What to Do?

I too tire of imperfection.
So nice to fly away from the same old
To see our world from 30,000 feet
To seek out only the cream,
in a far-off place.

There is truth
in beauty and perfection,
but our methods are yet crude. 

Impatience and perfectionism
- murderous companions - 
ensnaring foolish youth
unleashing hell on earth.

"It is no measure of health
to be well adjusted
to a profoundly sick society"
wrote Krishnamurti.

It certainly is a measure of health
to channel my energy
- be it anger or love -
to lessen, 
instead of adding to
suffering in our one shared world.

Latest Massacre - Fabrizio Bensch/Reuters

Burnout BEFORE Admission to Professional Schools?

     "... burnout is when physicians feel emotionally exhausted, depersonalised (ie, cynical & detached), and ineffective; when they feel 'an erosion in values, dignity, spirit, & will'."

        Ronald M. Epstein, Michael R. Privitera. "Doing something about physician burnout."

        www.thelancet.com Published Online September 28, 2016 

        http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/ S0140-6736(16)31332-0 

     An excellent podcast: https://resident360.nejm.org/content_items/1423

     But what percentage of students entering health-care (& other professions) have ever paid appropriate attention to their "values, dignity, spirit, & will"? How much does our society, or for that matter professional school admissions committees, actually value these self-reflective, spiritual matters? 

     I suggest that very few in our society care deeply about this: http://www.johnlovas.com/2016/11/the-power-of-self-knowledge-and-self.html

     Even within professional schools, a corrosive segment of both students & faculty ("hidden curriculum") are actively hostile even towards standard courses in the humanities: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/07/soft-skills-undervalued.html

     But neglecting inner poverty does become debilitating sooner or later: http://jglovas.wixsite.com/awarenessnow/single-post/2016/12/06/Delusion-of-Self-estrangement

 

What is Normal & Healthy?

     When we feel anxious, down, hungry, lacking, crappy, etc, we quickly do our best to feel normal, well, good or healthy again. If we're told "but that's just the way life is", we reject this, finding such sentiments defeatist, even repugnant. So most of us work hard, pretty well constantly, trying to control or optimize the infinite number & variety of externals that impact our lives. Nevertheless, we still feel anxious, down, hungry, lacking, crappy, etc. And we judge the fact that we're not consistently happy as unacceptable, even abnormal! So we have rapidly rising rates of mental illness, prescription- & illicit drug & alcohol abuse in North America. 

      The Buddha, despite being born a healthy, wealthy, intelligent, powerful prince, with everything the world could provide at his fingertips, realized that life was basically stressful, unsatisfactory and uncontrollable. 
     His concept of “dukkha (refers to) stress, suffering, misery, unsatisfactoriness, pain: literally, ‘hard to endure, difficult to bear.’
      In its limited sense, dukkha is the quality of experience that results when the mind is conditioned ... into craving, attachment, egoism, and selfishness. This feeling takes on forms such as disappointment, dissatisfaction, frustration, agitation, anguish, dis-ease, despair – from the crudest to the subtlest levels.
      In its universal sense, dukkha is the inherent condition of unsatisfactoriness, ugliness, and misery in all impermanent, conditioned things. This second fundamental characteristic is the result of anicca; impermanent things cannot satisfy our wants and desires no matter how hard we try (and cry). The inherent decay and dissolution of things is misery.”
       Buddhadasa Bhikkhu. “Mindfulness with Breathing. A Manual for Serious Beginners.” Wisdom Publications, 1988.

      So, at the very least, we might wish to consider Western psychology's well-established warnings about perfectionism: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/search?q=perfectionism
     There's much truth in JFK's famous saying: "The problems of the world cannot possibly be solved by skeptics or cynics whose horizons are limited by the obvious realities. We need men who can dream of things that never were and ask 'why not?'" 
     At the same time, it's wise to consider how minimal our individual input is, relative to the infinite variety & number of inputs that condition every event, person & thing. In other words, we have far less control over external events, including other people's behavior, than we'd like. Nor is it realistic or helpful take this personally - it's just one of the many laws of nature, like gravity, with which we must learn to work wisely. So constant dissatisfaction with the way things are, and constant striving to alter the flow of reality are futile, frustrating & self-destructive. Whereas accepting reality as it is, and ourselves as we are, is the hallmark of sanity, and the essential starting point for initiating realistic change. 
     So, when we feel anxious, down, hungry, lacking, crappy, etc, instead of our unhelpful reactivity, we might be wiser to 'lean into' and deeply investigate what's actually going on.

