Coaching Yourself

Once you've decided that you would like to work on one of your unskillful and negative habits, the next step is figuring out what you can do to prevent that unskillful habit from controlling you the next time something happens which triggers it.
Let's use the example of being short-tempered. Let's say you receive a letter in the mail from a company. They have sent you a bill which you have already paid. This is the third time that this has happened. You begin to feel angry and you decide that you are going to call the company and yell at them for getting it wrong again. However, you notice what is happening to you, that you are starting to lose control of yourself and that you're about to raise your voice.
Instead of calling the company to yell at them, you might stop what you are doing and coach yourself out of the behavior you often indulge in. In order to coach yourself, it is very important to spend some time identifying what unskillful habits that you have and then determining what kind of mantra you could use to help you when your unskillful habit appears to be getting the better of you.
It could be something like: "I don't have to raise my voice," or "I will be all right. I will stay calm," or "Stay present, breathe, there's no need to get angry right now. I will call them when I've calmed down." These are just a few examples.
We all know, too well, that our unskillful habits are powerful and when they take hold of us, we ride them as if we were a passenger on a boat that's swirling in the middle of a storm. We feel helpless no matter how hard we try to steer ourselves back on track.
This is why it is so important to nurture your unskillful habits - even when they don't arise. Maybe after your daily meditation practice you can acknowledge your unskillful habits and tell yourself that you'll know what to do should that arise at some point during your day. Repeating a mantra, which you created to assist you with your unskillful habit, reaffirms your commitment to changing your behavior.

About Changing Unskillful Habits in Ourselves & Others

The notion of changing for another person because they ask, "Will you change this or that for me?" is common. Many of us can relate to having relationships with others, whether it be at work or with an intimate partner, where the subject of change comes up. 

At some point, and sometimes this occurs often, there is a request from someone we are close to: "I need you to change this about yourself," or "I need you to change that about yourself; it bothers me. I cannot live with this."
However, it's important to reflect on the notion of change. Anyone who studies Buddhism, reads about Buddhism, and practices meditation understands that all things are always changing. We are always changing. Others are always changing. Everything around us is always shifting. Moments are gone and then there is the next moment and the next moment, and so on. No moment is the same.
With this understanding, statements like, "I need you to change" could be understood differently because you know that change is inevitable. You know that change happens of its own accord - with or without your demands. Perhaps trusting in the way of the world will become easier.
Therefore, perhaps a more skillful approach to wanting someone to change something about themselves in order to serve your relationship better is taking the approach of stating: "This is how I feel about what you are doing."
Let's say, for example, that your partner smokes cigarettes and you don't like that and you want them to stop. If you take the skillful approach of stating how you feel, as opposed to telling the other person to change, every time your partner smokes, he or she will remember what you stated. Most certainly if you were gentle, kind, not straining to rush the process of changing someone's unskillful habits. 
This approach requires much patience and is not the typical approach we take. We often take a rushed approach. We think: He hasn't changed yet so I better tell him again and again and again how much I need him to change, or else...This unskillful approach will bring about change, but maybe not the change you'd prefer.
Think of yourself and how you change before asking someone else to change. How do you respond to another person who asks you to change? What would you prefer? And, how does change take place in you? What is it that has made you want to alter some of your negative and unproductive habits? What motivates you to change?

Compassion in Adversity

The path of compassion asks you to consider what is needed to live with no one as your enemy.The person who harmed you may continue to be aggressive, irritating, exploitative, or hurtful. You may not have the power to change them, but you do have the capacity to liberate yourself from the burden and prison of bitterness.This is a practice of the moment. If you believe that compassion has to wait until you have the ideal life, surrounded by wonderful people with perfect hearts, you will end up postponing life, saving your compassion for the right moment in which to apply it. 
When you live with feelings of hurt born of your interaction with another person, you are invited to explore what compassion means in the absence of good will. Clearly, compassion rises more spontaneously in response to the suffering of those we love, where there is a foundation of affection. We can easily find compassion from a distance for innocent casualties of conflict; we can even find compassion for those who cause pain, if they express remorse and promise to change. The most challenging place to nurture compassion is where the hurt and pain are very personal and good will has vanished. If you can find the courage and commitment to nurture compassion in the midst of hell, it will be a compassion that is unshakable. Christina Feldman, from her book Compassion

