Mindful Matters: Nourishing Our Wellbeing in Clinical Practice

by Chris Gauthier

There are lots of people, many of them healthcare professionals, who are serving this world by caring for others. Something within some of them is so completely synchronous with the desire to heal others that there is nothing in this life they would rather do. The fact that there are people so committed to helping others become whole is awe-inspiring. However, too many times the basic premise of healing is forgotten: we must heal ourselves if we have intentions of healing others, so we can better serve all.

With the world of medicine constantly changing, areas of improvement in patient care are abound while its practitioners continue to meekly manage mindful self-care rather haphazardly. In America, this recent structural revolution in the medical industry, regardless of personal opinions and politics on the subject, is significant. The demand for physicians, psychologists, and other medical practitioners is exponentially growing. Medical professionals that do well in their care – because let’s face it, we have or know someone who has had a needlessly negative experience seeking quality care, can be likened to an oasis in this increasingly desert-esque landscape. How do we as practitioners, continue to offer the top care that we do, while combating increasing instances of burn-out, fatigue, and a general lack luster experience where on occasion we may dip our toes into the depths of existential darkness? With greater work loads and less time that we do not have, it is imperative for us to find ways to care for ourselves. These sharp changes in the field require equally acute transformations of focus.

There is another movement germinating in this field within the western context that proffers a way for us to take care of ourselves so that we can do what we love: take care of others. This movement is towards mindfulness. Mindfulness in clinical practice is essential to thriving long-term in the duty of serving our patients to the best of our abilities. Mick Krasner, MD FACP practices primary care internal medicine in Rochester NY and teaches that the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. Going strong after 12 years of integrating Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction into the lives of his patients, medical students and various health professionals, Mick might be on to something. A plethora of research on this topic shows an improvement in quality of care of patients, and an increase in well being for the health professionals who practice it. An example of one of the aspects whereby we can incorporate mindfulness is within the context of communication education with our colleagues.

Howard B. Beckman et. al. published a fascinating study exploring mindfulness-based interventions with practitioners, finding that these kinds of mindful communications skills when learned and practiced, promote a sense of community and an increase in time devoted to personal growth. In the paper, “The Impact of a Program in Mindful Communication on Primary Care Physicians,” they conduct in-depth interviews with physicians who had completed a specific 52-hour mindful communication course, which had known effects of reducing distress and burnout as well as increasing empathetic capacities. Generally there were three main themes that surfaced through the randomized qualitative data: 1) sharing personally the experiences from medical practice with other colleagues in the class setting reduced professional isolation, 2) increased skill sets to listen attentively to patients, 3) developing a greater sense of self-awareness is a positive experience. It is clear here as is true in other studies, that learning how to engage in mindfulness practice (and practicing!) does tremendous good for the individual and by proxy, for the community as a whole.

This education in mindfulness has ineffable multi-facetted value, but we already don’t have enough time as it is! So what do we do? Well, one way is by looking for those CE’s that will offer us this kind of education that will teach us to nourish ourselves so we can continue to do the important work that we do. Being aware of the consequences, good and bad, of our decisions we make for ourselves and about ourselves is one of the pillars of this mindfulness journey to creating the life we want to live. We can seek out continuing education courses that we have to do anyway, that will also aid us in this journey towards taking care of ourselves therefore enabling us to sustainably care for others.

We are delighted Dr. Krasner is coming to San Diego on May 11, 2013 to present a daylong workshop on mindful practice entitled “Mindfulness in Clinical Practice: Our Patients, Ourselves.” This event will include an hour-long presentation on the Neuroscience of Mindfulness by Tom Chippendale, MD, Director of Neuroscience at Scripps Health and longtime MBSR teacher. The day-long training has been approved by the AMA PRA for Category 1 Credit.

Work Cited:

Beckman, Howard B., MD, Melissa Wendland, Christopher Mooney, MA, Michael S. Krasner, MD, Timothy E. Quill, MD, Anthony L. Suchman, and Ronald M. Epstein, MD. “The Impact of a Program in Mindful Communication on Primary Care Physicians.” Academic Medicine 87.6 (2012): 1-5. Print.

