Cultivating an Inner Implicit Holding Environment Practicing - - PDF document

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Cultivating an Inner Holding Environment

Vallecitos Mountain Retreat Center

The Roles of Mindfulness

• Practicing Therapist
• Mindfulness Informed

Psychotherapy

• Mindfulness Based

Psychotherapy

Implicit Explicit

How It Works

Fly

Overwhelmed?

Capacity to bear experience Intensity of experience

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The Thinking Disease

• Review past

pleasure and pain

• Try to maximize

future pleasure and avoid future pain

How Does Mindfulness Help?

• Reinforces experiential approach
• Helps free us from believing in our thoughts
• Reduces narcissistic orientation
• Connects us to the world beyond our

personal pleasure and pain

Decisions, Decisions

• 1. Which skills to emphasize?
• 2. Formal or informal practice?
• 3. Which objects of attention?
• 4. Religious or secular practices?
• 5. Narrative or experiencing mode?
• 6. Relative or absolute truth?
• 7. Turning toward safety or sharp points?

Core Practice Skills

• 1. Concentration (focused attention)
• 2. Mindfulness per se (open monitoring)
• 3. Acceptance and Compassion

Focused Attention vs. Open Monitoring

• Concentration (FA)
• Choose an object

and follow it closely

• Mindfulness (OM)
• Attend to whatever
• bject rises to

forefront of consciousness

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Not Knowing Beginner’s Mind Acceptance Loving-kindness Practice

• “Metta” practices
• May I be happy,

peaceful, free from suffering

• May my loved
• nes be happy. . .
• May all beings be
• happy. . .

Motivational Systems .

Seeking pleasure Achieving and Activating Affiliative Soothing/safety Well-being Threat-focused Protection & Safety Seeking Activating/Inhibiting

Anger, anxiety, disgust Drive, excitement, vitality Contentment, safety, connection

Objects of Attention

• Feet touching ground
• Sights and sounds of nature
• Taste of food
• Sound of bell
• Breath in belly
• Mantra
• Air at tip of nose

Course Subtle

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Timing is Everything

Turning toward Safety I

• Outer or distal focus
• Walking Meditation
• Listening Meditation
• Nature Meditation
• Eating Meditation
• Open eye practices

Turning toward Safety II

• Inner focus
• Mountain Meditation
• Guided Imagery
• Metta Practice
• DBT techniques

Turning Toward the Sharp Points

• Moving toward anything

unwanted or avoided

• How is it experienced in

the body?

• Pain, fear, sadness,

anger

• Unwanted images or

memories

• Urges toward

compulsive behaviors

Different Strokes

• Need for frequent adjustment of

exercises

• Elicit feedback about the experience
• Both during and after practice
• Titrate between Safety and Sharp

Points

When Mindfulness of Inner Experience Can Be Harmful

• When overwhelmed

by traumatic memories

• When terrified of

disintegration, loss

• f sense of self
• When suffering from

psychosis

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Life Preservers

• Concentration

Practices

• Stepping out of the

thought stream

• Eyes open, external

sensory focus

• Ground, trees, sky,

wind, sounds

Relative Truth

• Human story
• Success & Failure
• Pleasure & Pain
• Longing
• Hurt
• Anger
• Envy
• Joy
• Pride

Absolute Truth

• Anicca

(impermanence)

• Dukkha

(unsatisfactoriness)

• Anatta (no enduring,

separate self)

Processing Trauma

1. Open to painful emotions 2. Explore the facts of trauma 3. See it through lens of dependent origination 4. Develop compassion

Anatta

The Problem With Selfing

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Therapeutic Benefits of Glimpsing Anatta

• Increased affect tolerance
• Radical acceptance of parts
• Freedom from self-esteem concerns
• Deeper connection to others

3) Freedom from Self-Esteem Concerns

What Defines Me?

• Physical beauty
• Athletic talent
• Financial status
• Artistic creativity
• Academic degree
• Designer outfit
• Alma matter

Lake Wobegon

Where all the women are strong, all the men are good looking, and all the children are above average.

The Failure of Success

• The pain of I, me, me, mine
• Narcissistic recalibration
• Impossibility of winning consistently

Wrong Wall?

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It’s Getting Worse Narcissistic Personality Inventory

• I just want to be reasonably happy
• I want to amount to something in the eyes of the world
• If I ruled the world it would be a better place
• The thought of ruling the world scares the hell out of me
• I am much like everybody else
• I am an extraordinary person
• I always know what I’m doing
• Sometimes I’m not sure of what I’m doing

Egos Inflating Over Time: A Cross‐Temporal Meta‐Analysis of the Narcissistic Personality Inventory

Journal of Personality, Volume 76, Issue 4

He’s just an ordinary kid.

• - Barry Magid (Ordinary Mind)

Self-Esteem Autobiography

I get my money from Mommy.

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Connecting to Others

Love Self-Esteem

Life in a Space Suit

• Defenses against

pain insulate us from one another

• We imagine they

keep us safe, but they leave us more vulnerable

“Do unto others as you would have them do unto you”

It’s not just a commandment, but a law of nature.

Judgments

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Make a connection, not an impression.

It’s About Other People Service

Embracing Insignificance

Poor Prognosis

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King of England, 1387

Wat Tham Sua

Tiger Cave Temple Krabi, Thailand

Therapeutic Progress

”mine” about me Not about me about me ”mine” about me Not about me

• - Adapted from Engler & Fulton

Why Are You Unhappy? Because 99.9% of everything you think, and everything you do, is for yourself. And there isn’t one.

• - Wei Wu Wei