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JennyTaitz — Fri, 20 Jan 2012 21:48:54 +0000

By Jenny Taitz, Psy.D. Are you crawling into 2012 with a new juice fast or gym membership? Often, around New Years, people will themselves to start yet another restrictive diet or rigorous fitness trend. The concept of starting anew feels meaningful and hopeful. I cheer loud and smile big when my patients’ feel excited about new potential methods of achieving the goals they choose. When we set goals, we also need to accept both others and ourselves. Tara Parker-Pope recently wrote an illuminating article in the New York Times on the struggle people face in trying to lose weight (http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/01/magazine/tara-parker-pope-fat-trap.html?_r=1). The research she describes explains compassionately weight loss is not just about willpower. Your body may resist weight loss despite your most valiant efforts. Ms. Parker-Pope courageously recounts her own battle against her biological predisposition and shares data on the ubiquity of weight loss resistance. Just to be clear, I am not recommending you return your not-yet worn Lululemon outfit and spend the money on Michelin dining! You will improve your health by improving your habits. The matter to resolve is how you go about the process of moving toward your ambitions. Do you judge yourself a failure if you don’t reach a certain weight or accomplish a particular objective? People often feel tempted to define success in all-or-nothing terms and similarly judge others according to certain assumptions. For instance, you may assume someone who struggles with obesity lacks willpower or someone who is thin is happy. For a moment, consider, if you do engage in judgments, are they useful in helping you achieve your goals or connecting with others? In the service of increasing peace with yourself, in addition to any goals you may set, you might consider committing to pursuing your resolutions with mindfulness. 3 ways to befriend rather than battle yourself in 2012: 1. Notice judgments. Do you wish the process were easy and dwell on how unfair it feels? Wishing things were easier actually makes life harder. If you find yourself engaging in judgmental thinking, noticing this process is the first step towards stopping. 2. Focus on this moment. Instead of harping on what you did wrong yesterday or what you’re hoping for tomorrow, attend to what may be possible now. Reviewing in full detail what you ate yesterday won’t remove calories or curb your appetite. 3. Appreciate now. There is more to notice than your battle. We can pay a lot of attention to the things that upset us or we can shift our perspective toward the reality we may feel grateful for. Adopting a mindful stance towards our bodies may feel foreign and difficult. It also may feel like a weight has been instantly lifted--- I don’t know any other diet program that can promise that!

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admin — Tue, 08 Nov 2011 17:43:59 +0000