Krasner, M. S., R. M. Epstein, H. Beckman, A. L. Suchman, B. Chapman, C. J. Mooney, and T. E. Quill. “Association of an Educational Program in Mindful Communication With Burnout, Empathy, and Attitudes Among Primary Care Physicians.” JAMA: The Journal of the American Medical Association 302.12 (2009): 1284-293. Print.

About the Author:

Chris Gauthier is an alumnus of the University of California, San Diego with a degree in Cognitive Science and a focus in Neuroscience. He has many passions, most revolving around skills of wholeness, health, and self-discovery. Chris is affiliated with the UCSD Center for Mindfulness. He also travels and presents a variety of topics in a workshop style, mostly to college-level minds. Mr. Chris Gauthier can be reached at: chris.a.gauthier@gmail.com.

Take This Job and….

By Vicki Zakrzewski, Ph.D.
Education Director, Greater Good Science Center

Wait! Here are some research-based ways teachers and
principals can rejuvenate their passion for their jobs in the new
year.

I’ve always thought that educators are some of the luckiest people in
the world. No really, just hear me out: Yes, the work is harder than
many people understand and so many of them are underpaid, but it’s
also one of the most inherently meaningful jobs a person can do.
And that’s no small thing.

(Photo Credit Isaac L Koval)

Researchers have found that people who see their work as meaningful, or having some special significance, experience lower levels of job
stress and higher levels of job satisfaction, motivation, and performance. Finding meaning in our work also protects us against burnout—a serious issue for teachers.

Yet, in all the crazy busyness of managing a classroom and leading
schools (this applies to administrators as well!), it’s very easy to forget
why you’re doing this job in the first place; the meaning might have
slowly leaked out over the years. But it’s possible to get it back. As you move forward with your work in the new year, I encourage you to take some time and reflect on the meaningful aspects of your work. To help, I suggest writing down your reflections, as scientists have found that journaling about positive
experiences can improve our health. Revisiting what you’ve written can also help sustain you during times of intense pressure and challenges.

To guide you in this process, I’ve assembled a list of research-based
thought-prompts—ideas to get you thinking about how you derive a
sense of meaning from your important work. You can use them either
on your own or with your colleagues. Administrators might also
consider sending these exercises home with teachers to share collectively at the next staff meeting—a great way to promote a
positive school culture!

1) Remember why you became a teacher in the first place. Was
it to make a difference in children’s lives or society in general? Or
maybe because you wanted the variety, the creative outlet, or the
daily challenges that teaching offers? Perhaps you were greatly
inspired by a teacher and wanted to give other children the same
experience.
For some people, teaching is a calling, which researchers believe
involves a transcendent summons beyond oneself and a desire to
serve humanity. When people feel “called” to do their jobs or if they
see that their work has a definite purpose that reflects who they are,
the work naturally feels deeply meaningful because it connects them
to their personal values.

2) Recall those moments when teaching made you feel ALIVE—
as if you were “running on all cylinders.” Meaning can be derived
from those times when you are personally immersed and intrinsically
motivated by your work. Most likely, this happened because you were
expressing your “authentic self”—the matching of your actions to your
perception of your true self.
When I was teaching, I experienced these moments with project-based
learning. No pedagogical method excited me more than helping
students apply their learning through self-created projects. Here was
an opportunity for students to develop their creativity and innovation
and teamwork skills—things that I highly valued in my work and in
myself. (A childhood spent creating haunted houses and elaborate
plays with friends had to lead somewhere…)

3) Think of a time when you made a difference in a student’s
life. Work becomes meaningful when you believe you have the power
and ability to make a difference. Teachers impact students’ lives all the
time—sometimes to a greater degree then they realize.
I’ll never forget the note I received from the mother of one of my
students who had a serious speech impediment. She thanked me
profusely for helping her son to believe in himself and to once again
love school. I had no idea the difference I had made in her child’s life,
but it deepened my appreciation for the tremendous responsibility that
comes with teaching—and hence, enhanced the meaning of my work.

4) Appreciate your colleagues. Our relationships with others often
create the most meaning in our lives—both at work and at home—
especially if they’re comforting and supportive. Teaching can be very
isolating, so it’s a big deal when teachers come together to share their
knowledge, accomplish a project, or just to ask, “How’s it going?”
As a new educator, I particularly appreciated the teachers who offered
their support and told me that the first year is always the hardest.
When I became an administrator, I worked hard to create caring
relationships among the staff because of the special significance these
relationships held for me as a teacher.

