Conference Recordings Offer Mindfulness-Based Tools for Educators, Counselors, and Parents

Over the last decade, an increasing number of parents, children, educators, clinicians and researchers have studied and experienced the wide-ranging benefits of bringing mindfulness practice to youth in educational, clinical, and community settings. To help develop best practices within this growing movement, the University of California San Diego’s School of Medicine and Center for Mindfulness, along with Stressed Teens, developed the Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth conference, which took place in February 2012.

The first-of-its-kind conference was designed to engage professionals in the ongoing discussion of the field as well as to assist their professional growth, all within the context of a thought-provoking, collegial and collaborative environment.

“We are excited about sharing the conference audio and videos of this dynamic gathering to those who weren’t able to attend, and thereby extend the discussion across the globe to people interested in this work in all its forms,” said Steven D. Hickman, PsyD, Director, UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness. “Our deepest hope is that our efforts will support and deepen the important work being done, and foster even more profound impact in years to come.”

Publisher More Than Sound recorded over 20 hours of presentations and workshops with thought leaders from various disciplines (clinicians, educators and researchers), including the following keynote addresses:

Rick Hanson, PhD
Neuropsychologist and Author
Managing the Caveman Brain in the 21st Century

Susan Kaiser-Greenland, JD
Author, Educator, Co-Founder, Inner Kids
The Mindful Child: Teaching the New ABCs of Attention, Balance and Compassion

Amishi Jha, PhD
Psychologist and Researcher
University of Miami
From Dazed and Distracted to Attentive and Calm: What the Neuroscience of Mindfulness Reveals

Pamela Seigle, MS
Executive Director, Courage & Renewal NE

Chip Wood, MSW
Author and Educator, Facilitator
Courage & Renewal Northeast

Courage in Schools: Connecting Hearts and Minds in the Adult Community

The following workshops and breakout sessions are also available:

Gina M. Biegel, MA, LMFT
Psychotherapist and Author, Founder, Stressed Teens Program
Mindfulness for Professionals Working with Adolescents: A Training in the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program for Teens (MBSR-T)

Randye Semple, PhD
Clinical Psychologist and Author
Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Anxious Children
Introduction to Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy for Children (MBCT-C)

Megan Cowan
Co-Founder and Executive Director of Programs, Mindful Schools
Integrating Mindfulness into the K5 Classroom: Lessons Learned From Teaching Over 13,000 Students

Gina M. Biegel, MA, LMFT
Race to Right Here Right Now: An Introduction for Utilizing and Disseminating Mindfulness with Adolescents

M. Lee Freedman, MD
Child and Adolescent Psychiatrist, Co-Founder, Mindfulness Toronto, Founder, Mindful Families and School
Mindful Parents: Resilient Children: Teaching Mindful Parenting Practice through Group and Individual Psychotherapy

Joe Klein, LPC, CSAC
Founder and President Inward Bound Mindfulness Education
Sex, Drugs, Facebook and Ice Cream

Sam Himelstein, PhD
Psychotherapist, Researcher, and Mindfulness Teacher
and
Chris McKenna
Mindfulness Teacher & Executive Director, Mind Body Awareness Project
Teaching Mindfulness to Urban & At-Risk Adolescents

Amy Saltzman, MD
Mindfulness Teacher & Holistic Physician, Creator and Director: Still Quiet Place, Co-founder and Director: Association for Mindfulness in Education
Still Quiet Place: Proven Practices for Teaching Children and Teens the Skills for Peace and Happiness

Amy Garrett, PhD
Research Scientist Stanford University
Brain Abnormalities Associated with Mood and Anxiety Disorders in Adolescents

Nimrod Sheinman, ND
Naturopathic physician and mind-body expert, Founder, Israel Center for Mind-Body Medicine, Founder, The Mindful Language Project
Bringing the Soul Back to School: Lessons Learned from over 15 Years of Teaching Mindfulness and Mind-Body Health in Israeli Schools

The audio recordings and videos are a useful resource for psychologists, counselors, educators, health professionals and parents who are working with children and teens. To purchase the audio or streaming conference videos of individual talks or the full conference, and to learn more about each talk, visit More Than Sound. Presenter biographies are available here. Sample video clips are available on More Than Sound’s YouTube channel.

