#703 Behaving At Home

www.elephantjournal.com

#687 Worldview AND Behavior

     “To the ‘practical man’ the [philosophical questions] may seem irrelevant. But in fact they are not. It is in the light of our beliefs about the ultimate nature of reality that we formulate our conceptions of right and wrong; and it is in the light of our conceptions of right and wrong that we frame our conduct, not only in the relations of private life, but also in the sphere of politics and economics. So far from being irrelevant, our metaphysical beliefs are the finally determining factor in all our actions.”                                Aldous Huxley in Ends and Means

       Dana Sawyer “Huston Smith: Wisdomkeeper. Living the World’s Religions. The Authorized Biography of a 21st Century Spiritual Giant.” Fons Vitae, Louisville, KY, 2014

Gretel

#565 Gentle Questioning

     Can I gently question: 
          Why I do the things I do?
          Why I say the things I say?
          Why I even think the way I think?
          Is there an overall pattern to the way I live?
          And if there is, is it still how I wish to live my life?

     "In a perfect world", what would I wish for as the central driving force in my life?

     If, from this moment on, that energized & directed my life, how would life be?

     See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2014/08/simple-but-not-easy-vow.html

Steve McCurry   stevemccurry.com

#546 Armor - Rigid, Antiquated, Isolating Protection

     Chronic muscular tension in our face (clenching, bruxing, splinted speech), neck, shoulders, upper back, lower back, fists, etc is one form of amoring. This is the most primitive form of armor, physically protecting the assumed fragile self from an assumed hostile world.
     More consciously, we tailor our speech & behavior to present a persona (theatrical mask) - how we'd like others to perceive us, hiding the "real me", assumed to be less- or frankly unacceptable.
     Underlying all of this, is our sense of self and our worldview. How aware are we of these two core aspects of our being? How much time and effort do we devote to actively, intentionally investigate "who am I?" and "what is this?"? Can one possibly live a congruent, "undivided" life if one avoids these basics?
     To the extent that we consciously, intentionally, actively OPEN ourselves to these fundamentals, we DE-ARMOR to ourselves AND others. Though initially this feels vulnerable, it is in fact a move towards mental health, maturation, genuine strength, & wisdom.

Jasmine, San Gimignano, Tuscany, Italy

#511 Who Am I - Right Now?

     As soon as I pause to consider "Who am I?", I'm immediately being mindful - a feature of the wise adult operating system (WAOS) - see yesterday's post. Perspective, awareness of how things interconnect, how everything is interdependent, how every thought, word & action has immediate local as well as long-term distant effects are important components of wisdom. Behavior that arises from this place of relative stillness tends to be appropriate, kind, and serves the long-term welfare of many.
     But when I'm "driven" to think, speak & act by unexamined energies, short-term gain for my ego is almost invariably the driver, the source of the energy. And long-term pain is very likely the result, for myself, others & the environment. Feeling "energized" to do something should always be carefully examined rather than quickly acted out. Reasonable courses of action seldom come attached to a brief rush of emotion. Behind energized zeal, there is often aversion, anger, hatred, and ultimately, fear - the fearful child operating system (FCOS) actually driving the whole sorry misadventure.
     "Who am I?" is such a critical question to ask oneself, very often, since we make important, life-changing choices moment-by-moment. EVERYTHING depends on the OS that's functioning - who we are - scared child OR wise adult - who do I want running my life? Please also read: http://www.johnlovas.com/2014/03/power-its-origin-how-to-use-it.html

upuaut   www.dpreview.com

#501 Quality of Life & Your Way of Being

     We consider it normal, natural, the way things work, when external (eg the weather, the economy etc) and internal conditions (eg the effect of a heavy meal or a fight with a loved one etc) determine our mood, and to a large extent our behavior. After all, we know ourselves, and "that's who we are" - alluding to our stereotypical responses (conditioned reactions) to these conditions.  How many times have we heard ourselves & others predict "It's Monday - I'm going to have a lousy day", or "Oh that movie stars actor X, I'm going to hate it"? This is how most of us live our lives much of the time - on autopilot, reacting predictably to circumstances, with little conscious supervision or corrections. What quality of life does this lead to? Can't we do better?
     Some people realize that this situation is a dead end, but firmly believe that they're powerless to improve it. If our quality of life was directly controlled by our environment, the cynical motto: "Life is tough, and then you die" would be justified.
     Those who practice Mindfulness meditation quickly learn that the Mindfulness exercises are designed to progressively free us from the effects of years of conditioning, so we may enjoy freedom of choice. We don't have to be on autopilot; we don't have to react mechanically to external or internal circumstances. No circumstance, not even a Monday or an actor, controls our emotions, prefrontal cortex (judgment), or our motor cortex (movement).
     Can we concern ourselves first & foremost with monitoring the quality of our own awareness, our level of consciousness, our mood, the tone of our body? 
     • How is life when we feel mentally bright, at ease, peaceful, kind, our body relaxed & radiating warmth? 
     • How is life when we feel mentally dull, on guard, anxious / angry, fearful, our body tight, armored, closed & cold? 

