How to Release Fear-Based Thinking and Feeling: An In-depth Study of Spiritual Psychology Vol.1

The second arrow is the one we use to shoot ourselves in the foot by reacting to the natural experience of human suffering or stress with aversion and protest. When we begin to feel stressed, we create mental stories of worry and regret that compound our mental suffering. We get caught up in negative beliefs about ourselves , regrets about the past, or worries about the future, taking us out of the present moment. Or we try to push our feelings of stress and anxiety away through addictions and avoidance.

These strategies just make things worse. Free Enlightened Living Course: The Buddha also believed that if we can understand the nature of suffering and learn to accept pain and loss with compassion rather than running away from them , our mental suffering will lessen. We may not be able to get rid of the first arrow of inevitable pain and grief, but we can get rid of the second arrow of self-created mental and emotional suffering with mindfulness-based stress-reduction techniques.

By looking at our own inner experiences with a curious, nonjudgmental, and welcoming attitude, we can learn to better tolerate negative states of mind such as feeling stressed and anxious and relate to these experiences in a more kind, accepting way.

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Using mindfulness for anxiety and stress, by calibrating us for momentary neutrality, creates space for such tolerance. Another truth about suffering that the Buddha understood is that our thoughts, feelings, and physical sensations, like all other aspects of life, are transient and constantly changing. The Buddha also believed that living a life of peace, self-discipline, service, and compassion would create an end to suffering on a higher level.

University of Massachusetts Medical School professor emeritus Jon Kabat-Zinn was the visionary who first introduced mindfulness practice for stress and anxiety to the Western medical establishment. He reframed the Buddhist concepts using scientific terminology, added some meditation exercises and yoga stretches, and developed an intensive eight-to-ten-week mindfulness-based stress reduction MBSR program that included forty minutes of mindfulness meditation practice each day as homework.

And thus the Mindful Revolution was born. Today, mindfulness-based interventions for pain, stress, depression, anxiety, cancer, addiction, and chronic illness are accepted worldwide. The credibility of mindfulness exercises as an intervention for anxiety and stress and stress-related illness has been enhanced by its strong neuroscientific base. University of Wisconsin professor of psychology and psychiatry Richie Davidson has been instrumental in demonstrating how mindfulness works in the brain and how mindfulness for stress can change brain structure and functioning to facilitate stress resilience and mental health.

These studies powerfully demonstrate neuroplasticity—that even adult brains can change their structure and pathways with repeated practice of new habits. By practicing mindfulness techniques for stress, you can learn to redirect the emotional reactivity of your stress response into more calm, peaceful, and attentive states.

Without your amygdala, you might waltz into traffic, stick your hand on a hot stove, or hang out with unsavory characters without realizing the danger.

How to Release Fear-Based Thinking and Feeling: An In-Depth Study of Spiritual Psychology Vol. 1

With mindfulness techniques for anxiety and stress, you can learn to slow things down long enough for the prefrontal cortex to get on board and steer you through the stressful rough waters. Mindful states of mind send signals to your body that slow down your breathing and your heart rate. They tell your parasympathetic nervous system that the danger has passed and it can bring the body back to balance. Jon Kabat-Zinn defined mindfulness practice as a way of paying attention purposefully and with nonjudgmental acceptance to your present-moment experience You replace fear of your own inner experience with a curious, gentle, welcoming attitude—free of judgment, self-blame, and aversion.

Mindfulness techniques for anxiety and stress reduction allow you to remain grounded in the present moment even when you face difficult stressors, so that your stressful feelings and anxiety feel more manageable or less overwhelming. Mindfulness for stress and anxiety is a state of mind, a deliberate, purposeful, focused way of looking at your experience in the present. Mindfulness meditation teachers often use the metaphor that you are the sky and your thoughts and feelings are clouds. The clouds float by, but the sky is always there. The sky provides the canvas for the clouds to float on.

You can sit out the storm until the sky is clear! The most common anchor used in teaching mindfulness techniques for stress and anxiety is your breath. When you get stressed or anxious, your breathing becomes faster and more shallow as your sympathetic nervous system readies your body for fighting or fleeing. When the stressful situation is over, your parasympathetic nervous system begins slowing your breath and heart rate to put the brakes on your stress response.