The UCSD Center for Mindfulness is planning the second annual Bridging Hearts & Minds conference, scheduled for February 1-3, 2013.

Elisha Goldstein’s “The Now Effect” Offered Ahead of Official Release at SD Conference This Weekend

Our friend and mindfulness colleague, Dr. Elisha Goldstein’s highly praised new book The Now Effect from Simon and Schuster isn’t scheduled for release until February 21, but we have arranged a special early release so that he can offer it for sale at this weekend’s conference “Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth” in San Diego. Elisha will be onsite at the conference to sign copies and talk about this groundbreaking “smart book” that incorporates “smart tags” linking to videos of him leading people in mindfulness practice (electronic versions of the book will have the videos embedded right in the pages).

Early praise is stacking up for this wonderful new book and we are excited to be the first public venue where it has been offered to the public. Noted mindfulness authorities including Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach and Sharon Salzberg have already noted the book’s powerful message and practical approach. One of the co-developers of Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy, Dr. Zindel Segal, said “Written with a lightness of touch and chock full of practical advice, this book is a broad and generous portal for those interested in bringing the power of present moment awareness more fully into their lives”. 

A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook by Bob Stahl and Elisha is the book we use in our MBSR courses because of the clarity and practicality that it affords, and The Now Effect promises even more of that. If you are able to attend the conference this weekend, walk-in registration is still available, and be sure and take a look at The Now Effect at our bookstore (or have him sign a copy of either book).

 

2011 in review

The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.

Here’s an excerpt:

The concert hall at the Syndey Opera House holds 2,700 people. This blog was viewed about 36,000 times in 2011. If it were a concert at Sydney Opera House, it would take about 13 sold-out performances for that many people to see it.

Click here to see the complete report.

SPECIAL NOTICE: Conference Early Bird Deadline Extended to December 31, 2011!

The excitement generated by those attending and presenting at the first annual Bridging The Hearts & Minds of Youth Conference in San Diego is growing daily, and we are happy to announce an extension of our Early Bird Registration deadline through the end of 2011! Register now to save $45 on general, faculty/staff, and student registrations.

Please note that there are additional savings available for groups of 3 or more attendees, and continuing education credits are available for psychologists, other psychotherapists (MFTs and LCSWs) as well as newly-approved AMA PRA Category 1 Credit™ for physicians.

If you have already registered please help spread the word to your colleagues and friends so they can take advantage of our extended early bird savings.

Wishing you a happy holiday season,
a safe and insightful new year,
and we look forward to being with you in San Diego in February!

Teaching and Practicing Flex-Ability: Wondering Questions about Eating Behaviors

Char Wilkins, MSW, LCSW

 Char Wilkins, MSW, LCSW, is a mindfulness-based psychotherapist specializing in women’s issues. She is a certified MBSR instructor and trains professionals nationwide in mindfulness modalities,  and is a co-teacher for the upcoming 5-day professional training entitled “Mindful Eating, Conscious Living” offered through the UCSD Center for Mindfulness, October 2-7, 2012 in Petaluma, California at the EarthRise Retreat Center. She will be presenting a teleconference entitled “The Power of Mindfulness for Client and Clinician” through The Center for Mindful Eating on September 12, 2011. For more information, visit the TCME Training and Workshops page.

I hear the word “flexibility” and I think of backbends or Cirque du Soleil or a yoga pose no one should attempt unless it was the only way out of a burning building. When my yoga instructor says to put my right foot forward and left foot back, bend the knees, lift the pelvis and tighten the abs while lowering my chest to the ground as my mind remains relaxed and my hands are in pray position – all the neural connections in my  brain  needed to move my limbs suddenly and completely misfire. As a child I sailed through the Hokey Pokey. What happened?

