my insignificance thrills me
and the largest of my sadnesses
dwindle smaller than the space

between grains of sand
and in that moment,
knowing my place,

comes a love so enormous
I can love anyone, anyone,
even myself.

by Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer

I love and completely recognise the experience Rosemerry Wahtola Trommer describes here – how the perspective between the greatness of nature and the smallness of me can be both healing and freeing.

But I think there is something to watch out for when making that shift away from my habitual focus on Me and My trouble to what Mary Oliver pointed to when she said ‘Meanwhile, the world goes on‘. There can be a sense of disconnecting or abandoning ourselves in that shift, a kind of detaching to make the difficult stuff more manageable. A very human impulse of course, and actually an attempt at compassion (alleviating suffering) in itself, but if there’s a disconnecting involved, it’s a move away from wholeness and healing and so it will at best be a temporary assuaging.

So instead, can there be a reconnecting with the truth of that greater perspective, that lovingly includes our own stuff? It’s not about denying of our humanness or ‘the largest of my sadnesses’, but seeing what else is true? And there’s a subtle but important difference in the two…

Of course it may not always be easy to access a ‘lake or a sea or a mountainside’ when you need one. Luckily, our imagination can be a powerful ally and we may access that greatness through the porthole of our memory. And the sky is a powerful greatness in itself, even if we can only see a small piece of it in between big buildings…

Let’s practice accessing that love so enormous that we can love anyone, even ourselves!

PS one of the contexts for practising a change of perspective and loving anyone, even ourselves, is in the standalone weekend of Compassionate Imagery For Resilience…

Photo by Khatam Tadayon on Unsplash

by James Crews

I was moved by the honesty in this poem, and could relate both to the potential cringe-worthiness of the word honey and the hand on heart. Learning to meet myself with gentleness wasn’t a straightforward undertaking, although so very much worth it! And I appreciate how some of us may have even more of a process with this than others, depending on social and cultural conditioning. And it felt like a gift to get a glimpse into the experience of the poet James Crews – who I came across as editor to the lovely anthology The Path to Kindness: Poems of Connection and Joy.

The other thing I could really relate to in this poem, is how the worrying mind attaches itself to such a range of topics once it gets going, how everything becomes a source of concern. Ranging all the way from the huge and longterm to the very immediate, worry can be everywhere when in one mindstate, and pretty far in the background at another time. And how precious to be able to meet ourselves wherever on that sliding scale we find ourselves, showing up with oddly comforting expressions of sincere care…

PS if you want to learn to be there more for yourself, join our compassion course (hand on heart and ‘honey’ optional!)

Photo by Rich Font on Unsplash

I would regard myself as relatively fit and healthy.  I swim several times a week, sometimes in the sea, and walk anything between 10 and 20 miles a week.  In addition, I have a regular tai chi and yoga practice.  Apart from the odd minor cold or headache, I have kept quite well for 5 years.  I remember the last time I got really sick quite well, as I was on retreat on Holy Island on Arran, Scotland.  I remember only too well how it felt to be ill away  from home and feeling fairly isolated  without the things around me I needed.  That particular virus was very long lasting too.  It was very Covid like, with a cough hounding me for a year after, and totally changing my sense of taste and smell.  It also left me with blocked sinuses and tinnitus, which I still suffer from some 5 years later.

In the East, there is a deep-rooted philosophy that the body is to be cared for with a cocktail of gentle exercise – Qigong and Yoga and to take care of the meridian system.  The meridian system is a set of energetic channels throughout the body which, using Qigong, Acupuncture and Chinese medicine can be kept clear.  In this way, illnesses are detected early to mitigate their impact or prevented completely.

I started learning about the meridian system 10 years ago when I trained to teach Qigong, Tai Chi and Yoga.  But still ever a Westerner, I recognise that I don’t often recognise that the different parts of the body are present until they go wrong.

