Increase Connectedness by Meditating in Pairs

February 13, 2017 psyjdc Leave a comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Couples meditation provides a great way for you and your partner to tune your instruments to one another. By taking a few minutes to meditate with your partner, you greatly increase your chances of having meaningful conversation and intimate connection. Couples meditation is a way of bringing your emotional state and psychological rhythms into alignment.” – John Wise

Meditation training has been shown to improve health and well-being. It has also been found to be effective for a large array of medical and psychiatric conditions, either stand-alone or in combination with more traditional therapies. As a result, meditation training has been called the third wave of therapies. One problem with understanding meditation effects is that there are, a wide variety of meditation techniques and it is not known which work best for improving different conditions. Also, meditation occurs in a variety of social conditions. It is practiced, alone, with another, dyad, or with groups of varying sizes. It is not known what the effects, if any, of these different social conditions might be on the effectiveness of meditation practice.

Four types of meditation are the most commonly used practices for research purposes. In body scan meditation, the individual focuses on the feelings and sensations of specific parts of the body, systematically moving attention from one area to another. Loving kindness meditation is designed to develop kindness and compassion to oneself and others. The individual systematically pictures different individuals from self, to close friends, to enemies and wishes them happiness, well-being, safety, peace, and ease of well-being. In focused attention meditation, the individual practices paying attention to a single meditation object, learns to filter out distracting stimuli, including thoughts, and learns to stay focused on the present moment, filtering out thoughts centered around the past or future. On the other hand, in open monitoring meditation, the individual opens up awareness to everything that’s being experienced regardless of its origin. These include bodily sensations, external stimuli, and even thoughts. The meditator just observes these stimuli and lets them arise, and fall away without paying them any further attention.

In today’s Research News article “Effects of Contemplative Dyads on Engagement and Perceived Social Connectedness Over 9 Months of Mental Training: A Randomized Clinical Trial.” See:summary below, Kok and Singer investigate the effectiveness of loving kindness meditation and open monitoring meditation practiced in dyads; meditating in pairs. They recruited normal adults aged between 20 to 55 and randomly assigned them to two different orders of conditions in a complex research design. Training in meditation began with a 3-day retreat, followed by 3 months of home-based breath focused attention and body scan meditations practiced in pairs, dyads. The first group of participants then spent 3 months practicing loving kindness meditation in combination with a taking turns for 5-minutes describing feelings and bodily sensations during a difficult situation. The next 3 months they practiced open monitoring meditation in combination with a taking turns for 5-minutes describing a recent situation from the perspective of a randomly assigned “inner part.,” e.g. “the judge” or “the loving mother.” The second group reversed the order to these home-based 3-month dyadic practices. The participants reported daily on their feeling states, contents of thought, meta-cognition, closeness to their partner, valence, and arousal.

They found that the participants liked the loving kindness meditation segment best. Self-disclosures increased and became more personal over the training but this did not differ between conditions. Both conditions also produced significant increases in felt closeness to the partner, but the loving kindness meditation segment produced the greatest increase and the fastest rate of increase in this sense of connectedness.

These results suggest that meditating in pairs is an effective technique producing the usual benefits of meditation and also a social benefit of increasing felt closeness and self-disclosure. This could help in relieving loneliness that is often associated with depression. Loving kindness meditation appeared to be best in promoting these social benefits. Future research needs to investigate the impact of this improved social connectedness on the physical and mental health of the participants. This research is a step in the right direction of better understanding the consequences of different meditation types performed in different social conditions. Such an understanding should improve the targeting of specific meditation techniques to specific physical or psychological needs.

So, increase connectedness by meditating in pairs.

“If you are partnered perhaps either you haven’t felt as connected as you used to or things are going great but you want to make them even better. In either case, meditating together daily, or as often as possible, could make a big difference in the quality of your relationship.” – Your Tango

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts and on Twitter @MindfulResearch

Study Summary

Kok BE, Singer T. Effects of Contemplative Dyads on Engagement and Perceived Social Connectedness Over 9 Months of Mental Training A Randomized Clinical Trial. JAMA Psychiatry. Published online December 28, 2016. doi:10.1001/jamapsychiatry.2016.3360

Key Points

Question Can 2 newly developed dyadic contemplative exercises increase perceived social connectedness?

Findings In this randomized clinical trial of 242 healthy adults, social closeness increased during a 10-minute dyadic practice session for both the socioaffective affect dyad and the sociocognitive perspective dyad. Furthermore, predyad social closeness and self-disclosure increased significantly for both dyads over the 3 months of a given training module.

Meaning Contemplative dyadic exercises may effectively prevent or reduce the detrimental effects of loneliness and the social deficits often observed in many psychopathologies by increasing perceived social connectedness.

Abstract

IMPORTANCE:

Loneliness is a risk factor for depression and other illnesses and may be caused and reinforced by maladaptive social cognition. Secularized classical meditation training programs address social cognition, but practice typically occurs alone. Little is known about the effectiveness of contemplative practice performed in dyads.

OBJECTIVE:

To introduce and assess the effectiveness of contemplative dyadic practices relative to classical-solitary meditation with regard to engagement and perceived social connectedness.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS:

The ReSource Project was a 9-month open-label efficacy trial of three, 3-month secularized mental training modules. Replacement randomization was used to assign 362 healthy participants in Leipzig and Berlin, Germany. Eligible participants were recruited between November 11, 2012, and February 13, 2013, and between November 13, 2013, and April 30, 2014. Intention-to-treat analyses were conducted.