Moment by Moment

Perhaps one of the most useful tools that we can learn is how to skillfully be with our fears and anxieties when they arise.
In Calming Your Anxious Mind, by Jeffrey Brantley, the book we are currently reading and discussing during our Tuesday night meditation class, Brantley tells us of a story that he encountered when he was facing fear while riding in a hot air balloon. When fear arose in him, he directed his complete attention on the unfolding sensations of his breath. Fear still came and went, but each time fear arose, he was able to meet it the same way he had before, using the awareness of his breath as an anchor to overcoming his fear.
What's important to understand is that when fear arises in us, everything is tainted by that fear. Everything is flavored by the unpleasant feelings that fear brings. We begin to see the world and experience everything through the filter of fear. This is why we have no choice but to learn to cope with our fear. We can learn to understand that we can have relief when we know how to deal with it.
Have you ever noticed what happens to you when you feel fear or anxiety? You might be short with people around you, you might feel a need to cry, you might feel untrusting of others, you may even feel a need to shut down, you may feel a clenching and gripping feeling inside, you may react strongly - even overreact and spin out of control emotionally. When this happens, everything you are experiencing is filtered through fear.
The key to dealing with your anxieties and fears is to find an effective and skillful way of dealing with them. As Brantley writes, "This means relating to the fearful experience in a way that allows you to be with it instead of fighting with it or reacting blindly to it. The wise response, the mindful response, is to turn toward the experience with calm and focused attention."
A mindful way is to stop trying to control your feelings of fear and anxiety. Instead, allow them to unfold in the light of calm and focused attention. Change your relationship to the unpleasant feelings, moment by moment. Focusing on your breath and embracing the attitudes of nonjudging, nondenying, and allowing (what we learn through meditation) is one way to transition into the light of calm and focused attention.

Times for Silence

Since Jeffrey Brantley, MD, author of Calming Your Anxious Mind, refers a few times to Christina Feldman's book, Silence, we will be reading and discussing excerpts from her book a few Tuesday evening's each month (Silence is also on sale at Rasa Spa).
Here is a beautiful piece of her writing from the introduction to the book: "When we speak less to the world and everything in it, we bring a silence in which we can listen to the story of life, other people and our own heart. We learn to treasure listening and the richness it offers more than the busyness of our conclusions, assumptions, knowledge, or opinions. We are humbled by silence as we discover that our words can never fully describe the fullness and richness of any moment in our life that is truly listened to."
The last sentence describes what some of us may experience when we meditate. Words cannot describe the richness and fullness of each moment. "The moments of silence we encounter are benedictions, blessings that echo in our hearts.They invite us to be still, to listen deeply, and to be present in this world," writes Felman. How often are we really and truly present? Try being present right now as you read this. Stop everything you're doing, take time to be silent, and listen...

Mindfulness is Maturity

We finished reading Chapter Six of Calming Your Anxious Mind, by Jeffrey Brantley. The title of the chapter is, "Your Attitude is Important."
This chapter focused on the important inner conditions and attitudes that form the foundation for your mindfulness practice. The focus was on the seven essential attitudes that mindfulness is founded: nonjudging, patience, beginner's mind, trust, nonstriving, acceptance, and letting go.
Recognizing and cultivating these inner qualities will create the optimal conditions for you as you teach yourself to be present in order to manage fear, anxiety, and panic.
If you look closely, the seven essential attitudes are about maturity. Maturity is often defined as the time in your life when you've fully developed. If one can embrace the seven essential attitudes in all aspects of one's life, then this is liken to becoming mature.
Think of how immature it is when we act impatient, when we judge others, when we are striving and straining, when we don't accept someone for who they are, when we cling and hang on. Sometimes we can see this behavior in ourselves and we may even see it as immature.
Next to someone who has embraced the seven essential attitudes, our behavior would be seen as immature. And hopefully we can see this in ourselves. All of us, at times, are immature. All of us, at times, act in ways that we aren't proud of. This is not to criticize, this is simply to say, notice your own behavior - become the observer and start to ask yourself the important questions: Am I patient? Am I accepting? Can I let go? Will I be able to have a beginner's mind more often? Must I judge others?
We can't change everything about ourselves that we don't like overnight. But, we can see what we are doing and admit, with grace, what we see about ourselves to ourselves and to others. The seven essential attitudes are beautiful reminders of our inner landscape.
If you think of yourself as mature...ask yourself if you understand what that means in relation to the seven essential attitudes. And remember, be gentle. It's easy to be hard on ourselves when it becomes so clear to us that we don't like our own behavior. Where do you go from there? Just try accepting where you are and then tell yourself that you will work to achieve a newer attitude. Best of luck to you all on your journey...