And one of those moments is now. Something is going wrong.  Not just with one part of my body, but multiple parts of my body all at once. On day minus one, I noticed something wasn’t quite right.  You know that feeling you get at the back of the nose and throat that come with feeling more tired than normal?  On Day One I was on my way back from a 2-night trip away, and the symptoms of a virus began to make themselves very known.  My throat started to feel quite sore, I started sneezing a lot, a tickly cough began in my chest and my eyes began to stream. Furthermore, my brain started to feel foggy, and I couldn’t think. Just like that, overnight. Despite having been ‘double jabbed’ of course Covid came to my mind, because that is what we have been programmed for the last 20 months and so I arranged to have a PCR test on my way home.  I also decided to take a breath of fresh air on the beach to see if I felt any better.  Normally when I am on a beach, I am full of energy and bouncing around like a puppy.  But not on this day.  No sooner had I made it down to the sea I felt overwhelmingly hot and tired and all I wanted to do was lie down. The picture in this blog is of that moment.

When I got home and was able to rest, curled up in a chair with a blanket, I found that I was becoming very mindful of how I was feeling.  It was all I could do to journal a few notes here and there, and this is the result.  A mindful journey into a virus.

Resentment started to arise. It was just there, present in my being in no particular place.  I had plans to travel to London for a few days on the Sunday, which  turned out  to be Day Two  of the virus.  But  I  wasn’t going anywhere.  I was glued to my  bed.  These plans had been formed months ago and I actually found it hard to believe I was no  longer going.

I was a bit surprised when the Covid test came back negative because I felt terrible.  It was that feeling of being so unwell that is a few degrees over the  tolerance level, but there was nothing to do but accept the situation.

I began to realise that I didn’t have the energy to really feel anything.  It feels like my emotions have been supressed and I am buried deep into this being, looking out.

I  didn’t have the energy or focus to meditate, and yet I  found my  body falling into a mindful trance.  I can only be mindful because the body sensations are so overwhelming, keeping me rooted in the present moment.

An insight strikes me quite hard. It is that I haven’t been grateful enough for my body when it is healthy.  This insight surprised me.  I have appreciated swimming and walking and all the things I do in daily life, but have I ever paused in these moments and really truly appreciated my healthy body in that moment?  The answer is no.  I have been more likely to have been troubled by ageing and my  weight than the pure simple gift of feeling healthy and happy with my  body in any one given moment. These days my mindfulness practice has helped me to become quite adept at taking in the good.  Noticing those small moments in life that bring joy, and then squeezing them into my  body and being so they linger. And yet, I had totally missed moments of joy at the body feeling good.

My  body is working hard  to fight the virus.  My heart is beating hard, I feel very hot and my head is pounding. At first I notice that I am not very good at being ill. I find myself fidgeting and moaning a lot. I then have  the interesting insight that I have a tendency to keep myself busy.  At first there is this little generator whirring wanting to do something, but then it realises the battery has died and there is nowhere to go and nothing to do.

In our mindfulness meditation practice we come to a place of rest, saying ‘nothing to do, nowhere to go’.  I can do this in my sitting practice but in daily life, seemingly this is more difficult.  So I set my self  a challenge.  How is it to just accept my body isn’t working properly and rest, properly?

By Day three I feel no better. In fact I feel worse.  How can that be?  I remind myself that this will pass and for the moment I just have  to  yield to it. I  remember how stress compromises the immune system, so no need to cause any stress for myself. And then I remember to be kind to myself in this moment.  I bring to mind the thousands of people suffering from a virus  at  the moment, Covid or otherwise, I am not alone in this.  I can feel my  body and being soften, and I fall asleep until the next bout of coughing disturbs this.

Here I am at Day four, writing this in bed, feeling no better but with a newfound awareness.

Kabat Zinn says that so long as we are breathing there is more right with us than wrong with us.

How true that is.

I am grateful I only have a virus that will pass and send out loving kindness  to everyone  suffering in the world.

I drift into total Mindfulness

Too tired to move

Too tired  to focus.

I feel the heat  in my  body, the tightness in my chest and pain in my head.

I feel the sensations of constantly sneezing and  how sore my nose is.

Exhausted from coughing I yield to the virus and trust in  my body to restore itself to good  health  again.

My only concept of time passing is with the  fading  of the light, the  tides changing, the sudden chill in the air as the sun sets.