Studying the laws of the universe

Meditation on Gratitude

     "Both ancient teachings and modern medical research agree that one of the quickest, most direct routes to restoring harmony and balance in our lives is to foster gratitude and appreciation. The moment you shift from a mindstate of negativity or judgment to one of appreciation, there are immediate effects at many levels of your being: brain function becomes more balanced, harmonized, and supple; your heart begins to pump in a much more coherent and harmoniously balanced rhythm; and biochemical changes trigger a host of healthful balancing reactions throughout your body.
     In the healing ways of indigenous people, the restorative power of gratitude was well understood. A heart filled with gratitude generates actions and prayers that complete the circle between the gift offered to us, the receiver of the gift, and the sacred source of the gift. To offer prayers of thanksgiving is a gesture of rejoicing in discovering the many gifts that life brings us.

     Here is a practice we often teach as a way to dwell in gratitude and thanksgiving:
     Sitting quietly, shift toward dynamic balance with a few minutes of mindful breathing. Bring to mind someone or something in your life for whom you are deeply grateful.  This may be someone or something outside of you, or some inner quality, strength, or capacity that you are grateful for. As you breathe in, take this person or aspect of your life to heart. As you breath out, let your heartfelt gratitude shine deeply and brightly to them and through them, extending your love, gratitude, or blessings to them. Continue for as long as you like, letting each breath take to heart a loved one, a friend, someone who has been kind to you, someone who is teaching you patience or how to forgive, or some aspect of your life that you are grateful for.
     Allow each breath to shine from the depths of your being through the depths of their being in order to light up their life with your love, gratitude, and blessings. Taking your eyes, your ears, your hands, your intelligence to heart, bless them in a similar way with the heartfelt radiance of your appreciation. Whoever or whatever comes to mind, gather them into your heart, one at a time or all together. Taking these many gifts to heart, complete and affirm the circle with gratitude, assuring that the stream of blessings in your life and in the universe will be unbroken."

     Excerpted from Joel & Michelle Levey's books: "Wisdom at Work" and "Simple Meditation & Relaxation." www.wisdomatwork.com

Namaste

Psychological flexibility, Cognitive fusion & Defusion

     "Psychological flexibility is defined as the capacity to persist or change behavior guided by one’s goals and values, and attuned to what situations afford, in a context of interacting cognitive processes and direct experiences. 
     Psychological flexibility includes a number of interacting processes ... such as acceptance, committed action and cognitive defusion. 
     Cognitive fusion (the opposite of defusion) is essentially a process by which people become dominated in their experience by the content of their thoughts, lose contact with experience outside of the content of their thoughts, and are restrained to feel and do only what their thoughts say. This is sometimes referred to as being lost or entangled in thoughts or stuck in one’s own mind. 
     Cognitive defusion then is the loosening of this entanglement. It is the ability to make contact with direct sensory experiences, or like the ability to have a thought without being dominated by the literal meaning of the thought."

       Lance M. McCracken, Estelle Barker, Joseph Chilcot. "Decentering, rumination, cognitive defusion, and psychological flexibility in people with chronic pain." J Behav Med 2014; 37:1215–25. 

All alone with only one's thoughts ...

 

Parenting?

      Why would one wake up almost every morning with vivid images of the worst imaginable things happening to their closest loved ones? The level of fear / dread / anxiety / anger is off the scale on opening one's eyes. 
     At least one school of psychology maintains that if one's mother is absent - emotionally or physically - one tends to grow up feeling empty, invisible. Is it possible that creating vivid nightmares is the psychic equivalent of 'cutting' (deliberate self-harm) - a way of trying to feel real? Anger energy (rather than one's physical body) as an identity? Is this how perfectionism & workaholism arise?
     Why would one consistently work overly hard to help all of one's family and friends, and feel smoldering resentment for being unappreciated. Again, an invisible person working in the background, unappreciated, is very likely to be angry. An impossible attempt to be "seen", appreciated and perhaps loved through one's actions? It comes across more like a severe contract than unconditional love.
     Lack of unconditional love is traumatic. Nobody is raised with, nor capable of providing perfect unconditional love! Like any other dysfunctional parent-child relationship, some re-inflict the trauma, while others try to make sure to be much better parents. It's much easier to understand than to forgive parents' dubious parenting skills. Life's not easy for anyone.

A Buddha in every jungle of scarred emotions

 

Wholeness & Health Professionals

     Many health-care professionals are averse towards "soft" matters like "wholeness", "wisdom", "spirituality", etc. Yet if Vimala Thakar, Jon Kabat-Zinn, and many others are correct, health-care professionals, owe it to themselves, their families, colleagues and patients to intentionally, consciously work towards: wholeness, congruence, wisdom - the very areas about which they feel conflicted!
 
