Rumination about Booksigning

So, tonight (3/20) is my first booksigning for my new book, The Mindful Path Through Worry and Rumination, at Books and Books in Coral Gables. Come by at 7pm if you want to check it out.

The irony is, I actually had a worry-type dream about it. In my dream, I spent a leisurely Saturday getting ready for the event. At 4pm, I decided to take a nap. But when I wake up, it's 8:36pm. I've totally missed my booksigning. The dream made me laugh, because I hardly have any of these kinds of dreams, certainly not as stereotypical anticipatory type dreams.

I guess I'll start off the booksigning with a public disclosure that after 15 years of a daily meditation practice, this kind of stuff still happens. Difference is, you laugh.

Hope to see you there!

Five Simple Lessons to Avoid Therapy

In a society that values consumption, materialism, and pleasure as appropriate substitutes for genuine happiness, the new economy of recession has laid bare the pitfalls of unsustainable lifestyle choices. Lately, it seems that five basic guidelines would save a lot of us a lot of trouble.

1) Live within your means. If you can't afford it, don't buy it. Don't confuse your purchasing power with your self-esteem, and don't confuse Shiny New Things for genuine pleasure.

2) Keep your promises. If you are supposed to be somewhere at a certain time, show up. If you promise to be there for someone, show up. If you are married, keep your vows, unless your partner is abusive.

3) Don't tell lies. It's way too stressful to keep secrets, especially petty ones. Sleep with a clear conscience.

4) Be grateful for one thing every day, and express gratitude to at least one person every day. It makes you attractive, and makes it easier to smile!

5) Do at least one healthy thing a day for yourself. Exercise. Meditate. Eat well. No therapist can coach you 24/7; our job is to make sure you don't need us (at least it should be).

If more of us could do these five things, we'd be spared a lot of trouble, and our society would probably be much happier.

Thank you for reading!

Haiti: When prayers are not enough

I recently started a new job at the Memorial Healthcare System. Today, I met with the nurse manager on the oncology floor in the hospital to introduce myself and the services I provide to cancer patients and their families. She was very warm and caring, and immediately expressed her concern about some of her nurses who have family in Haiti. We will coordinate a grief workshop for these nurses next week, once they have hopefully established contact with their families. Many of them will not have good news.

How immensely sad and poignant. These are dedicated nurses, caring for cancer patients day in and day out. Many of these patients are actively dying or close to it, some of them hospitalized for intensive chemotherapies and sick 24/7. Yet there is no exemption for these nurses. Despite their selflessness and dedication, they have had family members gone missing, dead, or injured back at home. No doubt, some of these nurses are the breadwinners for extensive family networks and have left childhood environments few of us can fathom.

I was reminded yet again of the awful and inescapable truth of the Nine Charnel Ground Contemplations, the mindfulness practice taught by the Buddha to be practiced in the face of death and decay: "This body is like that, it too if of that nature, none of us are exempt from that fate."

I said a prayer of healing, compassion, and for rebirth into the Pure Land for those whom it was appropriate, but prayers are not enough. Please consider a more active form of helping and giving:

https://secure.americares.org/site/Donation2?idb=78993387&df_id=5083&5083.donation=form1

http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2010-01-13/large-earthquake-haiti

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.

Mindful Debt Restructuring

As the global recession continues on, a running theme seems to be emerging with a lot of my clients in therapy. After having suffered through the trials of cancer diagnosis, treatment, and recovery, a lot of them feel entitled to live a life of abandon. Becoming so intimately close to the First Noble Truth, that suffering is ubiquitious, they feel the need to seek out happiness at every turn.

This is all well and good. In many ways of looking at it, the Buddha himself advised that in the face of universal suffering, the search for happiness was the only alternative. However, the happiness that the Buddha taught, and that has been spoken of by many other teachers, was not based on pleasure, materialism or empty kicks. Instead, happiness was a side-effect of cultivating a compassionate and mindful life.

In contrast, as a society we seem to confuse happiness with pleasure. If it feels good, surely it must bring us happiness, right? And deep happiness can be reached by piling on fleeting joys, no matter what the cost, right? For many of my clients, the recession has responded with a resounding "NO!". People who chase Shiny New Things-- eat at the priciest restaurants, shop at the fanciest stores, drive the newest cars-- seem to be waking up from the intoxicating dream of materialistic pleasures into the hard reality of the First Noble Truth: you can't run from suffering by chasing pleasures you can't spiritually or financially afford. The debt will swallow you up.

The antidote to the First Noble Truth begins in a much simpler place that doesn't accept credit cards. That place is the Now. It's in front of you; you don't need to go anywhere. You don't need to make a reservation. You don't need a receipt in case you change your mind and decide it's too expensive.

The Now, this spacious, precious moment, is free and is the seed of true freedom and deep happiness. Begin now; watch your mind as it dances. Feel your breath rise and fall. Feel your skin settling around your body. Feel your exhalation spreading unconditional, universal compassion to your living space, paying special attention to sending unconditional love to your adversaries. This will set you free.

This is the Now. It's what we fight so hard to protect but lose so easily chasing shiny reminders of what it can feel like.

Ask yourself: Where will you be in 5 years if you keep consuming Shiny New Things? Does the happiness of consumption build on itself, growing proportionately to the size of each purchase? If that were so, everyone living in a mansion would be enlightened.

How happy will you be in 5 years if you begin a daily meditation practice today? Does the happiness that meditation can bring build on itself, growing proportionately with the amount of experience you have training your mind? It would seem so.

You have at this moment the ability to walk in the footsteps of your future enlightenment.

Simplify into the present moment. It makes good financial sense, and you won't be paying it off at a high interest rate. You will, however, only be able to withdraw what you deposit.