360 Degrees of Mindful Living » Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D.

Smoke Mindfully to Quit Mindfully: Day 12: Change Timing

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. — Sun, 16 Jun 2013 12:57:21 +0000

Smoking Meditation: Day 12

Change Timing

Smoking is timing. Ruin it. Throughout the day today, allow yourself to smoke when you don’t feel like it, and if you can, avoid smoking when you feel like smoking. Go off phase, off the smoking rhythm. Be late, be early, or be off base. Learn from what happens.

Read the Original/Introductory post (for context)

Adapted from Smoke-Free Smoke Break (Pavel Somov, Ph.D. & Marla Somova, Ph.D., New Harbinger Publications, 2012)

Mindful Eating: Eating for Self-Synchronization

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. — Sat, 15 Jun 2013 23:05:13 +0000

When you eat mindlessly, in response to cravings, you tune in to the environment. This kind of craving-triggered, mindlessly-initiated and mindlessly-conducted eating puts you out of sync with your own body and your own mind. Hunger-based, mindful eating reverses this process: it is a chance to tune it to yourself, a chance to self-synchronize. When you eat out of hunger (and mindfully), you tune in to yourself. But you don’t have to just take my word for it: test it out. Contrast and compare mindless craving-driven eating and mindful hunger-driven eating.

First try a whole day of craving-based mindless eating: eat each and every time you have a craving and when you do eat, eat mindlessly (distract yourself the way you usually do – read something, watch TV, etc). Notice a process of social and environmental synchronization. When you eat in a craving-driven fashion and mindlessly, you eat each and every time the environment presents you with a powerful enough stimulus to elicit a craving in you and you are paying attention to the environment rather than to yourself. As a result, you become attuned to the environment, eating in sync, as if line-dancing with a crowd of strangers. Everybody eats, and you eat. And you sort of disappear: you don’t feel yourself, you become invisible to yourself.

And then try out an entire day of mindful, hunger-based eating: eat only if you are hungry and eat mindfully (put the distractions aside, focus on the food and the process of eating). Notice a sense of tuning in to yourself, a process of self-synchronization (synchronization with your self), when you mindfully eat in a hunger-driven manner. While you begin to feel progressively out of sync with the environment (everybody eats, but you don’t), you begin to appreciate a sense of your behavior becoming synchronized with your intentions.

Notice what feels better to you.

Adapted from Eating the Moment (Somov, 2008)

Pavel Somov, PhD is the author of Eating the Moment (2008) and Reinventing the Meal (2012)

From Humankind to Neurokind to Neurokindness

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 13:37:07 +0000

Adi Da wrote in “Not-Two is Peace”: “Humankind is functioning on the principle of ego – or separate identity and separative activity. Separateness and separateness – or ego-”I” – is the idea of “difference.” That idea inevitably manifests as the process of “objectification,” control, and destruction. [...] The right action of humankind is action based on the presumption of prior unity – not ego, not “tribes,” not any kind of form, idea, or cultural expression that came about or emerged in times of dis-unity.”

Adi Da would probably disagree with my concept of Neural Tribe. He’d probably say that this too is a form of dis-unity, that categorizing life into neural and non-neural is just another separative difference. And I’d agree with that, I’d agree with Adi Da. I realize that redefining humanity as neurality is just a smaller of the separative evils. And yet, I think, it is a step in the right direction: it is a use of separativeness towards unification. The idea here is to expand the radius of identification – from Human Tribe (HT) to Neural Tribe (NT). In so doing, I am, in essence, inviting the humanity to bypass the intra-group distinctions (the kinds of tribal distinctions within the Human Tribe that Adi Da was writing about). I am inviting Humankind to redefine itself as Neurokind so as to shift to non-tribal kindness.

The “big idea” here is to try to bypass our intra-tribal distinctions by broadening the definition of our tribe – from Human Tribe to Neural Tribe. The idea is to reverse-engineer what Adi Da called “prior unity” by first learning to relate to our neural brothers and sisters in the animal kingdom. This “big idea” is an old idea, it’s an intuitive idea, it’s a cliche idea: we know that having a relationship with a pet animal tames our own separative mind-beast. This is one of the therapeutic mechanisms behind the use of pet therapy as empathy-training, say, in prison populations.