     "Compassion is a spontaneous movement of wholeness. It is not a studied decision to help the poor, to be kind to the unfortunate. Compassion has a tremendous momentum that naturally, choicelessly moves us to worthy action. It has the force of intelligence, creativity, and the strength of love. Compassion cannot be cultivated; it derives neither from intellectual conviction nor from emotional reaction. It is simply there when the wholeness of life becomes a fact that is truly lived."                                                               Vimala Thakar

     “The challenge is, can we live more consciously? In a sense, mindfulness and mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) are really about the art of conscious living. … Our work in MBSR is based on the conviction that … we have infinitely more capacity and dimensions – and I emphasize the plural – that we usually simply ignore.
     Even the educational system emphasizes only certain aspects of development, such as critical thinking, but it doesn’t emphasize somatic experience or intuitive experience or the cultivation of compassion or, for that matter, self-compassion or empathy and all sorts of other aspects of being human – including perhaps the most fundamental of all – awareness itself, which is an innate capacity we share by virtue of being human.”                             Jon Kabat-Zinn

Sunday Sky

 

Unfinished Business

     I suspect most of us spend most of our time & energy avoiding the most important issues in our lives. We live in a strange time where distractions are central, and "priorities" have become optional extras.

The woods are lovely, dark and deep,

But I have promises to keep,

And miles to go before I sleep,

And miles to go before I sleep.

     Like Robert Frost, we keep putting meaning & depth off, rationalizing that we're too busy and pretending we have time before having to deal with all that "heavy stuff." But guess what, life is a bubble, a dream, gone in a flash ...

     “We all have lessons to learn during this time called life; this is especially apparent when working with the dying. The dying learn a great deal at the end of life, usually when it is too late to apply.

     … the lessons of life … the final lessons … are the ultimate truths about our lives; they are the secrets of life itself.
 
     When we talk about learning our lessons, we’re talking about getting rid of unfinished business. Unfinished business isn’t about death. It’s about life. It addresses our most important issues, such as ‘Yes, I made a nice living but did I ever take time our to really live?’ Many people have existed, yet never really lived. And they expended tremendous amounts of energy keeping a lid on their unfinished business.
     Since unfinished business is the biggest problem in life, it’s also the primary issue we address as we face death. Most of us pass on with a great deal of unfinished business; many of us have at least some. There are so many lessons to learn in life, it’s impossible to master them all in one lifetime. But the more lessons we learn the more business we finish, and the more fully we live, really live life. And no matter when we die, we can say, ‘God, I have lived!’ ” 


       Elisabeth Kubler-Ross, David Kessler. “Life Lessons. Two Experts on Death and Dying Teach Us About the Mysteries of Life and Living.” Scribner, NY, 2000.

Bessie savoring life

Social Development & Smart Phones - Part 2

Continuation of the transcript of Sherry Turkle PhD interview by Anna Maria Tremonti, on CBC Radio, Nov 16, 2015

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/thecurrent/the-current-for-november-16-2015-1.3320565

Part 1: http://jglovas.wix.com/awarenessnow#!Social-Development-Smart-Phones/c17jj/57921a3d0cf2a8522f947fd6

AMT “(The library is) the place you could go and have some solitude, or even talk to people face-to-face.”

ST “Or read a book that didn’t have links that took you from what you’re reading to Facebook, to a game. In any case, the students were having a very hard time concentrating. One student said to me ‘You know I print out all of my assignments, because I can’t concentrate if I just use the tablets.” And then she said to me this really interesting thing ‘Why did they close the library?’ And it’s really a challenge – I just throw the gauntlet down to schools, as they accept give-away packages from Apple and Microsoft that give tablets to everybody in the school and tempt schools to close their libraries, which of course saves a lot of money, why are we closing the libraries?”

AMT “You write ‘We are all the products of conversations we have not had at home, the conversations we have side-stepped with family, friends, and intimates.’ Tell us more what you mean by that.”

ST “The large point I’m making there is that in the years I studied conversation I found that this was not a teenage problem, a millennial problem, a young persons’ problem, it was the adults who were retreating to their phones, it was parents who were texting during breakfast and dinner, it was parents who were giving kids baths and instead of talking to their kids while they were in the bathtubs, were just sitting on the toilet doing their email instead of engaging their children. So I found that in family situations it’s parents who were modeling a way of being with this technology that really excludes their children. And the hopefulness in my book … is I found so many children, let’s say 13, 14, 15 & 16, are saying ‘You know, I think these phones are keeping my family from paying any attention to me. I think these phones are keeping my mother from talking to me in the car – she’s trying to text while she’s driving. We go on vacation and she’s complaining the whole time that the Wi-Fi isn’t strong enough. I want to have a conversation with her and she won’t look up. So I see a generation that raised without enough parental attention. And again, ‘technology makes us forget what we know about life.’ One of the big surprises in my research is finding so many families, so many couples, so many people in relationships of all sorts who found that arguing over text – some called it fighting by text, is how they preferred to air their grievances with each other. And what kept coming out is that they felt that this way of communicating with each other let them feel that they could say their piece, that they wouldn’t be interrupted, that they wouldn’t stop themselves because they felt flummoxed or embarrassed, or they didn’t have to face the person. You know it’s the face of another person you love that both brings that person alive for you, but also silences you in your care for them, makes you anxious, makes you vulnerable. And so without vulnerability, they felt they were better able to express themselves.”