INTERVENTIONS:

Breathing meditation and body scan (the presence module), loving-kindness meditation and affect dyad (the affect module), and observing-thoughts meditation and perspective dyad (the perspective module).

MAIN OUTCOMES AND MEASURES:

Primary outcomes were self-disclosure and social closeness. Engagement measures included compliance (ie, the mean [95% margin of error] number of meditation sessions that a participant engaged in per week), liking, and motivation to practice.

RESULTS:

Thirty participants dropped out after assignment to 3 experimental groups; 90 participants were assigned to a retest control that did not complete the main outcome measures; 16 participants provided no state-change data for the affect and perspective modules (226 remaining participants; mean age of 41.15 years; 59.3% female). Results are aggregated across training cohorts. Compliance was similar across the modules: loving-kindness meditation (3.78 [0.18] sessions), affect dyad (3.59 [0.14] sessions), observing-thoughts meditation (3.63 [0.20] sessions), and perspective dyad (3.24 [0.18] sessions). Motivation was higher for meditation (11.20 [0.40] sessions) than the dyads (9.26 [0.43] sessions) and was higher for the affect dyad (10.11 [0.46] sessions) than the perspective dyad (8.41 [0.46] sessions). Social closeness increased during a session for the affect dyad (1.49 [0.12] sessions) and the perspective dyad (1.06 [0.12] sessions) and increased over time for the affect dyad (slope of 0.016 [0.003]) and the perspective dyad (slope of 0.012 [0.003]). Self-disclosure increased over time for the affect dyad (slope of 0.023 [0.004]) and the perspective dyad (slope of 0.006 [0.005]), increasing more steeply for the affect dyad (P < .001).

CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE:

Contemplative dyads elicited engagement similar to classical contemplative practices and increased perceived social connectedness. Contemplative dyads represent a new type of intervention targeting social connectedness and intersubjective capacities deficient in participants who experience loneliness and in many psychopathologies.

Improve Seeing Others as Like the Self with Loving Kindness Meditation

January 4, 2017 psyjdc Leave a comment

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“Loving-kindness meditation does far more than produce momentary good feelings. . . . this type of meditation increased people’s experiences of positive emotions. . . . it actually puts people on “trajectories of growth,” leaving them better able to ward off depression and “become ever more satisfied with life.”” – Christine Carter

Humans are social animals. This is a great asset for the species as the effort of the individual is amplified by cooperation. In primitive times, this cooperation was essential for survival. But in modern times it is also essential, not for survival but rather for making a living and for the happiness of the individual. This ability to cooperate is so essential to human flourishing that it is built deep into our DNA and is reflected in the structure of the human nervous system. Empathy and compassion are essential for appropriate social engagement and cooperation. In order for these abilities to emerge and strengthen, individuals must be able to see that other people are very much like themselves.

Unfortunately, there is very little understanding of the factors that lead to and improve empathy and compassion. One method that appears to be able to increase these capacities is Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM). It has been shown to amplify positive emotions, altruism, and compassion. This suggests that LKM may reduce the perceived difference between the self and other people. This is difficult to study, however, as these capacities are not easily measured and require length, indirect, paper and pencil, tests for assessment.

An alternative assessment technique is to measure the electrical response of the brain (electroencephalogram, EEG) as an indicator of empathy and compassion. This can be done by investigating differences in the brains processing of stimuli related to the self, relative to those related to other people. Upon presentation of these stimuli differences in the brain’s response can be seen called the evoked potential (ERP). The P300 response in the evoked potential (ERP) occurs between 3 to 6-tenths of a second following the stimulus presentation. It is a positive change that is maximally measured over the central frontal lobe. The P300 response has been associated with self-processing. It is larger in response to stimuli such as one’s own name, face, or information about the person’s history. So, the P300 response is often used as a measure of the processing of information about the self, with the larger the positive change the greater the self-processing.

In today’s Research News article “Decentering the self? Preliminary evidence for changes in self- vs. other related processing as a long-term outcome of loving-kindness meditation.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1441662135857708/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01785/full?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Psychology-w48-2016

Trautwein and colleagues employ the P300 response in the evoked potential (ERP) in response to pictures of the self or a close friend to investigate the effectiveness of Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) to improve empathy and compassion in humans. They recruited adult long-term practitioners of LKM and a group of age, gender, handedness, and education matched non-meditators. The participants were asked to press a button every time a picture of either themselves of their friend was presented amid a series of other stimuli. This occurred on 20% of the time. They measured performed this task while wearing scalp electrodes to measure the EEG and the P300 response to these stimuli was recorded.

They found that, as expected, the LKM practitioners reported experiencing more compassionate love for strangers and all of humanity than control participants. They also found that, as expected, the P300 response in the parietal lobe of the brain was greater to the picture of the self than the friend. As a measure of the degree to which the participant viewed the self and other as similar, they measured the difference in the ERP response to the self vs. friend picture. They found that the smaller the difference between the self vs. friend P300 response the greater the levels of self-reported compassion. Importantly, they also found that the greater the amount of LKM practice the smaller the difference in the P300 response to self and friend.