Back then it was just a matter of flapping my arms and legs and wiggling around. It was fun. As I grew, so did the shoulds, musts and have-tos – as in “I have to get this right.” It all became work. My mind began to tighten around “right.” And if there was a right, there certainly was a wrong – along with good/bad, all/nothing, too much/not enough. “Rigid mortis” had set in.

This is the condition our clients with disordered eating patterns struggle with every day. As professionals we give this way of thinking a variety of names: depression, anxiety, bulimia, resistance, binge eating and so on. But what they tell us is that they feel “stuck” – caught in a seemingly endless cycle that flings them from one extreme to the other.

Of course when someone has their eating “under control” they want it to stay that way, worry that it might change, and are not interested in being flexible about their straight-and-narrow food plan. And when eating behaviors are out of control, patients want you to tell them what to do “right now” to change or stop these habituated patterns.

Those of us in the helping professions may feel we are being pulled, pummeled or manipulated by those we are trying to help, and that may trigger reactive thoughts and feelings for us. Nurturing the middle road is often a challenging practice, for both  clinician and patient. As professionals it is important that we embody flexibility so patients might see that there is life between the highs and lows that is neither unsafe nor dull; it’s simply different from what they’ve known. Flexibility is inherent in mindfulness practice, and just like other aspects of mindfulness, it can be cultivated.

There are many ways to encourage flexibility through the mind and the senses. One way is for the clinician to foster a non-judgmental curiosity about whatever the client brings to a session. Recently a client announced to me that she had failed again because she’d binged after two “good” weeks. She said she knew she was going to binge because work had been “just too awful.” As she drove home she was aware that she was ruminating about what, where and how she’d eat. When she got home she went straight to the freezer for her ice-cream stash. “Why, why, why do I do that?” she agonized.

As a clinician the temptation is to go with her question and wonder with her why she did do that. But the more I sit with people struggling with food, eating – any habit they don’t want – the more I hear The Critic in a “why” question. Why this, why that, why didn’t you, why did you? What I have found is that a question that starts with “why” is usually just a disguise for right or wrong.

I invited her to put both feet on the ground, take a breath in and out, and see if she could notice any sensation on the bottom of her right foot:  the feel of the shoe against her foot, the texture of her sock, a tingling warmth or coolness in her toes. This is a simple way to interrupt a runaway thought-train through the use of physical sensation. It creates a pause during which I can offer what I call a “wondering question.”

Wondering questions use the word “what” rather than “why.” Unlike a wooden yardstick, rigid in its measurements, “what” questions open the heart and help the mind feel more spaciousness in which to consider a more flexible approach.

Setting aside any agenda we might have to help clients see what we see as the best direction allows us to travel with the client rather than be a backseat driver.  In adopting a “what” stance we can inquire in many directions. We might ask what about work turned her mind towards this familiar pattern. What might have been the emotion that drove this behavior, and were there any physical sensations in her body that she noticed? We could wonder what she might have really needed in that moment. What is she experiencing now as she tells this story? What was  it in her that knew she was going to binge? In this way, we help point her to her own inherent wisdom.

Your client may or may not be able to answer these questions in the beginning, but just as a lens can go from a narrow focus to an expanded landscape, you are suggesting that there is another way to be with habitual patterns. You model and offer her the possibility of being curious rather than critical about reactive automatic behavior, and more flexible in responding to difficulty and disappointment.

It’s the all-or-nothing, good-or-bad, right-or-wrong thinking that keeps us and our clients feeling frustrated and helpless. When there are no bad foods, stupid choices or failings, and when compassionate curiosity replaces the critic, then every experience becomes useful rather than something to be ashamed of or gotten rid of. Our clients’ minds and hearts can open and are no longer rigid with fear, and neither are ours.

Char Wilkins, MSW, LCSW, is a mindfulness-based psychotherapist specializing in women’s issues. She is a certified MBSR instructor and trains professionals nationwide in mindfulness modalities. She can be contacted at info@amindfulpath.com.