AMT “When you talked about empathy before, this is also about leveling emotion, right - almost flat-lining emotion?”

ST “Yes. You get a chance first of all to edit who you are and how you present yourself. So you become a lawyer in a courtroom rather than someone who’s showing their pain. And that’s more comfortable, but it isn’t necessarily more true. It feels more comfortable too, because you feel you’re getting your argument out, and you’re presenting your best face. But actually, when you’re having an argument, you may not be in your best face, and it may be again that same theme – it may be more important for your partner, your husband, your spouse, your mother, your sister to see that you’re hurt, you’re vulnerable, you’re not in a big, best-face moment. And that may be part of what the argument needs to show. Take a parent & child - if you give your child the feeling that what you want from them is them to tell you the most controlled and edited story of what’s on their mind, and that will help you hear them, they begin to feel that that’s the version of self that is acceptable – this kind of perfect version of themselves. And that really isn’t a good message to give your child. You want to give your child the message that you can tolerate their messiness, and you’ll be OK. Because that’s the child’s greatest fear – that they’re feeling messy, and out of control, and scared, and that it’s so bad that their caretaker – the person they rely on – will dissolve, will disappear, will freak if their truth is known. You have to reassure your child that that’s not case, I can hear this, that’s not so bad, everybody’s like that, that’s being a person. And asking a child to present an edited version, this cleaned-up version, actually I think, has significant dangers.”

AMT “You make the point too that a lot of young people say they don’t know how to have a conversation. They want to learn to have a conversation. I was surprised. That really struck me.”

ST “Yes. Well they haven’t had as much practice as you think. Their families are texting over dinner. Then at school, they have this thing called ‘the rule of three’: let’s say there are 6 at dinner, 3 people have to have their heads up before you feel free to put your head down and text, because everybody comes to the table with their phone and everybody wants to text during dinner. So the conversation in those environments is going to be kept light. It’s going to be kept on topics where people don’t mind being interrupted, going kind of in and out of a conversation. And also you feel less empathic connection with people you’re with.”

AMT “You mention the essential paradox: ‘The very thing we use to connect us, is the thing that disconnects.’”

ST “Well I resolve the paradox by talking about the distinction between connection and conversation, that we’ve satisfied ourselves with mere connection. I don’t want to say that we’re not more connected, but that connection is somehow crowding out conversation. And then sometimes connection can bring us into conversation, and then it’s great. I had a reunion … that never would have happened without Facebook. I’m not anti-Facebook. That was one of the best experiences of my life. That was connection that led to conversation, and that’s what you want. But I think we have to learn the difference between connection and conversation, and make sure we don’t settle for connection, when really what we crave is conversation.”

AMT “So how do we reclaim conversation?”

ST “Well I’m filled with tips. I see this book as a call to arms, because I see us heading in a direction that’s dangerous, so I have many tips. First of all, to keep that distinction in mind. That what you’re looking for is conversation. You’re looking for it because it is the talking cure a crisis in empathy. Sacred spaces for conversation: the kitchen, the dining room, the car – the car I think is ground zero in reclaiming conversation in family; in work, studies show that conversation is good for the bottom line – workers do more, flourish, have greater collaboration, have greater productivity, greater creativity when they’re given both privacy and an opportunity for conversation. I think that in schools, if you’re offered a program where you give up your library but everybody has an Apple tablet and somehow you think you’ve been given it for free, it seems like a great deal – think twice about what the world of that school will look like. Most college and professional schools professors now are moving in the opposite direction – taking phones and laptops out of our classrooms, because that experiment did not work. Our students can’t concentrate (both) on what’s on their laptop, and the dynamic conversations that we want them to have in class. So sacred spaces in high schools where there are no phones, there are no laptops. I don’t think we have to give up our devices – we have to use them more mindfully. They’re not accessories. Maybe that’s my basic message: that these technologies are not accessories. They’re powerful mind tools that can really affect how we think. We should treat them that way.”

Photo: Katrin Koenning & Sarker Protick www.nationalgeographic.com

Ego, Egolessness & Spiritual Bypassing

‘You have to be a somebody before you can be nobody.’

