Center Calendar

 

Mindful Thought: Self-Esteem part 2

Yesterday we took a look on how our self esteem is based on the opinions we have about ourselves.

So lets explore where does opinions come from. It's no surprise they are formed by several aspects:

Our achievements, our relationships and whether we are connected to a larger purpose, these are all contributing factors.

But most of our opinions about ourselves were actually developed in our formative years, the events that took place in our childhood and adolescence largely mold our self esteem. Our parents and the people who raised us have the most significant influence on how we feel about ourselves. 

For example if we were fortunate enough to have parents who listen to us, respected us, commended our efforts and offered support we be likely to develop high self esteem. If we had family members who are harshly critical of us, were abusive or expected perfection, their hurtful comments may lowered our self esteem.

Even if criticism directed at us didn't hold any truth they can stick with us sometimes for life, whether we were accepted or rejected by our peers, if we had allies or if we were bullied, all our experiences and interactions influence the positive and negative feelings we have about ourselves.

You see our self esteem is extremely fragile and impressionable. Negative messages have the potential to seep into our unconscious mind without us even recognize it. The good news is that by examining those critical believes we have the ability to change and transform it.

We will explore that shortly in the meditation:

In the state of stillness and reflect on what brought you back to his program once again, bringing to mind the area of life you selected yesterday. And with that area in  mind, reflect on a criticism or self defeating believe you may have, any reoccurring negative statement you tell yourself regularly, that impacts your self esteem, one that lessens your value self worth or competency

And just notice how that criticism makes you feel, often our critical believes are inspired by other people, our parents, our peers,  through media and culture. There may be a specific event that influences that notion, so you maybe able to trace that criticism or believe believe back to a time in your past, regardless if whether you can recall the origin of the criticism.

Ask yourself the following question:

what if that believe isn't true? what if it is only partly true? what if it is an exaggeration or an assumption? or misinterpretation? and that believe is hurting us?

Thoughts come into our unconscious mind and become our core believes, but the good news now matter how ingrained they are,  its possible to let them go...

So the next question is: are you ready to do that? are you willing to release that criticism? or are you at least willing to see how it would feel to be free of that believe?

8 Signs of Low Self Esteem

Mindful Thoughts: Self-Esteem part 1

 

Welcome to the 7 days of self-esteem a mindfulness program that explores self esteem and the ways to enhance it 

It's interesting how sometimes a person you never met can walk into a room an you can detect if they have high or low self esteem. A timid voice poor social skills, a lack of assertiveness or the opposite aggressive nature all point to signs of low self esteem. But a head held high, a wide smile, a confident, humble kind demeanor, these are all qualities of someone with high self esteem 

Everyone wants it but unfortunately we can't achieve it by snapping our fingers . Self esteem is a complex concept.

So let's start with the definition...

Our self esteem is based on how much we value ourselves and how competent we feel in life. To be clear, it is different from self confidence. Our self confidence is wrapped up in our ability to do something successfully. Self-esteem is our sense of how worthy and capable we are, it refers to the extent to which we like, accept and approve of ourselves.

Now we all have higher opinions of certain aspects of ourselves and lower opinions of other aspects. So the question is where do these opinions come from.

Over the next 7 days, we will explore how self esteem is developed and how to improve it. You learn techniques to challenge your thoughts, quiet your inner critic, soften your perfectionist ways and drop your comparisons.You also develop the ability to enhance your level of self acceptance and self compassion. The good news about self esteem is that it is possible to improve it with the right tools and an effort to change. With a new found self worth we have the ability to become centered and confident in our true self

Meditation piece: 

bringing your attention inward to contemplate what brings you to this program, is there a specific area you like to improve in your relationship with your self esteem

take a moment to think about what that might be perhaps your physical appearance and body image, your relationships, confidence in the romance department, work, career or education, health and fitness, or your habits discipline and behavior.

What is what matters most to you now? The idea here  is not to judge ourselves, it's merely to gain insight. Deepening our awareness is the first step to change, a change that will inspire a more balanced and positive reflection of who you are rather than berating yourself for your shortcomings

You learn to view them as opportunities for growth rather than accepting your critical believes as facts, you learn how to challenge their validity and more regularly shower yourself with love and self acceptance in appreciation of your curious and courageous nature.

