Therapy and Meditation

Therapy is a process of slowing down and becoming more aware of how our minds are working. At first we learn how our minds are creating stress, anxiety and self-doubt. By describing our thoughts, feelings and behaviors in therapy we slowly separate our attention from being so consumed by them. Mediation is a powerful direct experience of slowing down, being quiet and still. It is a practice of sitting with and observing our experience as it happens. We cannot understand suffering, and freedom from suffering, unless we sit quietly and let stillness arise. Stillness arises as a relaxing of the body and a slowing down of the mind. By refocusing attention away from our preoccupation with thinking and toward the felt sense of the body sitting quietly and breathing, we can learn the practice of letting go of distractions and return to our home base of the body/breath. Mediation is not an essential part of therapy but is very useful as a supplement to therapy. It will accelerate the healing process as we learn to cultivate a healthy use of attention and awareness.

What is the difference between Awareness and Attention and how do we use them in our lives? William James, the father of American Psychology, practiced in the very early 1900’s. He is famous for this quote: “What we pay attention to the most will create the reality of our personal experience.” If we “feed” anxious, self- doubt, or craving thoughts with our attention, we increase our own suffering and therefore, the suffering of others. Learning how to work with our attention, to move our attention away from these thoughts, is fundamental if we are to interrupt and let go of old harmful habits of thinking, feeling and reacting. Meditation is a practice of learning how to redirect attention to healthy habits of mind.

Attention is similar to a flashlight beam that we can direct anywhere we want. We can direct it to a specific object like a thought, or what is appearing constantly on our smart phones. Awareness is more like a flood light and is a relaxing of attention back into it’s source…which is awareness itself. It’s like sitting by the water and noticing the coming and going of the breeze on the skin and the sea birds flying across the sky. It’s open and allowing of whatever is arising and passing within it. Meditation uses a focusing of attention to create an opening of awareness where thoughts, feelings, body sensations and sounds come and go without sticking in the mind. See the description of the first type of meditation.

The first type of meditation is learning how to focus attention on an object. The most common object is the feeling of the breath in the body, mainly in the belly. The breath is natural so we don’t need to breath in a certain way in this fundamental type of mediation. We gently aim and sustain our attention as best we can on the feeling of the breath in the body. If we get distracted by thoughts, which is natural, we gently bring attention back to the breath. This will cause the body to slowly relax and attention to become steady. As the body relaxes, the mind will begin to settle. Thoughts become more transparent and do not stay as long. This is a soothing practice and the most important type of meditation for therapy. We are learning to direct attention where we want it and away from old stressful habits of thinking and feeling.

The second type of mediation is called “self- inquiry” or inquiring into the nature of what we call I, me and mine. As we experience thoughts, moods and emotions to be transparent and impermanent, our sense of I, me and mine therefore becomes more diffuse and open, more relaxed. The mind is more flexible and accepting of different parts within. If Im not my thoughts, feelings, memories and opinions, then “who am I” This is the main question of self inquiry.

The third type of meditation is investigating, recognizing and experiencing awareness itself. It begins with the question: “what is it that is aware of, or knows, all we are experiencing both internally in the mind and our perceptions of the outside world. By pulling back attention from all experience to what is aware of all experience, we recognize that our essence as human beings is pure open awareness itself. Being Aware of Being Aware without effort because pure awareness is always present behind our preoccupation with personal experience.

If you are interested in meditation for yourself or your organization, please contact me.