“What I meant by this epigram was that you can’t spiritually bypass the ordinary developmental & emotional issues in your life. They’re not only there, but they have to be part of practice as well. So that everything in your life becomes practice, not the worldly stuff over here and the spiritual stuff over there. That kind of internal split usually leads to not good spiritual practice and not working through or resolving personal issues at the same time.”                     Jack Engler PhD

    Spiritual bypassing: 

http://www.johnlovas.com/search?q=bypassing

'Objectification' = materialist bypassing:
http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/search?q=objectification

    'Faith' & 'spirituality' - a mature, intelligent perspective:

http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2012/08/spirituality-or-science.html

Wolfville, Nova Scotia, Canada

INNER Science Status?

     "Physics has provided the basis for the design of the fission and fusion bombs, biology -- germ warfare, chemistry -- nerve gas. And all of them have helped bring us to the brink of doom. But they still do not provide keys to ultimate power. 
     If we do destroy ourselves, it will be the minds of human beings, the unhealthy emotions of individuals, the fear, the hate, the jealousy and the greed of individuals that will trigger these horrors. . . .
     You can use Inner Science to educate each individual to understand himself or herself, to control his or her negative emotions and distorted notions, and to cultivate his or her highest potentials of love and wisdom. 
     And you can keep improving your Outer Sciences to better understand, control and beautify the environment for the greater benefit of all beings. There is an enormous amount of work to be done. Let us begin it here and now."
     The Dalai Lama at Harvard

 

A Safe, Holding Environment

     "In psychotherapy, the holding environment comprises the trusting, secure, empathic milieu created by the caring therapist. An indirect benefit of these techniques is the capacity to create a nurturing safe space in any relational context: with a mentor, in a conversation with a dear friend, or in a beautiful natural setting. When we are in a holding environment, we feel alive, connected, and relaxed. 
     ... meditators (are encouraged) to cultivate an internal holding environment that results in an attitude of relaxed curiosity and exploration toward their meditation practice, leading to greater success and staying power."

       Bill Morgan. "The Meditator's Dilemma: An Innovative Approach to Overcoming Obstacles and Revitalizing Your Practice." Shambhala, 2016.

How About Now? Just This!

Questionner : That moment when I get out of bed, something shifts. While walking, I notice I’m not really walking, I’m kind of going somewhere. There’s a pushing in the solar plexus – rib cage.

Rupert Spira : Yes, a straining at the now. Like a horse just pulling. The exploration we did yesterday hearing a sound at a distance and slightly straining to go out towards it, and then taking our stand as awareness and allowing the object to come to us. You can do that while walking. You feel this straining at the now. Even when you’re walking in nature, you feel you’re always becoming. You’re always just outside the now, or just straining at the now to become the next moment.
     You can experiment with this while you’re walking. Just walk and feel this. Feel what it’s like to be totally, 100% in the now, with no sense of grasping for the next moment, of needing the next moment to replace the current one. Feel the quality of walking, how it changes. 
     Sometimes literally you may slow down, but even if there’s no slowing down, there’s a kind of relaxation of a very slight tension in the body. That tension is the separate self - this subtle rejection of the now – straining on the edge of the now, wanting it to become the next now. In other words we live in becoming rather than being. And this becoming can be very subtle. Just this straining at the edge of the now, wanting it to become the next moment.

Questionner : I also notice when I’m cleaning my teeth – I want to be somewhere else.

Rupert Spira : Awareness is never straining at the now. Awareness is just a wide open ‘yes’ to the now. Totally lazy. Not the slightest impulse to avoid the now. It’s only the ‘I-the-thought-&-feeling-made-self’ that is pushing at the now, wanting it to become the next moment. The separate self lives on the edge of the now – in that becoming, right on the edge of the now, wanting the next now to happen. That is the separate self. That’s all it’s made out of. It’s mad. And we spend our lives there – in that becoming, in a state of perpetual becoming. We never become what we want to become. It’s always just more becoming. 
     What we want to become is the being that is already there. Yes, it’s really mad. What we are straining towards is what is already present prior to the straining, in this just being present, which is what awareness is, being present, being present, open, aware.

Above transcribed from Rupert Spira's video below:

 

Terror Management Theory Overview

     Terror management theory (TMT) proposes that the ubiquitous need for meaning and self-esteem — arises, "in part in an effort to secure oneself psychologically from concerns stemming from the awareness of mortality.

     The theory proposes that a potential for anxiety results from the juxtaposition of death awareness — presumably a uniquely human capacity made possible by cognitive abilities such as self-awareness and abstract thought — and the instinct for self-preservation, which is common to all animals. To defend against this potential death anxiety, people must believe that some valued aspect of themselves will continue, either literally or symbolically, after cessation of their biological body. Literal immortality takes the form of an afterlife (eg heaven), whereas symbolic immortality takes the form of extensions of the self (eg children, achievements) continuing to exist after the person’s biological death.

