Buddhist Parenting Group in Brooklyn

Submitted by Jonathan S. Kaplan, Ph.D.

Starting on January 29th, I'll be offering a 9-month series of workshops on parenting, mindfulness, Buddhism, and family life.  The group was recently profiled on the popular blog, A Child Grows in Brooklyn.  If you're interested, please visit the dedicated page of my website for more information:  Parenting on the Path.  Also, if you live elsewhere or find this link after the group has started, please feel free to reach out to me.  I'm happy to be in touch.

Mindful Connection

By Emily Polak, Ph.D.

Last night I attended my grandparents’ 65th wedding anniversary party.  He is 98, she is 88, and they fell in love in a concentration camp while he was married to another woman. While it doesn’t really get more dramatic than that, I am more impressed by the fact that their love has sustained for over 65 years.

Living in New York City in this day and age, where people increasingly report feeling isolated, connection is more important than ever.  Specifically, dating in NYC is a challenging endeavor. There are a lot of nice people out there, but actually connecting with someone on a deep level doesn’t happen all the time. The same goes for getting to know a new friend.

According to Brené Brown, a researcher at the University of Houston, in order for connection to happen, we must be vulnerable and allow ourselves to be seen. This is a scary thing to do, especially in a city like New York, where people tend to have extra walls up. When getting to know someone, it usually becomes evident relatively quickly whether someone is open to and looking for a real connection. Then the question becomes, are you?

Sometimes we fall into the trap of wanting the person to like us and forgetting to think about whether we like them. Or we focus on the superficial things that we like about them, such as their job or their looks. If we are able to be mindful of how we feel when with the person, that is usually a good indicator of the potential for a long-term relationship. After all, dating boils down to spending time with someone and continually assessing how you feel with you’re with them. So mindfulness is useful when dating in that you observe your own experience and use that information to make decisions accordingly.

Brown’s prescription for happiness is: Let ourselves be deeply and vulnerably seen. Perhaps the life and death nature of my grandparents’ circumstances made it easier for them to be vulnerable, but I think they mastered that principle right from the start. So the next time you are getting to know someone, be it a date or a new friend, remember that the way to really connect is to be as vulnerable and genuine as possible. Then, pay attention to how you feel with the person. Perhaps this combination can lead to a life as long and happy as my grandparents. At the very least, it should lead to more authentic relationships. And ultimately, who doesn’t want that?

If anyone is interested, here is a link to the documentary that was made about my grandparent's lives: www.stealapencil.com.

Mindfulness in Times Square? On New Year's Eve?

By Susan Vitti, Ph.D.

I have lived in New York all my life. Whether in the city itself, or an outlying suburb, I’ve felt deeply woven into the fabric of the city. I’ve lived here, worked here, fallen in love here, shopped here and generally been a part of the groove, hubbub, bustle and clamor. I am in fact, in love with this city. I go to the Brooklyn side of the bridge just to see the whole of it sparkling on the river at night. I ride the NY Water Way Taxi in summer just to see the skyline from the harbor. So, I understand why anyone would be drawn to it but what I’ve never understood is the desire to huddle up in Times Square on New Year’s Eve. No way, no how am I ever going to do it. So, in putting together some thoughts for this post the question entered my mind again. Why would anyone do it?! I’ve come up with innumerable reasons, none of which really satisfied as evidenced by the fact that I’m still asking.

In thinking about this again, though, I realized I’ve been asking the wrong question all along. I’ve missed the essence of what is really going on. What is significant is not where people gather but why. Why do we choose to gather together to mark the ending of one year and the beginning of a new one? What draws us to each other during this point in time? Maybe it’s the inescapable feeling of being on the precipice of both an ending and a beginning. It’s a time that seems to inevitably connect us to the polarities of existence; both the joys and the sorrows. Whether we gather in Times Square, a friend’s apartment, a restaurant or some quiet corner with our television tuned in, we gather together and in doing so we share this reality.