Commending yourself into this work of insight, keeping in mind that all your strengths and weaknesses make you human and unique and every moment is an opportunity to grow in your self acceptance 

Audiobook The Psychology of Self Esteem:

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem:

7 Days of Self-Esteem is based on the Tamara Levitt program and sits behind pay wall in the Calm app so I can sadly not link to it ♥ To purchase a subscription: https://www.calm.com/

Kindness Club: Guided Meditation for Confidence, Self Love and Better Self-Esteem

 This uplifting guided meditation by Linda Hall focuses on confidence, self love and self esteem.  Please join us next Sunday at 10:00 am SLT for another great video!

Weekend Zen: Sam Harris - 30 min Guided Meditation with Atmospheric Music

“Our minds are all we have. They are all we have ever had. And they are all we can offer others. This might not be obvious, especially when there are aspects of your life that seem in need of improvement—when your goals are unrealized, or you are struggling to find a career, or you have relationships that need repairing. But it’s the truth. Every experience you have ever had has been shaped by your mind. Every relationship is as good or as bad as it is because of the minds involved. If you are perpetually angry, depressed, confused, and unloving, or your attention is elsewhere, it won’t matter how successful you become or who is in your life—you won’t enjoy any of it.”
― Sam Harris, Waking Up: A Guide to Spirituality Without Religion

  

Mindful Thought: Turbulent times, covid19, a heart less heavy

 

As days of isolation and social distancing turn into weeks into months, many of us are feeling increasingly uprooted from our normal lives. In a world on lockdown, it isn’t just our routines that are being disrupted, but our relationships too. I think it is safe to say the state of the world causes many of us fear and anxiety as we move through a time of upheaval and uncertainty. It is easy to become consumed with the problems of the world or otherwise shut down and hide away.

So the question becomes: Is it possible to face and hold what is happening around us without getting swept away by fear or anger?

I believe it is possible... but in order to stay open and informed about our world we also need to create space and find grounding

As the mind wanders into thoughts or if anxiety surfaces, we can just entangle from the habits of thinking or worrying, by returning to the present moment. This is the practice of mindfulness, remembering where we are, right here, right now not getting lost in an unknown future, trying to fix things or get swept away by a story.This isn't really helpful and simply enhances our fear and anxiety.

We can train ourselves to come back to the present moment.

Over and over again.

If thoughts or worry or anxiety continues to surface it might be a sign that we need to tend to our emotions. If mentioning the word anxiety creates a tightness in your chest or a flutter in your stomach, let's feel into the sensations that arrive, see if we can allow those feelings to surface without getting into a story of them, bring a sense of curiosity to whatever is arising, just observing without getting caught up in the actual content.

Is it possible to gently ride the wave?

In doing this our reactivity doesn't get a hold and we stay present to what surfaces with a calm compassionate heart

And this is where the practice can support us, this grounding place, where we can allow our emotions to arise and allow to float through us with kind compassionate attention. This doesn't mean it is easy to hold fear and anxiety but meditation offers us an anchor, to ground ourselves in the midst of the chaos of life.

With that stability we gain a more spacious perspective that allows us to more skillfully cope with turbulent times. If we can settle our mind, we can find wisdom ad courage and action can be taken. We can change how we relate to uncertainty, recognizing that it's often our own stories and projections that heighten our unfounded fears. And as our mindfulness practice grows so does our ability to hold that which feels unholdable

We are better able to find some calm within the chaos and move through the uncertainties of life. Remember your practice is always here to turn to for refuge, no matter how difficult it may seem at times.

It is within you to calm and ground yourself so your mind is more settled, your heart less heavy

As Nayyirah Waheed said:

If the ocean can calm itself so can you, we are both salt water mixed with air

https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/daily-life-coping/managing-stress-anxiety.html

(based on the work of Tamara Levitt, author for Calm) 

Mindful Thought: Screen Addiction

 Have you ever noticed how easy it is to lose precious time – minutes become hours – checking, liking, heart-ing, commenting, reading the next suggested article or watching just one more show? Whatever your digital kryptonite — online shopping, social media, video games, Netflix — it's so easy to get hooked.  