5) Reflect on the contribution you are making to the world.
Work becomes meaningful when we feel connected to something
larger than ourselves. On those days, when it seems like all your
efforts are infinitesimal in their impact, remember that they’re not:
When teachers consider how they can make a profound difference in
each of their students’ lives (see #3 above), it doesn’t take much to
realize how each of these lives adds up to a bigger whole, exerting
tremendous influence over the world in which we live.
In my workshops for teachers and administrators, I like to end with a
quote from Williams James: “Act as if what you do makes a difference.
It does.” If I could post this in every classroom in the world, I would—
just as a gentle reminder to you and everyone around you how
important and meaningful your job is.

Wishing you a very peaceful—and meaningful—new year.

Teachers and administrators who would like to learn more methods for
renewing their passion for their work might be interested in attending
these two upcoming conferences:

Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth: Mindfulness in Clinical
Practice, Education and Research
February 1-3, 2013 Catamaran Hotel, San Diego, CA
Presented by the UCSD School of Medicine and the UCSD Center for
Mindfulness, this conference is for people who want to develop the
skills and competencies to teach mindfulness to today’s youth and
learn what science has to say about this kind of work.

Practicing Mindfulness & Compassion
March 8, 2013 Craneway Pavilion Conference Center OR Live Webcast
This day-long conference presented by the Greater Good Science Center at UC Berkeley and featuring a keynote by Jon Kabat-Zinn, will illuminate the connections between mindfulness and compassion, focusing on how mindfulness can deepen relationships, enhance
caregiving, and build compassion.

Exploring the Many Benefits of Mindfulness in Education, Breathing In, Breathing Out

by Bill Madigan, Vice Principal, King Chavez High School as originally posted on the Adventures in College & Career Readiness (AVID) blog 12-4-2012.

I speed walked across trolley tracks as I traveled between the two small campuses of King Chavez High School.  I had suddenly been hired as a vice principal, knowing little of what that really meant.  My thoughts danced awkwardly with several new partners: a daunting “to do” list of mentoring new teachers, creating curriculum for an advisory, and a bigger ambition, figuring the best way to introduce AVID to this ripe family of children perfectly suited for AVID magic.

My mind buzzed, really.  As I raced to the “A” street site, homeless people lining my path, my ears began ringing, slowly increasing in volume.  A rather standard sign of stress – not negative stress, actually, for me at that time, but stress all the same.

I purposely began to focus on my breathing: in through the nose, out through the mouth, in through the nose, out through the mouth.  Within about 20 breaths, the ringing had subsided.  This exercise took a little over a minute.  What happened to the excited state of stress?  In terms of neuroscience and psycho-biology, my brain had a new focus, which decreased my heart rate, reduced the adrenaline released into my blood, and lowered the stress hormone from hell: cortisol.  Blood pressure dropped and a deep-brain loop of calm replaced a loop of anxiety.

This is called mindfulness.  Mindfulness is the intentional grounding and focusing of our attention on the current moment.  This can be done in the manner I described, the traditional breathing way, or in other ways like closely observing an object: your hands, a piece of food, or a visual focus point, among others.  We have all heard the command “take a deep breath” especially in education or to “count to 10.”

Years ago, I had an emotionally disturbed young man in an at-risk program who would occasionally start to scream, “The walls is breathin; the walls is breathin!”  He would do this in the middle of class.  I found through trial and error that the best remedy was to ask him to take my big broom and sweep the hall all the way around my building.  This would take him three or four minutes.  Like a miracle, he would come back a different brain.  He had a simple mundane task to re-focus his attention.

Dr. Richard Davidson out of the University of Wisconsin at Madison, is a, if not the, father of research into mindfulness.  He is the neuroscientist who traveled to India to study meditation and its effects on the brain.  Dr. Davidson has also directed the focus in neuroscience away from purely cognitive processes to look at emotions and their role in health, memory, attention, and motivation.  When I first attended his “Symposium on Emotion” five years ago, there were roughly 10 to 20 studies per month focused on meditation.  Now there are several hundred a month.