This brings me to a new stillness as I accept and allow myself to just  be.

I dedicate this blog to all those who are sick and suffering and wish them to find a new found peace and acceptance.

Weekly Challenge

The challenge this week is simply to notice how you are feeling.  If you  are feeling well, is it possible to notice the joy in this and spend a few moments absorbing this goodness?  If you  aren’t feeling  well is it possible to notice how it is to be in this moment and accept how you are feeling? Either way, can we take a moment of our precious lives and be kind to ourselves?

Warmest wishes

Jacky

Jacky is teaching the new Mindfulness in Movement Course on 8^th March, 2022, and a practice day of Just Being on 29^th December.

She will also be guiding the online Mindfulness course which runs on a Wednesday evening, starting 12^th January, 2022.

She has contributed a chapter to the Mindful Heroes Book entitled “Turning Empathic Distress into Compassion – A Hero’s Journey for Family Carers”.  You can watch an extract from the chapter where she talks about the results of her MSc Studies in Mindfulness on Compassion & Family Carers. You can download a free sample of Jacky’s chapter here.

When I did notice it – my body began to send me signals.  It usually lurks between my heart and solar plexus – an uncomfortable fizzing feeling.  Then my shoulders take the opportunity to be particularly naughty and start creeping up towards my ears.  My tinnitus suddenly becomes much worse. With me it’s rarely anything in particular that has triggered it. I seldom know. But that really doesn’t matter. It is the way I am responding that matters. It can be the little things that build up.   Then I suddenly feel overwhelmed in my body, even though my mind is telling me I’m perfectly OK. I feel calm, in control, but my body has been triggered into an old habitual behaviour of flight, fright, freeze.

My Mindfulness practice always comes to the rescue.  At first I need to just be aware of what is going on.  I feel calm but my body isn’t listening.  So I take the first step of becoming aware of what is happening while it is happening. It’s like my body has disconnected from my mind and is doing its own thing. All I can do is sit and watch it.  The second step is to be kind to myself. This isn’t my fault and I just need to bring a sense of compassion to this human body I inhabit which didn’t arrive with a manual. Or if it did, it was hidden from me or lost in the mists of time.

The third step is to allow my body to soften, using my breath and the Soften, Soothe Allow meditation practice that is part of the Level 2 Compassion Training.  In this meditation we notice what is uncomfortable, we allow it to be there just as it is without judgement, but we bring a sense of softening around the edges of the difficulty, giving it space and gently say “soften” to ourselves. With a kindly, soothing gesture of a hand on the heart we then recognise that we are not alone in how we feel and that others, all other human beings, suffer too. As we feel the warmth of the hand connecting with the heart, we softly say to ourselves “soothe”.  In the final phase we rest in awareness, allowing ourselves to feel what we feel – kindly saying to ourselves “allow”, as we recognise fighting how we feel just brings tightness into the body and wastes time and energy.  Simply allowing everything to be just as it is allows ourselves to give ourselves permission to be ok with everything we are feeling.

You might want to try the practice – click here if you do.

In this practice, noticing my body racing and fizzing, I relax into allowing this experience, knowing that it will soon pass.

There is a freedom that comes with this awareness.  It gives me the choice not to fight, to take it easy, be kind to myself and nurture for a while it all passes through.

This provides me with a new opportunity, to react differently.  As I sit in awareness, I realise I have been triggered and it feels like my body has gone back into the past, to a difficult time when I was juggling so many things, responsible for so much, with no Mindfulness or Compassion skills to help me through.

Rather than allowing my self to get stuck in a rut, I choose to be different, and not react to the stress my body is feeling.  I recognise that there is no point in behaving how I have always behaved when my body feels stress.  Going round in circles and ending up at the same point seems futile to me now. That’s when I noticed that there is a real freedom in awareness, which allows us to take a new view of ourselves, as if we are outside looking in, just observing.

In this new found awareness I am finding little tricks to help my body relax.  I can take moments out for myself to just breathe and soften my body.  My mindful movement practice of Yoga, Qigong and Tai Chi help with this. I can also focus on my breathing with a three minute breathing space meditation, and also just taking in the goodness from the beautiful, uplifting things I see around me, no matter how small, like the sound of the sea, birds singing and the view from my window.