Without even thinking about it we spend hours in front of screens each day. Meanwhile, it can be hard to give ourselves 10 minutes to sit and meditate, curl up with a book, or be present with the person sitting across from us. There’s nothing inherently wrong with using social media or watching screens; the trouble is when these habits start taking more from us than they're giving.

Social media and screen addiction isn’t something to be ashamed or embarrassed about, but rather something that we can cultivate awareness around so that we can make choices that nourish and empower us rather than deplete, distract and demoralize us. 

The truth is that billions of dollars are being spent by ingenious people to feed this still new but growing addiction. Companies are using everything they know about how the brain works to keep us coming back for more. This can have an unsettling impact on our day-to-day lives. The good news is that we can build our awareness and understanding in order to shift our relationship with social media and screens and claim back a big chunk of time that we unwittingly give away each day. 

Social and news channels are designed to hook you and, as a result, leave us feeling hyper-stimulated and overwhelmed. Better containing the time you spend on these channels and practice finding a balance of staying informed and nourishing yourself with offline time.  

In the latest Calm Masterclass, Dr. Adam Alter, psychologist, academic and author of The New York Times bestseller, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology, discusses Social Media & Screen Addiction – and how to beat it:

Find his bestseller book here. The Dark Side of Screen Time with Adam Alter, PhD

Mindful Checklist

 I made this Mindful Checklist for the Center members, you can pick it up at the Soul Meet (it sits against the coffee counter in the back)  I added the texture full permissions so you can download it to your HD and print it out as a reminder for rl too.

- We start our day with being grateful, being grateful is the right state of our mind to begin a new day full of new opportunities. 

- Smile at yourself in the mirror, say you loud I love ME! Self-Love is the start of being a well balanced human being, many of us are constantly very critical on our self. Being more accepting and none judgmental is the start of a healthy relationship with ourself.

- Be kind to someone! Try to say a few nice words to someone or help someone. Even though you do this not for yourself, it will influence your mood and appreciation for yourself. 

- Have a positive thought about yourself. Doing this releases the feel good hormones like serotonin!

- Stay in the moment! When you find yourself lost in thoughts, ruminating about the past or worrying about the future, gently and lovingly bring yourself to the now. Appreciate the things that are now and focus on what and who is around you.

- Meditate! Find a few minutes every day to sit quiet and meditate, settling and finding some inner peace, as much as 2 minutes is helping and can create the habit of doing it every day. Close your eyes and bring your awareness to the breathe ♥

Mindful Thought: Conflict, COVID and Compassion

 Tonight I want to share with you a video Raeven shared with me last night: Conflict, COVID and Compassion

His Holiness the Dalai Lama engages in a dialogue on Conflict, COVID and Compassion with Nancy Lindborg, CEO of the United States Institute of Peace (USIP), and their Generation Change Fellows by video link from his residence in Dharamsala, India on August 12, 2020. For the past several years, USIP has been bringing young leaders from conflict-affected regions to Dharamsala, India to talk with His Holiness about how compassion and resilience are foundational to lasting peace.

Now because of covid it was a video conference.

I am a big fan of the Dalai Lama but this conversation was very inspiring. He talked about his commitment to our world.

Children allover the world get educated in schools about a huge array of things, mathematics, science, geology, language, literature and much more. All very useful things for our outer world. 

We learned sports, health and hygiene, how to make our bodies look good on the outside but nowhere do we learn about mental hygiene. 

Yet, handling thoughts and emotions, turning inwards to train our minds is not found in any school. And that is the only way to find inner peace. And when we ourselves find our inner peace, then our family can find inner peace, then our community can find inner peace and this would be the only way the world could come to genuine peace. 

Thinking about it, it makes so much sense and a sense of hopelessness arises because our societies are driven by economic growth, greed and lust for power. Where to start to change this? Yes, schools can start today to teach the children and in one generation we could have a world driven by kindness instead of financial gain.