Like Adi Da (and Gurdjieff and countless others) I see the self-imprisonment of the human mind. And I ask myself: what is the path towards self-liberation? A personal path is simple: meditation. But what’s a social path, a society-wide path? The answer is cultural reprogramming, a redefining of the human narrative in a scientifically-intuitive way. The Neural Tribe idea is tautologically simple and grounded in fact: a neuron is a neuron is a neuron, regardless of the body-form that it inhabits. This is the basis of identification with a larger tribe, with the Neurokind. And this identification is, in turn, the basis for compassion and non-tribal kindness, Neurokindness, the kind of kindness that focuses on the fact that we are all of one and the same neural kind.

Neural Tribe series

Man and his dog image available from Shutterstock.

Smoke Mindfully to Quit Mindfully: Day 11: Puff Dynamics

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. — Fri, 14 Jun 2013 11:39:53 +0000

Smoking Meditation: Day 11

Puff Dynamics

Back in the late 1970s, researchers used “miniature flowmeters” that were “actually incorporated into the cigarette” to study puff dynamics. They noted that most smokers “reduce their puff volume after the first three or four” puffs and that “under conditions of stress, both puff duration and puff interval were shortened.”

As you smoke today, take note of these puff dynamics. Pay attention to how your “puff volume” varies in the course of smoking any given cigarette. Do you indeed begin with deeper puffs and later render them more shallow? Do you tend to take quicker and shallower puffs when you feel stressed? Is there a difference in your puff dynamics depending on whether you are tense or relaxed when you begin smoking? Smoke on that to infuse your smoking behavior with a dose of mindfulness.

Read the Original/Introductory post (for context)

Adapted from Smoke-Free Smoke Break (Pavel Somov, Ph.D. & Marla Somova, Ph.D., New Harbinger Publications, 2012)

reference: Thornton 1978, 394

Human Form, Neural Essence

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 12:35:53 +0000

We are human only in form; in essence, we are neural, regardless of the form we are. We are used to noticing the form-figure of who we aren't, we need to learn to notice the essence-ground of who we are. NT perspective is a new gestalt about who we are and who we aren't.

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We are human only in form (in body). In essence, we are neural, regardless of the (bodily) form we are. We were neural when we were pre-human in form (when we were apes, when we were tree-dwelling, insect-eating, squirel-like creatures.) We have been neural (in essence) much longer than we have been human (in form). Neural is human. Whatever is neural is human. Wherever you find a neuron, there, as a species, you are (in essence, not in form). We are used to noticing the form-figure of who we aren’t. We need to learn to notice the essence-ground of who we are. Neural Tribe (NT) perspective is a new Gestalt about who we are and who we aren’t.

Neural Tribe blog

[graphic source: go here]

Smoke Mindfully to Quit Mindfully: Day 10: Wait-n-Waste

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. — Thu, 13 Jun 2013 11:42:28 +0000

Smoking Meditation: Day 10

Wait-n-Waste

Light a cigarette and wait till it’s half gone. Then smoke what’s left. Try this a few times today. Ponder what you are wasting and what you are conserving. Let the dollars and cents pinch your mind awake. Watch the smoke of mindlessness dissipate.

Read the Original/Introductory post (for context)

Adapted from Smoke-Free Smoke Break (Pavel Somov, Ph.D. & Marla Somova, Ph.D., New Harbinger Publications, 2012)

Back to Ba

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. — Tue, 11 Jun 2013 14:57:00 +0000

Whether we sit alone or sit together, we sit in the ba. “Ba” is Japanese for a circumstance of a shared space: “what I feel now is not in me, but in the ba” (1).

Life is movement. There is no movement without friction. This friction you feel when you sit (meditatively) alone is the feel of the internal circumstance that is moving through you. This friction you feel when you sit (socially) together with another is the feel of the external circumstance that is moving past you. It’s the feel of the ba – feel it and put it back, back into the River of Circumstance.