There is also a simple, ancient technique which was re-introduced to me recently, called trataka.  Trataka is the practice of focussing intently on a single object, such as a candle flame, for around 30 minutes without blinking.  Occasionally you might pause (as I have to often as seemingly I blink a lot) and in this moment of a blink, visualise the object.  I tried this practice again for the first time in a very long time, and noticed that it had the same impact as my Mindfulness meditation.  After all, in our Mindfulness we use the breath, body or sound as a place to remain in the present moment.  In Trataka, we are being mindful and resting in the moment by using the object as a place to remain present. It’s not rocket science, but training the mind does take time.

I find myself feeling like I am a complete Mindfulness beginner again. This happens a lot. But I realise that I am stronger than I give myself credit.

I recognise that we are constantly bombarded by the outside world, with its chaos.  Even the news is full of doom and gloom, and we can start feeling that we want everything to be different. Wanting everything to be different than it is can be ‘anti-allowing’ and ‘anti-acceptance’, and can bring us discomfort as we are pulled into our habitual behaviours.  But if we recognise this, then this is the first step of allowing everything to be, can set us on a path to peace.

When we are really busy in our lives and the world feels chaotic, we can pause to gaze at the candle, or commit to be present, in the moment, just for a while.  This can help us to find our centre, and rest in the midst of it all.

I have noticed that when I am super busy with life, my practice suffers, and yet this is the time when I need it the most.

Another opportunity to make a choice therein presents itself as I notice the seeming chaos inside my body and deliberately choose to override old patterns of behaviour.  I then find the time to practice Mindfulness meditations or movement that I have learned over the years.  Even 10 minutes helps. And I can always find 10 minutes.

My insight from this new level of awareness is that I can create a little calm space inside myself, right at the centre, even though my body and the world around me feels chaotic.

It helps to know that I don’t even need to understand why I am feeling the way I do. I can just rest in it all. Not trying to change a thing, but just allowing everything to be part of my present moment experience. And that’s ok.

Weekly Challenge

Do you know when you are stressed or overwhelmed?  Where do you feel this? Does your body sometimes react in a way your mind cannot understand?   I invite you to pause and sense deep into the body and see where you are feeling any discomfort or strange sensation in the body.  Imagine breathing into the discomfort and out from it into the space around it.  You might want to say soften, soothe and allow to yourself, or do the Soften, Soothe, Allow Compassion practice.  Then see how that feels. How is it not to fight how you are feeling and allow everything to be just as it is.  With kindness.

I’d love to hear how you get on so please do write to me at membership@mindfulnessassociation.net or leave a comment after this post.

Take care

Warm wishes

Jacky is teaching the new Mindfulness in Movement Course on 8^th March, 2022, and a practice day of Just Being on 29^th December.

She will also be guiding the online Mindfulness course which runs on a Wednesday evening, starting 12^th January, 2022.

She has contributed a chapter to the Mindful Heroes Book entitled “Turning Empathic Distress into Compassion – A Hero’s Journey for Family Carers”.  You can hear an extract from the chapter where she talks about the results of her MSc Studies in Mindfulness on Compassion & Family Carers. You can download a free sample of Jacky’s chapter here.

Therefore, I was interested in exploring the evidence base for self-compassion training in relation to eating behaviours. I have looked at systematic reviews and meta-analyses to get an overview.

Braun et al (2016) is a systematic literature review of how self-compassion relates to body image and problematic eating habits. They describes that self-compassion is based on the recognition that suffering, failure and inadequacy are part of the human condition, and that all people, including ourselves, are worthy of compassion. They describe how some studies suggest that self-compassion practice improves health behaviours by transforming negative emotions into positive ones. This is consistent with research that compassion training activates neural circuitry associated with positive emotion and affiliation. They also suggest that self-compassion might be helpful at inducing self-soothing and non-reactivity during unpleasant emotional experiences.