With mindfulness for anxiety and stress reduction, your breathing becomes slower and more rhythmic, which slows down your heart rate. The parts of your brain responsible for sensing movement and breathing send signals to your amygdala that the threat is over, and the whole system begins to calm down. The best way to understand how your body reacts to mindfulness for stress and anxiety is to experience mindfulness-based stress reduction.

The following mindfulness meditation technique will teach you to focus on your breath in a mindful way. Here are some instructions for a basic breath awareness mindfulness meditation. Do this once or twice a day for two weeks, and observe what happens. Try to accept whatever your individual experience is. The goal is not to achieve perfect focus on your breath, but rather to learn how your mind works! Sit with your spine upright on a cushion on the floor or a chair. If you use a chair, make sure your feet are touching the ground. Close your eyes, or maintain a soft, unfocused gaze.

Begin to notice your breathing. Try to maintain an open and curious attitude. Notice where your breath goes when it enters and leaves your body. It may change naturally as you observe it. Continue observing your breath for eight to ten minutes. At the end of the practice, notice how your mind and body feel, then slowly come back to the room.

In addition to paying attention in an open, nonjudgmental way, there are other characteristics of a mindful state of mind that create a powerful shift in brain functioning. Being mindful is more than meditating or focusing on your breath. Thus, being mindful gives you more mental space and freedom.

However, not every stressor is an emergency, and successfully dealing with most stressors requires thinking of solutions, tolerating anxiety and uncertainty, and adapting to new situations. These are all functions of your prefrontal cortex, which is slower to receive and process information than your amygdala. Therefore, the first step in being mindful is to slow things down so that you can take a broader view of the situation before reacting. This awareness of the present helps you stop ruminating about the past or worrying about the future. Mindfulness for anxiety and stress replaces fear and emotional reactivity with an open, spacious curiosity.

What does it look like and feel like? Is this something helpful or important that you want to focus on, or is it just an automatic event that you can observe as it passes through you? How does this emotion or experience change and unfold over time? Non-judgment is a key part of a mindfulness practice for stress and anxiety. When your amygdala triggers your stress response, you automatically begin to label the situation or your reactions as a threat that you need to escape. This is the aversion that the Buddha referred to as the second arrow. By observing your judging mind—a key mindfulness technique—you can avoid automatically buying into these negative judgments.

You can then deliberately redirect your mind back to observing your thoughts and feelings with an open mind. This transforms your experience of stress by taking the terror and panic out of it. Equanimity keeps us from getting shot by that second arrow of addictive cravings or feelings of panic and desperation. Everything is impermanent, everything is changing, and many important life outcomes are at least partially out of our control. Therefore, we need to stand firm and not be swept off balance by stress and anxiety.

Finding solutions or learning new skills in a stressful situation requires a goal-oriented mind-set. It sometimes takes weeks or even months of practice to really understand what it means to be mindful. Following are different ways of practicing mindfulness for stress and anxiety.

Try all of them, or find the one that works best for you. Optimize your environment for practicing mindfulness for anxiety and stress. Set aside a time every day for mindfulness practice, and put it in your schedule. Find the way that works for you.

Mindfulness for Anxiety & Stress: Rewire Your Brain for Peace

Studies show that five to twenty minutes of meditation per day for five weeks creates some of the same brain changes as longer periods of meditation Moyer et al. This mindfulness practice is the one I use most frequently with my clients because it allows you to really feel and connect with your breath and also to feel grounded and solid in your body. This version of the instructions is for when you sit upright on the couch. Now close your eyes or maintain a soft gaze. Let your mind and body begin to settle into the practice, noticing what your body feels like.

Focus your attention on your feet. Notice all the parts of your feet that are touching the floor. Notice your toes; where your toes join your foot; the middle of your foot; your heel; your ankle; the whole bottom of your foot; the inside and the outside. Let your feet sink into the floor, noticing the support of the earth and feeling it ground you. Begin to notice all the parts of your body that touch the couch— the back of your thighs, your seat, perhaps your back, your arms, and your hands.

