Bill Treats PTSD with Mindfulness and Yoga

Each day, soldiers return home from combat often ill-equipped for the mental and emotional stress of life after combat. Suicide rates among veterans are upwards of 22 per day, and occurrence of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) among vets from Iraq and Afghanistan is between 11 and 20% according to the US Department of Veterans Affairs.

Mindfulness and integrative health programs may offer some relief for these veterans.  

A couple of weeks ago I brought up the utility of mindfulness for athletes, and today I wanted to briefly highlight an article about how mindfulness and integrative health programs may soon be among mental health options for veterans in the U.S.

Congressmen Tim Ryan (D-Ohio) and Rich Nugent (R-Fla.) introduced The Veterans and Armed Forces’ Health Promotion Act of 2013 in November. Among the many programs it seeks to introduce for members of the armed services, the bill would offer a variety of wellness programs aimed at veterans including mindfulness, yoga therapy and healthy eating. While some of these programs are already in place, the bill would make them more widely available to all veterans. 

Congressman Ryan, a practitioner and fervent advocate of mindfulness, explained to the Huffington Post that mindfulness is “helping the veterans, it’s low-cost, it’s low-tech, and there aren’t any side effects… If that doesn’t cross partisan lines, I don’t know what’s going to.”

Sounds reasonable to me!

Have a look at the full article here: Why This Congressman Is Fighting To Bring Mindfulness To Veterans

I'll keep an eye out and post an update on the bill's progress. At the moment, it has been referred to the Subcommittee on Military Personnel.

Listening Safari

Here's one for the kids (and any grown ups who like to act like kids)! Practicing mindfulness can be quite fun!

I have found that a great way to get children interested and engaged in mindfulness training is by inviting them to participate in a way that they already feel comfortable doing.

Most children are eager to let their imaginations run free. The animal ears activity is a fun way to bring mindfulness into creative play.

Perk up those ears! What do you hear?

The intent here is to foster mindful listening—an open awareness of sound without judgment. Inviting children to pay attention to the sounds around them is an easy entry into mindfulness. And getting to do so through play makes it all the more fun.

With your child, brainstorm some animals that have good hearing. Each of you can choose one of these animals to ‘be’ for this activity. Together, put on your animals’ ears. Now pretend that you are out in the wild and need to be extra still and extra quiet in order to listen to all of the sounds around you. You may even invite them to close their eyes so that they are relying only on their animal ears.

Try this for about a minute, or longer if they are enjoying it! You could even try it in a few different environments--inside, outside, at the park, etc.

After you have finished listening to your environment(s), share what you heard. Did you hear loud sounds? Quiet sounds? Sounds from inside your body? Other animals? Vehicles? Ask your child how the different sounds made them feel. As an animal, did it make him want to run and hide? Go out hunting? Stay still?

Finally, invite your child to draw a picture of some of the sounds she heard that she doesn’t usually hear.

You can take a listening safari together at home, or even on a walk outside (though, you may want to keep your eyes open for that!).

I’d love to hear in the comments what animals you were, and what sounds you noticed. :-)

My Dirty Laundry

Laundry. I've never much liked doing my laundry.  Not that it is something most people revel in, but I've harbored a real aversion to it. Growing up, I paid my mom a portion of my allowance so she would do my laundry. And in college, I would buy new underwear to avoid a trip to the laundry room (I know I'm not alone here!). So last week, when I was assigned to do kitchen laundry while on a Lovingkindness retreat, I wasn't sure that I could embrace the task with much lovingkindness!

Upon arriving at the retreat center, everyone attending is assigned a chore for the week.  And throughout the week, in addition to sitting and walking meditation, this becomes a working meditation--a chance to see how we can bring our practice with us to other parts of life after the retreat. On past retreats I’ve been assigned to wash dishes and sweep walkways, and I gained new appreciation for the satisfaction I could find in those tasks. So when I was put on laundry duty I was curious to see if my opinion of the chore would change.

Feeeeed me! 

The retreat was spent in silence. No talking. No reading. No writing. No computers! No phones!! But what was allowed and encouraged was quieting the mind by internally repeating the phrases, “May I be safe. May I be happy. May I be healthy. And May I live with ease.” Morning, noon and night I kept these phrases on an internal loop--wishing them for myself, wishing them for people I like, wishing them for people I don’t particularly like, wishing them for animals, wishing them for all beings everywhere. You get the idea.

I wished them while sitting still. I wished them while eating. I wished them while walking. And yep, I wished them while doing the laundry.

All of the dirty rags, aprons, towels, and veggie cloths would get piled high into a grocery cart that I rolled out into the crisp Massachusetts air each morning on my way to the laundry room. The task was simple enough. Shake out the excess gunk, load the laundry machines, three pumps of sanitizer, one scoop of detergent, unload the laundry machines, load the dryer, hot and regular for 45 minutes, fold, fold, fold, put away. Repeat daily.