These results are interesting and suggest that Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) improves empathy and compassion by altering the brain’s response to self vs. others. In this way, individuals perceive other people as more like themselves, making them more compassionate and empathetic. It should be noted, however, that there was not a comparison group of meditators who did not practice LKM. So, it cannot be concluded that the effects were due to LKM practice specifically. It could be that any form of meditation practice would have similar effects. But, it is clear that meditation alters the brain’s response to self vs. others.

So, improve seeing others as like the self with Loving Kindness Meditation.

“The practice of LKM led to shifts in people’s daily experiences of a wide range of positive emotions, including love, joy, gratitude, contentment, hope, pride, interest, amusement, and awe. These shifts in positive emotions took time to appear and were not large in magnitude, but over the course of 9 weeks, they were linked to increases in a variety of personal resources, including mindful attention, self-acceptance, positive relationships with others, and good physical health…They enabled people to become more satisfied with their lives and to experience fewer symptoms of depression.” – Barbara Fredrickson

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

Study Summary

Fynn-Mathis Trautwein, José Raúl Naranjo, and Stefan Schmidt Decentering the self? Preliminary evidence for changes in self- vs. other related processing as a long-term outcome of loving-kindness meditation. Front. Psychol., 21 November 2016 | http://dx.doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01785

Research in social neuroscience provides increasing evidence that self and other are interconnected, both on a conceptual and on an affective representational level. Moreover, the ability to recognize the other as “like the self” is thought to be essential for social phenomena like empathy and compassion. Meditation practices such as loving-kindness meditation (LKM) have been found to enhance these capacities. Therefore, we investigated whether LKM is associated to an increased integration of self–other-representations. As an indicator, we assessed the P300 event-related potential elicited by oddball stimuli of the self-face and a close other’s face in 12 long-term practitioners of LKM and 12 matched controls. In line with previous studies, the self elicited larger P300 amplitudes than close other. This effect was reduced in the meditation sample at parietal but not frontal midline sites. Within this group, smaller differences between self- and other-related P300 were associated with increasing meditation practice. Across groups, smaller P300 differences correlated with self-reported compassion. In meditators, we also investigated the effect of a short LKM compared to a control priming procedure in order to test whether the state induction would additionally modulate self- vs. other-related P300. However, no effect of the priming conditions was observed. Overall, our findings provide preliminary evidence that prolonged meditation practice may modulate self- vs. other-related processing, accompanied by an increase in compassion. Further evidence is needed, however, to show if this is a direct outcome of loving-kindness meditation.

http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.01785/full?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Psychology-w48-2016

Meditation Improves Well-Being but How You Meditate Can Make a Difference

January 3, 2017 psyjdc Leave a comment

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By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“science confirms the experience of millions of practitioners: meditation will keep you healthy, help prevent multiple diseases, make you happier, and improve your performance in basically any task, physical or mental.” – Giovanni Dienstmann

These techniques have common properties of restful focused attention, but there are large differences. These differences are likely to produce different effects on the practitioner. In today’s Research News article “Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations: Differential State Changes in Affect, Mind-Wandering, Meta-Cognition, and Interoception Before and After Daily Practice Across 9 Months of Training.” See:

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1440840735939848/?type=3&theater

or see summary below or view the full text of the study at:

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-016-0594-9

Kok and Singer examine the similarities and differences between the effects of body scan meditation, loving kindness meditation, focused attention meditation, and open monitoring meditation. They recruited normal adults aged between 20 to 55 and randomly assigned them to three different orders of conditions in a complex research design. Training in each meditation type was conducted for 13 weeks, including a 3-day retreat at the beginning. The participants reported daily on their feeling states, contents of thought, meta-cognition, and 2 minutes of free writing about their thoughts and feelings.

All four meditation practices contain a component of focused breathing meditation, so it’s effects can’t be separated from the other three types. They found that all four meditation practices, consistent with the published literature, produced significant increases in positive feelings, focus on the present moment, and body awareness and decreases in mind wandering.

There were also considerable differences in the effects of the meditation practices. Body scan meditation, not surprisingly, produced the greatest increase in body awareness and the greatest decrease in thoughts about past, future, and others, and negative thoughts, in other words less mind wandering. Loving kindness meditation produced the greatest increase in positive thoughts and warm feelings about self and others. Open monitoring meditation produced the greatest increase in thought awareness and decrease in distraction by thoughts. These outcomes are consistent with the targeted contents of the practices.

It appears that all meditation types have very positive consequences for the practitioner and at the same time each has its own strengths. These strengths then can be taken advantage of to affect targeted issues for the practitioner. If the problem with the individual is a lack of body awareness then body scan meditation is called for, if it’s negative feelings about self and others, then loving kindness meditation would be best, while if it’s with meta-cognition such as awareness of thoughts, then open monitoring meditation should be the choice. In this way meditation practice, can have even greater benefit for the individual.

Regardless, improve well-being with meditation.

