Mindfulness & Meditation

May 17, 2014 By Susan O'Grady 2 Comments

How Wisdom Emerges from Body-Scan Meditation

Mindfulness Meditation: Using the Body Scan as a Focus

Body-scan meditation focuses deliberate attention on the body without judgment or wanting anything to come from it. This isn’t a traditional relaxation method; people may feel peaceful, but they can also feel antsy, impatient, irritated, and hungry. That’s the point: You can experience these feelings, thoughts, and sensations without needing to take them further. Just notice, and then move on to the next part of the body.

With physical pain, for example, our thoughts might go something like this: “My back hurts, that muscle ache could be a spasm or what if it is bone cancer, maybe I should have an MRI, or maybe I need to go to a chiropractor, but that could mean I have to go three times a week, how will I get off work? My wife is going to be mad at me for spending the money, but then, damn that! If I’m hurting, then I need to get out of pain. She has no business keeping me out of the doctor’s office. I deserve to spend money on me sometimes. Just like when I was a kid, and my mother didn’t take seriously the pain in my arm, and it was broken! I went for weeks before she took me to the doctor… ”

The thoughts go on like that. Before you know it, you’re fuming; your body is more tense than when you began. You feel irritation not only at your wife, but your mother, the medical system, the ACA, and your insurance company. You probably feel sorry for yourself. All that strong emotion gets internalized into your pores, your muscles and sinews, and your heart. Your focus on your body ended ten minutes into the 45-minute practice: all you can think about is getting up and googling “back pain.”

A mindful alternative might go like this: “My back aches, oh, okay. It hurts now, that is how it is right now.” And then you rejoin your yourself, and think, “Noticing my right shoulder…noticing the feelings present there…I bring my attention to my right arm, noticing what is there to be felt…” At the end of the body scan, you open your eyes and realize that you have stayed with the practice for most of the 45 minutes. Your mind wandered, but you didn’t end up becoming angry with your partner, your mother, the medical system, and your poor luck.

Living with all our emotions can be difficult. It’s not uncommon for feelings to be transformed into physical sensations that can very possibly develop into an illness. You didn’t cause the illness, but being in prolonged or frequent physical and emotional turmoil puts the autonomic nervous system (ANS) into a constant state of over-arousal, a kind of hyper-drive that leads to difficulty sleeping, tense muscles, fretting, and worry.

In his poem fragment “Eternity,” William Blake wrote about the elusiveness of joy:

He who binds to himself a joy

Does the winged life destroy

He who kisses the joy as it flies

Lives in eternity’s sunrise.

Happiness studies show that no one is happy all the time. In the same way, wisdom is not always with us. We have moments where it all comes together, and then it disperses again. Focusing on the body with awareness is a way to allow wisdom to emerge without trying.

How does wisdom enter in? In the second, alternative, body scan you notice the pain in your back, move on, and finish the practice. You’re more rested because you didn’t get attached to any one thought. Then sometime later in the day, you do a kindness to yourself. You think, “I’m feeling some ache in my back; I’ll listen to my body over the next day and see if I should pursue it further. But for now, I’ll take care to not overdo the wedding, and to come inside and rest.”

That is wisdom. It’s not Socrates, or Jesus, or Buddha; it’s your own wisdom that emerges because of your kindness to yourself, and because you didn’t let yourself go down the rabbit hole of your thoughts.

Below is a thirty-minute Body Scan Mindfulness Meditation. It is one of the first meditations used in Dr. Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction class (MBSR) and is also a core meditation used in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT). It is best done laying down, with your eyes closed.

Body Scan Mindfulness Meditation

February 4, 2014 By Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

Finding Tranquility in Meditation Despite the Inevitable Storms

One of the stories from the life of Buddha that is depicted in numerous sculptures from many cultures is that of Muchalinda, the serpent. The story goes that during the sixth week after Buddha attained full enlightenment, a weeklong torrential rainstorm threatened his meditation. Muchalinda, king of the serpents, emerged and protected Buddha with his body. Because the serpent king felt compassion for the monk, he spread out his many multiple hoods to protect him.

