By Irene Javors, LMHC

There is is restaurant/ bar in my Jackson Heights neighborhood that has been around for some 60 years. Everyone knows the place. The food isn’t very good but the drinks are great and the bartender knows everyone by first name. When you walk into the place, you feel that you have entered a time warp and you are now in the 1950’s. The juke box plays Sinatra and Rosemary Clooney and noone has heard of Lady GaGa or The Black Eyed Peas. On the weekends, the two televisions are tuned onto whatever is the sport of the moment and everyone cheers or boo’s the team of choice.

I have spent many days sipping a glass of wine and watching tennis or football with the guys, just hanging out and shooting the breeze.

All of this will vanish after the airing of the Super Bowl on Sunday February 7. The landlord has raised the rent to an astronomical level and there is no way that the owners can pay. After over half a century, The Cavalier is closing due to gentrification. Four other stores and businesses are also closing on that block because of rising rents. These “mom and pop” venues are to be replaced with more “with it,” commercial ventures.

Long time residents are angry/sad and feeling helpless in the face of the changes that are taking place in their neighborhood. No one wants these businesses to go but a tsunami wave of change is happening without our consent. What makes all of this so difficult is that we don’t know what’s going to replace what is being taken away.

From a mindfulness perspective, the passing of The Cavalier is a lesson in impermanence. Nothing is forever and the sooner we learn this reality, the better equipped we are to rise to the challenges of living. This doesn’t mean that unwanted change feels good. It means that we learn to be mindful of the preciousness of each moment of our lives. We learn to take nothing for granted. My feelings are in conflict with my mindfulness practice- I cling to what is passing while knowing full well that life is change.

When I was a child and very upset, my mother who knew nothing about Buddhism or mindfulness would say, “this too will pass,” as a way to comfort me and direct my attention away from whatever it was that pained me. Indeed, in her intuitive wisdom, she simply stated a major truth, “everything passes.”

So, I salute The Cavalier. You have had 60 years of wonderful patrons and lots of love and laughs. Not a bad legacy!

By Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D.

Rush hour, changing trains
Like salmon migrating home –
No spawning on stairs

Recently, the NYC subway system has gone from bad to worse. Trains are coming less often, and moving less quickly. With your mindfulness practice, perhaps you’ve noticed these changes, too?

As a result, crowds of passengers are getting more plentiful and overwhelming platforms and stairwells. During rush hour at Broadway-Nassau, people use every inch of the narrow staircase to descend from the Downtown 4/5 to the Brooklyn-bound A/C. When I saw one passenger trying valiantly to climb the stairs and change trains in the opposite direction, I was inspired to write this small poem.

Submitted by Jennifer Egert, Ph.D.

Watch your thoughts, they become words.
Watch your words, they become actions.
Watch your actions, they become habits.
Watch your habits, they become your character.
Watch your character, it becomes your destiny.

Quote by unknown author

How often do our thoughts create our reality? You can see it in so many ways, whether it be pre-conceived notions of a social situation, an influence from a comment from a friend or colleague, or a mood that strikes early and unfolds as the day goes on. As this quote suggests, simply watching our inner lives can have consequences for the cascade of life experiences that follow.

By Irene Javors, LMHC

On one of those bitterly cold Sunday afternoons that NYC has endured over the last month, I decide to get a cup of something hot at the nearest coffee shop. I manage to find a window seat and set myself down to a serious half hour of people watching. People are rushing about, all trying to outrun the frigid temperatures. There are all sorts of get ups worn by these intrepid New York walkers, Parkas, long goats, layers and layers of sweaters and scarves, every variety of boot and shoe imaginable, gloves, mittens, and a few brave hat-less souls.

As I look out upon the “great parade.” a relatively young man asks if he could take the empty seat at my table ( at 61 anyone under 40 appears virtually teenage to me). I nod a “yes.” He proceeds to take out his cholesterol doused donut and a giant coffee. I envy his lack of dietary concerns. Both of us sit watching the passing throngs, enveloped in the warmth of the shop. A woman appears on the street loaded down with 2 shopping bags, a box, and a paper bag whose handle suddenly gives way. The contents of this container drops onto the sidewalk. Frantic, she tries to get the stuff back into the original bag and then put that into one of the other shopping bags. Nothing works. Finally, my tablemate said, “she needs some help.” He throws on his coat and goes out to help her. He starts fumbling with all the bags and again one of the handles breaks. Miraculously, a woman comes running up with two large plastic bags and helps them re-package the whole mess! In the blink of an eye, this good Samaritan vanishes. The woman with the bags leaves and the guy comes back to my table. He winks and says, “all in a day’s work.”