The holiday season, culminating in New Year’s Eve can be a time of celebrations and gatherings with friends and family. It’s a time we can easily ride the crest of the holiday wave and let ourselves be swept along to this final point in the year. We eagerly gallop towards one more celebration, one more party, one more event before the final page of the old year is turned and new one is begun. The emotional tenor this time of year, this week in particular and this day, the final day, is often one of revelry and mirth.

Alternately, the New Year is also a time-marker. Robert Frost referred to time as ‘the luminary clock against the sky” in his poem, Acquainted with the Night. The holiday season, the turning of the year and the passage of time, so concretely marked, can also bring with it awareness and realization of loss, times gone by, loved ones that have passed or difficult moments endured during the previous year. Life has a way of involving us in both aspects; the joys and the sorrows, the losses and the gains, the highs and the lows. Whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we can accept it or not, we all come to encounter all aspects of being human. If we can manage to stay mindful and in the moment, we may be lucky enough to see that in this regard, we are all connected to each other. In this regard, “we are all more human than otherwise” (American psychiatrist, Harry Stack Sullivan) .

It is, perhaps, in this realization, whether articulated or just beneath our awareness, that we feel the need to be with each other. It is at this pivotal moment in time, the turning of the year, as we watch our city’s luminary clock against the sky, that ball of lights dropping in Times Square, that we have some sense of our connectedness, our oneness with ourselves, each other and with the infinite. Perhaps we find it somehow comforting to gather together in this acknowledgement.

(Photo provided by UB1/Bill Larkin)

The Present in Presence: Mindful Listening

By Jenny Taitz, Ph.D.

If we were meant to talk more than listen, we would have two mouths and one ear.
Mark Twain

A client recently shared the experience of meeting with a former therapist who answered the telephone numerous times during sessions. Another described talking to a doctor whose laptop was nestled between them.  I must admit, judgments about nerviness arrive in my mind upon hearing these anecdotes. And then I consider the times I haven’t wholeheartedly listened to people in my life.

Do you ever notice when a person introduces himself and you’ve already have forgotten his name? A relative is speaking you start to tune out, thinking, “I’ve heard this story before?” or “I know where this is going…” You’re with a friend and glance at your emails or visit news websites? You’re shopping and talking and can barely track hear? To follow up my previous post on mindful speaking,   let’s explore the related practice of mindful listening.

Can you think of a time you really felt listened to? If you have a moment, return and revisit the details and feelings of the encounter for a moment. What was the situation? Who were you with? What did it feel like to be heard? What does it feel like to be heard? Some people have thoughts such as, “I have nothing to offer” or “I must be super witty or sound smart.”  If you struggled with such thoughts, you might let go of trying to control your impression and really practice listening.  After all, we don’t generally select friends based on comedic talent or academic accolades!

So often it is hard to listen.  We put our phones on the table as though they are utensils we need to dine.  Plus, we are often faced with noise—physically and emotionally.  Iphones, crying children, Facebook, Bloomberg, headaches, fatigue, people who annoyed us earlier, caffeine withdrawal, money worries… A whole host of stimuli, thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can pull for our attention and it is virtually (no pun intended!) hard to multitask.  When you brought to mind the person who made you feel heard, did you see a Bluetooth?

What is mindful listening? Mindful listening is:

1. Slowing down – letting go of chasing your thoughts, catching up with emails, and thinking about what you’ll say next


2. Offering your full attention—eye contact, ears, expression of interest purely for in the service listening


3. Practicing listening and noticing when you have moved away, and return

Again, it may be helpful to think of a particular person and situation in which you’ll practice listening rather than take on the endeavor of always listening fully.

This practice may be helpful in building relationships with others and also ourselves. If we notice ourselves being pulled by a host of thoughts about our shortcomings that arise in interpersonal situations, this practice may furnish an opportunity to practice being kind to ourselves by dimming the spotlight and enjoying the music another may offer.

What Do You Think About Me?

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.

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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.