Here are some links that have to do with meditation and/or taking a look at the world in a slightly different way. Enjoy:
1) A nice looking blog that has a great deal of info about meditation:
http://anmolmehta.com/blog/
2) An article on newscientist.com about the benefits of meditation:
http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21128271.900-heal-thyself-meditate.html
3) A short piece about a very cool meditation room:
http://freshome.com/2011/08/30/meditation-room-shaped-like-a-japanese-lantern-tea-house-by-david-jameson/
Take care!
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 22, 2011
Meditation and Freedom
Just a short post today. I know I have been away for awhile. My wife and I have moved to Orgeon and the first few weeks have been busy settling in. The posts will be more regular now that we have done all that.
I had a thought earlier today while listening to J5's song "Freedom." While listening to the song I realized that a regular practice of meditation provides people with a sense of freedom. Freedom from old feelings, from no longer helpful habits. Freedom from identifying "you" with your job, or your family or your group of friends. As you meditate regularly, you even come to realize that "you" are not your thoughts.
Meditation develops a mental and emotional space inside yourself where you can realize that you are a person who has thoughts but you are not equal to your thoughts. You are not defined by your thoughts. You are the thing that is having the thoughts, that contains the thoughts but you are not the thoughts themselves. That is a subtle but powerful distinction and once you have that experience it is like a depth charge to your psyche. It sinks down low in your consciousness and sends out powerful shock waves that knock your insides around. But these shock waves don't kill you, they just make you realize who you really are. That's freedom!
I had a thought earlier today while listening to J5's song "Freedom." While listening to the song I realized that a regular practice of meditation provides people with a sense of freedom. Freedom from old feelings, from no longer helpful habits. Freedom from identifying "you" with your job, or your family or your group of friends. As you meditate regularly, you even come to realize that "you" are not your thoughts.
Meditation develops a mental and emotional space inside yourself where you can realize that you are a person who has thoughts but you are not equal to your thoughts. You are not defined by your thoughts. You are the thing that is having the thoughts, that contains the thoughts but you are not the thoughts themselves. That is a subtle but powerful distinction and once you have that experience it is like a depth charge to your psyche. It sinks down low in your consciousness and sends out powerful shock waves that knock your insides around. But these shock waves don't kill you, they just make you realize who you really are. That's freedom!
Thursday, July 7, 2011
Article Links
I will be posting links to articles, blog posts, etc. about meditation at least twice a week, sometimes more. Here's the first batch:
an article on Vipassana Meditation
jobacle.com
An organization dedicated to increasing the number of people who meditate regularly
perfectinnerpeace.com
A short post on meditation and natural sounds
dailymom.com/articles/2011/28964.html
an article on Vipassana Meditation
jobacle.com
An organization dedicated to increasing the number of people who meditate regularly
perfectinnerpeace.com
A short post on meditation and natural sounds
dailymom.com/articles/2011/28964.html
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
When Changing Your Mind Is Hard
Last post I discussed the topic of changing your thoughts in order to change your life. Many times this is easier said than done. How often have you made a resolution (New Year's or otherwise) to make a change in your life only to find your self falling back into old, unwanted habits shortly thereafter? Why does that happen?
On a physical level when you are trying to introduce a new habit into your life you are literally creating new neural pathways in your brain and throughout your body. As you can imagine, making these new pathways takes time! Moreover, your body will reflexively use the old pathways as those pathways are much "stronger" compared to the new one that you are forming. The old pathways are like the interstate with the high speed limit while the new pathways are like the back roads with all sorts of stop and go traffic. Your body and mind crave efficiency. Given a choice between the interstate and the back roads, they will always use the interstate - unless you consciously take control.
The difference between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind is what's in play when you try to form new habits. Your habits are guided/controlled/run by your unconscious mind. Meanwhile your conscious mind is the aspect of you that wants to form a new habit. I will go into detail in another post about the differences between the conscious and the unconscious. Whole books have been written on that topic. For now, let's keep it simple and say that your unconscious mind is stubborn and needs a great deal of "convincing" before it buys into the new habit that you want to form (the new belief you want to have, the new emotional response that you want to have in a recurring situation, the new positivity you want to feel on a regular basis).
So, is there an easy way to convince the unconscious mind to change? I have tried various techniques over the years. Some of them take specialized training and some don't. Some you could probably pick up fairly easily while others you would need to work on for a while to get the hang of it. Since there are so many approaches to dealing with the unconscious mind, I'll choose one technique to talk about today and save other techniques for later posts.
