New Blog Entry on Huffington Post

My first submission to the Huffington Post was posted recently. It provides 8 tips for managing grief.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/new-harbinger-publications-inc/8-tips-for-mindfully-proc_b_681593.html

There will be another post in the next few months about managing stress mindfully.

Please distribute to anyone you know who may benefit from the tips within them.

Getting Through the Holidays

The holiday season is upon us. For a lot of us, this is a time when family and friends gather for the annual feasts and culturally sanctioned vacations from work and school. However, for many of us, this is also a time when we feel the absence of a loved one, or the immensity of changes we've lived through since the "way things used to be."

Milestones such as holidays are signposts in time that describe our life's journey. It can be humbling to think that in general, few of us have 90 Thanksgivings or New Years' Eves to live through, much less remember. It doesn't seem like that many when we count them off one at a time, like beads on a necklace. As we grow into a fleeting adulthood that mercilessly and seamlessly gives way to old age, we can tick off another holiday season that has passed and will not return.

Those of us who are mindful of grief, either of our own or of others, have come to anticipate the holidays with bittersweet longing. We remember seasons past, missed opportunities, and the pain of loss at sensing an empty seat at the table. We may also feel the pressure of the finite nature of our lives. How many more holiday seasons will we have, who will we spend them with, and what kind of condition will be in during the next season?

These milestones don't only have to be poignant reminders of life's impermanent nature. A transformative exercise to do to help steer your life on the path you wish it to be is to consider what kinds of memories you want to reflect on next year. Holidays and milestones can trigger grief, but they can also be rallying points for generating meaningful change. These changes can be minor, such as menus, decorations or outfits, or major, such as the relationships we will pursue or not pursue, and the type of inner work we will have done by then.

Rather than get swept up in the storm of your emotions, you can try two things that are the cornerstone to my approach to getting through life's challenging moments:

1) Transform your automatic stress response into a voluntary one by practicing mindfulness skills. Start with basic belly breathing to help your body send the message of mindfulness to your brain, rather than allowing your brain to control your body. Then attach your mind to your relaxed body by tracking your breaths, one at a time.

2) Set realistic, attainable goals. Most of us won't be climbing Mt. Everest in our lifetimes. However, we all have some emotional or mental peaks to climb, or changes we want to make in how we live.

What would you like to reflect back on during next Thanksgiving, New Years' Eve 2010, gathered around the Christmas tree or lighting Hannukah candles? Would you like to be living out the same routines you have found? What would you like to change?

The holidays can be reminders of the impermanent nature of life, but depending on the choices you make, this impermanence can fuel the anguish of grief or mindfulness of life's endless possibilities. Choose wisely, and choose mindfully.

Public Grief

What a week.

So many public figures-- Ed McMahon, Farrah Fawcett, Michael Jackson, Billy Mays-- all died within days of each other. Millions mourned their loss, as well as the lives and achievements of these public figures. They made us laugh, entertained us, danced, and help us shop. For many of us, we grew up watching Ed McMahon every night, Farrah every Wednesday night. We remembered a world before and after moon walking, and stains that wouldn't leave without OxyClean.

I couldn't but help wonder about the hundreds of thousands of others who died last week, who will die this week, or who die every day. The deaths of celebrities draw us in, we re-live their talents, we grieve their losses and then move on. These are lives lived in the public eye, and then ended in the public eye. It somehow satisfies our need to see our heroes fall, become fallible and human. Or, to honor the markers of our collective cultural landscapes.

But we could do so much more.

Even though few of us will live lives on national television, movie theaters, or provide the soundtracks to our memories, all of us will die. When celebrities live, they seem larger than life. In death, we are reminded of the Buddha's words in the Nine Charnel Ground Contemplations-- "None of us are exempt from this fate."

The deaths of famous people demonstrate that death is universal, and if we allow it, can be a universal teacher. We can-- if we choose to-- be reminded of the preciousness of all life, of the unique potential of each human life, and the inevitability of our mortality. We can use the deaths of celebrities as bells of mindfulness to wake us up from taking our precious moments for granted. To become empowered to make the choices that give our lives meaning.

So, thank you Ed, Farrah, MJ, Billy, and everyone else for giving us the opportunity to wake up in your own way.

May you all be free from suffering, and may you all be at peace.

Climbing Mountains

During a period of transition in my life, I had the good fortune the meet a gifted therapist. In trying to determine which road I should take, she asked me a powerful questions which I have also come to adopt as a therapist many years later.
She asked me if I was looking back on my life in my old age, which of the choices in front of me would give me the greatest satisfaction.

The hardest times, like living through the death of a loved one, losing the illusion of stability we all take for granted, or transitioning to a new part of our lives, invite us to ask the same question-- which choice would give us the greatest satisfaction, the most meaning?

The process is similar to setting anchors for ropes when climbing a mountain or a tall rock. If you get too high up, your rope will catch your fall if it has been secured to an anchor. In life, setting these anchors of meaning can serve the same purpose. They can help you decide which steps can guide the path to your goal and remind you if your deeds are helping you along the way.

The difficult question in grief, in the ambiguity of losing a stable identity, is often "who do I become now?"

The mindful path can help you find a meaningful answer.