"Pendulation" - the Core of Somatic Practices

     “As you release tension in (successive parts of your body during somatic meditation), you are softening the boundary between the darkness of your body and the brightness of your conscious mind, between the limitless unconscious and the bounded conscious mind; in so doing, in a most gentle and natural way, you are also softening the barrier against feelings and experiences you may have been avoiding, denying, or repressing. 
     So it is that you may find various feelings, images, or memories coming up – if so, just welcome them. If they become a little too much, then relax and let the practice go for a while or for today; there is no rush. Assimilate what you need to and then, when you feel ready, return to the practice. 
     In Ten Points practice it is quite rare to run into anything that feels overwhelming, but it can happen. Accessing our larger, as-yet-undiscovered feeling life through the body is the safest of all ways to do it, but you do have to go gently and follow the guidance of your body; it will let you know how much is enough and how much is too much. 
     In fact, much trauma therapy is based on this very principle (Peter Levine's "pendulation"), of helping folks access difficult feeling through the body but in a gentle, step-by-step, gradual manner, moving a little forward into sensation, stepping a little back as needed, giving their conscious awareness plenty of time to become familiar with, assimilate, and integrate unconscious material.”

       Reginald A. Ray. "The Awakening Body. Somatic Meditation for Discovering Our Deepest Life." Shambhala, 2016.

What was once rigidly frozen can thaw, soften & ...

Mindfulness Practice, Emotions & Recovery from Trauma

     "... while the biological flight or fight response is natural and instinctual, when this response is blocked—as happens in trauma—the organism constricts. ... if the constriction from the trauma continues, rage, terror, and helplessness can build up, 'triggering immobility and inward collapse' and 'emotional numbing, and other forms of psychological disassociation'. ... mindfulness practices are well-suited to the process of mind–body healing, especially in relation to trauma.      

     The human cortex comprises six layers:

          Layers 1–3, referred to as 'top-down', are responsible for the matching of current experience with prior learning. 

          Layers 6–4, termed 'bottom-up', are responsible for the awareness of sensory input from our experiences. 

     Mindfulness practice attempts to dissolve the top-down constraints (layers 1–3) and strengthen the input from the bottom layers (layers 6–4), allowing awareness to be shaped by the flow of information merged from the two layers. 
     '... when this bottom-up input is strengthened, it has the capacity to stand up to prior learning that so often constrains us. We are not imprisoned by our prior judgments and come to experience the world with fresh eyes.' "

       Belinda Siew Luan Khong. "Mindfulness: A Way of Cultivating Deep Respect for Emotions." Mindfulness 2011; 2: 27–32.

Marc Chagall

 

What is Moral Injury?

     Donald Trump, before his election bragged that he wouldn't loose a single follower if he pulled out a gun in Times Square and shot someone. Rodrigo Duterte, president of the Phillipines, repeatedly brags about having murdered several suspected drug dealers, and encourages his people to do the same. Trump and Duterte have a lot of supporters at home and abroad. 
     How do you feel when you hear about such things?

     "The sorrow, grief, and rage you feel is a measure of your humanity and your evolutionary maturity. As your heart breaks open there will be room for the world to heal."       Joanna Macy

      “… 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.

     "Moral injury is 
     • the damage done to one’s conscience or moral compass when that person perpetrates, witnesses, or fails to prevent acts that transgress their own moral and ethical values or codes of conduct
     • disruption in an individual’s confidence and expectations about one’s own or others’ motivation or capacity to behave in a just and ethical manner
     • the inability to contextualize or justify personal actions or the actions of others and the unsuccessful accommodation of these … experiences into pre-existing moral schemas
     • a deep soul wound that pierces a person’s identity, sense of morality and relationship to society."
       The Moral Injury Project - Syracuse University http://moralinjuryproject.syr.edu/about-moral-injury/

     See also: "Ignoring 'Soft Skills' & Moral Injury": http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2016/03/ignoring-soft-skills-moral-injury.html

Alexia Foundation http://www.alexiafoundation.org/stories/tradition-womens-rights-and-circumcision-in-guinea-bissau-africabr

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