Let's talk about the positive intent of a current behavior. Let's use smoking as an example. You smoke and you want to quit. Instead of simply trying to cold turkey it and quit by force of willpower (the conscious mind trying to override the unconscious mind every time the urge to smoke comes up) try the following instead: 1) disassociate yourself from your habit (get into a state where you are not emotionally worked up by how hard it is to quit, an emotional state in which you can think about your habit objectively - trying to quit when you're jonesing hard is simply not going to work), 2) while you're sitting quietly in your car/cubicle/comfy chair ask yourself the question "What positive outcome does smoking provide me with?" That is, what benefits do you get from smoking? Does it calm your down? Help you deal with stress? Act as a social lubricant? What does it do for you?, 3) Once you have a sense of the benefits of your habit ask yourself if you can think of three other ways to fulfill that benefit that are just as good as smoking. Would taking 10 deep breaths in a row help you deal with stress just as well as smoking does? Would drinking a fresh, cool glass of water? What else?, 4) once you have three different behaviors besides smoking that you think are worthy of trying instead of smoking the next time the urge hits, spend a few minutes and imagine yourself engaging in those behaviors. Make a short video in your head of you taking the deep breaths or drinking the water or going for a short walk or whatever it maybe. Play that video in your head a number of times. When you're taking a shower, play those videos of you engaged in the new behavior. When you're heading to work. When you're falling asleep at night. Matter of fact, it's possible once you get familiar with the above steps to do the whole process as you lie in bed and are waiting to fall asleep. That may be the best time because it gives you unconscious mind a whole night to mull over the options and to look at the videos on its own while your conscious mind is sleeping. Okay. That's it.
Yes, I realize asking yourself questions and expecting an answer may not seem natural to you. If so, pretend someone else is asking you the questions or have a friend or spouse actually ask them of you.
What if you don't get//have an answer when the questions are asked? I'm willing to bet that if there is a habit you want to change that at some level you've given it a great deal of thought and all you have to do now is let the answers come forth. The same with the new options you are trying out. You may first think, "Nothing will be as good as smoking! It's the best way! That's why I do it!" And that's all true. But if it were 100% completely true then you wouldn't want to change the habit. Part of you knows there are downsides to smoking no matter what benefits it provides you. THAT PART will be able to provide other options in terms of behaviors. All you have to do is be objective enough and willing enough to listen to yourself.
The process is more creative (you are creating a new habit) than mere memorization. Will it work the first time you do it? Some people have instantaneous changes when they do this. Others don't. If you do have that quick a change, congratulations! If you don't, then go back and run through the process a few more time. Come up with some different options. Run those movies in your head a bunch more times.
Next week, I'll address leverage and motivation.
On a physical level when you are trying to introduce a new habit into your life you are literally creating new neural pathways in your brain and throughout your body. As you can imagine, making these new pathways takes time! Moreover, your body will reflexively use the old pathways as those pathways are much "stronger" compared to the new one that you are forming. The old pathways are like the interstate with the high speed limit while the new pathways are like the back roads with all sorts of stop and go traffic. Your body and mind crave efficiency. Given a choice between the interstate and the back roads, they will always use the interstate - unless you consciously take control.
The difference between the conscious mind and the unconscious mind is what's in play when you try to form new habits. Your habits are guided/controlled/run by your unconscious mind. Meanwhile your conscious mind is the aspect of you that wants to form a new habit. I will go into detail in another post about the differences between the conscious and the unconscious. Whole books have been written on that topic. For now, let's keep it simple and say that your unconscious mind is stubborn and needs a great deal of "convincing" before it buys into the new habit that you want to form (the new belief you want to have, the new emotional response that you want to have in a recurring situation, the new positivity you want to feel on a regular basis).
So, is there an easy way to convince the unconscious mind to change? I have tried various techniques over the years. Some of them take specialized training and some don't. Some you could probably pick up fairly easily while others you would need to work on for a while to get the hang of it. Since there are so many approaches to dealing with the unconscious mind, I'll choose one technique to talk about today and save other techniques for later posts.
Let's talk about the positive intent of a current behavior. Let's use smoking as an example. You smoke and you want to quit. Instead of simply trying to cold turkey it and quit by force of willpower (the conscious mind trying to override the unconscious mind every time the urge to smoke comes up) try the following instead: 1) disassociate yourself from your habit (get into a state where you are not emotionally worked up by how hard it is to quit, an emotional state in which you can think about your habit objectively - trying to quit when you're jonesing hard is simply not going to work), 2) while you're sitting quietly in your car/cubicle/comfy chair ask yourself the question "What positive outcome does smoking provide me with?" That is, what benefits do you get from smoking? Does it calm your down? Help you deal with stress? Act as a social lubricant? What does it do for you?, 3) Once you have a sense of the benefits of your habit ask yourself if you can think of three other ways to fulfill that benefit that are just as good as smoking. Would taking 10 deep breaths in a row help you deal with stress just as well as smoking does? Would drinking a fresh, cool glass of water? What else?, 4) once you have three different behaviors besides smoking that you think are worthy of trying instead of smoking the next time the urge hits, spend a few minutes and imagine yourself engaging in those behaviors. Make a short video in your head of you taking the deep breaths or drinking the water or going for a short walk or whatever it maybe. Play that video in your head a number of times. When you're taking a shower, play those videos of you engaged in the new behavior. When you're heading to work. When you're falling asleep at night. Matter of fact, it's possible once you get familiar with the above steps to do the whole process as you lie in bed and are waiting to fall asleep. That may be the best time because it gives you unconscious mind a whole night to mull over the options and to look at the videos on its own while your conscious mind is sleeping. Okay. That's it.