For now let's start with ourselves. Practice Mindfulness and meditation, train our minds to handle our thoughts and emotions, to get rid of anger and fear and be kind and have compassion for others. And that is our first step to contribute to a better world ♥

Mindful Thought: Fulfilling expectations

Live Your Life for You, Not to Please Expectations

Do you sometimes feel like you don’t love your life? Like, deep inside, something is missing?Often this is because we allowed other people to influence our choices—we are trying to please their expectations. For example, you become a teacher because your father is, or a nurse because you want to do good in society. You volunteer to help the homeless, or to babysit your friend's children, not because it is what you love to do, but because you think it is the right thing to do and it is expected from you.

Social pressure is deceiving—we all become prey without noticing it. 

Pleasing others is like chasing a moving target. People will have multiple hopes for you. Social pressure fluctuates—others’ expectations will continually change.By trying to please everyone, we end up pleasing no one—ourselves included. Expectations are an illusion. That’s why most people don’t live the life they want. They feel frustrated and disappointed.

Many people bear resentment when the outcome of an event is less than they imagined it would be, even if their expectation was based on unreasonable assumptions.Frustration is the gap between what people expect from you and who you are.

To bridge that void, you must reframe your relationship with people’s expectations. Expectations create a social contract—it’s an implicit agreement between others and you. If you don’t push back, people will assume you are okay with it.

Speak up. Or people will continue invading you. If you don’t resist, not only do you legitimize the agreement, it becomes a social practice. Soon, you’ll start doing the same to others—when you let other people define your life, you want to prescribe theirs too.

Not expecting things from others is the first step to preventing people from dictating how you live. Life is a two-way street—when you realize that no one owes you anything, you stop expecting people to owe you anything either.No one knows yourself better than you do. No one but yourself can choose how you live.

1. Be kind to yourself

The first step to get rid of expectations is to treat yourself kindly. To take care of others, you have to put on your oxygen mask first—you can’t truly love other people if you don’t love yourself first. Accepting ourselves fully (flaws included) is the foundation for a long-term friendship. When we accept who we are, there’s no room for other’s expectations.Compassionate acts towards ourselves release the "feel-good" hormones. Increased levels of oxytocin make us feel comforted, calm, and connected.

2. Adjust the way you think.

You cannot control what others think about you, but you can choose how you talk to yourself. Your inner-talk can help or harm you. Learn to choose your words wisely. Your expectations can put you in a box—you are the only one who can set yourself free. Pay attention to your inner-dialogue—are you being kind to yourself or adding more pressure? Does your conversation focus on who you are and what you want to be? Or is it full of expectations of who you should be? 

3. Speak up.

People need limits—some because they are acting without noticing, others because they tend to impose their desires. Speak up. Don’t let them dictate who you are and what you should do. People will assume the social contract is active unless you explicitly break it. Learn to draw a line. You don’t need to be harsh, though. Just let others know when they are out of bounds—not everyone realizes when they are trying to define how you live.

4. Free yourself and free others.

When you remove your own preconceptions and expectations, you can do the same for others. Living the life you love is liberating—you don’t feel the pressure to please others. Similarly, you won’t need to impose your will on others either. When you take ownership of your life, other people feel empowered to follow suit. Expectations are an illusion—they add useless pressure to everyone. 

5. Stop judging, stop expecting.

Expectations derive from being judgmental—when someone can't accept how you behave, they expect you to change. Judgment adds frustration and negativity—perfectionists are never happy. When you let go of expectations, you create space to enjoy the here and now. Your life is not what should happen, but what is actually happening now. Learning to accept reality is hard, but it’s a significant step towards finding calm and peace. Removing expectations doesn’t mean lowering your bar, but rather letting go of the unnecessary pressure. Only when we are relaxed can we give our best.

Any moment is a turning point if you decide to make the most of it. You are in charge. Love your life. Accept the worst and hope for the best.