Life is participation. Participation is the process of becoming a part, a part of a larger whole. Becoming a part of a larger whole is a process of losing a sense of self: “to participate in a ba means to get involved and transcend one’s own limited perspective or boundary” (2).

Life is a relationship, whether you sit alone or together, meditatively or socially, – a relationship between you and ba, an encounter between the part and the whole, between you and life. And the feeling you feel, it isn’t yours – it belongs to theintra-play of the ba. To the Intra-play of the whole Circumstance – not to the inter-play of its components!

“In Western thought in general, and in the English language, one often starts from separate and independent entities. For example, in the English language, we say that there is you and me, as separate beings, and that we “relate” to one other, or that there is an “inter” personal relationship between us. However <…> the ba includes you and me and others as well. What I feel is not in me, but in the ba” (1)

In and out of therapy, in and out of self-therapy, we seek therapy in therapy, but therapy isn’t in therapy but in our relationship with ourselves – “in a mode of relating to what one feels” (1) – i.e. in a mode of relating to ba.

Even when alone, we really aren’t. Any “you” that’s reading this is a dyad of a Subject and an Object, the Thinker and the Thought, the Feeler and the Feeling, the Sensor and the Sensation, and “I” and a “me.” When I have a feeling – I am feeling a feeling; and this feeling I feel in me… is me. And this “me” is ba. This feeling I feel, this part of me is the friction between me-as-the-part-of-the-overall-circumstance-of-life and the overall circumstance of life. This feeling I feel is the frictionbetween me as a part of a whole and the whole itself – and since the ba includes me “what I feel is not in me, but in the ba” (1).

So, whether we sit alone (in contemplation), or informally with another (socially), or formally with another (in therapy) – we sit in ba, in a “shared space for emerging relationships” (2) with the Reality of Circumstance, amidst an intra-play of what is.

So, what you feel when you feel is the tip of the Arrowhead of Circumstance – piercing through… Let it. Feel the pain of this friction and put the feeling back in the ba. And as you release your breath, feel the caress of the feathered Fletching as this Arrow of Time keeps flying through you. Why hold on to the arrow?

References:

1: Akira Ikemi (2006). The Psychological Significance and Extensions of Autogenic Training, p. 228, in Psychomatic Medicine, Proceedings of the 18^th World Congress on Psychomatic Medicine, held in Kobe, Japan, between 21^st and 26^th of August 2005, editors: Chiharu Kobo, Tomifusa Kubold, Elsevier, 2006

2: Nonaka, I. , Konno, N. (1998). The concept of ba: Building a foundation for knowledge creation. California Management Review, 40(3):40-55.

Un-bias

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 17:54:19 +0000

Tired of seeing the right side of my nose, I close my right eye.

The left side of my nose is not a whole lot better.

So, I close my left eye as well.

Ah, now I can finally see beyond the tip of my nose.

[key words: bias, partiality, subjectivity, perspective]

Walkabout: Informational Flashback

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. — Mon, 10 Jun 2013 14:23:10 +0000

On a walk through the woods (with my German shepherd) I come upon a man (with a labrador) that I ran into earlier in the year. As soon as he sees me, even from a good bit of distance, he issues an open hand “hello.” As we approach each other (both of our dogs off the leash) I ask:

“So, have you solved the mystery of that water leak that wouldn’t freeze?”

I am referring to our first encounter earlier in the year. It was January and I was walking through this wooded path with my dog, with my shirt off (conditioning my body and my mind). It was a perfect day for that – cold, snowy, windy. Unlike me, this guy was all geared up (a clever winter parka, face mask and all). We stopped. He asked me about what I was doing with my shirt off and, having solved that mystery, posed one to me: he pointed at a trickle of water across the path and said:

“Ever thought where this is coming from? Why this water doesn’t freeze?”

We chatted about this for a moment and split up.

Now, almost six months later, we bump into each other again and instantly, effortlessly continue the conversation. “So,” I ask as I approach him, “have you solved the mystery of that water leak that wouldn’t freeze?”

