#91 Training the returning muscle

     “When your mind wanders, as it surely will, gently bring your awareness back to what you are meditating upon. Your repeated attempts to keep your awareness there as long and as steadily as you can is meditation.”

       Alter RM, Alter J. “How Long Till My Soul Gets It Right?: 100 Doorways on the Journey to Happiness.” Regan Books, 2001. 

#90 Meditation

     “Meditation is very simple. It is an attempt to turn our awareness toward a place within our selves that is continuous and unconditionally loving, peaceful, wise, and happy. This place exists within our own beings as the core and ground and essence of us. In some spiritual traditions, it is called the Self. Meditation is the quintessential act of Self-awareness.

     I teach meditation in my therapy practice because I believe that the ultimate goal of therapy is to show people that there exists within all of us a loving, peaceful, wise, and happy inner place; that this place has never been disturbed or even touched by all the troubles and traumas that we’ve all gone through in our lives; that we can learn, with practice and over time, to direct the beam of our awareness to this place; that once we’ve learned to direct our awareness to this place, we start living our lives with more love, peace, wisdom, and happiness. The ultimate goal of meditation and all healing is to permanently establish our awareness in this place and finally realize who we really are. Once enough of us have realized who we really are, the world will become what it really is, a garden of paradise for our stewardship and enjoyment.”

         Alter RM, Alter J. “How Long Till My Soul Gets It Right?: 100 Doorways on the Journey to Happiness.” Regan Books, 2001. 

#89 And how has that been working for you?

     “There is a certain criterion by which you can judge whether the thoughts you are thinking and the things you are doing are right for you. The criterion is: Have they brought you inner peace? If they have not, there is something wrong with them.”

     Peace Pilgrim: “Peace Pilgrim: Her Life and Work in Her Own Words”

     “A quiet mind cureth all.”      Robert Burton, “The Anatomy of Melancholy.”

     “When faced with choices in my life, I use as my rule the criterion of the quiet mind. This means that when there are two or more courses of action possible for me, I take the one that will lead me to have a quieter mind, the one that will result in the fewest number of afterthoughts.”

     Alter RM, Alter J. “How Long Till My Soul Gets It Right?: 100 Doorways on the Journey to Happiness.” Regan Books, 2001. 

 

#88 Avoidance-Approach Dichotomy

     “We are a creative process in action; change is inevitable, as is our responsibility for our growth. The opposite of responsibility is avoidance, which apathy and fear often engender. Perhaps more than any single attitude, our unwillingness to notice the inner significances of our lives and to understand and care about another serves as the portent of stagnation of person and society.”

     Hart T. From information to transformation. Education for the evolution of consciousness. Peter Lang Publishing, NY, 2009.

     “Experiential avoidance occurs when an individual engages in strategies to blunt, alter, or control distressing private experiences, such as thoughts, emotions, and physiological sensations.”

     Hayes SC et al. “Experiential avoidance and behavioral disorders: A functional dimensional approach to diagnosis and treatment.” Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 1996; 64(6): 1152-1168.

     “… we compound our suffering by trying to avoid it. The anxious person is particularly determined to avoid the discomfort of fear. A feared stimulus can be external, such as snakes (simple phobia), a mall (agoraphobia), or office parties (social phobia); or it can be internal, such as a racing heart (panic disorder) or blasphemous thinking (obsessive-compulsive disorder). Most anxious patients recognize that their fear is irrational, but recognition is not sufficient to alter avoidant or escape behavior during periods of heightened arousal.

     Mindfulness is a technology for gradually turning the patient’s attention toward the fear as it is happening, exploring it in detail with increasing degrees of friendly acceptance.” 
     Germer CK, Siegel RD, Fulton PR eds. “Mindfulness and Psychotherapy.” The Guilford Press, NY, 2005.

#87 Approach & Embrace Challenges

     “When human development happens well, we embrace a new way of interpreting the world because it can account for things that the old way no longer could. We can acknowledge considerations previously ignored, take more facts into account, and extend hospitality to questions that earlier we could not entertain.