I left the shop feeling warmed not only by the heat of the store but more importantly by the acts of helpfulness and generosity that I was a witness to. When I am feeling a bit down and I forget that there is more to the city than pushy people, rude comments, and just “too much” of everything, I coax myself to be mindful of the lady with the bags and all the people who set about helping her.

By Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D.

My introduction to mindfulness came from reading Walden by Henry David Thoreau when I was in high school. His musings on leading a simple life in the present moment really resonated with me. Recently, I was re-reading Thoreau’s classic book, and I came across a passage that reminded me of how we have become addicted to our cell phones, PDA’s, Blackberries, and iPhones. Whether walking down the street, riding the elevator, or sitting in a waiting room, we’re often seen face-down, immersed in checking our messages. While communicating with others is desirable, it often distracts us unnecessarily from being present. Who hasn’t had the experience of “having nothing to do”, then starting to fiddle with the phone as opposed to simply breathing or noticing what’s happening in the moment? What’s so uncomfortable about spending a few moments just “being”? Anyway, here’s the quote (sorry if it’s a little judgmental):

“In proportion as our inward life fails, we go more constantly and desperately to the post office. You may depend on it, that the poor fellow who walks away with the greatest number of letters, proud of his extensive correspondence, has not heard form himself this long while.”

Henry David Thoreau, Walden (p. 366), New York: Bantam Books

Replace “post office” with “inbox” and “letters” with “e-mail”, and you have apt observation on current urban society!

So, next time, when you feel the urge to check your messages or e-mail–even though you checked a few moments ago–just take a breath and ask yourself, “How am I feeling right now?”

By Jennifer Egert, Ph.D.

In a group, I was recently leading a “Three Minute Breathing Space,” from Segal, Williams and Zindel’s book on Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression. The core of the three-minute breathing space is to check in with oneself, to see what is happening in the moment with one’s thoughts, feelings and body sensation. One of my patients, in discussing his experience with the exercise, called it a “full-system’s check”—a way, in a brief moment (3 minutes) to take stock of his state . I like this idea, a “systems check” for life.

So here were are city folks.  How are you doing? I’m just checking in here with you. It is 2010 and the beginning of the year can be a marker, a good time for a systems check. I don’t know about you but with December, in addition to the holidays, snow, busy-ness and the many distractions of the city also came, I confess, the dissolution of my meditation practice. I wanted to sit. I thought about it every morning as I turned over in bed, warm under the covers, for a few more minutes of rest before the workday began. I thought about it as I got ready for work and off and on through the day. I thought about it at night before going to bed. I thought about it a lot, but didn’t do much about these thoughts.

At a quiet moment, I sometimes took an impromptu 10 minutes to drop in. But it wasn’t the same as my regular morning practice. No real intention.

Intention implies purpose, a plan, an aim, a reason behind action. My fall from the mindfulness wagon got me taking stock of my intention for practice. Why do I practice? What am I moving towards? How do I have intent without the striving that can come with plans and goals and interfere with really being present?

Good questions for a new year.

So, this is where I am at the beginning of this new year. Checking in with myself, my intentions, my mindfulness practice. I don’t usually make New Year’s resolutions. I find that when I do, I forget what they were before the year’s end, so why bother. But starting the year without a morning practice was is not my intention.

So this year, I made a New Year’s Resolution, an intention, to restart my regular practice and I am working at it. I guess that is what resolutions are really about, like the Three Minute Breathing Space. It is about taking a look at your life (body, mind and emotions), in this moment and asking if where you are at is your intention. If not, then you try to do something about it. It doesn’t have to be grand. It doesn’t have to be big. It can be a little step in something much larger. It doesn’t have to matter to anyone but you.

My wish for us all in 2010, is to have more moments of intention.

