Tag Archives | mind/body

Meditation’s Dark Side – 4 Things To Consider

By Therese Sheedy on August 22, 2017 in Mindfulness

Meditation can increase sadness, anxiety, anger and frustration, but there are four things you can do to minimise these risks.

The current global mindfulness phenomenon suggests that if we stop, sit, and focus on our breath, life will be better, calmer and even stress-free! Something we all want – a place to stop and smell the roses!

While some of these claims may be true, there is also a darker side to mindfulness that isn’t often spoken about.

Keeping busy in our daily life means we often don’t have to deal with strong and uncomfortable emotions. However when we sit in silence these emotions can become very loud and overwhelming. This can be very difficult to manage. Self-doubt sets in and we give up because it is all too hard.

New Meditation Research

Earlier this year researchers Jared Lindahl and Willoughby Britton published their recent research examining ‘The varieties of contemplative experiences: A mixed methods study of meditation-related challenges in Western Buddhists”.

They found that meditation can have a dark side and can be very distressing at times. Even experienced meditators can face a range of meditation-related difficulties. These may include out-of-body experiences, strong negative emotions, changes in perception and sense of self, even suicide ideation.

There is a complex set of factors involved in meditation processes that you need to be aware of. Meditation can increase the role of our logical part of the brain and reduce the emotional response system. While this sounds great, it can lead to feeling disconnected and empty emotions rather than feeling calmer and less stressed.

1) Know Yourself and Choose Your Meditation Teacher Wisely

Do not to expect meditation to be the answer to all your mental health issues. This study highlights the need for you to be very aware of your own mental health needs and past trauma when starting your practice. It also suggests that you need to be aware of the level of expertise and the training of your meditation teacher.

The researchers recommend that you “be an informed consumer, choose wisely” when looking at taking up a meditation practice. The context of the type of training you choose is vital.

Ensure you have a trained practitioner to support you. While a meditation app or audio recording may be inexpensive and easy to access compared to a face-to-face structured program, carefully consider if this will give you suitable support.

2) Know Your Motivation – Why meditation?

Why do you want to meditate? For most people in my classes they want to manage stress in their lives, feel a bit more in control and even be less angry at others. Your own goals and motivations for taking on mindfulness or meditation are very important. Managing stress and emotions, or enhanced functioning in daily life may not necessarily happen just because you are meditating.

Sometimes we can want meditation to solve all our problems, which is highly unlikely. Therefore you need to understand why you do certain meditations and if they are going to be the ‘right’ ones for you.

3) Accept That You Will Still Have Stressors In Your Life

Sitting still and focusing on the breath won’t change the demands in life. There will still be deadlines, families, illness, financial stress etc to deal with. Life doesn’t change just because you meditate. Meditation allows you to change the way you respond to those stressors. This will take practice, time and exploration, patience and curiosity, and most of all acceptance and compassion.

During an ongoing course or program with a trained teacher you will have someone there to monitor and check-in with. This will ensure you have the style and process that matches your goals, intentions and emotional needs. You may recall in a recent blog I wrote about my concerns during my Vipassana retreat. Not everyone is suited to all meditation styles.

4) The Importance of Social Support

Researchers Lindahl and Britton stress the importance of social support to help you to successfully cope with challenging experiences. Attending a regular group with a trained instructor can give you that support.

At my Monday Meditation group we regularly discuss our own experiences and challenges. We talk about physical agitations, avoidance strategies and emotional challenges. These discussions help to normalise these experiences. My group also know that, as a psychologist, I am able to also offer a trained response. We may chat more after the class and see if this issue needs to be referred on or monitored.

Teaching Mindfulness in Schools

After reading Lindahl and Britton’s research on the dark side of meditation it is logical to question the ability of schools to implement mindfulness programs in classrooms. If teachers don’t have formal training or a personal meditation practice themselves can they adequately teach mindfulness or meditation? After all, would you expect a teacher to teach swimming without ever having been in the water? Without appropriate training and practice teachers may unintentionally increase anxiety, depression or trauma in students, rather than create the feel-good result they are hoping for.