By Jonathan S. Kaplan, Ph.D. This month, I had an opportunity to conduct an e-mail interview with Dr. Miles Neale, a clinical psychologist and devoted Buddhist teacher. He has considerable expertise as a psychotherapist and meditation instructor, serving as a faculty member of the Tibet House, Lineage Mentor of The Interdependence Project, and consultant to many wellness programs throughout the country. To learn more about Dr. Neale, please visit his website, Buddhist Psychotherapy. Also, Dr. Neale will be teaching an all-day workshop on mindful at Pure Yoga in NYC on Sunday, November 13^th (Click here for details: Mindfulness Workshop). Given Dr. Neale's knowledge and experience, it promises to be very informative, helpful, and--dare I say--enlightening. Later this month, we will be presenting a talk together on mindfulness, Buddhism, and psychotherapy. It will be held at The Interdependence Project in NYC on Monday, November 21, from 7 – 9 pm (Click here for details: Mindfulness and Insight). It should be a lively and interesting discussion: I’ll be talking about mindfulness and cognitive-behavioral therapy, while Dr. Neale will be discussing Buddhism and psychodynamic therapy. Hope to see you there! Personal How did you become involved in Buddhism? When I was 20 years old I lived for five months in a Buddhist monastery in Bodh Gaya, India, the site of the Buddha's enlightenment. Having been brought up surrounded by affluence yet still feeling dissatisfied, I was looking for an alternative to consumerist culture. I found everything I had been searching for my whole life and more, and have never looked back. Why did you become engaged with the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism specifically as opposed to other forms of Buddhism? It wasn't by choice. I became affiliated with the Gelugpa school of Tibetan Buddhism through my mentor Dr. Joe Loizzo. At the time I was in need of direction and the teacher appeared, and with him came an authentic lineage. Joe's mentor happens to be Bob Thurman, and Bob's mentor is His Holiness the Dalai Lama. What have you found to be the most helpful or nourishing aspect of your practice? The most helpful would be the close mentoring, guidance and compassion shown to me by all my teachers. I couldn't have made it without them. The most nourishing would have to be spiritual friendships and sharing the Dharma with others. Practice What suggestions do you have for people who wish to practice mindfulness in the city? In general, I advise people to conjoin their study of mindfulness meditation with the wisdom teachings of emptiness and the ethical teachings of causality (karma). Follow the complete scientific method of the Three Higher Trainings based on the Buddha's coherent psychology of the Four Noble Truths. That will ensure the result of lasting freedom and happiness. For those who live and practice in the city, I also recommend the mind-training teachings (lojong) of Tibetan Buddhism. Those are black belt level practices of converting challenging interpersonal interactions into spiritual opportunities. Professional The roles of Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist are distinct, yet related. What are your observations of the differences and similarities? Ultimately, they serve the same function to help people out of suffering. Practically, there are certain important differences. For example, psychotherapists are trained to treat psychopathology and help restore or develop ego functioning. Buddhist teachers can sometimes have little training in severe mental disturbances, but may have the advantage in helping people who already possess stable and coherent egos to achieve exceptional levels of happiness and wellbeing that Western traditions have only just begun to understand. Also, I think psychotherapists know how to skillfully use the human relationship and interpersonal dynamics as a vehicle for therapeutic ends, whereas Buddhist teachers possess a plethora of meditative techniques that they dispense as direct antidotes for specific psychological issues. I think each tradition and role has a lot to offer and learn from the other. Based on your years of experience teaching mindfulness and meditation, what has been the most significant challenge for you? The biggest challenge has been presenting the teachings on causality (karma), the continuity of consciousness, and the Buddhist paradigm of infinite life. That worldview is essential because it is the basis for ethical living, and the development of bodhicitta or universal responsibility. It’s a tough sell in our culture where the pervasive scientific worldview secretly harbors nihilism. If we reduce consciousness to an epiphenomenon of the brain that vanishes at the time of death, then we are left without a coherent rationale for moral action on an individual basis and stewardship of the planet on a global basis. Who do you typically see in your psychotherapy practice? How do you help them? I mostly see people interested in Buddhism, yoga, and meditation, who face ordinary human challenges like anxiety, depression, work burnout and relationship issues. I use the Buddha's Four Noble Truths method combined with principals of interpersonal psychodynamic therapy. In my approach, therapy is a life-long re-educational process of learning how to live in accord with reality of how things are rather than a fantasy of how we want them to be. Therefore, I recommend that patients enroll in the ongoing courses we offer at the Nalanda Institute for Contemplative Science and other places so that they can develop a sound knowledge base and support for meditative training. Then we are free to use individual psychotherapy sessions for coaching and to custom tailor contemplative methods to address their specific needs. Events What will you be teaching at your upcoming workshop at Pure Yoga? I'll be teaching mindfulness meditation to help people cultivate greater awareness and self-acceptance. Then I'll be discussing the specific mechanisms that make mindfulness effective in the treatment depression, anxiety, pain and medical conditions, and finally I'll contrast the clinical use of mindfulness with its traditional Buddhist application for spiritual liberation and lasting happiness. I'm delighted that mental health professionals can receive continuing educational credit for this workshop. What will you be covering as part of your series on Buddhism and psychology at The Interdependence Project? I organized the Buddhism and Psychology series of dialogues with the intention to facilitate spontaneous and intimate conversations between practitioners. I invited several of my colleagues with East/West backgrounds and encouraged them to speak openly about their personal practice and experiences to give the audience members a glimpse into the lives and minds of therapists and teachers on the contemplative path. I hope to take a second fiddle in each of the dialogues and enjoy what each of them has to say! BTW, Dr. Neale was away in India during our correspondence. As such, I feel especially grateful for his willingness to talk with me, and allowing us the opportunity to learn more about mindfulness from a Buddhist perspective. Thanks again, Miles!