     EXPERIENCE how your way of being affects your quality of life - your every perception.

     See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/02/280-koans-to-guide-formal-informal.html

#430 How Mindfulness Meditation Practice Improves Executive Function

     "Rimma Teper has always found her meditation sessions relaxing and therapeutic. Now, as a doctoral candidate in psychology at UTSC (University of Toronto, Scarborough College), she’s helping to understand why meditation is also good for boosting self-control.
     Compared to non-meditators, those who meditate show more self-control, Teper has discovered in her research. This is linked to their awareness and acceptance of their emotions. '[Meditators are] attuned to their own emotions,' Teper says.
     'They’re aware of how they’re feeling and they’re also good at regulating their emotions. The results suggest these traits account for the better self-control we see in meditators.'
     Teper was interested in a manifestation of self-control that psychologists call 'executive function' — the ability to pay attention to appropriate stimuli and react appropriately. It’s what keeps us studying when we’d rather watch TV, or forces us to go outside for that morning jog instead of going back to sleep. Earlier studies had shown that meditators exhibited higher levels of executive function than non-meditators, but the reason for this still had to be pinned down.
     Most meditation traditions emphasize two major practices: awareness of the present moment, and acceptance of emotional states. Teper suspected that emotional acceptance was the key to the better self-control.
     To test her premise, Teper gave the meditators and non-meditators in her study a test that required high executive control. She then measured their error-related negativity (ERN), which generates an electrical signal in the brain within 100 milliseconds of an error being committed during a task, well before the conscious mind is aware of the error. 'It’s kind of like an ‘uh-oh’ response, or a cortical alarm bell,' Teper says.
     The meditators did better at the task than the non-meditators and also had stronger ERNs. What’s even more interesting is that the meditators who did best on the test were the ones who tested highest for emotional awareness. Since ERN triggers a negative feeling that motivates people to do better, meditators may be more aware of that feeling and therefore quicker to improve.
     'Meditators are attuned to their emotions. They’re also good at regulating their emotions,' says Teper. '[This] fits well with our results.'

       by Kurt Kleiner - UTSC Commons Fall 2013
http://utsccommons.utsc.utoronto.ca/fall-2012/mosaic/breakthrough-thinking-zen-self-control

       Teper R, Inzlicht M. Meditation, mindfulness and executive control: the importance of emotional acceptance and brain-based performance monitoring. Soc Cogn Affect Neurosci 2013; 8(1): 85-92.

#410 Direct Engagement with Life

     Whenever our immediate perception of what's in front of us, or within us, is less than 100% accurate, then our response - our behavior - has to be proportionately inappropriate. Most of the time, our perception is distorted by our emotional attachment to memories of past ups or downs, which in turn project cravings or fears into our future. In this manner, our perception of reality ie what's actually happening right now, right here, is distorted - partially or completely hidden from us. We're continuously reliving past fantasies or nightmares (even though our memory of events is continuously revised ie is inaccurate). So quite literally, most of us live in a trance most of the time.
     The sooner we become aware of this terrible waste of our "one brief & precious life", the more seriously we practice to become mindful - to wake up to seeing things as they are, and behaving appropriately, kindly.

     See: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/06/141-reminders-to-prioritize.html

Dale Chihuly   http://www.chihulygardenandglass.com/

#389 Trance & Unfiltered Reality

     "People are not simply in or out of trance, but are constantly moving from one trance to another. We have our work trances, our relationship trances, and our parenting trances. Some of these states are useful and appropriate; others are not." Bandler R. Richard Bandler's Guide to Trance-formation: How to Harness the Power of Hypnosis to Ignite Effortless and Lasting Change. HCI, 2008.

     The first two sentences are supported by research:
     "studies on attentiveness show that people are only briefly and unpredictably attentive. Attention habitually diverts to unrelated thoughts and feelings, leaving any task at hand to be managed 'on autopilot.' These studies suggest that mindlessness ('mind wandering,' 'zoning out,' 'task-unrelated thought') is 'one of the most ubiquitous and pervasive of all cognitive phenomena' and that it often occurs unintentionally, without awareness, occupies a substantial proportion of our day, and leads to failures in task performance."        Lovas JG, Lovas DA, Lovas PM. Mindfulness and Professionalism in Dentistry. J Dent Educ 2008; 72(9): 998-1009.