Despite my aversion, I quickly grew to enjoy my job. There isn’t much stimulation on a silent retreat, and an hour of folding towels fresh from the dryer on a snowy afternoon provided much entertainment. With the well-wishes on repeat in my head, I sent kind wishes to each towel, rag and apron, extending my positive thinking out to all of the people in the kitchen who might use them, and then extending further to wish kind thoughts to all those who would benefit from the work of the kitchen. Each afternoon turned into a little laundry love-fest, wherein I left with two laundry baskets full of folded towels and a great feeling of satisfaction--amazing what a little lovingkindness will do!

---Ok, this next part seems kind of cheesey. And when it was happening it felt kind of cheesey. I debated whether or not to post this because it felt kind of trite. But here it is, because despite the cheesiness, it was one of those 'aha' moments and I think it's worth noting.---

I noticed that even away from the laundry room, the rags and aprons were making their way into my consciousness. One afternoon as I sat in the meditation hall, working through some painful emotions, all I could see in my head were lines of laundry hanging out to dry. They seemed to take up the whole frame of my mind’s eye. Not sure what else to do, I went with it and started wishing the laundry well. And I started well-wishing my painful emotions. After doing this for a while, instead of just seeing laundry hanging out to dry, I saw a huge expansive sky, my laundry just a small speck at the edge. I realized that the line of laundry would soon be dry, and I’d fold it and put it away. Then all I’d be left with was that big beautiful sky. The emotional pain I was struggling with was beginning to dissolve. I guess sometimes those things just want to be washed, dried and put away with care.

More laundry will come. With each new day I will fill up the basket. I’ll have dirty laundry until the day I die. I can choose to push it away, buy new underwear, pay my mom to do it, or let the dirty pile fill up my view and blot out the big sky. Or I can choose to send it well wishes and open-heartedly welcome each dirty rag and painful emotion as a chance to send some love to the world.

I tend to think I’ll choose the latter of the two options. Though, I imagine it will depend on how I’m feeling each day and whether or not The Gap is having a sale on underwear. 

Here's my challenge to you for the weekend: Pick a chore you don't particularly like. As you do the chore this weekend, pay very close attention to what's going on in you head as well as physically what it feels like to do the chore. See if you can maintain that focus throughout the activity. Can you give the task at hand your full attention? No phones, no worrying about tomorrow, no TV? If you feel up to it, try sending some kind wishes. May you be safe. May you be happy. May you be healthy. May you live with ease. Or whatever feels right. Notice what you're thinking and feeling once you complete the task. I'm not promising rainbows, butterflies, or a beautiful expansive sky, but the simple act of noticing what is happening just might change your experience. Try it for yourself! 

Some Nuggets of Wisdom 2.0

Probably the closest I'll get to anything resembling Burning Man... Inspiration Village at Wisdom 2.0.

Please pardon the absence… I’ve spent the last couple weeks doing some personal development. Between the Wisdom 2.0 Conference and a week-long silent meditation retreat, I haven’t had much opportunity to digest all that I’ve taken in recently, let alone blog about it!

Even though it took place waaay back last month, I wanted to share a little bit more about my experience at the Wisdom 2.0 Conference.

Before signing up, all I knew about Wisdom 2.0 was a fuzzy idea that it was about technology and mindfulness. I wasn’t even sure I wanted to go—descriptions were vague, it was pretty expensive, and I wasn’t sure how much I liked its target audience of tech-elite. I came up with plenty of excuses and dragged my feet for a good month or so before coming to my senses and finally signing up for it.

Looking back, I can't help but laugh at my hesitance. Um, hello. I have a website called Mindfulness Online, my program is all about using technology to spread mindfulness. How did I not sign up for this conference immediately?! 

Ego. Fear. Self-consciousness. Anxiety. Doubt. I guess those were some of the reasons.

Tense with anxiety, my tightened jaw and I made our way into the crowded hall of over 2,000 attendees. Soon though, my anxiety and my jaw loosened as I began to open to what all the conference had in store. Guided meditations for 2,000 attendees, group yoga with 2,000 attendees, and exercises in mindful communication with our seat mates meant that instead of being surrounded by strangers I needed to protect myself from, I was part of a community, each of us with something valuable to offer. Cool!