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admin — Mon, 03 Oct 2011 15:05:23 +0000

By Jonathan S. Kaplan, Ph.D. Susan Kaiser Greenland, author of acclaimed book The Mindful Child, has been teaching mindfulness to children for over a decade. Originally working as a lawyer in New York City, she was introduced to mindfulness and meditation by her husband after he was diagnosed with a serious medical condition. Together with their daughter, they moved to upstate in order to help him recover (which he did). And later, Susan moved with her family (now including her second child) to Los Angeles, where she began teaching mindfulness to children more formally. In 2000, she began developing the Inner Kids Foundation to offer mindfulness training to inner city schoolchildren. Together with researchers from UCLA (my alma mater!), she studied the effects of her program in a randomized, controlled trial of 2nd and 3rd graders. Results revealed improved executive functioning (e.g., emotional regulation, attention, etc.) in the children who demonstrated the most difficulties in these areas prior to participation in the study. This finding suggests that mindfulness training might be powerful intervention for children diagnosed with ADD/ADHD. Susan is a gifted pioneer in teaching mindfulness to children and teens, and I highly recommend her book and her forthcoming workshop with Sharon Salzberg (another one of my favorite people!). On October 16th, Susan and Sharon are leading an all-day workshop on “Mindfulness with Children” in New York City. Fortunately, I had an opportunity to correspond with Susan recently, and I asked her some questions about her work. JSK: What technique or approach is the best way for parents to introduce mindfulness to their children? SKG: One thing we know for sure about this work is that there’s not a one-size-fits-all technique/approach that is best for every situation. But certainly the wisest thing for parents to do is to develop their own personal practice, and once that happens the rest will evolve naturally. In your work with children, which approach or technique has emerged as the consistent favorite? Shifting awareness away from an emotional upset to a sensory experience as a way to calm down when someone is upset. What about with teens? Breath and sensory awareness while lying down. What has been one of the sillier moments involved in teaching mindfulness to kids? I use the prompt in my Pre-K through elementary school classes “If you could have a sensory superpower what would you chose and how would you use it to help the world?” and have gotten some wonderfully crazy answers. If we could develop sensory superpowers, we would have a lot of creative child superheroes using their senses of taste, touch, smell, sight and hearing to fight crime, clean up pollution, and save the world in many original ways. What has been the most rewarding aspect of teaching mindfulness to children? Hard to say. Guess there are 2 areas that standout – the first is in connection with specific kids and seeing how quickly they are able to take simple mindful strategies and apply them/integrate them in to their daily lives to help during those times growing up where life can become complicated or difficult to navigate. And the second is more of a meta aspect of mindfulness and children, just watching the field expand as quickly as it has expanded and take-off the way it has taken off. What started a decade ago as a handful of people is now an authentic grassroots movement that is taking root worldwide. Those of us who have been in it from the beginning are happily watching this next group of teachers pick up the baton and run with and integrate our early work into their professional practice in ways that we couldn’t have imagined a decade ago. Most challenging? Like anything that is looking to transform communities and systems, this work takes a village and right now there are many strong teachers and programs but they are spread out all over the place and exhausted by the pace and the demands of the work. There needs to be some big-picture thinker/funder to step into the sector and seed true field development with an eye toward building alliances and providing an incentive that encourages collaboration. There are some rumblings that this is starting to happen, and if it does in fact happen, and people begin to work together rather than separately, I think all of us will be pleasantly surprised by how quickly this work is integrated into the mainstream. Increasingly, I’ve seen Buddhism implicitly reflected in the mindfulness programs and exercises offered to children, and I wonder about this phenomenon. Would you speak a little bit about the role of Buddhism when teaching mindfulness to kids? I joke about how there’s a lot of fear about mentioning the “B” word, or Buddhism, in a secular context and there’s no reason to be afraid. In fact, I know from my old days as a law student and moot court that the best strategy if you’re arguing a position is to spend your greatest effort preparing your argument for what you view as your weakest position. The Buddhist foundations/applications of the secular mindfulness work can be a great strength rather than an Achilles heel if reframed as a well-established, evidence based training protocol shown to reduce stress, improve immune function, develop executive function and attention with measurable results when it comes to changes not just in the health and wellness of the individual but also in the likelihood of an individual who has undergone that training in engaging in social, compassionate action. Many of my adult blog readers live and work in cities, and their lives as parents are incredibly busy and chaotic. What practice or insight have you found to be the most helpful for stressed-out, urban parents? I have a colleague who has attended a number of trainings by Mingyur Rinpoche and she told me he often teaches “short-time, many-times” which I think may be one of the wisest teachings around for those of us leading hectic lives. You’ll be teaching an all-day program with Sharon Salzberg at the New York Insight Center on October 16th. What can participants expect from the workshop? In the morning Sharon is going to lead a half day of meditation touching briefly on concentration, mindfulness and compassion. In the afternoon I’ll take each of her points and offer an adaptation or two for children that track the classical practices in an age-appropriate and secular way.