“If you have a few minutes in the morning or evening (or both), rather than turning on your phone or going online, see what happens if you try quieting down your mind, or at least paying attention to your thoughts and letting them go without reacting to them. If the research is right, just a few minutes of meditation may make a big difference.” – Alice Walton

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

This and other Contemplative Studies posts are also available on Google+ https://plus.google.com/106784388191201299496/posts

Study Summary

Kok, B.E. & Singer, T. Phenomenological Fingerprints of Four Meditations: Differential State Changes in Affect, Mind-Wandering, Meta-Cognition, and Interoception Before and After Daily Practice Across 9 Months of Training. Mindfulness (2016). doi:10.1007/s12671-016-0594-9

Abstract

Despite increasing interest in the effects of mental training practices such as meditation, there is much ambiguity regarding whether and to what extent the various types of mental practice have differential effects on psychological change. To address this gap, we compare the effects of four common meditation practices on measures of state change in affect, mind-wandering, meta-cognition, and interoception. In the context of a 9-month mental training program called the ReSource Project, 229 mid-life adults (mean age 41) provided daily reports before and after meditation practice. Participants received training in the following three successive modules: the first module (presence) included breathing meditation and body scan, the second (affect) included loving-kindness meditation, and the third (perspective) included observing-thought meditation. Using multilevel modeling, we found that body scan led to the greatest state increase in interoceptive awareness and the greatest decrease in thought content, loving-kindness meditation led to the greatest increase in feelings of warmth and positive thoughts about others, and observing-thought meditation led to the greatest increase in meta-cognitive awareness. All practices, including breathing meditation, increased positivity of affect, energy, and present focus and decreased thought distraction. Complementary network analysis of intervariate relationships revealed distinct phenomenological clusters of psychological change congruent with the content of each practice. These findings together suggest that although different meditation practices may have common beneficial effects, each practice can also be characterized by a distinct short-term psychological fingerprint, the latter having important implications for the use of meditative practices in different intervention contexts and with different populations.

http://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-016-0594-9

Build Altruism with Compassion Meditation

April 13, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

By John M. de Castro, Ph.D.

“A compassionate city is an uncomfortable city! A city that is uncomfortable when anyone is homeless or hungry. Uncomfortable if every child isn’t loved and given rich opportunities to grow and thrive. Uncomfortable when as a community we don’t treat our neighbors as we would wish to be treated.” ~ Karen Armstrong

Homo Sapiens is a very successful species. In part its success has been due to it being a very social species. Members of the species form groups beyond the family unit and work together for the common good. Members also take care of one another. Individuals will sometimes sacrifice their own well-being and safety to help another. This is termed altruistic behavior. The fact that it sometimes actually reduces the likelihood of the individual’s survival appears to be a contradiction to the ideas of evolution that emphasize individual survival.

Altruistic behavior, however, is not rare. It is, in fact, often the rule and not the exception. Soldiers put their own lives at risk to save a buddy. Doctors and nurses risking infection, rush into ebola riddled villages to treat the sick and dying. Young adults leave their jobs and careers to tend to an elderly parent with Alzheimer’s Disease. These are rather extreme examples but altruistic behavior occurs in many simple ways on a daily basis. We routinely give to charities which benefit people on the other side of the world. We donate our time as volunteers to build houses for the disadvantaged. We roll down our car windows and hand money to a homeless person on a street corner. The list is endless.

So, why do we engage so freely in this behavior that contradicts evolutionary theory? One idea is that it is promoted by our compassion. This is our ability to identify with the difficulties of others, put ourselves in their shoes, and feel their suffering. Although reasonable and logical this interpretation needs scientific confirmation. A callous interpretation of this behavior is that this compassion makes us uncomfortable, makes us suffer, and we do things to reduce our own suffering and make ourselves feel better. A kinder interpretation is that we have been taught to be compassionate and this energizes altruism. This notion would predict that engaging in practices that develop compassion would increase altruism. This idea, however, needs scientific testing and evaluation.

In today’s Research News article “The Role of Compassion in Altruistic Helping and Punishment Behavior”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1208766975813893/?type=3&theater

Or see below, or for full text see

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4675554/

Weng and colleagues examine the relationship of compassion to altruism in the laboratory and test the effectiveness of a compassion amplifying practice on the likelihood of compassionate behaviors. They first measured the empathetic concern of the participants with a paper and pencil test and then had them play in the laboratory a 3-person game developed to measure altruistic behaviors, either altruistic helping, in which the participant gave to another thereby reducing their own reward, or altruistic punishment where participants took away from another resulting in an overall reduction in their own reward. They found that the higher the level of trait compassion (empathetic concern) that the participant had the more they tended to help another to their own detriment. They also found that the higher the level of trait compassion the less they tended to punish another to their own detriment.

In a second experiment, Weng and colleagues randomly assigned participants to either a compassion meditation group or to a reappraisal group. They were then trained for two weeks either to meditate on the suffering of others, wish them well, and visualize compassion emanating from their heart, or to a control condition involving training on reappraising situations to lower stress and emotional reactions to stress. The participants then came to the laboratory and played the 3-person altruism game. They found that the compassion meditation group provided altruistic help significantly more than the reappraisal group. In fact, they spent 87% more money to help others.

This experiment, although somewhat artificial, suggests that compassion is highly related to altruism and that training in compassion increases altruism. Hence, these results support the notion that altruism occurs because of trained compassion. It also shows that altruism can be encouraged and amplified with compassion training. So, we can create more compassionate people and thereby a more altruistic world by specifically educating people in compassion.

So, build altruism with compassion meditation.