     Whether literal or symbolic, this cultural anxiety buffer consists of two components: (a) belief in the validity of a cultural worldview and the standards and values associated with that worldview and (b) belief that one is meeting or exceeding those standards and values, that is, self-esteem.

     Thus, a cultural worldview 'is more than merely an outlook on life: it is an immortality formula.'

     Part of the value of TMT is its examination of a process that is outside of conscious awareness and thereby not particularly obvious to people employing the proposed defenses. According to the theory, the problem of death resides beneath consciousness and, from there, triggers distal death defenses — the maintenance of worldviews and self-esteem. The conscious contemplation of death is defended against differently according to TMT; it is dealt with more rationally by denying vulnerability to physical death or pushing it into the distant future using proximal death defenses such as a conscious thought about one’s excellent state of physical health or one’s family trend toward longevity.

     By providing an explanation for why people invest so heavily in their belief systems and why people need to feel valued, TMT offers insight into a broad array of human behaviors. Of particular import has been using TMT to examine the omnipresent nature of intergroup conflict. Given a fundamental human motive to secure oneself from death, TMT postulates that problems will typically arise when differences between people are perceived as challenges to one’s beliefs and sense of value — the distal death defenses. 

     Recently, two different reviews of TMT have highlighted its relevance for peace processes and its implications for understanding prejudice, intergroup conflict, and political attitudes. TMT can help explain why peace work is hampered particularly in the context of war and life-threatening violence as it suggests that our most vile attitudes and actions toward other groups stem from a fear of death that we cannot fully cope with or comprehend."

       Burke BL, Martens A, Faucher EH. "Two Decades of Terror Management Theory: A Meta-Analysis of Mortality Salience Research." Personality and Social Psychology Review 2010; 14(2): 155–195.

 
     A more evolved level of consciousness is imminent: 
http://jglovas.wix.com/awarenessnow#!No-Problem/c17jj/571f68f80cf2d19e296f9d6c

Tea Break by Don Pentz   www.fogforestgallery.ca

Finding Meaning in "Doing Nothing"

     "When was the last time you let yourself be bored? Not in a 'the repeat of this home renovation TV show is really boooorrrring' way, but in an 'I'm just going to sit here and stare out the window' way? Sometimes our lives are so busy, it feels like there's no space for daydreaming, or for the kind of thinking that's not focused on a task.
     It's not just the demands of jobs, chores, and socializing that crowd up our lives. It's the way many of us - myself included - fill up our time with stimulation: window shopping, streaming the latest 'must-see' tv, trawling our Instagram feed. Even standing at a stop light is an opportunity to pull out the phone and Fill. Up. The. Empty. Space.

     In her new book, with the tongue-in-cheek title, 'How to be Bored,' Eva Hoffman argues that our constant level of activity has real consequences.
     'We can become very disoriented as we move from one activity to another. We become emotionally depleted, paradoxically. We begin to experience not more but less,' she argues. 'We begin to lose our ability to savour experience, to make sense of it, to experience our experience.'
     The key to combating that disorientation is downtime. Leisure. 'We need time for reflection, for introspection, for the cultivation of self-knowledge,' she says. Without that time, 'we can lose sight of what our preferences are, what our desires are, but also what our values are.' "

Eva Hoffman, author of the book "How to be Bored" interviewed by Nora Young on CBC Radio's "The Spark": 

http://www.cbc.ca/radio/spark/318-embracing-boredom-digital-hoarding-quantum-computing-and-more-1.3540692/finding-meaning-in-doing-nothing-1.3548662

A Garden in Giverny by Michael Khoury    www.fogforestgallery.ca

Mindfulness - a Key Common Factor of Psychotherapies

     "Mindfulness means significantly more than simply paying attention or attention without distraction. A defining characteristic of the quiet attention of mindfulness is its essential quality of nonattachment to any particular view. The psychological freedom with which this attention is associated is not simply a freedom from the views of others (eg family, peers, culture, or government authority). Rather, it is an emancipation from one's own habitual view of self and the world. As J. Krishnamurti, a noted teacher of Eastern psychology to the West, has observed, "Freedom lies ... in understanding what you are from moment to moment", and involves a disciplined, quiet mind.

     Such emancipation could be viewed as a cornerstone of successful therapy from many schools. It provides the capacity to look freshly at one's psychological schemata of self and other. It also is receptive to new information, and thus, is able to conceive and explore alternatives."

 

       Martin J. "Mindfulness: A proposed common factor." Journal of Psychotherapy Integration 1997; 7: 291–312.