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If you have any interest in teaching mindfulness to children--your own kids or others--then I strongly encourage you to come to the workshop. I (JSK) will be there to learn more about developmentally appropriate teaching methods for mindfulness (please flag me down if you come!). Here is the website for registration: Mindfulness with Children. I really hope to see you there. If you’re unable to come, I encourage your to visit Susan’s website (complete with video demonstrations), blog, and/or the Inner Kids Foundation.

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admin — Mon, 19 Sep 2011 18:29:45 +0000

By Jonathan S. Kaplan, Ph.D. Mindfulness: The Basics I’ve been giving a lot of talks on mindfulness lately, and I thought that I would share some of what I’ve been presenting (please pardon the pun!). Many people have expressed appreciation for this simple breakdown of mindfulness, and I hope that you find it useful, too. So, here are the basics of mindfulness: what, who, when, where, how, and why. The What Mindfulness is a special kind of attention characterized by attitudes of openness, curiosity, and acceptance. We notice our thoughts, feelings, physical sensations, and sense perceptions as we're having them in the present moment. Recently, I learned of another definition that I liked: mindfulness is paying extra-ordinary attention to ordinary experiences. The Who Who can practice mindfulness? Anyone, even you! You don’t have to be a guru on a hilltop or a Zen monk in order to become more aware to your experiences. The When We can practice mindfulness anytime. Admittedly, some times are better--or easier--than others. It is hard to be aware of our thoughts and feelings, for example, if we’re caught in a very emotional moment. It helps to have a modicum of alertness, but the main ingredient is simply the intention to be mindful. There is no perfect time to practice. We simply need to use whatever time we have and get right into it! The Where Relatedly, there is no perfect place to practice mindfulness, but some places are easier than others. Quiet, tranquil places are a bit easier due to the lack of distractions, but we can be mindful anywhere (even on the subway). The How There are two dimensions to consider when practicing mindfulness: (a) the kind of attention being employed and (b) the degree of formality associated with it. Kind of Attention We can focus our awareness like a laser beam and become very immersed in noticing a small detail or perception. Alternatively, our attention can be diffuse, allowing us to become aware of--but not focused on--whatever arises. We experience this attentional difference easily through visual perception. We can really stare at something and describe its properties (in my recent book, I describe becoming mindfully aware of an object at work, like a stapler) or we can gaze at a point in space and allow ourselves to notice objects in our peripheral vision. This is the difference between concentrated and diffuse awareness, and reflects the two ways in which we can practice mindfulness. Formality Mindfulness can also be done formally (through meditation) or informally (through activities of daily living). There are many different kinds of meditation, and I do recommend that people try it. Sharon Salzberg’s book Real Happiness is a nice, structured introduction to meditation, and I’ve used it as a textbook in my class for undergraduates. If you find it difficult to sit still (or if your mind is particularly active), walking meditation can be a helpful place to start. Informally, we can become aware anytime of whatever we think, do, feel, or sense. We can notice our thoughts (e.g., what is going through our minds when stuck in traffic), become aware of our actions (e.g., how it feels in our body to walk), feel the physical embodiment of emotions (e.g., what happens to your breathing when you’re angry), or pay attention to our senses (e.g., see any visual signs of the changing seasons). Often, people make the mistake of glorifying meditation and dismissing informal practice. This is unfortunate. Ideally, we apply mindfulness in both ways. An exercise analogy is appropriate here: Working out helps us get stronger, faster, and leaner more quickly, but it doesn’t help if we’re also overeating and being a couch potato. Walking more, taking the stairs (vs. elevator) and other informal forms of exercise will help us get in shape over time, but it takes more time and consistency. Within Buddhism, some teachers have noted that meditation can develop insights strongly and quickly, while informal practice slowly cultivates a solid, experiential wisdom. The Why Why practice mindfulness? This is a very important question, actually. Why do this at all? Mindfulness helps us pay more attention to our experiences, which is great when they’re pleasant, but not so much fun when they’re painful. Each person needs to articulate an answer for him/herself. Here are some of the general ones that I discuss in my presentation:

Research has shown that mindfulness increases attention, lowers stress, improves physical health and immune functioning, and provides relief from certain kinds of psychological difficulties.
It allows us to pause before reacting in ways that might be unhelpful or hurtful, or interrupt times when we’re already stuck in a negative spiral.
It invites us to experience our lives more purposefully and more fully.
It makes it possible to realize that our actions are not limited by our thoughts or feelings.
It allows us to be more present for the joyful and happy moments of life.
Often, it feels better than distracting ourselves or being “stuck in our heads.”