Weekend Zen: Guided Mindfulness Meditation on Controlling Negative Thoughts

 “We all have times throughout each day that our minds are invaded with negativity. Whether these thoughts are very up-front or buried deep in our subconscious... This guided mindfulness meditation session will seek to control those intrusive thoughts and bring about a clear, balanced, and positive outlook.” -MindfulPeace YouTube Channel

Kindness Club: Breaking Addiction to Negative Thinking

 Today at Kindness Club we enjoyed a talk from Eckhart Tolle about breaking addiction to negative thinking.  Tolle tells us that our brains become trained to feel rewarded by negative thinking and that even when there is nothing "wrong" in our worlds, we still have a tendency to seek out the negative.  Great video, only 14 minutes long, and Eckhart is lovely, funny and gentle as always. 

Mindful Thought: Sharing Mingyur Rinpoche

 I was listening to a conversation in the Waking Up app yesterday with Mingyur Rinpoche

 Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche is a much-loved and accomplished Tibetan Buddhist meditation teacher. With a rare ability to present the ancient wisdom of Tibet in a fresh, engaging manner, Rinpoche's profound teachings and playful sense of humor have endeared him to students around the world. His first book, The Joy of Living: Unlocking the Secret and Science of Happiness, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list and has been translated into over twenty languages.  In early June, 2011, Mingyur Rinpoche walked out of his monastery in Bodhgaya, India and began a ‘wandering retreat’ through the Himalayas and the plains of India that lasted four and a half years. When not attending to the monasteries under his care in India and Nepal, Rinpoche spends time each year traveling and teaching worldwide.

For more information on Mingyur Rinpoche or meditation, including a free video introduction to meditation course, visit tergar.org.

His approach of awareness and mindfulness is simple and clear. He says we are all born with awareness, kindness and wisdom, we just need to recognize it. 

If thoughts and emotions are clouds then simply be the sky, always blue.

I am gonna share a google talk with him, it is about one hour and it is called The Happiest Man on earth. And there is a reason for it, this man makes me smile from ear to ear.

Mindful Thought: Why are humans narcissistic and animals not?

 

Why are humans narcissistic and animals not and what can we learn from that?

Translated from an article from Mattias Desmet, Professor of Clinical Psychology at Ghent University, he studies and analyzes the role of narcissism in our society, in and out times of crisis.

The term narcissism comes from the myth of Narcissus, a young man who fell in love with his own reflection in the water, he was enticed so deeply that he ignored everyone and everything, and staring into the water, he languished and died. The myth bears witness to sovereign psychological insight in several respects.

Narcissism captivates and thrives, now more exuberant than ever before. 

The mirror image becomes addictive and - to use a fashionable comparison - is more dangerous than any virus. Selfies claim five times more victims than sharks, and in the pursuit of an idealized body image through extreme forms of sports, bodybuilding, plastic surgery, or dieting, the body itself often succumbs.

With the classic narcissistic personality, it is mainly the people around them that suffer the most, for example through psychological and physical terror within relationships and abuse of power in the workplace. 

Through history we see signs of rampant narcissism, manifested in the merciless exploitation and death of millions.

Narcissism has been the driving force in human cruelty since earliest times. Laws and treaties can temporarily limit its threat, but an intellectual understanding of narcissism is needed to get rid of it. 

Narcissism is a psychological conundrum. Where does the human fascination for the mirror image come from? And why is it accompanied by a lack of empathy and excessive jealousy, aggression and abuse of power? And remarkable: Why is the fascination for the mirror image and also the associated phenomenon of cruelty in animals missing?

Most animals do not even recognize themselves in the mirror, they do not notice the reflection or they regard it as a congener - and in those who do, it does not trigger any noteworthy reaction (see, for example, the punctuality test on bonobos and dolphins).

Charles Darwin noted that this is remarkably different in humans: when a human child first recognizes itself in the mirror, typically at the age of six to nine months while sitting on the arm of the mother who enthusiastically points to the reflection, then this is accompanied by an intense emotional release: the child exults and crows with pleasure.  It is as if it is having an aha experience, as if it suddenly found the answer to a question.