How We Can Work With a Fear of Food

Jan Chozen Bays, is a physician, Zen teacher, author of the book Mindful Eating, and a co-teacher for the upcoming 5-day professional training entitled “Mindful Eating, Conscious Living” offered through the UCSD Center for Mindfulness, October 2-7, 2012 in Petaluma, California at the EarthRise Retreat Center.

Jan Chozen Bays, M.D.

Eating is one of our most enjoyable activities. And yet, even in this land of plenty, so many people come to our offices, asking for help with an unbalanced, unhappy relationship with food. Patients have come to me in despair, saying, “There’s nothing left that I can eat. Beef contains hormones, chickens are raised under cruel conditions, salmon is endangered, cheese and eggs have too much saturated fat, tofu contains estrogen-like compounds, I won’t eat anything that’s processed, I think I’m sensitive to gluten, I read that the nightshade family makes arthritis worse, and dairy products give me gas. “

This form of distress over eating correctly (nutritionally and environmentally correctly) has become so common it has a clinical name: orthorexia.

Food anxieties may be based upon accurate information, inaccurate information or upon fear of losing control. Often people misinterpret normal bodily symptoms. For example, intestinal gas does not mean that a person is allergic to all dairy products and thus must avoid them entirely. It may be the result of gulping air while drinking; it may signal the need for lactose-reduced milk, enzyme supplements or a switch to sensible rationing of dairy intake. Some people can eat cheese toppings or a cup of yoghurt without problems, but do experience bloating and gas if they drink a glass of milk.

Even true severe food allergies can be amenable to desensitization, as recent research work with children allergic to peanuts has shown. In studies in the UK and America, severely allergic children were given, under medical supervision, increasing amounts peanuts, starting with “dust.” Eventually they could eat about 30 peanuts without symptoms. This enabled them and their parents to live free of constant fear that they would accidentally eat a peanut and die.

It can help to make a list with clients of the foods or categories of foods (like carbohydrates) that they fear eating. Go over the list and categorize them as to source (Eg. correct or incorrect information). Gently correct any misinformation. Invite the client to bring a stance of mindful and gentle curiosity as they become aware, for one week, of how the mind interprets and jumps to conclusions about bodily symptoms, (Eg. interpreting abdominal discomfort as anything from hunger to allergies to cancer.) Encourage them to return the mind’s awareness to the arising and disappearing of physical sensations alone, without any interpretation. Encourage them to try small amounts of foods they have been avoiding, one food at a time.

Anxiety and fear can destroy our natural pleasure in eating. Mindfulness brings an attitude of investigation and discovery that can restore a sense of balance and ease as we choose, prepare and savor our food.

Mindfulness: How Does It Work?

Our colleagues Mark Lau and Andrea Grabovac have written a fascinating and groundbreaking paper introducing a Buddhist psychological model of mindfulness that we think is worth reading. Here is a brief introduction (and link to the full paper).

By Mark Lau, Ph.D. and Andrea Grabovac, MD, FRPCP

Mark Lau

Interest in mindfulness-based interventions (MBIs) continues to grow, fueled by studies demonstrating their clinical effectiveness.  More recently, researchers have been examining specific psychological and cognitive mechanisms by which MBIs may exert their clinical effects.  Clarification of specific mechanisms will allow further optimization of these therapies.  With this goal in mind we introduce a Buddhist psychological model (BPM) in the June issue of the journal Mindfulness based on the psychological framework of the Theravada Buddhist contemplative traditions from which many of the techniques used in MBIs are adapted.

Andrea Grabovac

Briefly, the BPM provides a detailed, step by step description of how the habitual reactions of attachment and aversion to feelings are the genesis of a cascade of mental events that lead to suffering.  According to the BPM, the subjective sense of a continuous stream of consciousness is made up of numerous, discrete sense impressions and mental events (sensations), most of which occur outside of one’s awareness.  Each sensation inexorably carries with it a feeling tone, which falls into one of three categories: pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral (neither pleasant nor unpleasant). The term “feeling tone,” as used in this context, is not synonymous with emotions, such as fear, joy, or anger; rather it is an immediate and spontaneous experience that arises with each sensation.  These rapid and transient feeling tones, which are often unnoticed, are the key trigger for habitual attachment (holding onto a sensation) and aversion (pushing away a sensation) reactions.

