archetype-cynicism.html 

     and: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/11/communication-skills-start-with.html

greg mclemore   www.dpreview.com

Rushing - towards Happiness??

     We're inundated with the idea that the pace of life is insanely fast, and accelerating! We're mindlessly striving - we assume - to be happy. However mindlessness, time-poverty, and striving, in and of themselves, cause suffering, not happiness. Relentless workaholism is literally killing people - it's so common in Japan that they've coined a name for it: karoshi.
     Mindfulness is an intelligent, viable option!
 
     Mr. Singh in the picture below - the one pulling the rickshaw - is as happy as the average American. He's interviewed in the multi-award-winning 2011 documentary movie "Happy."

See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/search?q=time-poverty

Manoj Singh, rickshaw operator, Kolkata, India

Quality of Life for One, for All

     We're slowly but surely realizing that personal multidimensional wellness - physical, mental, emotional etc - is a basic requirement - NOT LUXURY - for success for our solo profession, our family, our company, our city, our nation, our species, our global village. The flight safety instructions to put oxygen masks on ourselves first, and then on our children, makes perfect sense.

     "Though organizational development is a huge and profitable business, studies show that more than 70% of organizational change efforts fall short of their intended goals. Why?
     Because most change efforts fail to take an 'integral approach' to the complex whole system change. 
     In order to develop agile, resilient, thriving organizations, we need to continually monitor and manage across both the inner and outer dimensions of our work, while investing attention to optimizing the personal, 'me,' and collective, 'we' dimensions that are critical to our well-being and success in every moment and interaction."

     Joel & Michelle Levey www.wisdomatwork.com

Philip Lanoue   www.dpreview.com

Awakening Harmony & Wholeness

     “... to the spirit of harmony and wholeness awakening within us all.

      As our world becomes ever more complex and stressful, developing our capacity for dynamic balance in our lives, work, and relationships becomes ever more vital to understand and embody in our own lives and to model for others whose lives we influence.”

        Joel Levey, Michelle Levey. “Living in Balance: A Mindful Guide for Thriving in a Complex World.” Divine Arts, Revised & Expanded edition, 2014.

What is the Quality of Our Converations?

     How much thought & care do we put into the quality of what we're about to say? Yet the quality of our conversations reflects the overall quality of our lives - at work, at play, as well as at home.
     This is from Mongolia, roughly 50 years ago.

     “We were all gathered around the oil lamp, and the conversation was quiet, harmonious, unhurried. We took turns speaking. Mother and Father usually reported what had happened during the day. Grandma added explanations and time and again developed them into stories. Nobody interrupted her, nobody interrupted anybody, everybody got rid of what was on his or her mind. And nobody interrupted what they were busy doing, either.
     Everybody listened to the conversation, including the children, who were (playing) … and they loved it. It felt so good to play. Yet the children never lost track of the conversation even though they would not butt in unless they were asked a question. Everybody took part in everything. Sometimes there was a longer pause, but nobody ever rushed to break in. Rather, we would let it last and muse upon it. This way everybody seemed to be getting prepared for the night’s rest.”

       Galsan Tschinag “The Blue Sky.” Milkweed Editions, 2006. 

Wholeness in Health Care - or - Science Only

     Some academics still firmly believe in the biomedical model. See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/search?q=biopsychosocial Though arguments to preserve it were lost decades ago, the ultra-conservative agenda continues to surface as "practical" roadblocks to curriculum reform.


     "Ultra-conservatives" UCs feel that safe-guarding their profession entails teaching dental & medical students only the sciences required to practice their respective professions. "Soft subjects" must be excluded, because they're: irrelevant, and/or common sense, and/or private, personal matters eg ethics, medical humanities, behavioral sciences, spirituality, etc. and "there's not enough time" in the curriculum.
     Proponents of the biopsychosocial model BPSs feel that sciences need to be balanced with a broad worldview that acknowledges the importance of clinicians (and their future patients) being helped to mature as human beings, along whatever specific direction each chooses. BPSs understand the critical importance of promoting & optimizing students' (and thus, future patients') mental, emotional, spiritual and social, as well as biological, health.

     See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/11/values-purpose-meaning-quality-of-life.html