“Oh, yeah. I think so. It’s probably a mine. I’ve seen more water like that up there in the Olympia Fields,” he says motioning somewhere behind him. “Well, I am glad you cracked that mystery,” I say as our dogs are busy chasing each other and establishing hierarchy. “It’s a hypothesis, at least,” he says and adds: “Nothing definitive!.” Our dogs finally settled down by our feet. “A model we can live with,” I echo in a similarly nerdy, intellectualizing fashion.

He takes another look at me: it’s summer now and I have my t-shirt on. But there is a bigger, newer mystery for him to crack: I am holding a blue plastic bag full of empty soda and beer cans (that I had collected on the walk). He doesn’t ask why but I can see the question in his eyes. (A question that you, the reader, too might now have on your mind and I’ll get to it in another post.) Mysteries abound…

But here’s what mystifies me: the ease of the recall. I ran into this guy half a year ago. I made no attempt whatsoever to remember his face or his dog or the conversation that we had. And yet my mind picked up the conversation exactly where it had left it, with the exactly right guy. On a dime, effortlessly, reflexively.

I am being coy: this mystery is not really a mystery to me any more. I’ve thought about this for long time. I’ve seen this happen in therapy again and again. I remember way too much and way too easily – a panopticum of the most obscure details about my clients. Even years after. Just a month ago, a guy called me up, tells me he had seen me way back in 2003. I listen to his voice for no more than a second: the name tells me nothing but the voice evokes a demographic sketch. Effortlessly I remember who he is, what he does, why I saw him.

The way this happens, I think, is that when you are mindfully present with someone – as I try to be in session or as I happen to be when I run into someone on a dog walk – your mind is open to receive. It needs not to memorize: like a vinyl disk it has no option but to yield to the needle of the moment. So, these are not memories per se I am talking about but recordings: playbacks, informational flashbacks, serendipitous continuities of experience, ordinary perfection.

Mindful Eating: a Yoga Mat for Your Mouth

Pavel G. Somov, Ph.D. — Sun, 09 Jun 2013 13:32:08 +0000

Yoga is union. Mindful eating is also yoga — in the sense that eating unites your body and mind’s intention through a moment of eating presence. Create an eating mindfulness placemat that you could carry with you like a yoga mat, from table to table, from setting to setting, whether you are eating in or eating out, as a kind of portable eating mindfulness space of your own.

Sketch out a placemat that includes a visual diagram of mindful eating. For example, draw a picture of the eyes to denote the mindfulness of the appearance of food, with an arrow pointing to a nose for the mindfulness of smell, with an arrow pointing to a picture of the tongue for the mindfulness of taste, with an arrow pointing back to your mind (to remember to “open your mind before you open your mouth”).

Or, to awaken the eating zombie, include mindfulness call-outs to get your own attention, such as:

Eating is Movement, Pause the Flow!

Redefine “Enough” – Mindful, not Mouthful!

Mindful Eating is Self-Synchronization.

Eating is physiologically inevitable, but mindfulness isn’t – wake up!

Who’s eating?

Open Your Mind Before You Open Your Mouth.

Made of Earth, I am eating Earth and becoming Earth.

You can also include various pointers on craving control, fullness, process of eating. If you have already formulated your Philosophy of Eating, you can summarize it on the placemat as well:

Eat to live, not live to eat!

Eating changes both body and mind, the total of who I am. What I eat and how much I eat changes who I am physiologically. Why I eat and how I eat changes who I am psychologically.

Your mindful eating placemat can also include mindful emotional eating harm-reduction tips on how to shift from mindless emotional overeating to responsible emotional eating such as:

When eating to cope, remember that emotional eating does not have to mean emotional overeating. Emotional eating is not a problem. Mindless emotional eating is.

Whenever I eat to cope I begin with a course of relaxation!

Related resources: Mindful Eating Tracker

Pavel Somov, Ph.D., author of EATING THE MOMENT and REINVENTING THE MEAL