For further reading see:

Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse by Zindel V. Segal PhD, J. Mark G. Williams, John D. Teasdale  (2001)

Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness- By Jon Kabat-Zinn

Submitted by Irene Javors, LMHC

“The key to our deepest happiness lies in changing our vision of where to find it.”

Sharon Salzberg and Jon Kabat-Zinn. (2008). Lovingkindness: The Revolutionary Art of Happiness. Shambhala Press.
All of us are prisoners of our fantasies and delusions of where happiness awaits us.  We cling to what doesn’t work and blind ourselves to the infinity of possibilites.  We are guests at the buffet of life, the challenge is to remain mindful.

By Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D.

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about you.  Yes, you.  There’s a lot of you in the city.  I see you in the park, at the bodega, on the bus, and even in the bathroom at Chinese restaurant that I like.  It seems like you never really leave me alone.

It’s not that I’ve been wondering so much about you per se, but rather what you think about me.  Do you think I’m smart?  Do you think I’m fat?  Do you like my hair?  Do you think I’m the sort of person who would dance on a table in a crowded bar?  Do you think that I would give-up my subway seat for a pregnant woman?  Just exactly who do you think I am?

You see, I’m trying to figure that out myself.  And, I don’t really know.  Well…that’s not really true.  I think that I do know what I like, what I value, and what I want to do.  What I don’t know is what you’d think of that me.  I expect that I won’t meet your expectations–that’s for sure.  And so, I continue to wonder and live by what I think you think of me…  But don’t worry:  I won’t do anything too wild.

***************************

As a psychologist (and friend), I have seen too may people limited by what others have come to think and want of them.  A parental “I expect you to earn good grades” provides  fertile ground for the development of academically-based self-esteem (or self-recrimination).  Messages of “You’re not good enough” from our partners can insidiously become an identity of “I’m the ‘not good enough’ one,” which we carry with us into social encounters and other relationships.  Like writings in wet cement, these messages of who we are–whether from others explicitly or from our presumptions of others’ opinions–can become concretized and leave us little room for self discovery, self growth, and self expression (and self esteem, for that matter).

Ideally, we would not let others’ opinions of who we are and who we are not determine who we allow ourselves to be.  If anything, it should be the opposite:  Who I am determines what you think of me.  You might not like who you see.  I might see you not liking me.  And, as we say in Brooklyn, “Fuggedaboudit!”

How do I want to live my life?  Determined by the expectations of others or guided by my own freely chosen values and behaviors?

Here’s where mindfulness can come in handy:  When you find yourself wanting to do something but refraining from it, bring your attention to the discomfort and the judgments passing through your mind.  Who’s voice is this?  Yours?  Your parents?  The person next to you who has spoken a word?  Let go of this voice and do whatever it is you wanted to do.  It’s your life, not theirs.

Of course, I’m not encouraging you to break laws or violate the rights of others.  We must respect certain rules and principles in order to function well as a society and protect our own personal liberties.

What I’m talking about has more to do with how we define ourselves.  If that tart with goat cheese, leeks, and tomatoes looks delicious, but “real men don’t eat quiche.”  What do I do?  Deprive myself of something yummy in order to conform to your stereotype of masculinity or enjoy a delicious lunch?  Hopefully, your answer leaves me wiping crumbs off my face.

By Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D.

PsychologyToday.com is featuring one of my recent posts on its main page today. Titled, “How to be Happy When the Weather Won’t Cooperate,” it provides 6 tips on applying mindfulness to our feelings about the weather.

You can view the main page here:

Psychology Today

Or check out the post directly here:

Seasonal Mindfulness: 6 Tips for Experiencing the Changing Weather

Also, don’t forget to check my Urban Mindfulness blog regularly at Psychology Today. You can view posts at the home page here:

Urban Mindfulness at Psychology Today

By Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D.

2009 is drawing to a close. Only a few more days left to realize those New Year’s Resolutions. Oh, don’t you remember? Those aspirations from earlier this year that you wanted to achieve? Well, fear not, regardless of whether or not you realized them (or can even remember what you wanted to do), we all have another opportunity to make or break, fulfill or forget, or propose or postpone a whole slew of resolutions for 2010.

Generally speaking, these aspirational changes are quite helpful and healthy. They guide us to make substantive, meaningful change in our lives. We might decide to get in shape in order to feel better and (hopefully) be able to live longer to spend more time with our family. We might decide to get a new job in order to feel more satisfied at work. Whatever the desired change and motivation, New Year’s resolutions provide an opportunity to recognize important personal values and articulate related goals for fulfillment.