Conclusion I hope that this basic introduction to mindfulness has been interesting and--dare I say--enlightening. If you have other thoughts, questions, or reactions, please feel free to share them.

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admin — Tue, 23 Aug 2011 21:15:53 +0000

By Jonathan S. Kaplan, Ph.D. To UM readers, I hope that you'll excuse my unannounced hiatus from blogging. For the past few months, I have been prioritizing other pursuits: reading (vs. writing), listening (vs. speaking), parenting (vs. working), and being (vs. doing). This has proven to be a very helpful and enriching practice. The stillness that accompanies mindfulness practice allows for the natural arising of many things: emotions, thoughts, physical sensations, and particular human qualities. In particular, I've taken notice of the ways in which compassion surfaces as a way of considering and treating others. There are some meditations that specifically cultivate compassion (such as metta meditation within Theravada Buddhism) and psychotherapies that promote its expression as well (e.g., naikan therapy and compassion-focused therapy). It also becomes present for us when we allow ourselves to see the inherent sufferings and joys in the world, less mediated by our own psychological baggage. We care genuinely for others, and are more prone to ask "Are you okay?" or "How can I help?" as opposed to "What's wrong with you?!" Interestingly, I've seen this same kindness being expressed naturally in young children as they play with each other. This observation prompted me to recall an anecdote from Fred Rogers (Mister Roberts to you and me), delivered as part of a commencement address a year before he died. I've saved the New York Times clipping of this story for almost a decade now, and I'm happy to share it with you (it's mid-way down the page): Mr. Rogers on compassion. I hope you like it.

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admin — Mon, 13 Jun 2011 15:46:08 +0000

By Jonathan Kaplan, Ph.D. Recently, a wonderful new book was released to help people suffering from anxiety. Authored by Drs. Susan Orsillo and Lizabeth Roemer, The Mindful Way Through Anxiety provides a systematic, mindfulness-based approach to the alleviation of anxiety and the promotion of values-based living. I highly recommend this book to my patients because of the many exercises and case examples. This book also reflects the research-based treatment that they've developed over the past several years. Recently, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with Dr. Roemer. Here is an excerpt of our chat. What prompted you to write this book? After spending years developing this approach to treatment and training therapists in the approach, we wanted to bring the work we’d been doing directly to people with anxiety who we weren’t seeing therapy. We wanted to help more people experience the kinds of meaningful changes we were seeing our clients make and felt like we could write a book that would make a valuable contribution to the available self-help books. Why use mindfulness to address anxiety? Why would anyone want to become more aware of anxiety, fear, and other unpleasant emotions? An important thing about mindfulness is that it is a particular kind of awareness. It is an expanded awareness, not a narrow one. Most people with anxiety are too narrowly focused on things that are threatening or anxiety-provoking as opposed to their whole experience. Also, mindfulness involves an awareness with compassion as opposed to the very narrow, critical awareness that accompanies anxiety. Anxiety prompts people to be hyperaware of threat, which leads to avoidance. That avoidance interferes with learning new things as well as fully experiencing life. How is your treatment different than cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) alone? CBT is very effective for anxiety and our treatment is firmly grounded in cognitive-behavioral theory and practice. We started incorporating mindfulness because we thought it could enhance treatment effects for some people. By promoting acceptance, mindfulness allows people to relate differently to experiences that are not amenable to change. Ultimately however, technique isn’t as important as function. Our emphasis is on helping people relate differently to their symptoms of anxiety so that they can live their lives more fully. We think mindfulness allows us to accomplish this better with CBT. You include several meditations in your book and on the accompanying website. What do you say to folks who tell you that they can't meditate? If meditation was something that you could do easily, then you would have already done it! The point of the exercises is to cultivate this new skill of mindfulness, which can be learned through practice--just like any other skill. So, we work with many ways to cultivate this skill. Most people can find five minutes to sit and practice mindfulness. Setting some time outside of our lives to practice allows us to be better able to use it in our lives. We have also worked with people who practice doing everday activities, like brushing their teeth or folding laundry, with mindfulness instead of setting aside time to meditate. The book provides flexible suggestions of different ways to incorporate practice into your life. Given the topic on this blog--mindfulness in the city--do you find that folks in the city are more or less anxious than others? I treated anxiety for a long time in State College in Pennsylvania and now for a while in Boston. I find that people's lives are more complicated in the city. People encounter more real life barriers and stressors that naturally elicit anxiety, like the faster pace. And, relatedly, it's harder to be mindful. It's harder to naturally have the spaces and moments to come back to ourselves. We have to do that more intentionally. Is there anything else you'd like to add? Yes. I'd like to discuss the importance of engagement in life. An crucial part of the book--in addition to finding ways to be more open, expansive, and relate to experience differently--is to find meaningful experiences in life. Anxiety leads us to focus on whatever is threatening and avoid it. People avoid certain experiences in order to not feel anxious and that doesn't really work. An alternative is to cultivate skills of mindfulness and have anxious responses, but not react to them. And, then proceed to do the things that matter to us, like opening-up in a relationship, being present with your children, or advancing professionally. It's a way of responding to anxiety that is in the service of living a full life. What do you want to move towards that you haven't been moving towards becuase of your fears? Can you have your reactions and do what matters to you anyway? The book helps people to develop skills so that they can live their lives more fully.