Yes, I realize asking yourself questions and expecting an answer may not seem natural to you. If so, pretend someone else is asking you the questions or have a friend or spouse actually ask them of you.
What if you don't get//have an answer when the questions are asked? I'm willing to bet that if there is a habit you want to change that at some level you've given it a great deal of thought and all you have to do now is let the answers come forth. The same with the new options you are trying out. You may first think, "Nothing will be as good as smoking! It's the best way! That's why I do it!" And that's all true. But if it were 100% completely true then you wouldn't want to change the habit. Part of you knows there are downsides to smoking no matter what benefits it provides you. THAT PART will be able to provide other options in terms of behaviors. All you have to do is be objective enough and willing enough to listen to yourself.
The process is more creative (you are creating a new habit) than mere memorization. Will it work the first time you do it? Some people have instantaneous changes when they do this. Others don't. If you do have that quick a change, congratulations! If you don't, then go back and run through the process a few more time. Come up with some different options. Run those movies in your head a bunch more times.
Next week, I'll address leverage and motivation.
Thursday, June 30, 2011
Change Your Thoughts, Change Your Life
If I had to sum up all that I've learned through the various meditation practices that I have used over the years it would be the above, oft-quoted (sampled?) saying: change your thoughts, change your life. I don't know who first said it. Was it one of the ancient sources (the Vedas, the Upanishads, the Dead Sea Scrolls)? Did it come from one of the New Thought movement authors back in the late 19th/early 20th century (Atkinson, Towne)? Or did it come from much later than that? I'm simply not sure. But the idea - however it was worded - has been around for a long time.
There are at least two interpretations of this saying. The first and simplest interpretation is : you can change your thoughts and thus how you respond emotionally to any given situation and thus change your life. Fairly straightforward. Nothing mumbo-jumbo or woowoo about it. The second interpretation follows more along the line of the much discussed "law of attraction." You change your thoughts (which create your reality) and you change the external circumstances of your life.
Modern science has provided us with a possible third alternative in terms of understanding the maxim. Epigenetics (the study of what genes are "expressed" and how that process occurs) states very clearly that one's long-term emotional state or outlook on life directly affects which genes in your body are active. It is a broad subject with a great amount of detail and its findings in the past couple of decades run counter to what most of us were taught in school about genetics (i.e. dominant and recessive and Mendel and white cows and brown cows and roan cows). Dr. Bruce Lipton's book "The Biology of Belief" is a good place to start if your interested in learning more about the subject.
Essentially, epigenetics says if you have a positive outlook on life that you will activate certain genes in your body while a person who has a negative outlook on life will activate other genes in his/her body. So mind affects body which can/does affect how one acts in the world and, thus, how people respond to you.
However you personally understand or "take" the idea of change your thoughts, change your life is, of course, up to you. I know from the experiences that my wife and I have had over the years that the more positive I am the better my life flows. Flows is the best word I have come up with to describe the light-hearted state that regular meditation puts me in. A state of flow in which all the details of life just seem to mesh perfectly with one another. When - for whatever reason - I am not meditating regularly I find I have a grace period of a few days, a few days of meditation momentum but after that wears off I start to slip back down into the struggle again. Struggle as the opposite of flow. The state in which even the simplest of tasks is encumbered with unexpected delays and frustrations.
Presently, my wife and I are all about being in flow. We've left our old jobs, moved to a different part of the country and are tremendously excited about all the new adventures that lie before us. Our regular meditation practice is the foundation of the state and our excitement. Without it we would not have as much success as we already have had and are expecting in the near future. So, change your thoughts, change your life!
Next time I'll talk about some specific techniques you can use when changing your thoughts is a hard thing to do.
There are at least two interpretations of this saying. The first and simplest interpretation is : you can change your thoughts and thus how you respond emotionally to any given situation and thus change your life. Fairly straightforward. Nothing mumbo-jumbo or woowoo about it. The second interpretation follows more along the line of the much discussed "law of attraction." You change your thoughts (which create your reality) and you change the external circumstances of your life.
