GROW MORE EMPATHY
"Cultivating empathy through compassion meditation affects brain regions that make a person more sympathetic to other peoples' mental states." For more...
KIND TO SELF, KIND TO OTHERS
Mindful practice helps us notice how we relate to ourselves in thoughts and feelings. It helps us develop more patience and kindness in our own inner dialogue, and one of the consequences is more patience and kindness with others.
DISTRACTION > PRESENCE > INQUIRY
There are different depths to mindfulness. First you learn to interrupt distraction and habits enough to become present more often.
DISTRACTION BY DESIGN?
This exerpt of James Williams' book brings up the concept of "the attention economy." It helps you take a step back from being distracted so you can ask yourself:
DETRACT FROM DISTRACTION
The work of mindfulness is not to defeat a distracted mind, or control thoughts. It's to calmly interrupt distracted thoughts, feelings, and behaviour over and over again.
EMOTIONAL DISCIPLINE
In this article for mindful.org, Daniel Goleman talks about how the amygdala in the brain can send you right into a tantrum unless you've trained your emotional awareness and responses.
ASPECTS OF MINDFUL DISCIPLINE
The possibilities for mindful discipline are as varied as a person's awareness. Your personal practice pivots based on your focusing discipline of the moment.
DISCERNMENT vs. RUMINATION
Both processes of discernment and rumination involve thinking things over, but they are functionally different.
SELF AS CONTEXT
A sense of self should be flexible, and not get stuck on particulars, in order to be okay. This is based in the premise that people are inherently worthy, and self-worth or identity shouldn't be rigidly attached to things that come and go.
UNDERSTANDING ATTACHMENT
What people are attached to can limit them. We all define our self and life by the things we focus on (or don't focus on). Check in regularly with attachments by observing what you focus on (or avoid focusing on).
ATTACHMENT STYLES & MINDFULNESS
The ease or difficulty we have with connecting to others can be understood as "attachment styles," as they are referred to in psychology circles.
SAVOUR AND RECEIVE
Without the ability to savour, or even see, the good in life as we bustle through it, there's no ground to receive goodness into.
SEED SOME APPRECIATION
The most fertile ground in mindful practice, in terms of what may grow, is in the place where your irritation lives.
APPRECIATE AS PRACTICE
People can choose appreciation as a practice, in the most dire circumstamstances. In fact, it's even more important to practice appreciation where you can, when things aren't great.
GRATITUDE BREEDS GRATITUDE
The more you notice about what there is to appreciate in life, the more you do appreciate life. Appreciation breeds appreciation.
ANGER & THE CHILD WITHIN
See this article from OnBeing.org, for a brilliant talk by Thich Nhat Hanh on managing anger by remembering we were all children once.
ANGER & CONTROL
Being around anger is uncomfortable, or even threatening. This is why sometimes the person talking the loudest gets compliance, for no good reason. People learn that if they disagree, they are going to pay a cost, or at minimum have to engage in an uncomfortable conflict in they speak up.
Rage is an explosive version of anger that's triggered by something in the present, but is not just about that present trigger. Rage is anger that is magnified by repressed anger from the past.
What does it look like when the Dalai Lama gets angry? Does the Dalai Lama get angry?
When anger rises in you, focus on explaining your feelings, instead of directing them outward. Reflect, to be able to explain your feelings to yourself first.
Mindful practice is about increasing detailed awareness of how "you" operate, which helps you adapt operations, as needed. Without mindful awareness, you can default to automatic functioning mode, and be too general in your approach to any number of things.
Interoception is the ability to feel inner sensations of the body. People with emotional disregulation often have trouble with interoception.
This 12 min. video from the BBC follows an experiment to change a Science Journalist's brain, through 30 minutes a day of meditation, for only six weeks.
Mental chatter is the voice in your head, and one of the most important ways to adapt "the self" through mindful practice, is by observing and adjusting mind chatter.