Acceptance is Opening to What Is Here and Now

Jeffrey Brantley, in his book, Calming Your Anxious Mind, speaks about acceptance in a way that I've never heard before. He says: "Acceptance means seeing things exactly as they are rather than as you think they are or as you think they should be. Remember, things can only change in the present moment. You have to see things as they are and yourself as you are - truly - in this moment if you wish to change, heal, or transform yourself or your life."
We hear the word acceptance tossed around left and right and we say to ourselves, "Yes, I need to have more acceptance." But I think many of us say this to ourselves uncertain of what to do when we struggle trying to accept something. Brantley's definition makes it very easy for us because it's as basic as "seeing things exactly as they are."
And seeing things exactly as they are takes willingness to see things as they are. Many of us live in some kind of bubble. We see things one way, but in reality it's not that way. So just accomplishing this first step is huge! If we can really be honest with ourselves about where we're at, then there's the possibility to transform. What wonderful news!
"Acceptance includes softening and opening to what is here. The sense of struggle is released. By ceasing to deny and to fight with the way things are now, you can find yourself with more energy to heal and to transform what is here."
And more good news is, that acceptance doesn't mean that you have to like where you are. It doesn't mean you even have to be satisfied. You may find out that you are unhappy about the way you are communicating with your wife. You may find out that you are being too stubborn. You may find out that you have a serious addiction problem if you are seeing things as they are. You may also see that you are blessed and really lucky!
Recently, I found myself feeling stuck when communicating with a certain member of my family. We just weren't seeing eye-to-eye. In that moment I took a step back and as uncomfortable and disappointing as it was, I admitted to myself that that sometimes this family member and I don't get along and we struggle. In fact, in that moment, I realized, perhaps for the first time in my life, I admitted to myself and I could see very clearly the truth - that this member of my family and I are very, very different people.
But as soon as I could see that something shifted in me - I began to have more compassion. We get along some of the time, but sometimes we just don't. I felt more peace knowing that I could see what really was and not pretend something other than what was.
Try to embrace Brantley's definition of acceptance. Be gentle with yourself. You may not like what you see, but at least you are willing and that is worth gold - to be willing to see things as they are.

Trust in Your Own Authority

During Tuesday night’s meditation class we are currently reading and discussing the book, Calming Your Anxious Mind, by Jeffrey Brantley, MD.