     … requires incessant recomposing of what is true for the self in relationship to a world of others. ...
      Within (this) moment of disequilibrium … lies a threefold task. First, the conflict and the questions it awakens must be allowed, felt, and made fully conscious. Then it must be clarified: what is really amiss? Third, the conflict must be tolerated with openness to a solution – no matter how remote it seems. That is, the conflict must neither be glossed over nor otherwise suppressed, and it must be held in a sense of hope.

     The conflict must also be wrestled with. The moment of conflict cannot serve the process of transformation so long as there is only a contradiction of vague generalities. One must enter into the particulars of the puzzlement, tugging unruly thoughts and feelings into view. The elements of the conflict need to be put at right distance – ‘putting the phenomenon, so to speak, out of gear with our practical, actual self’ and thereby looking at it in a new way.

     … it may be exhilarating. On the other hand, facing a new complexity and the specter of a new truth may sometimes also require a measure of courage.

     learning that matters is ultimately … transforming … intimately linked with the whole of life.”

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

#86 Facing Basic Fear

     “I have treated many hundreds of patients. Among those in the second half of life ... there has not been one whose problem in the last resort was not that of finding a religious (spiritual ***) outlook on life.”
      "Shrinking away from death is something unhealthy and abnormal which robs the second half of life of its purpose."             Carl Jung

     “The secret cause of all suffering is mortality itself, which is the prime condition of life. It cannot be denied if life is to be affirmed … The conquest of the fear of death is the recovery of life’s joy.”          Joseph Campbell

     Humor: "I used to eat a lot of natural foods until I learned that most people die of natural causes." and "Health nuts are going to feel stupid someday, lying in hospitals dying of nothing."     Anon

     *** See: http://www.johnlovas.com/2012/04/psychospiritual-technologies.html 

#85 Phoenix Process

     “Everything can change in a moment; we have little control over the outer weather patterns as we make our way through the landscape of life. But we can become masters of the inner landscape. We can use what happens on the outside to change the way we function on the inside. This is the moral of the great teaching myths. The hero conquers a monster; the heroine completes a quest; the reward at the end was there all along – the true self, the awakened consciousness. Joseph Campbell said, ‘What all myths have to deal with is transformation of consciousness. You have been thinking one way, you now have to think a different way. Consciousness is transformed either by the trials themselves or by illuminating revelations. Trials and revelations are what it’s all about.’
     When we have been through a trial and survived it – or better still, transformed its terrors into revelations – then we begin to approach other adversities with a different attitude. Change & loss may still knock us off the horse, but soon we are back in the saddle, stronger & wiser than ever. As life progresses, and we continue to transform and refine our consciousness, we gain more insight & humility, greater strength of character, and deeper faith in the meaningfulness of life.
     But how do we do this? How do we transform terror into revelation? How do we stay sane & courageous in the midst of a trial? … the process of transformation (is) a journey of brokenness leading to openness, descent to rebirth, fire to Phoenix. Difficult journeys are best taken in a sturdy vehicle, or at least with a trusty guide & a helpful toolbox. …
     The practices I used most often to stay on track during a Phoenix Process are meditation, psychotherapy, and prayer. These tools continually encourage me to keep my heart open and my mind awake when I would prefer to shut down or go back to sleep. The practice of meditation has helped me develop a steady heart and a less reactive & agitated mind. Psychotherapy had opened me up to an inner world of cause & effect. At a critical time, it pushed me to take responsibility for my own happiness – to stop waiting for that elusive someone or something to mend & define me.
     Sometimes … meditation & therapy – seem tedious & boring; at other times they can be intimidating & challenging. We may want to give up. But the hard work demanded by a Phoenix Process, and the courage required to break open & stay open, are worth every moment of struggle. The payoff is enormous: We come into the liberating presence of our authentic self.”

     Lesser E. “Broken open. How difficult times can help us grow.” Villard, NY, 2005.