Meditation, Disidentification & Mental Health

     "Refinement of awareness may be a central process mediating the therapeutic benefits both of meditations and of psychotherapies and may also be a necessary precondition for a further important meditative process: disidentification.
      Disidentification is the process by which awareness (mindfulness) precisely observes, and therefore ceases to identify with, mental content such as thoughts, feelings, and images.  
     This process is similar to Piaget’s 'decentration,' Safran’s 'decentering,' Bohart’s 'detachment,' Deikman’s 'observing self,' Tart’s 'dehypnosis,' Teasdale’s 'metacognitive awareness,' Wilber’s 'differentiation & transcendence,' and Kegan’s 'de-embedding.' Robert Kegan suggested that the process of disidentification 'is the most powerful way I know to conceptualize the growth of the mind . . . [and] is as faithful to the self-psychology of the West as to the ‘wisdom literature’ of the East.' 
     Consider, as a practical example, the thought 'I’m scared.' Meditators report that if they are clearly aware of such a thought, then they do not identify with it (assume it to be a valid statement about themselves). Rather, they simply observe it, recognize it as merely a thought, and are unaffected by it."

       Walsh R, Shapiro SL. "The Meeting of Meditative Disciplines and Western Psychology. A Mutually Enriching Dialogue." American Psychologist 2006; 61(3): 227–39. 

 

Meaning & Depth in our age of Multiculturalism & Religious Pluralism

     “The normal adjustment of the average, common-sense, well-adjusted man implies a continued successful rejection of much of the depths of human nature.”                           Abraham Maslow


     “The words ‘many are called, but few are chosen’ are singularly appropriate here, for the development of personality from the germ-state to full consciousness is at once a charisma and a curse, because its first fruit is the conscious and unavoidable segregation of the single individual from the undifferentiated and unconscious herd.”                          Carl Jung

     Multiculturalism & "religious pluralism … is a fact of our common life. It has become all the more essential to honor these realities by understanding faith in its broadest, most inclusive form as the activity of making meaning that all human beings share."

       Parks SD. “Big questions, worthy dreams. Mentoring young adults in their search for meaning, purpose, and faith.” John Wiley & Sons, San Francisco, 2000. 

Ignoring "Soft Skills" & Moral Injury

     "Soft skills" like communication, deep listening, bed-side manner, empathy, professionalism, mindfulness etc are considered a joke in the hidden curriculum and are basically ignored by students & faculty alike in university education: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/search?q=soft
     When students or graduate health-care professionals are caught committing unprofessional acts, everyone is shocked. The dust settles, and "soft skills" continue to be ignored.

     Interesting lessons from the military:
     “If military practice tells soldiers that their emotions of love and grief – which are inseparable from their humanity – do not matter, then the civilian society that has sent them to fight on their behalf should not be shocked by their ‘inhumanity’ when they try to return to civilian life.”

     “… moral injury is an essential part of any combat trauma that leads to lifelong psychological injury. Veterans can usually recover from horror, fear, and grief once they return to civilian life, so long as ‘what’s right’ has not also been violated.” 
       Jonathan Shay. “Achilles in Vietnam. Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character.” Scribner, NY, 1994.

     Parents spend less & less quality time with their children; schools are forbidden to teach kids basic manners or morals; CEOs, clergy & politicians are progressively losing respect & credibility. These are fundamental violations of ‘what’s right’ ! 
     Meanwhile rappers, reality stars & dysfunctional sports & movie stars are default role models. Young adults are explicitly exposed to & socialized by the lowest of cultural norms. See: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/01/larger-homes-more-exotic-trips-fancier.html This openly invites people to contravene basic, innate, implicit human codes of conduct, causing moral injury to everyone, victims & perps alike.

     When do we start taking "soft skills" seriously enough to teach them explicitly?

     "Moral Injury": http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2017/01/what-is-moral-injury.html

      "Worldview - Maturity Level - Impacts": http://jglovas.wix.com/awarenessnow#!Worldview-Maturity-Effects/c17jj/56e5715b0cf27db4b02a4011

 

Lessons from Combat Trauma

     Shay, an experienced psychiatrist, writes (in italics) about his experiences treating many Vietnam vets with PTSD. 
     I suspect that a surprising proportion of us, though never having physically been in an actual war, have nevertheless accumulated, not the same, but similar trauma over a perfectly imperfect lifetime. And have probably never received any timely counseling.