Modern science has provided us with a possible third alternative in terms of understanding the maxim. Epigenetics (the study of what genes are "expressed" and how that process occurs) states very clearly that one's long-term emotional state or outlook on life directly affects which genes in your body are active. It is a broad subject with a great amount of detail and its findings in the past couple of decades run counter to what most of us were taught in school about genetics (i.e. dominant and recessive and Mendel and white cows and brown cows and roan cows). Dr. Bruce Lipton's book "The Biology of Belief" is a good place to start if your interested in learning more about the subject.
Essentially, epigenetics says if you have a positive outlook on life that you will activate certain genes in your body while a person who has a negative outlook on life will activate other genes in his/her body. So mind affects body which can/does affect how one acts in the world and, thus, how people respond to you.
However you personally understand or "take" the idea of change your thoughts, change your life is, of course, up to you. I know from the experiences that my wife and I have had over the years that the more positive I am the better my life flows. Flows is the best word I have come up with to describe the light-hearted state that regular meditation puts me in. A state of flow in which all the details of life just seem to mesh perfectly with one another. When - for whatever reason - I am not meditating regularly I find I have a grace period of a few days, a few days of meditation momentum but after that wears off I start to slip back down into the struggle again. Struggle as the opposite of flow. The state in which even the simplest of tasks is encumbered with unexpected delays and frustrations.
Presently, my wife and I are all about being in flow. We've left our old jobs, moved to a different part of the country and are tremendously excited about all the new adventures that lie before us. Our regular meditation practice is the foundation of the state and our excitement. Without it we would not have as much success as we already have had and are expecting in the near future. So, change your thoughts, change your life!
Next time I'll talk about some specific techniques you can use when changing your thoughts is a hard thing to do.
Tuesday, June 28, 2011
Welcome!
This is the first post to our new blog about meditation, energy work and alternative healing practices. By "we" I am referring to my wife, LJ, and myself, Cameron. Together we have been practicing and exploring various meditation and healing modalities (from acupuncture to vipassana to reiki to vortex healing to shamanistic practices to chanting to hypnosis to. . .well, you get the idea) for the past twenty plus years.
Many times over that period either LJ or I have been asked by friends, acquaintances and sometimes total strangers (that is, people we just met) for advice about meditation. It seems there are many people who want to learn to meditate but they just don't know where to start. Both LJ and I have taught a number of people over the years to use various techniques. That's where the name of the blog comes from. There is a tremendous wealth of background information about meditation from both the spiritual traditions and scientific studies that anyone can access on the internet. I mean, there's a lot of stuff out there! Tons! And that's what seems to stop most people from developing a regular meditation practice. TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!!! Which is ironic in a way as one of the benefits of meditation is to help people focus and get better at sorting through all that's going on in your life.
"A Technique" is both the name of this blog and the name of a guided meditation that LJ created and is available on our website (luckyporcupine.com). We have found that for people just starting out in meditation that what they want to most is "a technique." A simple, easy to understand, easy to use technique. A sort of "do this, not that" approach to meditation. A basic meditation primer, if you will.
That's what "A Technique" is. That's what my wife and I specifically created it to be. My wife did the bulk of the work (it's her voice you'll hear throughout the meditation should you try it) and I chipped in my two cents every now and then. My job now is to do the blog. Seems like a fair trade to me.
So, that's the short introduction. I'll give more details about what is you can expect from "A Technique" (both the blog and the meditation) in my next post.
Thanks!
Many times over that period either LJ or I have been asked by friends, acquaintances and sometimes total strangers (that is, people we just met) for advice about meditation. It seems there are many people who want to learn to meditate but they just don't know where to start. Both LJ and I have taught a number of people over the years to use various techniques. That's where the name of the blog comes from. There is a tremendous wealth of background information about meditation from both the spiritual traditions and scientific studies that anyone can access on the internet. I mean, there's a lot of stuff out there! Tons! And that's what seems to stop most people from developing a regular meditation practice. TOO MUCH INFORMATION!!!! Which is ironic in a way as one of the benefits of meditation is to help people focus and get better at sorting through all that's going on in your life.
"A Technique" is both the name of this blog and the name of a guided meditation that LJ created and is available on our website (luckyporcupine.com). We have found that for people just starting out in meditation that what they want to most is "a technique." A simple, easy to understand, easy to use technique. A sort of "do this, not that" approach to meditation. A basic meditation primer, if you will.
That's what "A Technique" is. That's what my wife and I specifically created it to be. My wife did the bulk of the work (it's her voice you'll hear throughout the meditation should you try it) and I chipped in my two cents every now and then. My job now is to do the blog. Seems like a fair trade to me.
So, that's the short introduction. I'll give more details about what is you can expect from "A Technique" (both the blog and the meditation) in my next post.
Thanks!
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