He writes eloquently about the seven essential attitudes one can deepen as they cultivate their mindfulness practice. One of them is trust. Here is what he writes about trust: “A basic part of learning to meditate is learning to trust yourself and your feelings. You learn to trust that you can see clearly what is actually happening to you. As you practice mindfulness, you will deepen your awareness of life and your own moment-to-moment experience. You will develop increasing sensitivity and accuracy in discerning what is here now, and what is happening in your own body and mind, as well as what is happening around you. You will learn that you and you alone are the best person to know what is going on inside your own skin and what is happening outside of it. You do not need an expert to tell you these things. You can learn to pay attention and to be present using powerful capabilities of attention and awareness that you already have. It is important to learn to trust in your own authority to know yourself, rather than to look outside yourself for authority. In this process, you discover what it really means to be your own person and to live life with authenticity.”
Hopefully, if you’ve been practicing meditation regularly you are beginning to experience what Brantley has written about. With this trust you gain clarity. What does it mean to gain clarity? In the context of mindfulness, clarity is the ability to know oneself. When we know ourselves, we begin to see the things that prevent us from being ourselves.
Clarity is very useful when communicating with others. Sometimes we come in contact with people who are not clear, yet parade around as if they are. They may do one thing and say another. They may not explain something clearly to you which results in you feeling worry or doubt. You may have friendships with people that are unclear – where one person hopes a romantic relationship will ensue and the other is pleased to simply have a companionship, without romance. Maybe you experience email communication with someone that isn’t clear which could create conflict if misinterpreted. We all experience moments in our lives where we, and others, are not clear.
The good news is that the clarity you gain from meditation can help you and possibly others. Brantley mentions the word accuracy above. He says, “You will develop increasing sensitivity and accuracy in discerning what is here now, and what is happening in your own body and mind, as well as what is happening around you.” This accuracy is what will help you and possibly others when communicating.
When you begin to understand your own state of mind, then you can begin to recognize the mind states of others. You do this by listening and being present to everything someone is saying to you and catching every word and phrase and not day dreaming while you are listening to them. When listening you may catch another’s doubt. You may catch another’s fear or anxiety or worry. You may also notice that someone is being unclear, yet masking that with clarity. If you see this then your clarity can help to smooth things over between you and another person. There is freedom in trusting your own authority and the clarity you gain from meditation. Of course, it does take time to develop these valuable skills.
Here is a relatively common scenario in life where you can begin to practice exercising your own authority. Let’s say that someone comes up to you and freely expresses their opinions about you. You do have the right to disagree with that person and explain why. This is trusting your own authority. Of course, if you agree with that person, then it is skillful to thank that person for giving you information that could help you to become more aware.
Too many people judge others or are harsh critics and they do this without thinking, they do this without having spent the time thinking things through before reacting without clarity. If this happens to you…trust your own authority, know yourself, and gently stand up for yourself. You will find much freedom when practicing this. Just because others sway every which way the wind blows does not mean that you too must follow. To trust in your own authority means you are a pole, a rock, a clear pond...even in the midst of a storm.

Internal Conditions

Nurturing the internal conditions that will support your meditation practice is vital. According to Jeffrey Brantley, MD, in his book Calming Your Anxious Mind, the key factors within are attitude, curiosity, motivation, and belief in yourself.
The orientation you bring to your meditation practice is critical in order to reap the benefits from this practice. What attitude do you have about meditation practice? Meditation will fix everything and solve all my problems and if it doesn't in two weeks, forget about it? Meditation works for me while I'm sitting with a group, but it doesn't when I'm facing a conflict, so what's the point? It seems to be taking a long time, too long, and I don't have time for too long?
A skilled attitude would be to remember that meditation is a process, a journey. "Learning takes place only through your own practice and willingness to be present and to pay attention," writes Brantley. "It is not based on preconceived ideas or what you think you know. Your understanding grows over time as you gain direct experience practicing meditation regularly."
Think of your attitudes like the soil, the sunlight, the air, temperature, and moisture for a garden. Nurture your attitudes. This way you are able to establish a strong and supportive daily meditation practice.

Don't Know Mind

We are a society that knows everything. We know the news every minute of the day. We know technology like we've never known technology before. We know how to change a tire, how to fix our washing machine when it breaks. We know everything there is to know about our computer, our iPhone, our iPads.We know who to call when we need help. We know where we want to go when it's time for a vacation. We know so much!

This all knowing attitude is certainly useful; however, this makes admiting to "not knowing" challenging. Developing a "don't know" mind is a benefit from meditation practice. We learn to be okay in the present. And, in the present moment we don't know the future - we only know the here and now. This is very different from all the knowing we experience during the day.

What is the experience of not knowing like? It goes something along the lines of this: I don't know how I feel. I don't know why he's angry at me. I don't know if I'll pass the exam, but I'll try. I don't know if this person that I'm dating is the person that I'll marry, but we are dating, that's what I know. I don't know where I'll be 10 years from now. I don't know what they were saying about me behind my back and I don't need to know. I don't know if this friend is right and my other friend is wrong. I don't know that there's only one way of seeing things. I don't know as much about that subject as I thought I did - this new information is useful.

A "don't know" mind is open to possibilities, is open to receiving information. Just think of the opposite: I already know what you think so I don't need to listen. I know everything there is to know about you already. I know what you'll say. I know what you're thinking. I know you're too uptight for me to love you. I know that I can't so I'm giving up.