I work with schools, community groups and workplaces to clarify their goals of introducing mindfulness and meditation. My 6 week training program fosters a greater understanding of the science supporting meditation and grows personal practice. With appropriate support and training they can achieve the reduced stress, peace and calm they aspire to, minimising the possibility of more trauma or difficulty.

If you would like to hear researchers Lindahl and Britton discussing this timely study, you might like to listen to podcast #79 with Dan Harris from 10% Happier. Dan is an experienced news anchor who experienced a panic attack on Good Morning America in front of 5,000,000 viewers! He has been on a quest to understand mindfulness and meditation. Now developing his own practice he often says “it isn’t all rainbows and unicorns”.

Vipassana, More Than Meditation

By Therese Sheedy on June 27, 2017 in Mindfulness

This is my vipassana story, or as I remember it, boot camp for the mind, body and soul.

For many years I considered the idea of attending a vipassana retreat. For those of you who don’t know – a vipassana is a silent retreat. It can be different lengths, I chose a 10 day, rather than 30days! Many people repeat this experience and they are held all around the world.

You sit in meditation for most of the day, 11 hours in fact! Focus is on the breath for the initial 3 days, then on the sensations in the body for the rest of the ten days.

Before I left on this adventure, many people commented on how difficult they thought it would be to be silent for a whole 10 days. I thought that would be a challenge, but one I was up for.

Along with my regular meditation practice, I often have periods of silence in my life. I drive without the radio on; I work around the house without television, radio or music, or chatting to anyone. I actually enjoy those periods, so coping with silence wasn’t a concern I had, even though leaving all technology and reading materials behind did raise some interest in me.

Little did I know, that vipassana is code for boot camp for the mind, body and soul. Silence is the easy part.

Silence is a major part of the process. The teaching says it’s about not getting distracted by conversations. You know how you might go over and over in your mind what was said, while you are supposed to be focused on your meditation.

We know that conversations often get repeated in our minds – “why did I say that?” “What did they mean when they said ……..?” “I think they are ………..” “I wish I had said …………” because that is what minds do.

However the silence in vipassana has a bigger impact. Silence means that without external input, your mind is left to ‘chat’ with itself, and chat it does! Mind wandering into forgotten memories or preparing for the challenges of the unknown future.

In my daily meditation practice I have noticed my mind wandering is usually future-focused. Ideas of what I can do with teaching mindfulness in my classes pass in and out of my meditating mind quite often. This didn’t happen in vipassana. My mind somehow wanted to go back. Go back and resolve past issues, ones I thought I had long laid to rest, but quickly realised I probably hadn’t.

The teaching of the vipassana focuses on impermanence, everything changes. Nothing in our bodies are solid – breath, blood, muscles, organs, even bones are constantly changing, and so too are our thoughts. Focus on the body teaches the mind about impermanence – everything is changing.

Hanging on to a thought as if it is forever is quickly dismissed – impermanence – everything changes – and I have changed since that past incident. Time to move on and let it go.

The biggest challenge, at least for me, wasn’t coping with the silence, it was the pressure on the body. At the end of our 10 days noble silence others had said they found getting up at 4am ready to sit at 4.30am each day a huge challenge. So much so they even had a nap during the lunchtime rest break. I managed the early rises easily, for me it was the body.

Due to a recent foot injury, I had been unable to maintain my yoga practice and so my body was stiffer than usual. I think though, not as stiff and inflexible as many of my contemporaries. However sitting in meditation for about 11 hours a day for 10 days is excruciatingly painful, and yet pain in the knees, back, buttocks, and in my case, foot, would come and go – impermanence!

I would sit and pain would arise. I would notice it, want to move to relieve it , as we all do, but stick to the process of vipassana, and at the end of the sitting the pain would have dissolved somewhere along the way – impermanence!

This is a curiosity. The power of honing attention, of noticing without getting hooked into having to change anything, to sit with self-compassion and strong determination, enabled me to somehow cope with both body pain and emotional pain – impermanence.