According to the BPM, mindfulness has its effect by short circuiting the above process. It does this in two main ways:

1. training attention regulation skills
2. insight

Training attention results in an improved ability to selectively orient one’s attention away from the proliferation of mental events following attachment/aversion reactions.  This is possible because attentional resources are limited: one cannot be focused intently on an object (such as the breath) and engaging in ruminative thought patterns simultaneously.  Mindfulness training improves both the ability to recognize the occurrence of unhelpful mental proliferation, and the ability to stop rumination by focusing attention elsewhere.  Facility with these skills allows ruminative thoughts to be treated as mental events rather than aspects of reality of self.  All current MBIs train attention regulation as their primary mode of therapeutic action.

The other mechanism by which mindfulness reduces suffering (mental proliferation) is via insight.  Insight is a direct, non-conceptual understanding achieved through the repeated examination (via mindfulness practice) of the following three characteristics that are present in all sensations:

1. impermanence (sensations are transient – they arise and pass away)
2. unsatisfactoriness (attachment/aversion to the feeling of sensations leads to suffering)
3. not-self (sensations do not contain or constitute any lasting, separate entity that could be called a self)

Mindfulness of these characteristics results in progression through a series of insights leading to enlightenment, as described in the Theravada Buddhist tradition.  A side effect of such insight is a long-term reduction in habitual attachment/aversion reactions and a consequent decrease in mental proliferation and rumination.

For a more detailed description of the above, please see the free, full version of an article describing the Buddhist Psychological Model here, online first.   We hope that this model will help clarify the mechanisms of mindfulness as taught in MBIs and stimulate further discussion and understanding of the complex, multifaceted nature of mindfulness and its allied disciplines.

You can reach Andrea Grabovac, the first author on the paper, via email at agrabovac@bccancer.bc.ca

 

“Holy Action: Reflections on Taking Upon Ourselves Greater Responsibility for the Increasing Availability of Mindfulness in the World.”

Saki Santorelli, EdD, MA, Executive Director of the Center for Mindfulness opens the 9th Annual Conference with a Keynote address entitled “Holy Action: Reflections on Taking Upon Ourselves Greater Responsibility for the Increasing Availability of Mindfulness in the World.”
(Excerpt) March 30, 2011

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) & Meditation Studies Show Brain-Changing Results

Are you more aware of the “here and now?” Do you feel your developing enhanced learning skills, and your memory is improving?

If so perhaps you have participated in one of our MBSR Programs. Recent studies of MBSR participants are showing these benefits along with an increased ability to regulate emotions.

In the article from the Toronto-based The Globe and Mail, “Meditation alters your grey matter, studies show,” Adrianna Barton reports on these finding, and more.

This article includes insights from Dr. Zindel Segal, professor of psychiatry at the University of Toronto, who developed Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) to treat depression, along with resources for MBSR programs in cities across Canada.

Find information relevant to our own upcoming MBSR classes, special events, upcoming all-day sessions, and other things of interest to people practicing, or inquiring about mindfulness at UCSD Center for Mindfulness.

Mindfulness in the Classroom? Of course! March Conference Will Explore This Vital Topic

The topic (and more importantly, the practice) of mindfulness has exploded in the world of education and the 2011 Mindfulness in Education Conference, entitled Mindfulness: Foundation for Teaching and Learning is a wonderful example of that.  Our colleague and friend, Susan Kaiser Greenland will present the keynote address, entitled: The New ABCs – Attention, Balance, and Compassion and she will be supported by an impressive lineup of powerful speakers from the fields of education and of mindfulness. For professionals looking to take this work into the classroom, American University in Washington, D.C. is the place to be on March 18-20, 2011!