A while back I wrote the post 10 Quotes for a Mindful Day and followed up with 10 (More) Quotes for a Mindful Day. Since then I began an increasingly popular tradition called Mondays Mindful Quote where every Monday I post a quote that I think has some relevance to Mindfulness and Psychotherapy and then explore the quote.

Here is a new list I’m calling 10 Quotes for a Mindful Day Part III. I will write future posts that explore some of these quotes and how they are relevant to our daily lives. If you already have ideas on how they are relevant to you, please share your thoughts below (you can even do so anonymously if you like) as we can all learn from this living wisdom. Enjoy!

Today I bring back Dr. Daniel Siegel to show us his comedic side, while explaining the concept of mindsight’s connection to a sense of resilience, compassion and well-being. Dan received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent, and adult psychiatry. He is the co-editor of a handbook of psychiatry and the author of numerous articles, chapters, and the internationally acclaimed text, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. He has also published a wonderful book on parenting with Mary Hartzell, M.Ed., Parenting From the Inside Out. His breakout book in the field of mindfulness is The Mindful Brain, which explores the application of this newly emerging view of the mind, the brain, and human relationships. His newest book, which I am thrilled about, is Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.

Dan has been invited to work with some esteemed people as a result of their interest in his work including: the U.S. Department of Justice, The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, Microsoft and Google, early intervention programs and a range of clinical and research departments worldwide. He has been invited to lecture for the King of Thailand, Pope John Paul II, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

He has done all this and yet, if you know him, you know he remains so personable and accessible.

Elisha: You are involved in a really comedic video explaining Mindsight with the Blue Man Group that I’m posting below. I’m going to have the readers take a look and then have you give us a glimpse into your experience here.

In some past posts I’ve inquired if mindful eating can change our lives and also written about rethinking our relationship to food. However, I think it would be good to share a personal example of what this has looked like in my life. In my upcoming book, A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook (March, 2010), co-authored with Bob Stahl, Ph.D, I discuss an experience that I have with mindful eating and how it shifted me from a state of distress and frustration to calm and ease:

Back in my midtwenties, when my life felt out of control and I went on a one-month retreat, each time we sat down to eat we were instructed to be aware of what we were eating, where it came from, and the people who prepared it and to be thankful for it and eat it mindfully. Since I was resistant to being there in the first place, I dug in my heels on this issue and just continued eating as I always had. Often my mind would be swimming with doubts, questioning my decision to even come to this place, thinking I had more important things to be doing, and worrying about whether I really fit in. Most of the time I would be halfway through the meal before I even really tasted the food.

One day, as another participant in the program was talking to me about the importance of being intentional and present in all the activities we do, I immediately thought of the eating and asked him, “Doesn’t it annoy you that they make such a big deal about eating here?” He gently smiled at me, brought out an orange from his knapsack, and said, “Treat this as an experiment. Take this orange and really think about where it came from, how it started from a seed in the ground, how real people cared for the tree to make it healthy and then plucked the fruit from that tree. Think about how this orange was carried from …

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There is a tradition on the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog. Every Monday, I cite a quote or a poem that is related to mindfulness and psychotherapy in some way and then explore it a bit and how it is relevant to our lives. For me, quotes and poetry can often sink me into a state of greater understanding. So for today, here is a quote by Helen Keller:

“Security is mostly a superstition. It does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than outright exposure. Life is either a daring adventure, or nothing. To keep our faces toward change and behave like free spirits in the presence of fate is strength undefeatable.”

Safety and security is something we long for as babies and some say before that, in the womb. We all experience different levels of security growing up, some people feeling more secure and others less (“nor do the children of men as a whole experience it”). This is the basis of attachment theory in psychology. This theory was formulated by psychiatrist and psychoanalyst, John Bowlby. He first used the word “attachment” when he theorized that children are more likely to feel secure, connected, and loved if their parents are able to be attuned, in the present moment, to the child’s internal world of emotions and needs. This is one idea about where security and insecurity in this world come from.

In later research, Mary Ainsworth, found that while some attachment styles may be coupled with a sense of security and safety, others attachment styles may be paradoxically coupled with insecurity and anxiety. In this theory we come to understand that our early relationships with our parents or caregivers affect how we behave in our relationships as adults and with our own children. It’s really fascinating.