     However, involuntary trance is no more "useful and appropriate" than being addicted to drugs or to any other constant filter between people and reality. I say 'involuntary', because clinical hypnosis is a powerful and very useful therapeutic intervention - as is the short-term use of narcotics for acute pain. But who (besides an addict) would normalize, or especially advocate, daily use of narcotics as a way of life?

     See also: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2012/03/65-embracing-full-catastrophe.html
     and: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/04/fear-avoidance-ineffective-existential.html

Award-winning photo by Stuart Gibson

#382 Choosing to be Free - Moment-by-Moment

     "The crucial factor influencing how well we can respond in any given situation seems to be the level of mindfulness we can bring to bear upon the moment.
     If we don't care to be present, unconscious decision-making systems will function by default to get us through to the next moment, albeit in the grips of (often flawed and suffering-causing) learned behaviors and conditioned responses.
     If, on the other hand, we can increase the amount of conscious awareness present by manifesting mindfulness, we expand the range of our possible responses. Even if predisposed to anger, we can choose to act with kindness. This is the essence of our freedom in an otherwise heavily conditioned system."                            Andrew Olendzki PhD

 

Kensington Market, Toronto

#346 Wisdom to Foolishness Ratio - Personal & Societal

     How well do we monitor the quality of our thoughts, words and actions? By quality I mean, where do these fit on the wise to foolish spectrum? How soon do we become aware when (not if) we're being / have been foolish? What do we do about it? What proportion do we rationalize, externalize, project, procrastinate, deny, suppress, repress vs see clearly, accept, make amends for, try not to repeat?
     Are we actively, intentionally, skillfully maturing, growing wise or stagnating?
     Where we are on this ratio is entirely our choice. Each moment-to-moment choice powerfully impacts our personal and societal quality of life. Mindfully or mindlessly, actively or passively, wisely or foolishly, we co-create present-moment reality, moment by moment by moment by ...

     See more re wisdom: http://healthyhealers.blogspot.ca/2013/03/wisdom-deep-insight-mature.html

Vivienne Leibowich   http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/

#261 Psychological Rigidity - "I have always ... I will never change!"

     "Although the term rigidity may be somewhat out of vogue among personality and social psychologists today, we continue to see considerable interest in a range of highly related personality variables, such as flexibility, need for closure, and openness to experience. Indeed, every major personality inventory contains a dimension similar to rigidity. ... Social psychologists have always been interested in behavior change. As presented in the following review, rigidity is the tendency of an individual not to change.
     On the basis of our definition of rigidity, the tendency to develop & perseverate in the use of mental or behavioral sets, the present review of the literature supports the following major conclusions:

• Rigidity is related to age in a curvilinear manner. Between the ages of 5 and 18 rigidity decreases; between the ages of 18 and 60 rigidity is fairly stable; and from age 60 on rigidity increases in a linear fashion.
• Although rigidity is found to be generally positively related to authoritarianism, the basic effect is moderated by stress, whereby authoritarianism is a stronger predictor of rigid behavior under stressful conditions than it is under relaxed conditions.
• Rigidity is negatively related to intelligence when people of average and above average intelligence levels are compared.
• It is inconclusive whether people with mental retardation differ in rigidity from people without mental retardation.
• Men tend to be more rigid than women.
• OCD is positively related to rigidity.
• Schizophrenic people are more rigid than nonschizophrenic controls and nonschizophrenic siblings. This effect is reduced, but still significant, when medication is administered."

        Schultz PW, Searleman A. Rigidity of thought and behavior: 100 years of research. Genet Soc Gen Psychol Monogr 2002; 128(2): 165-207.

Dan Siegel MD

#92 Psychological flexibility

     Psychological flexibility is defined as “contacting the present moment as a conscious human being, and, based on what that situation affords, acting in accordance with one’s chosen values. … (It) guides people in persisting with or changing their actions, in accordance with the values-based contingencies that they contact, when they are willing to experience the present moment.”
     Bond FW, Hayes SC, Barnes-Holmes D. Psychological Flexibility, ACT, and Organizational Behavior. Journal of Organizational Behavior Management 2006; 26(1-2): 25-54.

     “Psychological flexibility spans a wide range of human abilities to: recognize & adapt to various situational demands; shift mindsets or behavioral repertoires when these strategies compromise personal or social functioning; maintain balance among important life domains; and be aware, open, and committed to behaviors that are congruent with deeply held values.”
     Kashdan TB, Rottenberg J. Psychological Flexibility as a Fundamental Aspect of Health. Clin Psychol Rev 2010; 30(7): 865-878.

     “The world is too dangerous for anything but truth and too small for anything but love.”                      William Sloane Coffin

Photo: Steve Macek   www.dpreview.com