“Compassion is natural; you don’t have to force it; just open to the difficulty, the struggle, the stress, the impact of events, the sorrow and strain in the other person; open your heart, let yourself be moved, and let compassion flow through you. Feel what compassion’s like in your body — in your chest, throat, and face. Sense the way it softens your thoughts, gentles your reactions. Know it so you can find your way back again.” – Rick Hanson

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Study Summary

Weng, H. Y., Fox, A. S., Hessenthaler, H. C., Stodola, D. E., & Davidson, R. J. (2015). The Role of Compassion in Altruistic Helping and Punishment Behavior. PLoS ONE, 10(12), e0143794. http://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0143794

Abstract

Compassion, the emotional response of caring for another who is suffering and that results in motivation to relieve suffering, is thought to be an emotional antecedent to altruistic behavior. However, it remains unclear whether compassion enhances altruistic behavior in a uniform way or is specific to sub-types of behavior such as altruistic helping of a victim or altruistic punishment of a transgressor. We investigated the relationship between compassion and subtypes of altruistic behavior using third-party paradigms where participants 1) witnessed an unfair economic exchange between a transgressor and a victim, and 2) had the opportunity to either spend personal funds to either economically a) help the victim or b) punish the transgressor. In Study 1, we examined whether individual differences in self-reported empathic concern (the emotional component of compassion) was associated with greater altruistic helping or punishment behavior in two independent samples. For participants who witnessed an unfair transaction, trait empathic concern was associated with greater helping of a victim and had no relationship to punishment. However, in those who decided to punish the transgressor, participants who reported greater empathic concern decided to punish less. In Study 2, we directly enhanced compassion using short-term online compassion meditation training to examine whether altruistic helping and punishment were increased after two weeks of training. Compared to an active reappraisal training control group, the compassion training group gave more to help the victim and did not differ in punishment of the transgressor. Together, these two studies suggest that compassion is related to greater altruistic helping of victims and is not associated with or may mitigate altruistic punishment of transgressors.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4675554/

Be My Mindful Valentine

February 14, 2016June 21, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

“Love is like a friendship caught on fire. In the beginning a flame, very pretty, often hot and fierce, but still only light and flickering. As love grows older, our hearts mature and our love becomes as coals, deep-burning and unquenchable.” – Bruce Lee

Valentine’s Day was invented for the greeting card and florist industries but it caught on because there are few things more worth celebrating than love. Valentine’s Day is usually considered a celebration of romantic love, but I prefer it to be a celebration of love in all of its magnificent manifestations. Mindfulness is an important part as there is nothing more beautiful than mindful love. It’s pure, non-judgmental, and non-contingent love. It’s a completely unfettered outpouring of the heart.

Mindful love is not necessarily expressed with romantic greeting cards, roses, and chocolates. There is nothing wrong with these concrete expressions of love except when they are used as a substitute for the real thing. Too often we go through the motions of buying symbols of love and believing that these are all we need to express our feelings. True expressions of love are not concrete and tangible. They are deep connections and feelings that flow direct from the source and, if the truth be known, are the source. Let this love flow first and if it leads to giving tangible symbols, wonderful. Let it flow in any and every way it wishes to express itself.

The great sage Thích Nhất Hạnh said that “When you love someone, the best thing you can offer is your presence. How can you love if you are not there?” This sounds so simple, but it is not. What he means by “presence” is much more than being in physical proximity to another. It means to be really there for them, mindfully and totally, with the mind dedicated to them and not off thinking of something else. Rather the mind is totally focused and attentive to the other person. You are deeply listening to their words. You are deeply listening to their non-verbal messages. You are totally committed to them in the present moment. So, on Valentine’s Day offer the people you love your mindful presence. There is no greater way to express love.

Mindful love is non-judgmental. It is accepting the other person for exactly who and what they are. It is appreciating their humanness with all its flaws, physical, psychological, and social. It is encouraging their aspirations and supporting them in their pursuit of them. It is filled with loving kindness and compassion. Thích Nhất Hạnh teaches “You must love in such a way that the person you love feels free.” In other words, there’s no clinging or holding on. If there is, then the love is not mindful love, it is needy love.

Before mindful love can be given to others it must first be given to the self. Each of us has to truly love ourselves before we can freely and completely offer mindful love to another. For many westerners this can be a real challenge as many do not even like themselves. This is frequently due to westerners having unrealistic models, and beliefs and expectations about themselves. It is imperative to overcome this as this lack of self-love is the foundation of needy, demanding, self-centered love. Learn to fully accept your humanness and to understand that what you see as imperfections are nothing more than expressions of your humanity. Begin to accept that you are extraordinary, beautiful, capable, and special; a one of a kind, never to be seen again, exemplar of what it means to be a living, imperfect, human being. Recognize that you are worthy not only of your own love but the love of others. Realize that you are just as capable and competent and simultaneously just as inadequate and ineffectual as everyone else. Learn to love yourself and then you can truly love others.

It is nearly impossible to divorce romantic love from sexuality. From an evolutionary perspective the feelings between members of the opposite sex are driven by the needs to reproduce, making sexuality an integral part of romantic love. Unfortunately, many people separate love and sex, but this is often due to religious morality or societal dictates. There is no need to separate the two, in fact, they both are best when they work together. When mindful love is accompanied with mindful sex, each reinforces the other, producing an upward spiral of positive feelings. Recent research discovered that people are the most mindful at any time in their lives when they are engaged in sex. So, the phrase “mindful sex” may actually be redundant. But, when combined with mindful love, sexuality is a shared giving experience. Each partner is not simply engaged to satisfy their own needs, but to give, be present, and be sensitive to the other, to be non-judgmental and accepting of the other, to share one of life’s extraordinary experiences, and to truly come to understand why the word intercourse is used to label it. With mindfulness sex becomes an expression of deep and satisfying shared love.