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Let your hands and feet sink into the support of the couch and floor. Notice how your body feels as you sit, supported by the couch and floor. Begin to notice your breath. Just breathe easily for a few breaths, noticing where your breath goes as you breathe in and as you breathe out. Notice the pause between your in-breath and your out-breath.

Slowly, bring your attention to your breath as it enters your nostrils. How does it feel? Notice where your breath touches your nostrils as you breathe in and as you breathe out. Continue to notice your breath in your nostrils for a few minutes. Begin to notice your breath in your chest. Notice how your chest moves up and down with your breath like a wave, moving up as you breathe in and down as you breathe out. Just notice your chest as it expands and contracts with your breath. Watch the rhythmic wave in your chest as you breathe in and as you breathe out.

Direct your attention downward, toward your belly. You can put your hand on your belly to help you connect with the spot just below your belly button. This spot is at the very core and center of your body. Notice how your belly moves out when you breathe in and how it moves in when you breathe out. And if your mind wanders, bring it back to your belly kindly and gently. As you notice your breath in your belly, notice whether your breath changes or stays the same.

Notice the rhythm of your breath in your belly. As you notice your breath in your belly , begin to expand your attention outward toward your whole body. Begin to notice your whole body breathing as a single unit—breathing in and breathing out in a slow, steady rhythm.

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Notice the waves of breath as they move in and out of your body—filling your nose, the back of your throat, your chest, your ribcage, your belly, and your whole body with fresh, cleansing air. Notice how your breath travels through your body, and see whether it seems to open up any space in the area it touches. Just notice the rhythm of your whole body breathing as one: Breathing in and breathing out….

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Slowly, begin to bring your attention back to the couch, to your hands and feet. Slowly open your eyes and begin to notice the room around you. Take your time, and notice how your body feels now. Is there any difference from when you began the mindfulness practice? When my clients do this mindfulness practice, many report a deep sense of peace, comfort, and calm. Feeling stressed can create tension, tightness, and constriction in your body, particularly in your chest and belly. This mindfulness-based stress-reduction practice can help open up space in these areas.

A mindful focus creates distance from feelings of stress and generates a sense of peace and well-being.

When your amygdala sounds the alarm bells, you lose touch with the present moment as your emergency response kicks in. This mindfulness technique for stress reduction helps you feel more present and connected. We connect with the outside world through our senses. Connecting with your senses can also be a way of what psychologist Rick Hanson calls taking in the good, or deliberately directing your brain to focus on relaxing or pleasant things in a way that helps calm down your stress response.

Walking in nature is a wonderful way to practice mindfulness of the senses. Want to Read Currently Reading Read. Refresh and try again. Open Preview See a Problem? Thanks for telling us about the problem. Return to Book Page. One of the most profound and in-depth books ever written on how to release fear-based thinking and feeling and change it to love-based thinking and feeling. A revolutionary cutting-edge master thesis on the subject of Spiritual Psychology and how to realize it. The reader will never be the same after reading this book.

Each chapter will transform and shift your consciousne One of the most profound and in-depth books ever written on how to release fear-based thinking and feeling and change it to love-based thinking and feeling. Each chapter will transform and shift your consciousness like an attitudinal and emotional "chiropractic adjustment. To see what your friends thought of this book, please sign up. Lists with This Book. This book is not yet featured on Listopia. Dominiquejb rated it it was amazing Jan 20, Amy Tobiness Bluthardt rated it it was amazing Oct 31, TokyoHeartbeat rated it it was amazing Jun 03, Rowan Risoliere-Clark rated it it was amazing Aug 15, Francesca rated it it was ok Nov 23, Dean Creedy rated it it was amazing Feb 16, Cheryl marked it as to-read Jan 06, Shell marked it as to-read Apr 25, Patrick added it May 16, Silvio Angelo added it Jun 26, Janet Stephenson marked it as to-read Jan 24, Brandy marked it as to-read Apr 17, Jeremy Bennett marked it as to-read Mar 31, Lorna Holowaychuk marked it as to-read May 09,