In the end, my practice is undoubtedly stronger and my mind more flexible, generous and compassionate.

As a psychologist I did have trouble with parts of the teaching of the theory and philosophy of vipassana. I was challenged by some of the beliefs and talking with the assistant teacher unfortunately didn’t allay my professional concerns.

I would strongly advise anyone to consider why they are attracted to or going on their first vipassana. I would also urge anyone who has symptoms of anxiety, depression or post-traumatic stress disorder to speak to a professional before starting your vipassana journey.

Given that the teaching is all done on pre-recorded CDs and DVDs, because the master Goenka passed away in 2013, for me it was impossible to really gain a good insight into the fundamental ethos or hope any feedback may change the language used or approach.

I know that attending the vipassana has positively changed the lives of many people. I know that my life has also been changed in positive ways through this experience as well. However I would be alarmed if someone who is quite psychologically fragile saw this retreat as a means of getting to the bottom of their difficulties, considering there was no professional help available.

For me, I will continue to learn more about Buddhist psychology and hopefully I can reconcile my concerns in time. For now I will continue my practice, maybe not the recommended 1hr morning and night, but nevertheless I will continue to develop my understanding of meditation, after all no matter how long you have been practicing, we are all beginners.

The concept of impermanence has always been central to my belief system and my psychological practice; I now have a more physical and emotional experience of it.

Here is a link from mindful.org on what you may need to consider before you attend any meditation retreat.

Namaste

Science explains – why meditation is good for us!

By Therese Sheedy on July 11, 2015 in Mindfulness

Have you ever wondered what goes on in your brain during meditation?

Why would sitting still, with closed eyes be so calming?

Well actually for some of us, it isn’t so calming, it is a nightmare. Some people can’t stand the endless chatter that the mind does when they stop and sit. Some people say that trying to still the mind is just impossible and so meditation just isn’t possible for them. A lot of people agree with that, in my meditation practice and teaching course I hear that a lot. “You know this won’t work for me, I can’t stop thinking for a second let alone minutes! It’s a lost cause I’m afraid.”

Well, no it isn’t a “lost cause” but the striving to quieten the mind, or still your thoughts is fraught with problems. So in order to gain the benefits of meditation it is best to let those ideals go.

DON’T try to do anything to your mind and see what happens.

There are two things you need to know: Firstly, anyone can meditate and secondly, one of the reasons why we actually feel good when we do.

OK, firstly, anyone can meditate. If you stop trying to control everything you might notice that you immediately have a bit of freedom to actually notice what is happening during meditation.

Meditation is attention training. Training yourself to focus on one thing and noticing when your mind wants to get involved and ‘run the show’.

Our attention is rarely tuned to one thing. It flits all over the place. We think about the weather, what we need to be doing next, what happened yesterday and how we feel about it. We think about people, food, work tasks, chores, traffic, and problems to be solved. Thinking goes on and we let it, getting hooked on each thought that comes into our head as if it were SO important that it deserves all that attention.

In meditation we decide where our attention will be placed. Often this may be on the breath, sometimes it may be on sounds, or a mantra, or even a movement or eating. It is where we place our attention and how we continually notice when our attention is distracted from that focus and gently bring it back.

That simple, right? Hell no! This is hard work – at first – but like anything new, once we practice, it becomes easier and easier.

Now why does it feel good when we do focus in meditation?

One of the reasons is a small gland hidden in centre of the brain called the pineal gland. The pineal gland is responsible for the release of the hormone – melatonin, which is an important part of the body’s circadian timing system and can synchronise daily rhythms. The French philosopher Rene Descartes believed the pineal gland was the ‘seat of the soul’ considered to influence happiness.

Melatonin is responsible for our sleep/wake cycle and sexual development. It is stimulated by darkness. One of the reasons why meditation activates the pineal gland could be the darkness caused by closing the eyes.