Here’s a quick-ish run-down of some of the nuggets I learned once my heart opened to the possibilities at Wisdom 2.0:

• Technology is not inherently evil/distracting/a terrible drain on society— The general consensus at the conference was that the addictive nature of our gadgets can leave us wanting more meaningful connection with ourselves and others; while these same gadgets can also offer us new avenues for connection with people all over the world. It all depends on how we use them. Ok, I knew this, but I will admit that I’ve held off from getting an iPhone for fear of the limits of my own self-control.
• Tech people are alright—Some of my misgivings about the conference had to do with a group that I viewed as the “other.” In the past year of living in SF, I have not been too enamored with the tech-class as my perception of these young, newly-minted millionaires had been rather biased. But meeting these “others” and seeing how they too are human just like me, working to find a deeper meaning in their lives, reminded me to hold off my judgments. How easily I forget that life can be challenging for each of us, regardless of our social status or paycheck.
• We should be working on our eulogies instead of our resumes—Arianna Huffington gave a great talk on a new metric for measuring success that includes health, happiness and well-being. As she put it, no one at your funeral will be remarking on your ability to put together a Power-Point presentation. Though, that’s probably just because they never saw my awesome presentation on insurance that included an animated slide of Richard Gere topless, doing a flip on a jet ski. But still, I’d rather be remembered for how I loved and lived than how many LinkedIn contacts I had.
• Spacious presence is within us all—If you have the time, stop what you’re doing and watch this presentation from Eckhart Tolle, or at least bookmark it and watch it when you can. It’s so easy to get caught up in the fantasy world of our thoughts and emotions, we often forget that under all of that is an unending field of spacious presence. We’ve got it with us always. We just have to remember to take a breath, get still and tap into it.
• Gratitude is interactive mindfulness—Yeah, I already feel pretty strongly about this. And Brother David Steindl-Rast did an excellent job explaining how we can do better at bringing more gratitude and in turn more joy into our lives. We just have to stop, look, and go. Just like crossing the street. Stop means wisdom, a quality of the mind that comes by allowing whatever comes our way to grab us. Look means awareness. We see difficulties along with a way to solve them. Go means acting with a mind/heart of compassion. Check out Brother David’s talk, he is far more eloquent than I am.

Conference attendees shared their gratitude on one of many chalkboards.

My biggest take-away from the conference though, isn’t really something I can sum up for you on a bullet pointed list. Rather, my experience during the weekend gave me a renewed sense of self-confidence in who I am, what I am pursuing, and my intentions for pursuing it. All of those reasons I had for not attending the conference dissolved into a more confident, excited and love-filled version 2.0 of me. Woohoo for Wisdom!

Maybe NFL Players Can Be Role Models?

NFL Mindfulness Coach and sport's psychologist, Michael Gervais of the Super Bowl winning Seattle Seahawks, spoke at the Wisdom 2.0 conference this weekend in San Francisco. (I'll tell you more about the Conference in the coming days!) I bet that while you were watching the Big Game you weren’t thinking much about mindfulness and compassion, and you probably didn't think the players were either. I get it, watching beefy dudes tackle each another doesn’t conjure images of serene meditators or inspire compassionate communication.

But one of the reasons the Seahawks may have had the upper hand was because they embraced mindfulness practice, yoga, and positive visualization as elements of their training and the team culture. Gervais said that as a team, they worked to have "one heartbeat"--55 players and 22 coaches, hearts beating in unison.

Back in September I read this ESPN article about the Seahawks' unorthodox training and was tickled to see that mindfulness had made it to the NFL. Yesterday Gervais went further to explain their meditation practice and how the Seahawks treated every game of the season as a championship opportunity. Big or small, every moment counted. 

While I know their mindfulness practice wasn’t all that earned the Seahawks their championship rings, it isn’t difficult to imagine how mindfulness contributed to their winning season. Seahawk Russell Okung explained to ESPN, "Meditation is as important as lifting weights and being out here on the field for practice."

Before this weekend, my students and I came up with three mindfulness related skills that support Okung’s assertion on the importance of meditation:

• Focus- Through continued meditation practice (the article says they began back in 2010), the players likely honed their abilities to focus and concentrate both on and off of the field. As I often say to my students, practicing in the calm of your bedroom gets you ready to use your mindfulness in more stressful times. And as Gervais described yesterday, the stress dissolves as the players become absorbed in the present moment.
• Resilience- With their enhanced focus, it would be easier for players to let go of mistakes and triumphs in order to more fully engage with the task at hand. Gervais called this "Failing Fast." Instead of feeling angry towards themselves or a teammate for a botched play, it would be easier to let go and start over. 
• Visualization- Instead of filling their heads with negative thoughts, “You’re not strong enough,” “You need to play harder,” “You’ll never win playing like that!” the Seahawks and their coaching staff worked to positively visualize the future. In order for visualizations to work, players first had to develop an awareness of their thoughts, because without recognizing and befriending the negative ones, there would be little space for the positive ones to take hold.

Gervais added that the team culture also emphasized compassion and empathy, which were also key elements to the Seahawks’ success. (How did Miami do this year?) When we are aware of our mental landscape, we notice that others experience similar highs and lows. Viewing our personal highs and lows without judgment creates space for our compassion to grow, both for ourselves and for others. By treating their players as people, I think the Seahawks got it right.

Never thought you’d be reading about compassionate football players, right?

Do you use mindfulness in athletics? How has it helped up your game?