And it is. In the first months of life a child cannot form a mental-visual image of its own body. As a result, it does not know where its body stops and where the world surrounding it begins, it situates the sensations in it's own body but also in the people and objects surrounding it. Very concretely: if it gets an injection in the arm, it does not look specifically at its arm because it has no idea that the pain sensation is in that place.

The reverse is also true: the child feels the sensations of others directly in his own body. For example, through imitation of the mother's facial expressions, it takes over her world of experience in a curiously concrete and direct way (transitivism: if the child, for example, looks at someone being hit, the same grimace appears on his face and cries as if he is being hit himself). This radical empathic experience leads to a symbiotic bond between child and mother and to deep, mutual love (see, among other things, the mutual enthusiasm each time an imitation happens).

In this symbiotic but also chaotic experiential soup - which in adulthood only occurs in the dream experience, in which I and Other also constantly overlap - the child must get a grip through interactions with the mother figure to ensure her care and closeness. The young animal must also do this, but there too we encounter a fundamental difference with humans - the ultimate difference even.

The animal secures the bond with the nurturing animal through the exchange of signs - a series of cries and postures - that are closely related to what they refer to (one cry means danger, the other that food is on the way, etc.). 

The human child, on the other hand, is dependent on a system of exchange through a language use where every sound or gesture - every symbol. - can refer to endless things. For example, the sound "sun" can refer to something completely different, sun as in sunshine and son as in male child. What the care figure tries to convey through gestures and sounds is therefore never as clear to a child as to an animal.

This explains why the young child's face shows something during interactions that you will not see in any animal: a tense attention and a sentiment of question. This uncertainty fully persists even in adulthood. In each new encounter we wonder what exactly intonations, words, a look or a smile mean. Does the Other like me? Do I mean anything to them? Do they find me attractive? Human existence gravitates around these questions. 

Due to the shifting nature of its linguistic system, the human child is in a pressing uncertainty as to how it can gain control over its caretaker. When the mother enthusiastically points to the reflection, this uncertainty suddenly disappears. There, before its eyes, sharply defined, it sees who it must be to secure its place in the mother paradise. Hence the enthusiastic aha experience and the triumphant delight.

Because of the recognition, the child has for the first time a visual overall picture of its body and can for the first time - literally - draw a line / border around its own body. In order to avoid the reappearance of the underlying insecurity, it must engage in an aggressive, rivalry battle with every other that the mother's (or later love object) attention is also focused on: only one person can be the mother's object. 

To a certain extent this is necessary to build a stable ego structure, but with excessive narcissism the mental-visual boundary between self and the other becomes so thick and pronounced that the self, literally, becomes mentally locked up in the self-image and the original, symbiotic empathy in for the other and the surrounding world disappears almost completely.

The uncertainty that human language creates in our relationships explains our reaction and importance to our self/mirror image. Appearance and self image is used as a mean to secure oneself and an attempt to find symbiosis with the other but leads to isolation and destruction of the other.  The more we identify with the mirror image, the more we must surpass, belittle and even destroy others. Empathy decreases and we lose humanity.

It is also a form of self-destruction. All energy that is in the human being is absorbed by the outer shell. In psychotherapy, people who are strongly committed to appearances often say that they feel "empty".

The second failed attempt to cure this insecurity is the over-controlling of the relationship with the other. We also find this attempt at the group level: when the group becomes anxious and insecure, it grasps more and more forcefully to a shared ideal and formulates an ever-growing set of rules that become increasingly inconsistent and absurd. And just as on an individual level, the group is inevitably heading for self-destruction. Narcissistic competition will certainly not bring a solution.

For the time being, we have to wait for a real solution that truly harmonize humans and their social relationships - and the relationship with Mother Nature. No one can give those solutions just like that, but they must undoubtedly be sought in the direction of cultivating the conversation, learning the art of good speech.

In the mean time we can remind ourselves that we are all human beings and sensitive for the illusion that our own reflection could lead us to paradise.

Mindful Thought: The inner child

The cry we hear from deep in our hearts, comes from the wounded child within. Healing this inner child’s pain is the key to transforming anger, sadness, and fear. ~Thich Nhat HanhFrom: https://www.lionsroar.com/healing-the-child-within/