The findings are universal: continued mindful practice has several effects on brain function and health.  Many studies have also avoided the use of the loaded terminology like “meditation” or “mindfulness,” or “TM” (transcendental meditation), preferring to call the practice “directed focus exercises.”  Their results are the same.

Drum roll! The top effects of mindfulness are:

The reductions of blood pressure, cortisol in our blood, among many other hormonal effects, have obvious positive consequences for our health.  There are also positive findings for anger and even pain management in the raft of literature.

Yet, the ability to “focus on one thing” stands out to me as a holy grail in learning.  Secondly, the ability to reduce stress before high stakes tests also sounds like an AVID “go-to” practice.  And since AVID anchors learning in teams, families and groups of learners, improving relational capacity sounds darn good, too.

Dr. Steven Hickman, director of the UCSD Center for Mindfulness told me he thought the greatest positive result of mindfulness practice is increased compassion and desire for connection.  He said that, “When we clear the decks, what bubbles up are the deepest natural urges of our beings: compassion and connection.”  When we stop fighting, judging or controlling in our environment and relations, we actually have a natural, more effortless capacity for kindness and creativity.  When the primitive brain, especially the amygdala, is on high alert, our most creative and most advanced brain is nearly shut off: “I was so upset I just . . .”  You fill in the blank.  We act most primitively when we are most threatened.  No compassion bubbles up.  The neural pathways are chemically shut off.  We just react.  Mindfulness reduces the feeling of threat, reduces the fear of losing control, and over time gives us the space to be creative, compassionate and connected.

I just can’t forget the immediate relief of that high stress ringing in my ears as I traveled from one part of my new exciting life to another.

Take a deep breath: In through the nose, out through the mouth.

_________

For a great video on the topic, go to:

The UCSD Center for Mindfulness is pleased to note that along with Bill Madigan (author of this blogpost),  several representatives from AVID will be attending the 2013 Bridging the Hearts & Minds of Youth Conference: Mindfulness in Clinical Practice, Education and Research. If this is an area of interest for you, please consider attending too!

Can self-compassion improve through mindfulness?

This post originally appeared on the National Institute for the Clinical Application of Behavioral Medicine (NICABM) blog, and is written by Ruth Buczynski, PhD

You shouldn’t kick yourself when you’re down . . .

. . . but sometimes it’s hard not to. Even if we’re compassionate toward others, we can still be our own worst critics. Mindfulness meditation really works. And self-compassion is one of its key benefits.

Kristen Neff, PhD, from the University of Texas-Austin, and Christopher Germer, PhD, from Harvard Medical School, wanted to find out whether self-compassion could be developed through training.

Drs. Neff and Germer randomly assigned 54 people to either an 8-week Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) program or a waitlist control. The MSC program combined weekly 2-hour meetings with homework and a half-day meditation retreat. The program began with an explanation of what self-compassion is, and incorporated both formal and informal mindfulness practices.

Before the program, participants completed surveys to measure self-compassion, mindfulness, and other internal states. They took the same surveys immediately after the program’s completion, and then 6 months later as a follow-up. And, as it turns out, Dr. Neff and Dr. Germer have good news for people who’d like to develop self-compassion.

After taking the program, participants reported significantly greater gains in self-compassion, along with mindfulness, compassion for others, and life satisfaction when compared with the control group. What’s more, researchers found a large statistical effect size in self-compassion. This is relevant because many previous studies of mindfulness programs have found substantially smaller effect sizes – suggesting that this program might be particularly effective.

Of course, since the research involves only self-report data, we should be cautious about drawing conclusions. When people reply that they’re more compassionate or mindful on a survey, what does that really mean about their mental states? What’s more, this research involves only a waitlist control. That means we can’t be sure what made the difference. People might develop self-compassion just from getting together twice a week. Or maybe doing “mental homework” of any kind helps all sorts of internal states.

So, while I think this is a good foundation, I’d like to see more research that uses objective measures of self-compassion and an active control.

If you’d like to read the whole study, it’s currently in press in the Journal of Clinical Psychology. Of course, to see the benefits of self-compassion with your clients, you need to be able to introduce mindfulness effectively. That can be complex, depending on your client, so that’s why we’ve put together our Making Mindfulness Work webinar series. Just click here to sign up for free.