The commonality between these images across cultures is the hands placed in meditation mudra (dhyana) gesture with the palms facing upward and the right hand over the left.

Learning to Trust the Safety of Your Meditation

The calm tranquility that is conveyed in these sculptures belies the raging storm outside the snake’s shelter. During meditation, the mind’s turbulence, the fuming of emotion, and the body’s discomfort frequently threatens to disrupt the practice.

In the discourse of the Eightfold Path, Buddha describes right mindfulness to his monks:

“Here, monks, a monk dwells contemplating the body in the body, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed longing and dejection in regard to the world. He dwells contemplating feelings in feelings, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed longing and dejection in regard to the world. He dwells contemplating mind in mind, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed longing and dejection in regard to the world. He dwells contemplating phenomena in phenomena, ardent, clearly comprehending, mindful, having removed longing and dejection in regard to the world. This is called right mindfulness.” (In the Buddha’s Words: An Anthology of Discourses from the Pali Canon. Edited by Bhikkhu Bodhi, 2005, pp. 239-240)

Finding Shelter Within

It is by noticing our emotions (such as longing or dejection) as they arise in our physical sensations, thoughts, and feelings that we bring insightful awareness to our meditation practice. Even the most practiced meditators get pulled away from their focus sometimes. There will always be storms. Finding a shelter within yourself, where you can rest while you continue your meditation, will help you to stay steady during a storm.

Stories and myth help us by giving symbolism and metaphor to common experiences. Just as Muchalinda sheltered Buddha, sense your own shelter coming from within. By thinking of the snake as a compassionate protector, you can bring kindness and strength to yourself as you sit, despite the inevitable disturbances in your emotional environment.

September 21, 2013 By Susan O'Grady 2 Comments

How to Survive a Rip Current of the Mind When Practicing Mindfulness Meditation

Ruminations and Worry Make Meditation and CBT Difficult

Recently during a visit to Hawaii, I read a pamphlet on ocean safety that described how to survive a rip current. They can travel 1-8 feet per second, meaning that in an astonishing 8 seconds, you could be carried sixty-four feet out to sea! The instinct is to fight the rip, which only makes it worse because fighting something that powerful is exhausting. After exhaustion comes panic, and in gulping for air, swimmers choke on seawater.

In mindfulness training, we talk about letting thoughts pass away like waves in the ocean. But what if your mind gets caught in a rip current? When the waves are so turbulent that they produce the conditions ripe for a rip?

Surviving a rip current depends on doing something that is contrary to instinct. The key is not to fight the current but to understand it and go with the flow—while at the same time, swimming across the strong current, parallel to the shore. Find a spot where waves are breaking on the shore, and let yourself be carried back to the beach by the same ocean that took you away. If you are unable to swim diagonally to the shore until the waves carry you back, then relax and let the current carry you out: it will eventually lose strength and, if you have conserved your energy, you can swim back.

The same instructions can be applied to mindfulness-based cognitive therapy. Many people come to mindfulness meditation, or Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy (MBCT) or stress reduction (MBST) depressed, anxious, or dealing with panic disorders. Asking them to sit still and silently focus on their breathing is an enormous task. We talk about letting thoughts pass away like waves in the ocean, but what if your mind gets caught in a rip current? Often, the thought stream is too strong for the breath to anchor them, and MBCT clients get carried out to sea by their ruminations and worries.

When the mind gets carried away in a panicky current, it feels as if there is no escape. At those moments, the urge is to give up, even to quit the practice. So, when feelings threaten to overwhelm you during meditation, turn to wisdom learned from the sea.