So, what does mindfulness have to offer? Is an objective awareness of the present moment with its focus on acceptance applicable to the establishment and pursuit of life-changing actions? Put simply, “no.” Mindfulness with its emphasis on experiencing the present as it exists is not too keen on changing it. Unless one of your resolutions is to practice mindfulness or acceptance more regularly in 2010, then the emphasis on being present in the now won’t help you realize your goals. Think about it: is mindfulness going to get you to go to the gym or line-up a series of job interviews? Of course not. However, some of the essential qualities of mindfulness can be helpful for you.

In his seminal book, Full Catastrophe Living, Dr. Jon Kabat-Zinn outlined what he described as the “attitudinal foundations of mindfulness.”

Non-judging
Patience
Beginner’s Mind
Trust
Non-striving
Acceptance
Letting Go

In addition, I would add “Non-identification” as another aspect of mindfulness. Taken together and applied sensitively to your resolutions, these qualities will help you approach your desired changes in ways that are sensitive, respectful, and supportive of change.

Non-judging
This perspective involves suspending our tendency to evaluate experiences. However, if you’ve made a resolution for 2010, then it’s too late: you’ve already made a judgment in deciding on something to change. Fortunately, we can adopt a non-judging approach to our resolutions subsequently. We can stop second-guessing our resolutions as good, bad, or “not enough,” for example.

Patience
This one is probably obvious. Change typically doesn’t happen overnight, and we need to be patient as we try to bring about something new in our lives. Intellectually, we understand this fact, but it’s harder to appreciate through actual experience.

Beginner’s Mind
This principle refers to the ability to experience the present moment as if it were existing for the very first time, which—of course—it is. You haven’t been in this precise time and space until now. For the New Year, it means that these resolutions of ours are brand new. Even if they’re something that we’ve made in the past, we’ve never had the opportunity to make them in 2010. Thus, we need to approach these resolutions with an attitude of freshness and curiosity. Whatever happened previously is over. All we have is our resolutions manifest in the here-and-now.

Trust
Trust refers to the ability to have faith in our intuitive wisdom as well as the present moment. For our resolutions, it means cultivating the ability to recognize that we’ll know how to best approach them. Even if we don’t know how to accomplish something, we can be confident in knowing when we don’t know, and perhaps seeking some advice or guidance.

Non-striving
This one might seem a bit antithetical to having New Year’s resolutions. Aren’t they all about striving for something? Sure. However, we can embody our desire for change through gentle persistence as opposed to brute force. There’s no need to push hard for realization of our resolutions when a simple nudge or light pressure will suffice.

Acceptance
Just as the present moment needs to be accepted as it exists, so does our relationship to whatever change we’re trying to make. We are here, regardless of where we want to be. Telling ourselves that we need or should be someplace else (physically, emotionally, occupationally, etc.) provides little motivation. More often than not, we feel miserable and discouraged as we work towards change. For example, if you’ve lost one pound, you’ve lost one pound. This is true regardless of the fact that you want to lose 20 pounds or that it’s Week #8 of your new diet and exercise regimen.

Letting Go
We need to abandon our desire for things to be different than how they are? Obviously, this is not relevant to resolutions in which we’re actively trying to be different. However, sometimes we hold on to fantasies about our past or future, which make it more difficult to engage the present. For example, reminiscing about how athletic you were in high school is not likely to help you much in getting in shape now. So, we often need to let go of these remembrances and desires in order to better address what’s happening for us now.

Non-identification
Mindfulness encourages us to recognize the present moment without becoming too wrapped-up in it personally. Similarly, our self-worth is not dependent on whether or not we succeed or fail in realizing our New Year’s Resolutions. If you abandon or forget your resolution, it’s okay. You are not a better or worse person. And, if it truly troubles you, you can always try again in the next moment or even wait until next year.

Finally, it’s important to recognize that your realization of your New Year’s resolutions likely will not happen in an instant. It’s not as if you suddenly will lose 20 pounds or instantly land a job. Rather, it will take a series of successive moments as you work towards the change that you seek. Hmm…successive present moments? What can we do with those?