Has mindfulness training ever transformed one of your clients’ capacity for self-compassion? What about your own? Please share your thoughts in the comments below.

At the UCSD Center for Mindfulness we offer
two great ways to explore Mindful-Self Compassion

The first is through participating in our 8-Week Mindful Self-Compassion Program right here at our UCSD CFM Meditation Room. We are the only center currently teaching the 8-Week Mindful Self-Compassion program as originated by Drs. Neff and Germer.  The next 8-week MSC program begins in January 2013

The second way to explore self-compassion is by attending our upcoming Mindful Self-Compassion (MSC) Training Retreat, May 12-17, 2013, at EarthRise Retreat Center in Petaluma, CA with Dr. Chris Germer and Dr. Kristin Neff.

This program is designed for members of the general public, as well as for professionals who wish to integrate self-compassion into their work. Participating in a MSC program satisfies a prerequisite for becoming a MSC program teacher, and teacher training will begin at the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness in 2014. A modest, regular meditation practice is required to become a MSC teacher but meditation experience is not necessary to participate in this professional training. All are welcome!

Vancouver: Teaching Mindfulness to Adolescents, A Dream Coming True

Reposted from Mindfully Together Tuesday, December 14, 2010, text & photo by Dzung Vo. He will be presenting Mindful Awareness and Resilience Skills for Adolescents (MARS-A): A Hospital-Based Program for Adolescents with Depressive Symptoms, Chronic Illness or Chronic Pain at the conference in February.

Amazing.

I just finished giving my first eight-week “Individual MARS-A (Mindful Awareness and Resilience Skills for Adolescentsfor Adolescents)” cycle. I have long had a dream to teach mindfulness practice to adolescents suffering from chronic illness and chronic stress. With my position at the British Columbia Children’s Hospital–and the luxury of having a more functional health care system with sufficient time to spend with my patients and explore issues deeply–I have finally had a chance to start making this a reality.

My first patient was a courageous young woman suffering from chronic pain as a result of an accident a few years ago.  Today, as a course wrap-up, I asked her to reflect on her experience with learning and practicing mindfulness.

I found myself deeply moved by what she shared:

“I still have the pain, but I’m so happy now because I don’t have to get stressed out by it anymore.”

“I don’t mind having my pain anymore, because I’m not suffering from it like I was.  Now,  I can
even smile to my pain.”

“I have more energy now.  I didn’t realize how tiring it is to be suffering all the time.”

“I’ve learned to see my reactions to situations, and not to hang on to them.”

This experience makes me feel a bit like an undercover bodhisattva.  A monk disguised as a doctor, offering ancient dharma practices in the language of modern medicine.

Deep bow to my teachers, spiritual and blood ancestors, and sisters and brothers in practice.  You are all alive in me, here and now.  I hope to continue you beautifully.

Cut Yourself Some SLACK!

Re-posted with gracious permission from Amy Saltzman’s The Still Quite Place blog  and website. Amy Saltman, MD, Mindfulness Teacher & Holistic Physician is Creator and Director of Still Quiet Place, Co-founder and Director of the Association for Mindfulness in Education.  Amy is recognized by her peers as a visionary and pioneer in the fields of holistic medicine and mindfulness in K-12 education. She has conducted research studies evaluating the benefits of teaching mindfulness to child-parent pairs, and to children in low-income elementary schools.

One day when my son was three, I walked into my bedroom to find him seated on the floor cutting thin green foam that he had pealed off  some clothing hangers. I asked “J, honey, what are you doing?” He replied “I am cutting slack.”  If a three year old can cut himself some slack then perhaps we mothers can do it too.

THE CRAZY PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS

Most of us say “ I just want my kids to be happy….” However often, we so desperately want our kids to be happy that we make ourselves and our children a bit crazy in the process.

Loving our children and wanting them to be happy is absolutely natural. Yet somewhere along the way this natural impulse gets distorted.

Our culture tells us that happiness is found through “success”, accomplishment and the accumulation of things. And here is where things get crazy. When we identify as our role of parent, and  measure our “success” as parents on the happiness of our children, we find ourselves frantically pursuing the activities and things we think will make our children happy.