Mindful love includes but expands far, far, beyond romantic love. When practiced it extends to everyone around the individual, including family, friends, co-workers, neighbors, acquaintances, and even enemies. As you practice mindful love it will slowly begin to become evident that deep in the core of your being is nothing but love. The more aware you become of this the more that love gushes and envelops you and everyone around you. It even extends to all of existence. Unless you are exceptionally blessed it will take a while to get to this level. But, it doesn’t have to be sought as it is a natural outgrowth of the practice of mindful love.

The words, practice mindful love, are so easy to say. But, it is not easy. It’s very hard. It, like most things about mindfulness, is a practice. We work at it and try to get a little better all the time, but knowing that the ideal is not humanly possible. But the effort itself, is a true expression of mindful love. The practice of loving kindness meditation is a method that can help in the development of mindful love. But, if you work at it, invest in it, and patiently practice you will be deeply rewarded. The more you love, the more you love, the more you are loved, and the happier you become, not just superficial happiness, but the deep and abiding happiness of being a mindful valentine.

“We come to love not by finding a perfect person, but by learning to see an imperfect person perfectly.” – Sam Keen

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Feel Better Emotionally with Loving-Kindness Meditation

January 18, 2016 psyjdc Leave a comment

“Metta is the priceless treasure that enlivens us and brings us into intimacy with ourselves and others. It is the force of love that will lead beyond fragmentation, loneliness and fear. The late Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba often said, “Don’t throw anyone out of your heart.” One of the most powerful healings (and greatest adventures) of our lifetime can come about as we learn to live by this dictum.” – Sharon Salzberg

In the past Psychology focused on negative states and emotions, such as mental illness and depression, anxiety, hate, anger etc. Although this resulted in greater understanding and better treatments for people who were suffering, it also resulted in a neglect of positive states and emotions such as happiness, love, compassion, joy, etc. But, in the last couple of decades it has dawned on the field that perhaps positive states may be important to cultivate. They could serve not only as antidotes and treatments for the negative states and emotions, but also could improve the existence of the mentally healthy. This new movement has been labelled Positive Psychology. It is dedicated to discovering ways to promote and enhance human flourishing; to develop better and happier lives.

An ancient practice of “metta” meditation has been promoted as a possible method to develop positive states and emotions. “Metta” meditation is also known as Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM). It is a deceptively simple practice (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/26/meditation-techniques-loving-kindness-meditation/) that is aimed at developing kindness and positive regard for the self and others. But, as simple as it may be, it has profound effects (see http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/category/contemplative-practice/loving-kindness/). LKM has been shown to improve positive mood, improve social interactions. and the complex understanding of others. It has also been shown to decrease negative emotions and to be an effective treatment for depression. This suggests that LKM may be an important practice for not only the treatment of negative states and emotions, but also for the promotion of human flourishing and happiness.

In today’s Research News article “The effect of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions: a meta-analytic review”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1150546504969274/?type=3&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4630307/

Zeng and colleagues review the literature on the effects of Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) on positive emotions and well-being. The reviewed literature showed that LKM produced significant positive effects on the practitioners’ immediate and overall daily positive emotions with moderate effect sizes. These effects were seen both with short-term and long-tern LKM practice. LKM mainly cultivated peaceful or prosocial positive emotions. Thus, the published literature supports the use of Loving Kindness Meditation for enhancing positive emotional states.

There is a need to investigate the mechanisms by which LKM may be having its effects. One possibility that is supported in the research literature is that LKM improves emotion regulation. This allows the individual to fully experience the emotion yet respond to it adaptively and constructively. Hence, in part LKM may enhance positive states by allowing the individual to better deal with negative emotional states. It has also been shown that LKM reduces the psychological and physiological responses to stress. By feeling less stressed LKM practitioners may experience more positive emotions. Another possibility is that LKM enhances self-regard, allowing the individual to feel good about themselves as well as others. Regardless of the mechanism, it appears clear that Loving Kindness Meditation can be recommended as a practice to enhance positive emotions and states.

So, feel better emotionally with loving-kindness meditation.

For one who mindfully develops
Boundless loving-kindness
Seeing the destruction of clinging,
The fetters are worn away.

Buddha

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Be Positive with Loving-Kindness Meditation

August 17, 2015August 17, 2015 psyjdc Leave a comment

There is a long history in psychology of a focus on mental illnesses and uncomfortable states. In other words, psychology was very much focused on the negative. Over the last couple of decades, however, a new movement has emerged in psychology to focus on the positive, to look for the effects of positive emotions and states and for ways to increase these positive states.

