#720 Quality of Life = Quality of Consciousness

     Many of us have a strong, recurrent tendency to waste a lot of time, energy & heartache on external events that have already passed, or are unlikely to happen in the future. In no way is this useful or practical such as seriously deciding to change our behavior, or drawing up a real action plan. 
     By obsessing over the contents of consciousness like this, we inflict tremendous unnecessary suffering on ourselves.

      “We are all prisoners of our minds.
     This realization is the first step on the journey to freedom.”         Ram Das

     “When water is still it is like a mirror ….
      And if water thus derives lucidity from stillness,
      How much more the faculties of mind?
      The mind of the sage being in repose
      Becomes the mirror of the universe.”                    Chuang Tzu

     We're free to effortlessly shift from attending to the contents of (our noisy egoic) consciousness to directly experience the depth of stillness & silence within - the vast field of consciousness itself.
     Contents can be compared to clouds, while (transpersonal post-symbolic) consciousness is the sky in which clouds occasionally float by.

    See: http://jglovas.wix.com/awarenessnow#!Two-Levels-of-Consciousness/c17jj/56f14e0c0cf266a292561f27

#359 Primer on Perseverative - Repetitive, Negative - Thoughts

     Mindfulness practices train one to rest in the awareness of whatever the present moment holds, without judgment, letting go of self-talk, letting go of thoughts of the past or future. Below are a few reasons, from the perspective of Western psychology, why this is beneficial.

     "The ability to recall stressful life events and to anticipate stressful events has several adaptive functions. It enables us to learn from previous mistakes, to avoid negative events, and to prepare for the worst. There is, however, also a downside to these abilities: thinking about past and future negative events also enables perseverative thoughts (or perseverative cognition): repetitive, negative thoughts that do not solve or improve a situation. Examples of perseverative thoughts are: recurrent self-denigrating thoughts about a past failure on an exam or anxious thoughts about an upcoming contest. Two concepts that fall under the category of perseverative thoughts are worry (‘a chain of thoughts and images, negatively affect-laden and relatively uncontrollable’; and rumination (‘a class of conscious thoughts concerning one’s goals and that recur in the absence of immediate environmental demands requiring the thoughts.’ 

     Already in childhood, these perseverative thoughts are quite common. Perseverative thoughts arise in middle childhood when children’s cognitive development allows them to reason about future possibilities, to consider multiple outcomes, and to elaborate potential negative consequences. In line with findings confirming the down- side effects of perseverative thoughts on adults’ emotional functioning, perseverative thoughts in childhood are associated with further problems of negative affect, such as anxiety and depression.

      The literature on adults also has consistently shown that perseverative thoughts are positively associated with adverse physiological activation, cardiovascular disease and somatic complaints. These findings support the ‘perseverative cognition hypothesis’. According to this hypothesis, perseverative thoughts prolong physiological activation beyond the presence of actual stressful situations. Whereas acute physiological changes in response to an actual stressor are useful in enabling a person’s behavioral responses to stress (i.e., fight or flight), the prolongation of this physiological activation caused by perseverative thoughts adds to the total load, or ‘wear and tear’ that stressful events have on somatic well being. This prolonged physiological activation eventually leads to a pathogenic state and somatic problems. In addition, the negative affectivity related to perseverative thoughts may increase the attention of adults and children for internal signals, and to interpreting them more negatively. According to the symptom perception hypothesis of Pennebaker (1982), this will increase the likelihood that physical symptoms are perceived as somatic complaints." 

       Jellesma FC, Verkuil B, Brosschot JF. Postponing worrisome thoughts in children: The effects of a postponement intervention on perseverative thoughts, emotions and somatic complaints. Social Science & Medicine 2009; 69(2): 278-284.

Portia and Hildie

#285 How my Heart Feels - Heavy or Open?

     Feeling "heavy-hearted" (closed- or hard-hearted or armored) is a common, lousy, oppressive feeling. All attention and worry is turned inwards. It's all about my story, poor me, what's going to become of me? Round and round the worried, anxious mind goes, what's going to become of me? Heavy, tight, claustrophobic, sickening, tiresome sensations, constant noisy self-talk, with a sense of being stuck, urgent flight or urgent chasing.
     Feeling "light-hearted" and "open-hearted" is less common, but we're all familiar with it. It's a care-free, happy feeling of everything somehow being the way it should be. The sense of self ("me, myself & I") is barely noticeable, the focus of attention is on everything else. A sense of stillness & peaceful silence dominate. It's partially the presence of one's chest being relaxed, open, radiating warmth, but perhaps more the relief from not feeling constriction, tightness and heaviness. Interestingly, traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) understands disease as constriction & blockage; and health as the free, unobstructed flow of energy. TCM and osteopathic treatment aim to release blockages, permitting the free flow of vital energy (qi).
     Mindfulness training also loosens & untangles our tight knots, by helping us accept our inner child's reactivity, and increase our skill in returning to our wise "observer-self" - our wise grandparent subpersonality, sitting on the bank of the river of our life, calmly, lovingly, seeing the big picture, allowing us to think, speak and act from this wise, mature perspective. 

     See also: http://mindfulnessforeveryone.blogspot.ca/2013/03/301-open-heart-energized-closed-heart.html

Photo: Steve McCurry   http://stevemccurry.com

#22 Avoidance

     How much of my doing is driven by trying to avoid activities, people, things etc that I presume to be incompatible with happiness?

     Avoidance can present in the form of denial, suppression, sleepiness, boredom, restlessness, compulsive behavior, a sense of being hunted - always having to run away etc.
      “... experiential avoidance does not appear to work well in the long run. Research has shown that ... a heightened level of experiential avoidance is correlated with increased anxiety, depression, substance abuse, worry, long-term disability, high-risk sexual behavior, inability to learn, poorer work performance, lower quality of life, and higher degrees of overall psychopathology.”
        Ciarrochi J, Mayer JD. "Applying emotional intelligence: A practitioner's guide." Psychology Press, NY, 2007.

     Mindfulness is about fully experiencing reality - ie the opposite of avoidance. Why? Because engaging directly with our life works. But don't take anybody's word for it - you need to experience this for yourself.

Artist: R C Gorman   http://rcgormangallery.com/