Remember that a rip current doesn’t pull swimmers underwater; it carries them away from shore in a narrow channel of water. When your mind begins to ruminate, think of the thoughts as a channel, not the whole ocean. That channel can be overcome by allowing yourself to relax and accept the strong pull. Fighting it will wear you out. Notice where the shore is, pay attention to the flow of the water as it moves to the shoreline, and think of your body as the shore, grounding you. You are solid and firm. Ruminative thinking, like the rip current, will lose its strength eventually, and you can return your focus to your breathing. Each time you resist your instinct to fight the overwhelming thoughts and just accept them, you will be training yourself to be a stronger and smarter swimmer.

How to Survive a Rip Current

Remain calm, do not panic. Should you find yourself caught in a current that’s taking you away from where you entered the water, remember that panicking will only tire you.

Go with the flow. Do not attempt to fight the current. You will almost always lose the battle. Swim across or perpendicular to the current’s direction.
Wait until the current releases you. It will.
Swim parallel to shore and then make your way in.

From KORC (Kauai Ocean Rescue Council)

August 31, 2013 By Susan O'Grady 1 Comment

A Lesson In Mindfulness: Blackberry Picking

Being mindful when doing daily tasks is a lesson in informal meditation practice.

The Great Irish Poet Seamus Heaney died yesterday. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1995. In this youtube, he reads his poem, Blackberry Picking. This poem has always been a favorite of our family. As in all poetry, it has many layers of meaning. When our daughters were growing up, we spent several dinner conversations discussing the poem and what it meant to each of us.

Mindfulness is not hoarding experience but finding pleasure in the moment.

Being in the moment means being aware of the colors and smells, the taste, and the pain of scratched hands. There is an awareness that this moment will not last. It cannot last. No matter how much we want it to last, it will not. Our minds will inevitably move onto the next thought, and the next experience. Picking blackberries requires patience as ripe berries are often hidden in the brambles and you have to reach deep into the thicket to gently pull the tender berry from its lodging. It takes many berries to fill a pot. With that much work, the urge is to hurry through the task so we can either stuff ourselves or start the jam making. Whether it’s to gobble the berries so quickly, without tasting them–or to finish bottling jam so we can cross it off our list for the day–the sense experience of berry picking is lost. Eating freshly picked berries is one of life’s delights. Awareness of the briefness of those moments brings appreciation and attention to the simplest task. Trying to hoard the berries, just like hoarding experience will bring disappointment. In mindfulness practice, we learn to accept the moment knowing that it will fade into the next moment. If you keep the berries in the byre, they will rot and turn sour. Being mindful when doing daily tasks is a lesson in informal meditation practice.

The poem Blackberry Picking, shows how hoarding experiences for later, spoils the moment.

Late August, given heavy rain and sun
for a full week, the blackberries would ripen.
At first, just one, a glossy purple clot
among others, red, green, hard as a knot.
You ate that first one and its flesh was sweet
like thickened wine: summer’s blood was in it
leaving stains upon the tongue and lust for
picking. Then red ones inked up and that hunger
sent us out with milk cans, pea tins, jam-pots
where briars scratched and wet grass bleached our boots.
Round hayfields, cornfields and potato-drills
we trekked and picked until the cans were full
until the tinkling bottom had been covered
with green ones, and on top big dark blobs burned
like a plate of eyes. Our hands were peppered
with thorn pricks, our palms sticky as Bluebeard’s.
We hoarded the fresh berries in the byre.
But when the bath was filled we found a fur,
a rat-grey fungus, glutting on our cache.
The juice was stinking too. Once off the bush
the fruit fermented, the sweet flesh would turn sour.
I always felt like crying. It wasn’t fair
that all the lovely canfuls smelt of rot.
Each year I hoped they’d keep, knew they would not.

–Seamus Heaney 1939-2013

June 29, 2013 By Susan O'Grady Leave a Comment

Alternative & Complementary Treatment for Emotional and Physical Health

With changes in health care following the Affordable Care Act, providers will soon emphasize health promotion over disease management. Integrating alternative and complementary approaches to well-being will provide patients with ways to manage their health and provide a foundation for preventing new health problems. Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) has been practiced for the last 25+ years in the United States, but many of these approaches have a much longer history: well over 2,000 years, in the case of yoga. In the last decade, studies examining the effects of yoga have increased substantially—important for yoga’s acceptance as a mainstream treatment.