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JennyTaitz — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 17:43:31 +0000

Welcome, spring. Let’s plant some habits! As the season’s change, we often attempt to cultivate new habits. Think “spring cleaning” or the “summer diet.” Understandably, as busy people, we face the challenge of maintaining awareness and intention in following through with the behaviors we yearn to implement. I can’t begin to calculate the number of hours my clients spend sharing the universal human struggle of keeping up with a gym routine, sleep schedule, budgets, work tasks or other valued goals. Are you eager to pursue a task on a regular basis and struggling with the requisite steps? If so, you may consider the following exercise. Spring Goal Setting, Step by Step:

Perhaps for a few moments, you might consider a habit you’ve been yearning to commit to pursuing. Think about what it is that matters a lot. You might imagine how you may feel if you take steps toward this goal. For example, you’ve been meaning to organize your desk, and taking steps towards creating a nice work space relates to your value of productivity. You’d imagine feeling more relaxed if you had a peaceful work space with room for a nice vase and some lavender.
Next, without judgment, notice some of what has getting you stuck from taking the leap forward, again and again. Using the aforementioned example, the thing that gets you with stuck is that mountain of papers and tax documents piling up. When you think about it, it feels overwhelming and too time consuming.
Add mindfulness! A culprit of difficulty with habit follow through may include mindlessness or a desire to escape difficult feelings that arise. Hey, most people don’t like to wake up at 6 am to do pushups and piles of paperwork can be painful! An alternative to forgetting or running from feelings that arise is bringing awareness to the moment and noticing feelings without avoiding them or the task at hand. “Oh, there’s anxiety as I approach my desk, hello muscle tension and rapid heartbeat,” as you continue to move forward with a reasonable goal in mind.
Sign up! I recently stumbled upon a novel website- www.habitforge.com. This wonderful website allows you to plug in a habit you’d like to cultivate and will send you email reminders to follow through.

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admin — Mon, 14 Mar 2011 15:25:07 +0000