Remember the movie, Good Will Hunting? Will had a know it all mind. He was a genius! But, when it came to the stuff of life - he couldn't apply knowing a math equation to knowing how to love a woman.

We don't know everything. When we admit to not knowing, we open ourselves up to learning and experiencing more than if we admit to knowing...

To Believe Or Not To Believe

One of the most challenging aspects of applying what we learn from meditation into a situation where we are experiencing fear, panic, worry, or anxiety is learning first to separate the habitual thinking from our new found clarity which we find from meditation practice.

For example, let's say that someone says something to intentionally hurt your feelings. Initially, you may have many thoughts arise such as: What's wrong with me? What did I do wrong? She's right, I am a rude person. I hate myself. What did I do to deserve this? The list of habitual thinking continues for 10 minutes, an hour, maybe on-and-off for a few days. You stay in this place because it's what's familiar and you don't know how to gain another perspective. You may even create intricate stories in your mind about the person who hurt your feelings - fantasies really because how much of what you create in your mind, without accurate information, is real?
The second thing is to notice and pay more attention to your new found clarity. When does it come and how do you recognize it? The journey is different for everyone, but for some of you you'll notice your new found clarity right away. For some of you this insight may take hours or days to recognize.
There will be new thoughts that you will have such as: I didn't do anything wrong here. This person who hurt my feelings was out of line. They reacted strongly and were somehow triggered. Maybe I should just try my best to have compassion for that person because the way they behaved was reactive and I don't need to do the same. I can move on, not obsessively think about this anymore, and let go.
In addition, you may be able to simply observe the person saying hurtful things to you and instead of react to them simply respond with, "I'm so sorry you feel this way."
For a while, until you gain confidence and understanding in what your habitual thoughts are versus what your newly found clear thoughts are, there may be a struggle within you. The struggle is often how to separate the distracting habitual thoughts from those which are grounded and real.
Keep observing and remind yourself that you no longer need to believe the habitual thoughts (generally negative) that burden you and create an obstacle between you and serenity. Pay more attention to, and learn to trust, the insights you gain from new thoughts arising. Let those be the ones to ground you.

An Exciting Opportunity

In Chapter Four of Calming Your Anxious Mind by Jeffrey Brantley, we all chuckled to ourselves when I read one of the three elements of what Brantley refers to as "stress hardiness:" Challenge.
According to Brantley, challenge means, "having the ability to greet the stressful situation as an opportunity for growth and excitement. This inevitably means also welcoming and accepting change, which is constant, rather than feeling overwhelmed by it."
How do we get to a place where we can greet a stressful situation as an interesting opportunity for growth and excitement? The answer to that question is first by evaluating just how you greet stressful situations today. What do you do? How do you greet stress in your life?
Do you complain for hours on end? Do you call a friend and cry? Do you get defensive? Do you yell at someone close to you and blame them for your inability to cope with the stress you are facing? Do you shut down and have a drink? Do you do drugs? And do any of the above behaviors assist you in overcoming the stressful situation you are in, or deter you and make things worse?
Once you recognize what your pattern is when stress arises - only then can you begin to change. As an exercise for yourself contemplate what it would mean for you to actually greet a stressful situation you are currently facing as an exciting opportunity for growth. Before you try doing this just sit quietly with the stressful situation you are facing and ask yourself, "What would happen to me if I saw this differently?"
Most likely this shift in attitude will help you to see yourself as capable and confident in handling what you are currently going through. Maybe the thoughts in your mind will shift to: "I can handle this. I can face this. I can even deal with this mindfully so that I can stay healthy in body and mind. I will be okay, and if I need to, I can turn to others for support so that I remain mindful throughout this stressful process."
Remember, you may not be able to do this right away, but greeting stressful situations with the knowledge that you can grow from the situation may alleviate some of the stress you are facing.