Meditation has been found to not only reduce negative conditions but to also increase positive states such as joy, love, and happiness. As a result positive psychology has become very interested in studying meditation effects. Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) is specifically designed to develop positive feelings toward the self and others. In LKM the meditator focuses on repeatedly wishing positive things, wellness, safety, happiness, health etc. for oneself and toward multiple other people from loved ones to enemies. (See http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/loving-kindness-meditation-and-the-disease-of-the-west/)

LKM has been shown to improve positive mood and improve social interactions (See https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1043326459024613/?type=1&theater

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/loving-kindness-meditation-and-social-function/). In today’s Research News article “The interventional effects of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions and interpersonal interactions”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1069935599697032/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4450657/

He and colleagues demonstrated that a brief loving-kindness meditation practice increased positive emotions, interpersonal interactions, and complex understanding of others and decreased negative emotions in Chinese college students.

So, practicing Loving-Kindness Meditation can make you feel more positive toward yourself and others, can improve your interactions with others, and can even make you more understanding of the complexities of human nature. Once we develop compassion and kindness toward ourselves and others, which is the object of Loving-Kindness Meditation, it markedly alters not only our feelings towards ourselves and others, but also allows the cognitive understandings to grow and blossom.

These positive feelings and understandings of ourselves and others has wide ranging consequences. It appears to improve mental and physical health, increase longevity, change neural structures, make us better at coping with stress, improve social connections, and make us feel better about ourselves.

It’s quite remarkable that such a simple technique can have such profound consequences. This seems to support the old saying that “You catch more flies with honey than you do with vinegar”. You can get much more good things done by emphasizing the positive than attempting to fix the negative. Along the same lines, it’s long been known in psychology that learning occurs much more swiftly and permanently with positive rewards than avoidance of punishment. Once again positivity is much more effective than negativity.

So, practice Loving Kindness Meditation and be positive.

CMCS

Get Out of the Dumps with Loving-Kindness Meditation

August 4, 2015 psyjdc 2 Comments

Depression is epidemic. It’s been estimated to affect one in ten Americans at one point or another. Eleven percent of adolescents in the United States experience a depressive episode before the age of 18. If that isn’t bad enough somewhere up to 15% of those who are clinically depressed die by suicide.

The most common treatment for depression is antidepressant drugs. But they are not always effective, can actually increase the risk of suicide, and often have troubling side effects. As a result there is an ongoing search for alternative treatments for depression.

Recently, meditation, particularly in the form of Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) has emerged as a viable alternative treatment. There is also interest in another form of meditation, Loving-Kindness Meditation (LKM). In depression, the individual is usually very unhappy with themselves and their lives regardless of the actual conditions. LKM has been shown to help the individual show compassion and understanding toward themselves and others. It has also been shown to improve mood. Hence, LKM would appear to be well suited as a treatment for depression.

In addition, we recently posted a discussion of some research that LKM improves social interactions. https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1043328429024416/?type=1&theater

In depression, the individual frequently withdraws from social contact. This removes from the individual compassionate social contact that is actually essential for healing. So, LKM, again appears on the surface to have potential for the treatment of depression.

In today’s Research News article “Loving-Kindness Meditation to Target Affect in Mood Disorders: A Proof-of-Concept Study”

http://www.hindawi.com/journals/ecam/2015/269126/

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1062542103769715/?type=1&theater

Hofmann and colleagues pilot the use of LKM for the treatment of depression and found very promising results. They found large, clinically significant effects of LKM in reducing both self-reported and clinician-reported depression. In addition LKM reduced negative emotions and increased positive emotions, increased emotion regulation, and markedly decreased the rumination that is so characteristic of depression.

These pilot results are exciting. They certainly stand as strong justification for a controlled trial being conducted in the future. LKM by having the individual wish themselves and others well repeatedly appears to improve self-compassion and compassion for others. It is impossible to have true compassion for oneself and at the same time not like oneself. This would seem to be a wonderful antidote for the issues present in depression.

So, practice Loving-Kindness Meditation and get out of the dumps.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Meditation Techniques – Loving Kindness Meditation

July 26, 2015July 27, 2015 psyjdc 6 Comments

In the last posts we discussed beginning meditation practice building up to open monitoring meditation practice.

Beginning Meditation – Getting Started 4 – Open Monitoring Meditation

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1057568944267031/?type=1&theater

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/25/beginning-meditation-getting-started-4-open-monitoring-meditation/

Beginning Meditation – Getting Started 3 – Breath Following 2

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/24/beginning-meditation-getting-started-3-breath-following-2/

Beginning Meditation – Getting Started 2 – Breath Following 1

http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/23/208/

Today we will begin to discuss other meditation techniques and practices, starting with Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM). This is a simple but very powerful practice. We’d appreciate hearing comments and suggestions from others. There are many paths!

Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) is designed to develop kindness and compassion to oneself and others. This is a seemingly ridiculously simple technique, but research has demonstrated that it is very impactful. This is true even if you are already a kind and compassionate person. Engaging in the practice will further reinforce and enhance it further. (see Loving Kindness Meditation and the Disease of the West http://contemplative-studies.org/wp/index.php/2015/07/17/loving-kindness-meditation-and-the-disease-of-the-west/

In western culture it is quite common for people to have a negative view of themselves, often feeling inadequate and unworthy or simply disliking themselves. So, for westerners, practicing loving kindness to themselves is particularly important. It is essential that we learn to be kind and compassionate toward ourselves. This is the foundation for honest and sincere kindness and compassion for others. So, pay particular attention to and carefully practice LKM toward the self.