By Jonathan S. Kaplan, Ph.D. For the past couple months, I’ve been busily promoting my new book in interviews with radio stations, TV programs, and reporters across the country. One of the most frequently asked questions has been: How do people practice mindfulness when commuting? Indeed, this can be an incredibly frustrating and stressful experience for us. Though I’ve shared insights with various media sources (see this article on MSNBC, for example: De-stress Your Commute), I thought that I would compile some suggestions and offer them here. So, without further ado, here are the Top Ten Tips for Mindful Commuting (sorry in advance for the cross-posting). 10. Let go of trying to get anywhere fast. Traffic jams are characterized by the two very stressful psychological factors: (a) they are out of our control (i.e., we can't make the other cars disappear) and (b) they are unpredictable (i.e., we don't know when traffic will start moving smoothly again). So, rather than getting mired in worry about being late or cursing the other drivers, accept that you're going to spend some time in the car. You can't change the traffic, but you can change your attitude! 9. Plan to use your commuting time constructively. You know that you'll generally spend a certain amount of time commuting, so why not use it purposefully? Instead of distracting yourself with nonsense, decide ahead of time what you'll do during that time. Maybe you'll download and listen to some podcasts on mindfulness, create a mix tape, or listen to a college lecture. If you're riding public transportation, you can find some nice "subway only" reading or watch a movie on your phone. 8. If you're on public transportation, meditate on the physical feelings in your body. If you're standing on the bus, for example, you might notice how the muscles in your legs tense and release to help you maintain your balance. This is helpful because it provides an anchor for our thinking, which can be prone to ruminate on stressful or anxiety-related topics when it wanders. You might want to check out my YouTube video for a demonstration: Subway Meditation. 7. Mindfully notice whatever comes your way. Notice the colors of the cars around you, the faces of the people, and your thoughts and emotional reactions as they arise. Cultivate this ability to simple observe and pay attention your thoughts, emotions, and sensory experiences untainted by any judgments or criticisms. Notice what's going through your mind about the situation and how you respond emotionally and physically as you keep thinking about it. You might use this strategy if the traffic has completely stopped for a while. 6. Engage the people around you in pleasant and nice ways (yes, even if they're trying to get in front of your car). If you're driving, you might make space for other drivers to come in front of you. If you're on public transportation, you might offer your seat to someone else. This is helpful for a couple reasons. First, we stop taking things so personally. The hectic commute affects all of us, not just you. By recognizing that we're all experiencing something bad together, it can bring us closer to dealing with it constructively. It's the difference between thinking to yourself: "You're in my way!" vs. "This really sucks for us, doesn't it?" Second, it feels nicer for us to be nice, regardless of how other people act. If we're really honest, it doesn't feel good to be angry or annoyed all the time, does it? We might feel justified in having that reaction, but ultimately it is undermining our own physical and emotional health. 5. Focus your attention on some aspect of your environment. If you’re driving, you might try to find police cars, which involves being on the lookout for cars on the side of the road, vehicles around you (potentially unmarked), and flashing lights. If you’re using public transportation, you can spend a few minutes trying to notice whatever has the color purple. This exercise is not meant to make you paranoid, but rather prompt a playful re-engagement with your surroundings. 4. Breathe before you honk! Often when driving, we use the horn in anger as opposed to a simple “Toot! Look! I’m over here!” message. So, when you find yourself about to lean on the horn to let someone else have it, take a few moments to breathe deeply and notice the stress and anger that you’re holding in your body. Rationally, you know that blowing the horn is not going to make you feel any better, and it can actually create a more significant conflict with one of your fellow drivers. So, instead of venting or stifling it, observe how it manifests in your body. This can be incredibly difficult to do, but keep trying. 3. Just drive (or ride). When I was a teenager, I would drive simply for the sake of driving, feeling the burst of speed when pressing the accelarator, anticipating movement of the traffic, leaning into turns, etc. Sometimes, our efforts to distract ourselves while driving or riding can be problematic. Not surprisingly, research has shown that talking on the phone or texting while driving do increase the risk of accidents. At such times, we can passively listen to something (like the radio or even college lectures), but the act of generating a response takes too much of our attention away from driving. So, why not just drive? If you’re riding public transit, you can meditate a little bit (see #8 above). 2. Convert a normally stressful experience into a reminder to de-stress. In his delightful book Peace is Every Step, Thich Nhat Hanh describes using red lights as cue to notice our breathing. This can make the process of stopping and waiting more pleasurable, or at least an opportunity for practicing mindfulness. We can apply the same approach to times when we see brake lights or just waiting. Even noticing how the stress, frustration, and annoyance manifest in our body, mind, and heart can be an incredibly helpful--if not necessarily relaxing--experience. 1. Finally, if you’re looking for more tips like these, check out my book, Urban Mindfulness: Cultivating Peace, Presence, and Purpose in the Middle of It All. It has many practical suggestions and exercises for mindfulness when you’re on the go. And, it’s the perfect size for reading on the train. Just don’t read it when you’re driving though: mindful car crashing is not something you want to experience!

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admin — Tue, 25 Jan 2011 18:29:53 +0000

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