In The Mindful Brain: Reflection and Attunement in the Cultivation of Well-Being, Daniel Siegel, MD, writes that when parent and child are attuned, …

One of the initial avenues where mindfulness started to gain recognition in the West was in medicine and psychology through working with chronic pain and illness. Today I have the honor of bringing you, Vidyamala Burch, one of the co-founders of Breathworks and author of Living Well with Pain and Illness: The Mindful Way to Free Yourself from Suffering. Vidyamala first came to the intersection of meditation and chronic pain 25 years ago after going to the hospital for spinal injury. She currently lives in Manchester and has been teaching mindfulness-based approaches to pain and illness for the past 10 years.

Today Vidyamala lets us in on how mindfulness works to alleviate suffering in chronic pain and illness.

Elisha: In the beginning of your newest book you quote 13th century Sufi Poet, Rumi saying:

Do not look back, my friend

No one knows how the world ever began.

Don not fear the future, nothing lasts forever.

If you dwell on the past or the future

You will miss the moment.

How have you applied the message of this poem in working with your own chronic pain?

Vidyamala: Living in the moment has been one of the most important ways I have reclaimed my life whilst living with chronic pain.  It all began when I was in hospital when I was 25 and had a night of very intense physical pain and mental anxiety while in a neurosurgical intensive care unit.  I thought I would not be able to survive the night and then, when I really felt I would go mad with the stress of it all, a quiet inner voice came to me that said “you don’t have to get through until the morning; you only have to do get through the present moment.” With that voice came a very deep shift in perception and my entire experience changed. I relaxed in the deep confidence that this knowledge brought:  I knew very deeply that I could not only ‘get through’ the present moment, but I could live it to the fullest, …

Trauma is all around us. The most obvious examples are tragedies like 9/11, hurricane Katrina, the Tsunami in Asia, and the most recent being the Earthquake and aftershocks in Haiti. Let’s look at how trauma works and what we can do about it.

When a person has an experience of an event that is emotionally overwhelming or traumatic a conditioning of thoughts, emotions, and physical sensations occur that resemble a stress response (e.g., tightness in muscles, rapid breathing, etc…). Because this is overwhelming, the mind puts it away, suppressing and repressing it, with the strategy that this will allow you to focus on other things.

In the background, sensitivity in the mind develops in order to be on guard for this happening again. This makes sense, our brains naturally adapt to try and protect us. Unfortunately, now this means, many things that are really not dangerous may be interpreted as dangerous and trigger this stress reaction, making life difficult to handle. For example, in Haiti right now, people are sleeping in tents outside their houses because of the trauma from the earthquake and aftershocks. Their bodies are on constant alert, with present tension, rapid breathing and a rapid heartbeat.  Nightmares of the trauma are occurring nightly. The mind and body are ready at any moment to jump into fight or flight. This physical and emotional havoc lead to states of intense anxiety and depression.

On a more subtle level, many of us experience trauma as children through our relationships. Maybe we grew up in a home where there was constant criticism and when someone is critical now, the body goes into a defensive reaction either shutting down (flee) or reacting with aggression (fight). Trauma can also come in the form of a depressive episode or a panic attack.

Daniel Siegel, M.D., author many books the most recent being Mindsight, describes that we all have “a window of tolerance.” The heart of working with trauma is to get to a point where the emotional reaction from the trauma memory is …

This will be a special Monday’s Mindful Quote day. Today is the launch of the EBook A Mindful Dialogue: A Path to Working with Stress, Pain and Difficult Emotions ($9.99). Usually I don’t blatantly promote a book or CD of mine, but this is something that is important to know about. This book was inspired by the devastation in Haiti and 100% of the proceeds will go to HOPE FOR HAITI NOW which has no backend costs and diversifies the funds to these credible organizations: The Clinton Bush Haiti Fund, Oxfam America, Partners in Health, Red Cross, UNICEF, United Nations World Food Programme, and Yele Haiti Foundation.

This EBook is a 170 page compilation of interviews and writings I have done with leaders such as Jack Kornfield, Sharon Salzberg, Daniel Siegel, Thich Nhat Hanh, Hafiz, Rumi and others. I believe this will not only be a wonderful companion in your own life, but will hopefully go onto save the lives of others in Haiti.

And now, a quote from the Dalai Lama (drumroll…):

Love and compassion are necessities, not luxuries. 
Without them, humanity cannot survive.

The bottom line, we often take these for granted. Love and compassion is a fundamental need, we understand this by looking at infants in their first weeks, months and years of life. For example, tests have been done where a parent would look at an infant with a blank face while the infant tried to get their attention. At first, the infant would smile and coo trying to get some interaction from the adult. As the adult maintained their straight face, the infant would begin to cry and flail about. After a little while longer the infant would try to soothe himself and then fall into a state where he wasn’t doing anything as if he was in a state of depression.