     “The child’s inner sense of safety in the world emerges from the trustworthiness, reliability, and simple competence of the family.”
     Children who grow up feeling unwanted, know no safety - have definitely been traumatized: http://www.johnlovas.com/2013/11/attachment-to-people-memories-concepts.html

     “… moral injury is an essential part of any combat trauma that leads to lifelong psychological injury. Veterans can usually recover from horror, fear, and grief once they return to civilian life, so long as ‘what’s right’ has not also been violated.”
     Children expect unconditional love, but none of us receive it. The greater the gulf between what we ardently need and what we feel we receive, the greater the sense of betrayal - the 'moral injury': http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/07/the-inner-child-unconditional-love-and.html

     “Another veteran in our program wrote: ‘In my wildest thoughts I never expected or wanted to return home alive, and emotionally never have.’ 
     The sense of being already dead may contribute to the berserker’s complete loss of fear … It may also be the prototype of the loss of all emotion that defines for combat post-traumatic stress disorder the prolonged states of numbness – the inability to feel love or happiness or to believe that anything matters.” 
     How does a child appear when the expected source of unconditional love repeatedly says wildly hurtful things to the child? S/he may not reveal any change in expression. But there's inner amazement & profound confusion - 'Is this a Martian pretending to be my mother?' Also internally, there are earthquakes & aftershocks, with new layers of concrete hastily lathered around the heart.

     “What I want to emphasize here is the rapid transformation of grief into rage. For many of the (Vietnam) veterans in our treatment program for combat post-traumatic stress disorder, replacement of grief by rage has lasted for years and become an entrenched way of being. Much therapeutic effort aims at reawakening the experience of grief, which we regard as a process of healing, painful as it is.” 
     “I believe that the emergence of rage out of intense grief is a biological universal and that long-term obstruction of grief and failure to communalize grief can lock a person into chronic rage.” 
     I suspect many 'angry young men', as well as women, express their grief through rage.

     “There is growing consensus among people who treat PTSD that any trauma, be it loss of family in a natural disaster, rape, exposure to the dead and mutilated in an industrial catastrophe, or combat itself, will have longer-lasting and more serious consequences if there has been no opportunity to talk about the traumatic event, to express to other people emotions about the traumatic event, to express to other people emotions about the event and those involved in it, or to experience the presence of socially connected other who will not let one go through it alone. This is what is meant by communalizing the trauma.”
     It may not be until the late teens, when children of dysfunctional parents move away from home, and finally have the courage & safe opportunity to explore, and perhaps vent their grief.

       Jonathan Shay. “Achilles in Vietnam. Combat Trauma and the Undoing of Character.” Scribner, NY, 1994.

 

Ego, Morality, Character Development, Enlightenment & Psychosis

     "The notion of connectedness or union is present in some form in most cultures and all of the major religions. It has been given many names, including Brahman in Hinduism, the Buddha-mind, the Tao, and the Kingdom of God. This Spiritual Ground can be regarded as the source of one’s sense of union with self, other people, the environment, and the universe. In yoga philosophy, this Spiritual Ground is regarded as the true nature of reality and self, with all mental activity serving only to obscure this truth by creating a sense of separate existence. 

     This concept implies that the Spiritual Ground becomes more accessible as the cognitive activity that maintains one’s ego-identity diminishes. Whether one experiences contact with the Ground as edifying or destructive relates to the developmental health of one’s ego at the time this contact occurs, as well as the means by which one’s ego boundaries are transcended. Contact with the Ground is conceptualized as occurring through 'porosity' of the ego; this can occur either through spiritual development, which allows larger and larger fields of the Ground to be identified as Self, or through illness, trauma, drugs, or impaired development, which can permit premature contact with the Ground through defective maintenance of needed ego cohesion. This model, then, can account for the superficial similarity between psychotic and mystical states, and also for the significant differences between the sequelae of mystical experiences and psychosis. 

      In both psychosis and 'enlightenment,' individuals appear to have altered ego boundaries and to think and act in irrational ways. But in the case of a psychotic regression, this is a prerational, pre-egoic state, and in the case of healthy mystical experience, it is a transrational state built upon and extended beyond a normal, healthy ego. Wilber names this confusion between the two conditions the 'pre/trans fallacy,' and Freud’s criticisms of religion as a regressive defense may be partly understood in terms of this error. 

     The concept of the pre/trans fallacy underscores the necessity of healthy ego development as a prerequisite for constructive transpersonal experience: without it one is unable to integrate such experiences and is at risk of psychological fracture and regression into lower functioning states. Interestingly, character development is emphasized in many of the non-Western wisdom traditions that use various techniques to induce transpersonal states. Often the aspirant must go through extensive personal development and moral training prior to practicing the methods, as a safeguard to prevent subsequent spiritual difficulties. Also of interest are studies showing a positive correlation between mystical experiences and enhanced psychological functioning, further underscoring the substantial difference, in spite of superficial appearances, between psychotic regression and transpersonal states."

       Kasprow MC, Scotton BW. " A Review of Transpersonal Theory and Its Application to the Practice of Psychotherapy." The Journal of Psychotherapy Practice and Research 1999; 8:12–23.