Week 5:

I got this great suggestion from Dr. Fields in reply to my Week 3 blog.

“I've found success with mantras as "breath prayers" (Richard Foster talks about those in his books on spiritual disciplines, not from an LDS perspective but you may still find them very relevant). Something like "Lord Jesus Christ have mercy on me." Other popular mantras are "thy will be done". You could use any of the short phrases you've already identified. Sticking with one for a week might be a good discipline. Easy to remember a simple phrase. Maybe you do it for a minute or two in the morning. Then you can also pick a trigger to remind you come back to it. Like picking up a pencil or every time you go through a door. Something common but not too common.”

(I actually did this for a while with “Please help me Father” a few years ago)

I think I’ll try that this week. It’s a great idea to have a “trigger activity”.

I’m going to move away from the Omvana meditation this week (though I really like it) and try something else, maybe a guided mindfulness meditation.

In preparation, I listened to this great interview with Jon Kabat- Zinn about

mindfulness on the radio program Here & Now which aired 10/22/15.

A few interesting points mentioned in the interview:

-Kabat- Zinn  developed the MBSR program for pain patients

-Shift from doing to being produces major changes in brain structure. Learn to rest in the domain of your own being, which involves wakefulness.

Are you embodied? Air on skin, breath moving in and out

We are continually distracting ourselves—devices

Use technology to extinguish other destructive aspects of technology

Put the welcome mat out and turn toward the sensations of your body (chronic pain) Befriend your pain. Transform your relationship to it so it doesn’t destroy you

We suffer from the disease of mistaking our thoughts for truth. A thought is an event in the field of awareness. Thoughts are like storms in the mind—they’re like weather patterns. Recognize them but don’t judge them. You can “surf the waves” of your thoughts.

I had to learn to “surf the waves of my negative thoughts” to effectively deal with OCD at a fairly early age. I am good at detaching myself from wild, wacky OCD thoughts and letting them come and go, but I need to learn to do that with other types of thoughts too.

Eat two raisins over 15 minutes over a period of time. Can you see the sunlight and the rain inside the raisin?

Kabat- Zinn is the author of the following:

Full- Catastrophe Living

Mindfulness for Beginners (CD & Book)

From Wikipedia article on mindfulness:

“Mindfulness and mindfulness meditation, focus on becoming aware of all incoming thoughts and feelings and accepting them, but not attaching or reacting to them.”

The Five-Aggregate Model of the Mind

A deeper understanding of the concept of mindfulness can be obtained by probing into in-depth teachings of Buddhism. For example, the Five-Aggregate Model of the Mind enables one to understand:

1. the moment-to-moment manifestation of subjective conscious experience from a first-person perspective.

2. that the present moment is experienced as a visual, tactile, olfactory, auditory, taste or as a stimulus-independent thought, and the past and the future are experienced only as thoughts in the present moment. (they are brought to the table of short- term, or working memory)

3. the need to consider two levels of analyses (namely conventional reality and absolute reality); a distinction made by Aristotle and also present in major religions. In the context of mindfulness, this distinction appears to be especially important when conducting scientific analyses and in analyzing the brain.

Monday:

I tried this mindfulness guide:

Mindfulness Meditation- Guided 10 minutes- The Honest Guys (YouTube)

Tuesday:

I lay still in bed and focused on breathing. This was harder than it might seem because naturally I take short, shallow breaths. Some meditation experts recommend breathing in through the nose for 4 seconds and then out through the mouth for 6, focusing on the “still point” between inhaling and exhaling. Focusing so much on my own breathing was difficult for me, it actually created some anxiety, so I need to work on that more—maybe just adapt it to my natural style of breathing. I need to be able to focus on breathing without trying to control it.

I also practiced just letting thoughts and emotions come into my head, acknowledging them, and just letting them go again without assigning an action or value to them. This isn’t so hard, but not reacting emotionally to your thoughts and feelings is more difficult.

I think mindfulness meditation poses an interesting challenge to someone with OCD. People with OCD are often intensely aware of their own thoughts. They seem to have a special capability for introspection and metacognition. They are also prone to an excess of disturbing or upsetting thoughts. The OCD cycle occurs when a disturbing, usually irrational thought comes into the mind, it causes an emotional overload, and the OCD sufferer deals with both by creating and repeating a ritual. Sometimes that ritual is physical, such as repeated hand washing or checking behaviors, sometimes it is purely mental, like repeating a mantra.

Common treatment techniques focus on helping an OCD sufferer to step back, view a disturbing thought objectively as something like a sound coming through an open window or a passing car, and then let it go without acting on it or ritualizing it. I taught myself how to do this many years ago, so in essence I’ve been practicing a form of mindfulness mediation for some time. I could be better at it though. I’m good at acknowledging and dismissing really wacky thoughts, but some disturbing are more plausible and thus harder to dismiss. Good motivation for continuing to learn mindfulness.

Wednesday:

Mindfulness Meditation: ProfessorBrutus Acceptance of Thoughts & Feelings  (YouTube)

"Remember that your intention is not to feel better, but to get better at feeling."

“Let the breath breathe itself. Bring attitude of generous allowing and gentle acceptance to the rest of your experience. There is nothing to be fixed, no state to be achieved, simply allow your experience to be your experience.”

(ACCEPTANCE of thoughts and feelings, even if they are apparently in conflict)

Bring patience and gentle curiosity to your experience.

Thursday:

I purchased a book today called “The Joy of Meditation” by Justin F. Stone.  He approaches meditation from an Indian and Chinese viewpoint, which is something I haven’t explored much yet.

As I am sometimes inclined to do, I began with the last chapter, which is entitled “How and Why does Meditation Work?’

In this chapter, Stone talks a lot about learning and how habits are formed. He says the Sanskrit word “vasana” means “habit- energy”, or that which has become habitual, and describes the vasanas we create as “grooves on the brain.” According to Stone, the goal of meditation is to erase the old destructive vasanas so we may create new affirmative ones. Stone says, “Many sages have said that meditation is our true state. How much you are willing to change your life to abet Meditation- as Meditation will in turn change you- is entirely up to you. It is worth thinking on these things.”

Friday

Guided 10-Minute Meditation with Andy Puddicombe  (YouTube.)

Since focusing on breathing and the body seems to be so central to effective meditation, I need to find a way to do so without creating anxiety or trying to control my own breathing. Puddicombe suggests counting breaths in his guided meditation. This seems to help me to be aware of breathing without trying to impose control.