Meditation activates the pineal gland to produce melatonin, creating a deep feeling of wellness and sleep (peacefulness) in the awake brain. During meditation we have a decrease in blood pressure, decreased heart rate and a slowing of the breath, all causing a sense of calm and relaxation.

All of this is due to the fact we can focus our attention by closing our eyes to external stimuli, stimulate the pineal gland to release melatonin and feel calmer and happier in the process.

So give it a go. Don’t get caught in the trap that your mind is too active to meditate. The best thinkers in the world know that to be focused produces results. Try being focused for 1 minute, then 3 minutes, 5 minutes, then 10 minutes a day and see what a difference it makes to not only your productivity but your overall sense of wellness and happiness.

With thanks – photos by Sebastien Wiertz

Be kind to your body, stay present

By Therese Sheedy on March 25, 2015 in Mindfulness

It is difficult to understand, but the present moment is the only moment you actually have. This is difficult to understand because our minds rarely live in the present moment, and so they are unfamiliar with it and don’t readily trust it.

The past is gone, done, dusted. No amount of reliving it in your head will actually change those events, make someone or yourself nicer, or take away the pain those events brought. I think a lot of times we revisit the past to remind ourselves of the wrongs someone has done to us, as a means of comfort or justification, reminding ourselves we were wronged.

We think by going over and over, ruminating on past events, we will understand them more clearly and perhaps pick up some ideas or clues on how to prevent or avoid them happening to us again.

Unfortunately what happens is this.

When we experience pain, trauma, suffering, or experiences we don’t like or want, our body reacts. It usually goes into what is called the fight/flight response. Trying to shield itself from the trauma or danger that exists in front of us.

When this happens little parts of us shut down to protect our systems from harm. Other parts fire up to help us gain the strength to fight or tackle the trauma head on or, flee – escape the situation to keep us safe.

Each time our mind revisits a past danger or trauma, such as getting bad news, being attacked by someone (both physically or verbally), being in an accident, someone being injured or dying etc. our body also revisits the past. It re-experiences the fight/flight response we had back then, even though there is no threat in the present moment. This is how powerful the mind-body connection is.

The same is true if we continually think about what might happen in the future – “What if this doesn’t work? What if I can’t do it? What if they don’t do what they are supposed to? How will we cope?”

When we live in this future that we can’t control, again our bodies experience the trauma of the event we are imagining as if it were actually happening now. Again parts of our system close down to protect us, and other parts move into full swing – again the fight/flight response is in action even though you may be sitting at your desk at work, on the train, in the kitchen, or watching TV. There is no trauma our bodies are reacting to in the present, it is reacting to the possibility of trauma in the future, but it can’t tell the difference.

Our bodies need to respond naturally to events, rather than be pushed into a constant state of trauma and anger management. This is where mindfulness and living mindfully can help.

By focusing just here, just now, we give our internal systems some space and rest. We are able to experience calmness and regain a feeling of control in our lives. We are more able to respond to just this situation, and not have it blown out because we were stressed by events of the past or possible events in the future that we have been thinking about.

When our minds are out of the present they can often feel out of control. We feel out of control and every little experience such as a traffic jam, or rain on the washing, or dropping a cup, can feel like a major crisis and we in turn feel like we’re not coping.

So how do we live more mindfully?

We need to start bringing a little mindfulness into each day. Here are a couple of simple but not so easy to do exercises to practice – and keep practicing!

Each time you move through a doorway, consciously notice and remind yourself you are now in a new space. That may be a doorway between rooms, the door going outside, the car door, even the toilet door! Each doorway takes you into a new space, see if you can take your mind and focus into that space as well.

Three Breaths Stop: any time you stop, for whatever reason, focus on the next three breaths. When you stop to wait for your morning takeaway, stopped in traffic, stopped in the queue at the supermarket, stopped waiting for children to finish sport/music/school. Each time you stop notice three breaths. You don’t need to breathe deeply or in any particular way, just breathe and notice it. Breathing in and out will do, it does a good job for you the rest of the time when you’re not noticing!

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