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Just B: Zen Master Seung Sahn ‘What am I?...Only Don’t know!’
Just B:
Zen Master Seung Sahn
‘What am I?...Only Don’t know!’
‘Consciousness is not located’
Yoga Retreat
Detongling Retreat
Ram Dass
‘How to people change in relationship to one another?’…
’What you do for another human being, is share your being, that’s all you do, the stuff you think you are doing is just stuff you think you are doing’.
What we actuality teach or transmit to each other is our own level of evolution
The Mindfulness Ripple:
In a family, if there is one person who practices mindfulness, the entire family will be more mindful. Because of the presence of one member who lives in mindfulness, the entire family is reminded to live in mindfulness. If in one class one student lives in mindfulness, the entire class is influenced.
The Miracle of Mindfulness
Thich Nat Hanh, 1975
Mindfulness:
‘the nonjudgmental attention to the present moment’
(Schure, Christopher & Christopher, 2008).
Just B:
Just B is an eco-systemiclly framed mindful neurological narrative.
It’s Aim or Intention?
Resilience
Ecosystemic
An ecosystem is formed by the interaction of a community of organisms within their physical environment. The interaction may be biological, physical, emotional, psychic or all of the above.
Systemic Practice:
Works within the Context of Narrative, family, society, culture, history, belief and experience .
In other words everything that contributes to you!
‘Your Story’
Resilience:
Is the ability to bounce back from adversity
Brain hemisphere
Trauma has been shown to increased activity in the right hemisphere, involved in nonverbal processing.
Decreased activity in the left hemisphere, Responsible for language processing
Broca’s area
Broca’s area
Responsible for speech, language processing, comprehension, and facial neuron control.
Generates words to attach to experiences but prevents words from associating with traumatic experiences.
―Speechless terror (van der Kolk,1996).
Significantly decreased activity in the Broca’s area while remembering a traumatic event. Goes blank when seen on a scan.
Dual Mode hypothesis of self awareness
Narrative Focus (NF) calls for cognitive elaboration of mental events
Experiential Focus (EF) attends to temporal experience
Attending to the present: mindfulness meditation reveals distinct neural modes of self-reference
Norman A. S. Farb Zindel V. Segal Helen Mayberg Jim Bean Deborah McKeon ZainabFatimaAdam K. AndersonSocial Cognitive and Affective Neuroscience, Volume 2, Issue 4, 1 December 2007, Pages 313–322, https://doi.org/10.1093/scan/nsm030 Published: 13 August 2007
Jill Bolte Taylor
I shifted from the doing-consciousness of my left brain to the being-consciousness of my right brain
https://youtu.be/PswRQ8iGcgg
Narrative Focus
Medial Prefrontal Cortex
Rostral and dorsal extentPosterior cingulate
Experiential Focus
Right lateralised network
Cortical thickening in the right insular, somatosensory and inferior parietal lobule cortices.
Switching Neural modes of self-referencing
L R
The Trigger system
Just B: Approach
1. What is your story?
2. There are always multiple stories!
3. ‘This’…the here/now is always the best part of the story!
‘Being’
is the most potent skill, a therapist has.
(R, Dass, 1975).
Just ‘B’
Being with:
It is hard to fully communicate in text the depth of the transformation that occurs when we shift our stance from trying to avoid suffering to simply being with it. The shift is wholly counter intuitive until we observe how efforts to avoid suffering only increase it while an open acceptance lessens pain.
(Gehart & McCollum, 2007)
Yoga Centering Asana
Process Mind and You
Think of a situation or particular client that is difficult for you. What are the qualities, energy and experiences you have about this person or situation?
Share with your partner your situation and experience.
Go into the energy as fully as possible. Find the disturbing energy, the X energy.
Who suffers from then this disturbing energy in you? X energy
Who is affected by this energy? – this is the little u.
Work with the two energies
X – disturbing energy
U – the Little u
How would you like to live?
Step 1
Figure out the X and the u energy
Look for the essence of the polarities
Step 2
Where is your deepest self located in your body today? Let your awareness go. Express this in hand/arm movement
Step 3
Connect with a space that expresses this atmosphere and movement.
It’s difficult to express atmosphere in words. Easier to integrate through your body.
Step 4
Go into a empty mind state. Follow the emptiness in the moment and let it give you a message.
Step 3
Connect with a space that expresses this atmosphere and movement.
It’s difficult to express atmosphere in words. Easier to integrate through your body.
Step 4
Go into a empty mind state. Follow the emptiness in the moment and let it give you a message.
Step 5
How would you use this message to work with your client?
Is this information useful in your practice more generally?
Mindfulness Exercise
Creating an Earth Spot
Case Study
Case Study
Joanne is a 17 year old girl who initially presented at Age 10 years with severe Anxiety and Behavioural issues (externalized Anxiety in the form of outbursts). Joanne was experiencing difficulties with her peer relationships and was being bullied at school. Joanne changed schools in Year 5 due to the poor response from the school.
Both parents experienced significant attachment ruptures in their childhood. Mum’s attachment style was anxious/avoidant and she acknowledged she struggled to meet Joanne’s needs for closeness. Family therapy was conducted with Joanne and her Mother using DDP and the relationship strengthened for a brief period. (Father was the CEO of a large company and worked long hours and travelled).
However, symptoms persisted and Joanne developed an Eating Disorder in Year 8 and was referred to Child & Youth Mental Health. Joanne’s father attended meetings and was briefly involved in the treatment program.
Joanne was referred back to me. She continued to experience difficulties with peers and changed high schools twice over the next 3 years. In Year 10 her close friend committed suicide and 6 weeks later her Grandfather passed away from Cancer. Joanne spiraled into Depression, was school refusing and self-harming. Joanne refused to take medication or see a Psychiatrist. Both parents were working Full Time and Joanne felt alone and isolated.
When Joanne’s symptoms escalate it brings the family together –this was put to the parents in which they agreed. However, still could not get Father in to therapy.
Mum has always been active in getting Joanne to therapy, however she was extremely stressed with work, experiencing grief over the loss of her Father and feeling a lack of support from her husband. Mum was not emotionally available.
Hypotheses:
Mindfulness
As Joanne’s father was absent and Mum was anxious and stressed it was difficult to implement mindfulness strategies with either parent. Worked with Joanne on mindfulness strategies and emotional regulation skills and she stabilize.
References
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