CIRCULAR THINKING

This circular thinking “I’ll be successful when my kids are happy”, and “my kids will be happy when they are successful” has us scurrying around trying to make our kids happier, usually by trying to make them more successful in their endeavors—baseball, bassoon, ballet…. Ironically every time we do this we are teaching our children to calibrate their happiness on external circumstances.

GUILT-FEAR-JUDGMENT

This is where the fear and guilt and judgment come in. Even though we rarely admit it, we are terrified that we are doing it “wrong”, that we have already irrevocably damaged our kids, and that they will need years of therapy to lead even remotely normal lives. This fear fills us with guilt and doubt. We compare ourselves to other mothers, and often assume that they have it more together; what my wise mentor calls comparing their outsides (the stylishly dressed mother we see at the school book faire) to our insides (the more or less incessant chatter of “shoulda, woulda, coulda”). We harshly scrutinize and judge our parenting and theirs. This fear, doubt and judgment fuels the various “mommy wars” (tiger mom, pussycat mom, working mom, stay at home mom, breast feeding mom, bottle feeding mom). As a result, we often parent poorly out of reactivity and paralysis.

DEEP BREATHS

So what’s the alternative? How about cutting yourselves, and other parents, some slack? How do you feel when you read that sentence? Take a slow deep breath, let out a long sigh, allow the corners of your mouth to curve up just slightly and whisper or shout “ I am going to cut myself some slack!”

HOW TO CUT SLACK

While this sounds good in theory, most of us need some slack cutting instructions.

• Stop when you notice you are stressed out, beating yourself up, critically assessing your pathetic parenting, stop. Take at least 3 and preferably 10 deep breaths. And stop trying so hard to be the perfect parent.
• Lighten Up With a sense of humor (which is not the same as self deprecation), acknowledge that in this moment despite your best intentions, you are not being the mother you want to be.
• Accept that you are doing the best you can. Seriously, if you could do better in this moment you would.
• Cultivate compassion for how extraordinarily challenging it is to be “good” parent even some of the time, much less all the time.
• Choose what you want to do next—take 5 in the bathroom to recollect yourself, announce a “do over”, apologize to your child for snapping at her when really you were frustrated by a recent phone call with a colleague, set a clearer limit, get support….

And if worse comes to worse go into your closet with your children and several pairs of child-safe scissors, and cut everyone a piece of SLACK.

Join our own UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness Youth & Family Programs Director Lorraine M. Hobbs M.A., CHom. and Lucas LearnMann in A Course in Mindful Parenting. Please check our schedule and registrations page as this course is presented on an ongoing monthly basis at our UCSD CFM meditation room. Whether you come for one session or on a repeated monthly basis we invite you to join Lorraine and Lucas in learning how to cut yourselves and your children some slack.

Mindfully Slowing Down, Pausing and Pacing Can Add to Your Eating Enjoyment and Better Choices

By Jan Chozen Bays, MD
Dr. Bays is a pediatrician and Zen teacher in Oregon. She is the author of Mindful Eating: A Guide to Rediscovering a Healthy and Joyful Relationship with Food.

One of the simplest ways to get more enjoyment out of eating while eating more appropriate amounts of food, is to deliberately slow down. Our digestive system sends “satiety” signals to our brain when we’ve had enough to eat. These signals take about 20 minutes after we begin eating to be activated.

Americans are speedy eaters. Beginning in the elementary school lunch room, we consume our meals in about ten minutes. This means our body doesn’t have a chance to give us “feedback” about how much food is the right amount. We can easily eat too much food too quickly. Because there isn’t time to release the satiety hormones, we also miss pleasant sensation of satisfaction after our meal.

There are some simple ways to slow your eating down. Try taking a small first portion and deliberately eating it slowly, with full attention to the flavor and texture. Avoid “layering” that is, don’t put additional bites of food in on top of previous ones. Try putting down the fork or spoon between bites, and don’t pick it back up until the food in your mouth is savored and swallowed. Check-in with the sensations in your stomach a few times during the meal to see how full it is feeling.

Ordinarily our food seems to lose flavor after the first bite. When you slow down, however, pausing between bites, you will discover that each bite retains that “first bite” flavor. Your body also has a chance to register a sense of satisfaction with just the right amount of food.