Addiction to Conflict

We all deal with conflict in our lives - whether it's conflict that arises at work, conflict that arises in our personal relationships, even conflict with another driver on the road. It is important to recognize that, in our society, there are people in this world, sad to say, who are addicted to conflict.
There are many reasons for this. Our society for one: the news, specific television shows, the combative nature of entertainment talk-shows, and many Hollywood films, often contribute to this mode of operandi ultimately leading to being hooked by the snowball effect of anger. And unfortunately this behavior is justified which only leads to more of this behavior.
This is when addiction to conflict becomes a habit. And it becomes an attractive habit because once a person is addicted to conflict they gain attention. It's negative attention, but it's attention nonetheless. Therefore, that person is addicted to gaining negative attention.
Sometimes it is very difficult to recognize the person, or perhaps persons, in your life who are addicted to conflict. For individuals with this addiction they often appear that they want to be helped, but as soon as you give it to them, they reject the help and turn that too into a conflict. In fact, for these individulas, everything becomes a potential source of conflict.
How do we recognize these people in our lives? Some people who are addicted to conflict - - their addiction comes out under certain circumstances - stress is often a trigger for that person. These individulas are often pessimistic, which means that they will view most situations negatively. Tying this into the book we are currently reading, Calming Your Anxious Mind, by Jeffrey Brantley, MD, this in turn affects their health.
There really isn't much one can do for the person who is addicted to conflict. Hopefully, that individual will see their own behavior, recognize the damage that it is doing to them and others, tire of it, and eventually seek relief and make changes in their life.
On Tuesday evening the reading from Calming Your Anxious Mind, by Jeffrey Brantley, MD, included the three elements of stress hardiness: commitment, control, and challenge. We discussed these. In relation to the person who is addicted to conflict, keep in mind what Brantley wrote about control.
"Control means being confident that you have the ability to cushion the hurt or destructiveness of a particular stressful situation. It does not mean that you have to control other people or all aspects of a situation. Control is the refusal to become a victim (the role that the individual who is addicted to conflict takes). Control is the ability to focus on what you can control and not be distracted by what you cannot."
If you know someone who is addicted to conflict - disengage, don't get caught up in their drama that is behind their addiction. This takes much strength. Another bit of advice that may help is to remember your commitment to peace and compassion.

The Point of Intervention

According to Brantley, in Calming Your Anxious Mind, the new book we started reading and discussing during the Tuesday night meditation class, in order to conquer panic you must learn to intervene at the point of interpretation.
"People, places, and events are panic-provoking only after we apply meaning to them," writes Brantley. "A store is just a store, a speech is just a speech, a drive is just a drive, until the brain interprets them as 'dangerous' or 'threatening.'"
So how does one learn to intervene at the point of interpretation? Certainly meditation helps because this slows us down enough to recognize how we are interpreting any given situation that causes us stress. Meditation will also help you to see your thoughts and views and modify the ones that stimulate the fear system, the fight-or-flight reaction.
This doesn't mean that this will happen quickly. This means it will take practice and patience. To make this easier start with the situations in your life which currently trigger the fight-or-flight response in you. Your job? A person? A location? Does your heart race ever time your employer calls you? Do you begin to panic the moment you see a letter in the mail from the IRS? Just notice what your mind does and see if you can interrupt your panic thinking and introduce instead the don't know mind.

The Tuesday night meditation group has started to read and discuss a new book, "Calming Your Anxious Mind," by Jeffrey Brantley, MD.
After reading the introduction, here's what to keep in mind as we dive into the new chapter, Anxiety and the Power of the Mind...the fear reaction is extremely powerful. It happens almost instantaneously. Yet, each of us has the capacity to change how we react. And learning to meditate can give you the power you need to become more responsive and less reactive when fear happens.
In otherwords, when the mind-body connection is at work in the relaxation response, it serves to reverse the activation characteristic of the fight-or-flight response. As Brantley writes, "Human beings have the ability, by directing attention and awareness, to enter extraordinary states of calm and relaxation."