We crave to be loved and to feel compassion from the time we are born to the final moments of our lives. We can give this to ourselves and it’s equally important to give …

I have been a big fan of Dr. Daniel Siegel and I am so happy to be bringing him to you today. Dan received his medical degree from Harvard University and completed his postgraduate medical education at UCLA with training in pediatrics and child, adolescent and adult psychiatry.  He is the co-editor of a handbook of psychiatry and the author of numerous articles, chapters, and the internationally acclaimed text, The Developing Mind: How Relationships and the Brain Interact to Shape Who We Are. He has also published a wonderful book on parenting with Mary Hartzell, M.Ed., Parenting From the Inside Out. His breakout book in the field of mindfulness is The Mindful Brain, which explores the application of this newly emerging view of the mind, the brain, and human relationships. His newest book which I am thrilled about is Mindsight: The New Science of Personal Transformation.

Dan has been invited to work with some esteemed people as a result of their interest in his work including: the U.S. Department of Justice, The Vatican’s Pontifical Council for the Family, Microsoft and Google, early intervention programs and a range of clinical and research departments worldwide. He has been invited to lecture for the King of Thailand, Pope John Paul II, and His Holiness the Dalai Lama.

He has done all this and yet, if you know him, you know he remains so personable and accessible. Today, Dan talks to us about what mindsight is and how we can use it to achieve a sense of resilience, compassion and well-being.

Elisha: I’m very excited about your newest book Mindsight. In your book you say that mindsight is our “seventh sense” and “is the basic skill that underlies everything we mean when we speak of having social and emotional intelligence.” Tell us a bit more, what is Mindsight?

Dan: Mindsight is …

Thanks to pioneers like Robert Emmons and Michael McCollough, we now know that gratitude can have an enormously positive effect on our mental health. Not only that, thanks to the advent of neuroplasticity, practicing gratitude can even help shape your brain in ways that promote resilience and well-being.

If you need a boost on ways to practice gratitude, check out my post on 5 Steps to Gratitude and Lovingkindness: Mondays Mindful Quote with Hafiz.

But this post isn’t just about gratitude, it’s about taking it a step further which moves into another stage called altruism. Altruistic behavior is all about acting selflessly to help serve or benefit another. Altruistic behavior has been found to be a predictor of happiness and life satisfaction (Cambridge University Press, 2009).

Altruism is also tied to another hot topic in our culture today and that is compassion and kindness. In this blog I have written a number of posts about compassion and kindness because they are such good nutrition for our health and well-being. Compassion has been called an antidote to anger and kindness has been called and antidote to fear.  

Now, it could be argued that because I brought up all the personal benefits you may experience from engaging with kindness, compassion and altruism that these endeavors are not pure because you know they will serve your mental health. In other words, they’re ego-driven. Try and set this argument aside for now as we move into the social implication of kindness, compassion and altruism.

While the brain takes longer to register compassion for social pain than individual pain, the effect is longer lasting when awareness around social pain settles in. There are certain tragedies in this world that are so apparent that a compassion trigger gets set off in the brain and we feel called to action. We have an unselfish drive to help other people and this is what altruism is all about.

Whether it’s …

There is a tradition on the Mindfulness and Psychotherapy Blog. Every Monday, I cite a quote or a poem that is related to mindfulness and psychotherapy in some way and then explore it a bit and how it is relevant to our lives. For me, quotes and poetry can often sink me into a state of greater understanding. 

So today, I grab a quote from a man who “had a dream” lifted millions of people and whose inspiration is felt all over the world today. Dr. King Martin Luther King, Jr. said:

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.” 

This reminds me of an earlier blog post I did which quoted Rumi saying:

“Don’t turn away. Keep your gaze on the bandaged place. That’s where the light enters you.”

On August 28, 1963 Martin Luther King Jr. led a march on Washington to let us all know that he “had a dream”. In this dream he inspired hope, belief, and faith in millions of people. This level of hope no doubt inspired Barack Obama to believe that he indeed could be the first African American President of the United States.

The power of our minds and of belief may very well be one of the most awesome things in life. Henry Ford, father of the concept of assembly lines which so much of our system is currently built on said:

“Whether you believe you can or you can’t, you’re right.”

We all have messages built into our heads from the youngest of ages that “we can’t.” If we’re at all lucky, we’ve had parents or a role model (like Dr. King) who have inspired us to say “we can.” Whether you believe in his politics or not, you can see that Barack Obama had to drive that …