Register, and join mindfulness teachers and retreat leaders,
Jan Chozen Bays, MD and Char Wilkins, LCSW for Mindful Eating, Conscious Living, a 5-day Professional Training Retreat sponsored by the UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness, March 10-15, 2013, Joshua Tree Retreat Center, Yucca Valley, CA

This training emphasizes experiential engagement in mindfulness meditation practices and mindful eating awareness exercises, so that the participant will be able to pass the benefit of these exercises on to clients and patients in a variety of settings. These practices and exercises are integral components of the Mindful Eating program, designed by Bays and Wilkins, which provides the organizing structure for this training.

Please click here for information on our local UC San Diego Center for Mindfulness 6-week Mindful Eating, Conscious Living program starting January 7.

Jon and Myla Kabat-Zinn to Present at 2013 Mindfulness & Youth Conference in San Diego

Jon & Myla Kabat-Zinn

Conference organizers announced today that scientist, author and noted mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn will be offering a public lecture in San Diego on Friday, Feb. 1, 2013 as part of the 2nd Annual Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth: Mindfulness in Clinical Practice, Education and Research conference. Jon and his wife Myla, co-authors of Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting will also present a 3-hour workshop on Mindful Parenting on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 2 as part of the conference.

“We are so excited to have Jon and Myla with us for the conference to maintain the tremendous momentum we built with last year’s inaugural event,” said Steven Hickman, Director of the UCSD Center for Mindfulness and conference organizer. “And the best news is that this is only the first of several exciting developments in the works for 2013.”

Hickman went on to note that the conference will start a half-day earlier than in 2012, largely to accommodate two research symposia, a poster session and optional pre-conference workshop. The focus will remain on the “three pillars” of clinical practice, education and research, and keynote speakers and sessions will be devoted to each of these areas of interest. “In order to assure a varied and interesting agenda for 2013, the Program Committee has opted to issue a call for submissions to fill much of the conference schedule,” Hickman reported. “We invited the people we knew doing the work we were most familiar with last year, and the result was wonderful. But this year we are casting the net much wider in hopes of involving people and programs from a much broader background and expertise.” Deadline for conference submissions is August 1, 2012, and the final conference agenda will be announced by September 1.

A number of other enhancements to the program are already underway, including a number of mechanisms by which people can be kept abreast of additions to the agenda, the latest work by conference presenters, and other activities planned to coincide with the conference. A separate “Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth” blog has been launched, as has a conference Facebook page as well. Those interested in following the unfolding of this groundbreaking conference are urged to subscribe to the blog and/or “Like” the Facebook page to keep in touch and be notified when registration opens.

Jon and Myla Kabat-Zinn to Present at 2013 Mindfulness & Youth Conference in San Diego

Jon & Myla Kabat-Zinn

Conference organizers announced today that scientist, author and noted mindfulness teacher Jon Kabat-Zinn will be offering a public lecture in San Diego on Friday, Feb. 1, 2013 as part of the 2nd Annual Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth: Mindfulness in Clinical Practice, Education and Research conference. Jon and his wife Myla, co-authors of Everyday Blessings: The Inner Work of Mindful Parenting will also present a 3-hour workshop on Mindful Parenting on Saturday afternoon, Feb. 2 as part of the conference.

“We are so excited to have Jon and Myla with us for the conference to maintain the tremendous momentum we built with last year’s inaugural event,” said Steven Hickman, Director of the UCSD Center for Mindfulness and conference organizer. “And the best news is that this is only the first of several exciting developments in the works for 2013.”

Hickman went on to note that the conference will start a half-day earlier than in 2012, largely to accommodate two research symposia, a poster session and optional pre-conference workshop. The focus will remain on the “three pillars” of clinical practice, education and research, and keynote speakers and sessions will be devoted to each of these areas of interest. “In order to assure a varied and interesting agenda for 2013, the Program Committee has opted to issue a call for submissions to fill much of the conference schedule,” Hickman reported. “We invited the people we knew doing the work we were most familiar with last year, and the result was wonderful. But this year we are casting the net much wider in hopes of involving people and programs from a much broader background and expertise.” Deadline for conference submissions is August 1, 2012, and the final conference agenda will be announced by September 1.