Being Friends with Your Fears

It’s all too easy to just accept the words written by Buddhist authors when they write, “Turn your fears into your allies.” We may understand this concept intellectually, but putting this into practice is entirely different.
One of the keys to understanding this concept is slowing down enough, through meditation, to know what your fears are. More so, knowing what habits you follow which create those fears.
So what does it mean to really turn your fears into your allies? How do you do that? Your understanding of how to do this will really come from how you apply yourself in any given moment when you feel fear arising in you.
Let’s break down the experience as if you were someone who does not know how to make friends with your fears: First, there is something that triggers you to feel fear. Second, you react to your fear, often a habit response. Third, you continue to focus on your fear. Fourth, now you dwell in a state of fear. Fifth, you start to feel your present-moment fears affecting your body. Sixth, a snowball affect happens and fear turns into a big monster that overwhelms you. Last, you feel out of control mentally and not well physically.
Now let’s break down what might happen to you the next time you feel fear arising in you and you’ve been meditating regularly for quite some time: First, there is something that triggers you. Second, you notice that you are being triggered. Third, you recognize an old fear or habit creeping up. Fourth, you observe how these fears are trying to take hold of your mind saying, “This is a very big deal and you should be afraid and angry about this injustice.” Fifth, you step back and observe your reactions to your fears.
If you begin to feel out of control, then you will talk to that out of control part of you like a friend – “I know you’re afraid, but we’ve been down this road before. Everything will be all right, even if you need to cry or be afraid – go ahead.” Sixth, before you distort your fear and make it worse, you carry on with your fear, like a best friend by your side that you need to nurture before you put it to bed. Seven, you are not hard on yourself. No matter how many times you’ve tried to be more self-aware, if you’re not where you really want to be, you still remain gentle.
Every fear-based experience is unique. The idea here is to really examine for yourself how you can befriend your fears, your anxieties, and worries. Remember the second scenario. Having read it, that alone may be the reminder that you need so that the next time you are worried, you will remember to slow down so you can follow the steps of nurturing a more mindful mind/body response. Hopefully, more peaceful results will be motivation enough to do things differently.

The Value of Regularly Practicing Meditation

One way to think of meditating is cleaning the mind, not just clearing the mind. Many meditation instructors and authors use the language of clearing the mind, but what's occurring is more than that. Remember that meditation provides you with a new and healthy perspective to the situations you face.
For those of you who like to exercise, and exercise a little bit every day, or on a regular basis, you do this to keep your body in shape. For those who like to meditate, or are new to meditation, think of meditation in a similar way, meditation is keeping you mind in shape.
Another way to think of meditation is that every day there is a lot of activity in the mind. When you meditate it's like your putting your mind through washing and drying machines. When you meditate every day your mind is cleaned so to speak. Each day our minds get "dirty" with negative thoughts and input. Meditation cleans the mind from all the negative thoughts, some of which we soak in from others and some of which we create ourselves. Since our minds can feel speed, almost contaminated with too much going on, on a daily basis, you may see the value in regular practice.
What happens to the mind if you don't meditate regularly? It's like not cleaning your house for a month.And, it's a lot of work to clean your house if you wait one month to clean it. Furthermore, all sorts of nasty things might grow in your house if you wait so long to clean it. You might find dead mice, there might be dead birds in the chimney, even fleas might appear! Your house gets grimey and unmanageable. So much so that you get discouraged and wish for a new house or wish that someone would come along and clean it for you.
The same can be said about your mind. If you clean your house regularly you may be inclined to clean your mind regularly too.

Cause and Effect

After last week's brief discussion about karma it is clear that not everyone agrees with the Buddhists' understanding of karma. This is okay. There is no need to react strongly, rather listen and notice what arises within you.
Sharon Salzberg talks about karma in her book, Loving Kindness, not to convert people to believing in karma the way she and others understand it, rather to get a more important point across.
The important point is that our happiness and unhappiness depend on our actions. This isn't to say that bad things don't happen to good people, because they do, and have, to all of us. It's to say that "When we see suffering, conflict, danger, pain, or a problem arise in our life, we do not merely try to eliminate it. Rather, we courageously try to change the conditions that provide the ground for its arising and that support or maintain its existence."
Therefore, if we change the conditions we change the problem; if we alter the cause, we alter the effect. This means, for many of us, we no longer move in the world as victims of circumstance.
The brahma-viharas (lovingkindness, compassion, sympathetic joy, and equanimity), which we have looked at closely through the writing of Salzberg, advocate non-harming conduct, conduct that helps us face the problems that arise in our lives, and often change the outcomes, which, according to the Buddhist philosophy, changes our karma.