LKM starts exactly like every meditation in a comfortable posture with the eyes lightly closed. Begin whatever meditation practice is your current practice and continue for a couple of minutes until you feel calm and focused. Then begin by bringing lovingkindness to yourself. Envision a time when you felt completely loved and accepted. Let yourself fully engage in the memory, feeling what it was like, feeling the inner sensations and the ease of well-being. Once you have this fully present begin slowly and meaningfully to say to yourself while maintaining the lovingkindness feelings:

“May I be happy. May I be well. May I be safe. May I be peaceful and at ease.”

With each statement use the lovingkindness feelings to reinforce the wish to yourself. Wholeheartedly engage in honestly wishing yourself well and visualize how it would feel to truly be happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Sincerely make these wishes in the unshakable knowledge that you deserve to be happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Repeat the process around three times. But, you can adjust this as you get experience with the meditation to a number that is comfortable and seems appropriate to you.

After completing sending lovingkindness to yourself move on to wishing lovingkindness to others. Start with someone who you are close to and care deeply about. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases with sincerity, truly wishing them well. Repeat the process around three times.

Now move on again to a person you know who may be going through hard times and difficult challenges. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases with a heartfelt desire that they feel happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Repeat the process again around three times.

Next move on to someone you know but are not particularly close or have strong feelings about, perhaps a neighbor or a work associate. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases with a heartfelt desire that they feel happy, well, safe, and peaceful. Visualize that your words actually take effect within that person. Repeat the process again around three times.

Finally comes the most challenging practice. Think of someone who you truly dislike or who has harmed you or simply someone who you have a particularly difficult time with. Visualize that person and hold him/her in your heart and repeat the lovingkindness phrases. See that person as a human being who, like everyone, needs happiness, wellness, safety, and peace. This may be difficult but recognize that for you to be a truly compassionate person you must really want everyone to be well, unconditionally. Repeat the process again around three times.

Depending upon the length of your meditation you may repeat this whole process by going back to wishing happiness, wellness, safety, and peace to yourself, to a loved one, to someone in need, to a neutral person, and again to a disliked person.

There are many variations of the lovingkindness words. Find a set that feels comfortable, natural, and real for you, a set that you can repeat without having to think about it or search memory for the exact words. In fact the actual words don’t matter. It is the engagement in wishing well and really feeling it that is most important.

Try this practice. You may be amazed at how good it makes you feel and how much it alters your view and approach toward yourself and others. Remember that it is a practice and has to be engaged in repeatedly over time to be effective.

So, practice lovingkindness meditation and strengthen your compassionate nature.

CMCS – Center for Mindfulness and Contemplative Studies

Loving Kindness Meditation and Social Function

July 17, 2015 psyjdc 3 Comments

Humans are social creatures. All that the species has accomplished resulted from its ability to work together and build upon the work of others. Beyond, the importance of the group, interactions with other people are fundamental to personal well-being. People need to be with and connected with others.

Social connections are crucial to our health and happiness. Hence, it is very important for the individual to have effective satisfying social relationships. Unfortunately, interacting with other people is extremely complex and many find it very difficult to effectively engage with others. Some are better than others, but everyone struggles with human interaction to some extent. Hence it is important for us to find ways to improve how we interact with other people.

Mindfulness in general appears to improve social relationships. In today’s Research News article “The interventional effects of loving-kindness meditation on positive emotions and interpersonal interactions.”

https://www.facebook.com/ContemplativeStudiesCenter/photos/a.628903887133541.1073741828.627681673922429/1043326459024613/?type=1&theater

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4450657/

one form of mindfulness training, Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM), is shown to be quite effective in facilitating interpersonal interactions, and enhancing the complex understanding of others. This appears to produce an enhanced ability to interact socially and to increase positive emotions, improving the individual happiness.

Loving Kindness Meditation (LKM) is a meditative practice that focuses on repeatedly wishing well to the self and others. It focuses on developing feelings of goodwill, kindness and warmth towards the self and others. It is simple in concept, yet powerful in effect. How can this simple practice improve one’s social relationships?

LKM appears to increase positive emotional states and it is known that we tend to find people experiencing positive emotions as more attractive. In addition, feeling positive emotions in the presence of others increases our self-confidence and enjoyment of social interactions. LKM like other forms of meditation reduces perceived stress. Many people find social interactions stressful. So reducing perceived stress should make it easier to engage with other people.

These effects by themselves could account for LKM’s improvement of social interactions.

LKM has been shown to increase compassion and empathy and decrease biases. It also increases our feelings about ourselves and decreases self-criticism. These effects of LKM produce more positive and caring feelings towards ourselves and others. Not only does this make us feel better about others, it is communicated either verbally or nonverbally to others making them feel better about us, hence, improving interactions. Indeed, being around people who like themselves and understand others on an emotional level, induces positive feelings toward these people and is very attractive, facilitating interpersonal connection.

Finally, LKM appears to have direct effects on our ability to engage in social interactions. LKM is associated with increases in prosocial behavior, increasing helping behavior. It also improves feelings of social connection. In addition, it improves our ability to have a sophisticated understanding of other people in their full complexity. All of these effects of LKM positively influence our ability and effectiveness in interacting with others.

Loving Kindness Meditation appears to be a technique to help us develop positive feeling toward ourselves and others. This makes us want to help others, feel good in their presence, and helps us understand and care for them. It’s quite amazing that such a simple practice could have such far reaching effects.

So, practice Loving Kindness Meditation and be better socially.

CMCS