New Classes

I am very excited to be offering new meditation classes at Village Counseling and Wellness in Burbank, and Choices - A Counseling Center in Sierra Madre.

New 6 week series at Glendale Community College , Community Services Education

I am very excited to be continuing my classes at Glendale Community College, Community Services Education! My new series starts September 21. You can register online. My class is called Mindful Meditation and is under Personal Development. http://seco.glendale.edu/cse/

"Nurture Positive" Meditation Class August 27

August 27 Mind in Body yoga studio, Burbank 10am to 11:30

Introductory Mindfulness Meditation Class August 20

August 20, Mind in Body yoga studio, 10am to 11:30

Nuturing Positive

"Nurturing Positive" as a meditation technique is a"constructive"one, as opposed to many techniques that are focusing on and deconstructing aspects of our moment to moment experience.

"Nurturing Positive" is an opportunity to be creative and purposeful in our focus of something positive in our lives...be it a positive aspect or emotion, behavior change, thinking, ideal, situation, or sending it to someone or something outside of ourselves.

Working in this positive way helps us to have a balanced and complete meditative process and experience.

It can also be very fun and enjoyable......... so relax and enjoy the process

The instruction for "Nurture Positive" meditation

1. First choose a specific theme.

for example: a positive feeling or emotion, a behavior you want to change, a goal you want to achieve, a personal ideal you'd like to aspire to, a positive situation you would like to see for yourself or someone else, a more positive thought pattern, etc. You get the picture.....just decide on one for this period of meditation. Don't get overwhelmed...you can keep it simple.

2a. For a few minutes you mentally repeat a word or phrase that represents the specific theme you have chosen. At the same time, tuning into any pleasant sensation that may be related to that positive theme.

Then....

2b. For a few minutes, you create a mental image that represents the specific theme you have chosen. At the same time, you focus on that mental image and any pleasant emotional body sensations related to that positive theme.

3. Based on your experience of 2a and 2b, decide on working in a way that comes most naturally.

a. in Image

b. in Talk

c. in Emotional body feeling

d. Image and Talk

e. Image and Emotional body feeling

f. Talk and Emotional body feeling

g. freefloating between Image, Talk and Emotional body feelings

4. Hold the theme in your chosen mode of working for a set period of time

Feeling Flavors

Feeling flavors is a meditation technique that is part of our" feel in " subjective experience . When we are aware of emotional type body sensations we say that we" feel in".

By using the feeling flavor technique we focus on observing and noting particular specific emotions as we experience them in our moment to moment experience.

It can be very enlightening to bring such a focused awareness to this part of ourselves. We are often aware of big emotions, but perhaps not aware of the subtler ones or combinations of feelings that we experience.This information is helpful in self knowledge and with it the opportunity to see what we are feeling, how it changes and how it drives certain behaviors.

1. Bring your awareness to the area or areas where you experience emotional sensations in the body. We call this "Feel in."

2. See if you can name by noting with a label(word) a particular feeling that you are experiencing and where. Example: happiness on the face. Fear in the belly .....gratitude chest and fear in back.

you might be aware of experiencing more than one emotion at a time.That is fine . Just include it with "and" .If there is no emotional feel then there will be a label of "feel rest" and enjoy the rest. Guessing is perfectly ok

Every couple of seconds check in and label your experience unless it disappears first and then you can note "gone."

The Way of Thoughts and Emotions

This technique involves tracking your subjective experience in terms of visual thoughts(mental images), internal conversations(mental talk) and emotional body sensations.

In a psychological sense, this technique allows you to break up negative states into smaller manageable pieces, thus loosing their hold on you. By negative states I mean things like difficult emotions, limiting beliefs, judgements, urges leading to unproductive behaviors, etc.

Learning to focus on just one area at a time in a given moment will reduce the sense of overwhelm.

#1 Working with mental images.

Position your attention in the area where you experience visual thinking or mental images. When you become aware of an image you will note that as"see in" If there is no image you will note "see rest" . If all or part of an image (or rest) drops away, note that as "Gone"

Every few seconds observe and note.

#2 Working with mental talk.

Position your attention in the area where you hear self talk, usually in your head or around your ears. Pay attention to see if you can detect the presence or absence of mental talk. If you detect metal talk you will note "Hear in" When it is quiet you will note "Hear rest". When a burst of talk comes to an end ,note "Gone"

#3 Working with emotional body sensations

At any given time you might experience strong, mild, or no emotion in the body. If it is strong it will be easier to detect than if it is subtle. You can guess , subtle is significant.

Place your awareness in the body and see if you can detect emotion....from negative to positive.

If you detect something you will note "Feel in"

If you detect nothing you will note"Feel rest"

If the emotion or rest suddenly goes away note "Gone"

#Free float between the three

If you would like to work in the whole subjective state then broaden your awareness to include it all and note what arises or what calls to you noting as above

Meditation Reading

Some of my students are interested in reading more about Mindfulness Meditation, so I have compiled a list of some of the books I have found to be beneficial to expanding this knowledge.

I hope you find them useful.

Although some of the later titles sound challenging.......they are very positive and extremely helpful!

Wherever you Go There You Are.

Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday Life by Jon-Kabit Zinn

Peace is Every Step

The PAth of Mindfulness in Everyday Life by Thich Nhat Hanh

Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabit Zinn, PhD.

Break Through Pain by Shinzen Young

The Wisdom of No Escape and The Path

of Loving Kindness by Pema Chodron

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

The Art of Happiness by His Holiness The Dalai Lama

and Howard C. Cutler. M.D.

Garfield Campus class

For all my Glendale City College students,

I will be starting a new six week series at the Garfield Campus 12:30 to 1:30 . room 10. Wednesday April 20.

Hope to see you there!

New Class schedule