CAM includes health-care practices that have not generally been considered part of conventional medicine. In 1991 Congress passed legislation to provide the National Institute of Health (NIH) with $2 million in order to study unconventional medicine. Some of the most widely studied alternative approaches to health promotion and maintenance include biofeedback, meditation, dietary supplements, chiropractic treatment, massage therapy, relaxation training, movement therapy, art therapy, and acupuncture, together with spirituality, religion, and prayer. Other approaches, such as hypnosis and bodywork (including Reiki, Hanna Somatic Education, and Feldenkrais), have also been used for several decades.

Biofeedback is One of Many Treatments Shown to be Effective in Treating Medical Problems

Biofeedback can help many medical problems. — Biofeedback Before the Digital Age

I incorporated biofeedback training for the patients I saw during the eight years I worked at Kaiser Hospital in Vallejo, CA. Biofeedback informs a patient of important physical measures such as muscle tension, skin temperature, brain wave activity, and heart rate. The photo shows what was state-of-the-art equipment at the time (circa 1988.)
I treated patients referred by their PCPs, neurologists, and orthopedic physicians for chronic medical problems. These patients were considered ‘high utilizers’ of medical services such as doctor office visits, prescription drugs, and special procedures. Using a treatment model that included cognitive-behavioral therapy, biofeedback, relaxation and meditation training, patients suffering with chronic headache were able to reduce doctor’s office visits by 75%, medications by 56%, emergency room visits by 19%, and special procedures by 6% for up to five years after treatment.

We have come a long way since then. Digital developments since those early years have dramatically changed the way biofeedback services are delivered. But the principle is the same: taking responsibility for your own health.

Taking Responsibility for Your Health is Key to Lasting Change

Teaching a client to control muscle tension so they can reduce musculoskeletal pain, or showing a migraine sufferer how to increase hand temperature through relaxation and biofeedback, involves learning to be aware of stress and the body’s automatic reaction to it. Of course there are some that would rather take a pill to relax, but that doesn’t change the psychophysiological baseline. Taking a pill or a drink will give temporary relief, but will not lead to lasting changes in how the body handles stress, thereby preventing headaches or pain altogether—not treating them once they occur. Implementing positive health behaviors require discipline and consistency. When physicians have 20-minute appointments –once or twice a year—there is not sufficient time to instruct and follow-up on a patient’s exercise or yoga practice. For people who are dealing with significant life stress, medical problems or depression, making life style changes can feel insurmountable. One yoga class will not help an achy back, nor will a meditation class help control anxiety if the home practice component is ignored. Psychotherapy aimed at helping integrate and continue healthy changes can help.

Wearable sensors such as Nike+ FuelBand or the Fitbit One monitor everything from heart rate, steps taken, sleep quality, energy used, and skin temperature. As a recent New York Times article reported, there is even an app to detect signs of depression in diabetes patients through smartphones.

Taking responsibility for health by using both ancient practices and newly emerging technologies and treatments will improve lives and ultimately reduce medical costs. But the most profound outcome is engagement with a life lived fully.

References:

“The Integration of Complementary and Alternative Medicine (CAM) Into
the Practice of Psychology: A Vision for the Future,” in Professional Psychology: Research and Practice, 2012, Vol. 43, No. 6, 576–585.

Changes in medical utilization after biofeedback treatment for headache: Long-term follow-up. O’Grady, Susan J. Dissertation Abstracts International, Vol 49(1-B), Jul 1988, 241.

National Institutes of Health (NIH). (2011). NIH—The NIH almanac (NCCAM). http://www.nih.gov/about/almanac/ organization/NCCAM.htm

How Wisdom Emerges from Body-Scan Meditation