Braun et al, looked at 28 studies and found self-compassion to be linked to lower levels of problematic eating habits and to be protective against poor body image and problematic eating. It suggests that self-compassion may directly decrease problematic eating outcomes. It may also reduce the occurrence of or interrupt risk factors leading to problematic eating outcomes, by boosting protective factors such as body appreciation, emotional tolerance or flexibility around body image, which have been found to improve intuitive eating and reduce binge eating.

Braun et al, suggest simultaneous training in self-compassion and mindful eating, which are both key components of our new Mindfulness Based Healthy Living course.

Steindl et al (2017) is a qualitative review of the use of Compassion Focussed Therapy (CFT) for eating disorders. CFT draws on evolutionary science, psychological science and neuroscience. This paper defines self-compassion as approaching oneself with kindness and acceptance, especially in the face of one’s own personal distress or disappointments.  It describes how people suffering with eating, body-image and weight concerns tend to have high levels of self-criticism, self-directed hostility and shame. CFT was specifically developed to support clients with high levels of self-criticism, self-directed hostility and shame.

A version of CFT, called CFT-E has been developed to treat eating disorders. It aims to support people in understanding the links between their eating and their emotions, in developing empathy for themselves and their problems around eating, in developing some wisdom around the challenges of recovery, in developing the motivation to care for themselves and so a commitment to engage in recovery, and in developing the confidence and courage needed to offer understanding, support, advice and encouragement to themselves and others in their CFT-E groups (Steindl et al, 2017). CFT shows promising results for adults with a diagnosed eating disorder and the paper speculates that the approach may also be applicable to people with obesity.

Some of the reviews, Braun et al (2016) and Steindl et al (2017), describe how some people experience a fear response to self-compassion. Therefore, care needs to be taken when training course participants in self-compassion.

Rahimi-Ardabili (2018) is a systematic review of the efficacy of interventions that aim to increase self-compassion on nutrition habits, eating behaviours, body weight and body image. It looked at six studies and found that self-compassion can be beneficial for weight loss, nutrition behaviours, eating behaviours and body image. The studies had the aim of increasing self-compassion and assessed at least one of the following: nutrition habits, such as energy intake; eating behaviours, such as binge eating; body weight or BMI; or body image. All the studies indicated beneficial effects of self-compassion in healthy, normal weight or overweight people on factors such as weight loss and reduced body dissatisfaction. The results are consistent with the theory that self-compassion can alleviate barriers to healthy weight management, through improving emotional regulation, reducing self-critical thoughts, decreasing stress and increasing acceptance and psychological wellbeing. However, the number of studies was low and most of the studies had serious methodological limitations, in particular most of the studies included only women.

Turk et al (2020) is a systematic review and meta-analysis exploring if self-compassion is relevant to the pathology and treatment of eating and body image concerns. This study considered 59 previous quantitative, English language, peer reviewed studies, which used a self-compassion questionnaire and also measured eating or body image. It found that higher self-compassion was associated with lower eating pathology, reduced body-image concerns and greater positive body image with medium to strong effect sizes. It also found that self-compassion interventions for eating pathology and body image were effective and concludes that self-compassion appears to be an adaptive emotion regulation strategy in relation to eating disorders and body image concerns. Study limitations included that the studies were in English language and so may under-represent non-Western cultures and that they mainly included college age women.

Therefore, it seems that there is quite good evidence that self-compassion can help with problems of unhealthy eating behaviours and body image.

Written by Heather Regan-Addis

Heather Regan-Addis is a Founder Member and Director of the Mindfulness Association.

Heather delivers training for the Mindfulness Association on our two Post Graduate Master’s degree courses as well as on our regular courses in Mindfulness, Compassion, Insight and on our Teacher training programmes.

Heather will be delivering a taster session with Q&A  for the Master’s Degree in Mindfulness & Compassion (with Teacher Qualification) ONLINE on Thursday November  18th at 7pm. You are welcome to join.

References:

Braun et al, 2016 – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1740144516301000

Rahimi-Ardabili et al, 2018 – https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12671-017-0804-0

Steindl et al, 2017 – https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1111/cp.12126

Turk et al, 2020 – https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0272735820300441