A number of other enhancements to the program are already underway, including a number of mechanisms by which people can be kept abreast of additions to the agenda, the latest work by conference presenters, and other activities planned to coincide with the conference. A separate “Bridging the Hearts and Minds of Youth” blog has been launched, as has a conference Facebook page as well. Those interested in following the unfolding of this groundbreaking conference are urged to subscribe to the blog and/or “Like” the Facebook page to keep in touch and be notified when registration opens.

Live and love more deeply with “Your Mindful Heart”

By Luis Morones, MFT

For many of us, it is in our most significant relations that the quality of mindful presence dissipates. Our formal meditation practice, challenging as it can sometimes be, is often a “cake walk” in comparison to the challenges of mindful relations. Our families and partner relations offer an extraordinarily fertile field for our mindful heart’s awakening.

Jon Kabat-Zinn, the esteemed creator of the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program entitled his seminal book on MBSR “Full Catastrophe Living”. Referring to the “full catastrophe” of family living, Zinn’s work encourages us to bring our mindfulness skills into the beautiful and volatile arena of our everyday relationships.

It is often in our most significant relations that we are more inclined to react defensively than to respond mindfully. This may be because we are much more vulnerable with the persons that we care about most deeply. Our history with our families of origin, nuclear families and partners often make it very difficult to remain present with an open heart. We tend to project unto them (and they unto us) ideals and the fulfillment of expectations that are completely impossible for even the most enlightened persons in history to fulfill. Mindfulness practices can help us recognize these projections. By bringing us back to the present moment, mindfulness allows us to relate to each other, as we truly are, imperfect and indescribably precious.

 My hope for this class is that compassion and connectedness which are integral elements of  Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction can be accentuated. Straight up what most fuels my draw towards mindfulness practice is the awakening of love.

Demanding and critical as we are often in our expectations of others, we tend to be even more brutal critics of ourselves. At a meeting the Dalai Lama had with western teachers, he wept, when he heard the westerners describe the enormous suffering their students and themselves experienced due to their harsh inner critics. The Dalai Lama said that this was from his eastern perspective a new form of suffering with which he was not familiar.

Mindful relating begins with a compassionate relation to oneself. By learning to relate to our own “Inner Lover”, the “Inner Critic’s” power over one begins to decrease. We are then more able to approach our relations with others with fewer judgments, more assuredness and joy.

Mindful relating can help us identify “triggers” in the present moment as soon as we begin to experience fears, judgments, and divisive separateness. Before we become fully “hooked” into a habitual negative pattern of reaction, we can learn new ways of responding skillfully. In situations when we start to feel engulfed by anxiety, anger, or emotional paralysis we can practice bringing compassionate attention to the bodily experiences that are occurring. By “unhooking” our emotions from the “stories” our anxious thoughts are creating, we can recuperate sooner our sense of calmer connection.

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Your Mindful Heart presented by Luis Morones MA MFT, at the UCSD Center for Mindfulness, Saturday mornings, June 23 and June 30, from 9am-1pm is now open for registration.

In the Your Mindful Heart course, participants will be introduced to mindfulness skills that may help strengthen our relational bridges. Mindful awareness releases a greater clarity and strength from which we can make more informed and safer decisions. Mindful relating points us to the liberating realization that our true nature is already imbedded in a wise love that is both protective of our own value and capable of great love.

The UCSD Center for Mindfulness offers a spectrum of courses that can make the inevitable difficulties of relating less stressful and more grounded in a joyous life with others. The Mindful Heart course is just one small aspect of this much larger program. It is simply another compassionate attempt to “sell you a little water” in the already free flowing rivers of your hearts.

Luis points out that “When I am feeling relatively happy I am totally convinced that love is our true nature and that I am in exactly the right relationships to become fully alive. When I am feeling physical or strong emotional pain my convictions and sense of connectedness quickly fade. My appreciation for my wife, family of origin, everybody, especially my-self goes down the drain. All I can do is try to be awake compassionately to the experience of the inner yelp for help. Help seems to come a little more quickly when I struggle to stay mindfully with these difficult moments with a seed of compassionate hope.  My intention in this class is to together share a few skillful means to help us stay a little more connected to others and ourselves when the waters of the relational psyche are stormy.”

 Although couples are most welcome, this class is not primarily a mindful couples workshop. It is intended rather as an opportunity to learn from each other what may strengthen a little our mindful hearts capacity to imperfectly love our lives with others.