Category: EFT

Fight, Flight, or Mindfulness?

Have you ever found yourself in a situation in which someone was pressuring you to make a decision, possibly a very important one?

Example: Your spouse tells you he’s been offered a job across the country. He wants the job, and he wants you to go along with his decision.

That’s a lot of pressure, and people never make their best decisions when they’re under pressure. That state activates the primitive brain, where the basic decisions consist of fight or flight. When your future as a live being depends on whether to fight or to flee, this fast-moving part of the brain is your friend. It will tell you what to do about the noise that sounds like a large, hungry animal and whether you should flee from or fight the stranger on your path.

We often have more complex decisions to make now, but the anxiety they arouse triggers our instinct to revert to the fight-or-flight mode of decision making. This doesn’t serve us in most situations. We can make decisions in our best interests, by consciously getting into a mindful state.

Steps Towards Mindfulness

First, breathe deeply. This takes awareness because our tendency in fight-or-flight moments is to engage in shallow breathing, which deprives our brains of oxygen, which further panics us.

Inhale and exhale for as long as necessary. You can enhance this process by placing both hands lightly on your solar plexus.

After that, you may want to meditate, do yoga, or chi kung. If you practice Reiki, you can give yourself a treatment.

One of the best things I’ve done for myself in a high-pressure situation is to use EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). This consists of tapping on specific acupressure points while repeating statements (which will vary according to the situation). Research has shown that tapping can calm the primitive brain and restore calm and mindfulness to the mental processes. (For more information on EFT, you can go here.Once you feel more calm, consider the urgency of the decision. Do you really have to decide right away? By really, I mean 6 other people want the apartment, UPS has to pick up the package tomorrow, or your spouse has to decide about the job within 48 hours.

Consider—it may not be true, but consider it, anyway—that if a clear “Yes” or “No” aren’t coming up for you, “No” is often the best fall-back answer. This may lead to discussion, like “Why did you apply for a job 3000 miles away without asking me if I’d be willing to move?” This question could lead to an interesting conversation.

Sidestep Power Plays

Also consider that for many people, applying pressure on another is a form of exercising power over them. Recognize those who play such games, and walk off the court.

Play by your own rules. It’s your life and your decision to make.

I’d love to hear how you’ve mindfully handled a tough decision in your life. Please feel free to post below.

Mindfulness Means Looking and Listening.

It’s easy to get the idea that being in the present (which basically means being mindful) means you’re not focused on the past or the future. You’re paying attention to the here and the now. Doing, however, isn’t as easy as knowing.

The Key Word is “Focus.”

Being mindful doesn’t mean ignoring the past or future. Some attention to each has purpose.

For example, when you are planning to mail something, you might remember that you once mailed a package without insuring it or making sure that it had a tracking number. Therefore, you decide that you will be sure to take both of these steps when you mail this package. This demonstrates a simple and practical reference to both past and future.

Sometimes, though, we complicate it. In remembering the lost package, you might berate yourself, wondering why you were so stupid. You might recall all the trouble that resulted from that lost package.

You might go about trying to enjoy your day, but you find yourself unable to lose yourself in a good book or exercise because whenever you start to relax, you tell yourself, “I have to remember about the package. And what if it gets lost, anyway?” You begin to worry.

When Identity Gets Involved

This week I had a lost-package issue. I needed to send the original copy of a necessary legal document to someone else. I was vocal about my reluctance to do this, but the authorities in the situation insisted.

Then it appeared that the document got lost. My first reaction was, “Why didn’t they listen to me?” (a variant of “I told you so.”). My second was “Why doesn’t anyone ever listen to me?”

I was flooded with memories from my childhood when it seemed that no one had listened to me, accompanied by pain and anger. None of it was fun, but the opportunity occurred to step back and see how these childhood incidents had given rise to beliefs that filtered my present experience and influenced the future. I believed that no one listened to me, and I got evidence for that belief.

Mindfulness Can Help Clear Out the Past

I’m not going into specific details about the method I used. It’s called EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique), and if you haven’t heard about it, you can read more here.

It’s not the only method that works. People can get relief through meditation, mindful breathing, and other techniques. The vital first step is to recognize that a persistent regret or worry or any negative emotion is keeping you from fully experiencing the present. Once you have that mindful awareness, you’re on your way.

By the way, so was my document. I got it yesterday.

Is Mindfulness Dangerous?Part III

I’ve devoted two blog posts to writing about an article entitled, “Is Mindfulness Making Us Ill?” published in the “Is Mindfulness Making Us Ill?”January 23 issue of The Guardian. (In the first post, I described some of the misconceptions in the article about what mindfulness is and how it’s being applied in the UK. In the second, I explained why mindful meditation programs and retreats may not be for everyone.

In this post, I share how everyone can practice mindfulness on a daily basis.

This brings me again to the basic error of the Guardian article, which begins with the title. “Is Mindfulness Making Us Ill?” No. Meditation retreats led by unqualified individuals may activate long-held traumas, especially if sensory deprivation is a feature. Giving someone an app and telling him it will change his life is surely dishonest. Telling someone she has to take a mindfulness course or she’ll lose her job is frankly coercive.

We can, however, practice mindfulness in very simple ways because the basic concept of mindfulness is simple. It means to focus one’s attention on the present moment, a practice that’s essentially healing.

What can make us ill is to focus on the suffering and resentments of the past. We can also become ill from stress and anxiety as we dread the future. Mindfulness provides an antidote to past and future focus.

We can start in little ways, like small steps in exercise. One way would be to choose one activity per day to practice mindfully. It could be washing the dishes; it could be walking to work.

An activity I highly recommend is mindfully petting your cat or dog, who will thank you for this. Think of the many aspects you can focus on: fur texture, purring (cats), deep sighs of contentment (dogs and sometimes cat), how the chin goes up when you scratch it, the way the animal may bury his head in your hand. You can also learn from the animal’s gift of being fully in the present.

You can also practice “on-demand” mindfulness. Say you have a problem (you think) coming up in the future. You think about this problem during the middle of the night, and anxiety erupts.

Ask yourself if you can do one blessed thing about this problem at 2 a.m. Mostly likely, you’ll realize that you can only worry, which you’re already doing. It doesn’t seem to be helping.

Instead, try this relaxation method, which is a very basic and simple mindfulness technique taught by Thich Nhat Hanh. Slowly inhale and exhale, and as you do so, follow your breath.

Say to yourself, “Breathing in, I know I am breathing in. Breathing out, I know I am breathing out.” Or you can simply say, “In, out.” Breathe as slowly and deeply as you can.

When thoughts arise, don’t try to resist them, but don’t focus on them, either. Allow them to be and return your attention to breathing.

This is only a sample of how you can practice mindfulness.

Ask yourself questions. If you’re unhappy, agitated, depressed, or bored, ask what you’re thinking about. Ask where you are: in the past, future, or present? If you’re not in the present, bring yourself there. Do one of the above procedures or an engaging physical activity.

The more you focus on the present, the easier it gets. The easier it gets, the more enjoyable it becomes.

Is Mindfulness Dangerous?: Part II

Last week in “Is Mindfulness Dangerous?: Part I,” I wrote about an article entitled, “Is Mindfulness Making Us Ill?” published in the January 23 issue of The Guardian. In that post, I described some of the misconceptions in the article about what mindfulness is and how it’s being applied in the UK.

In this blog post, I write about some of the problems that can arise when one begins a mindfulness practice.

Florian Ruths, quoted in the article above, is clinical lead for mindfulness-based therapy in the South London and Maudsley NHS foundation trust. He says that self-taught mindfulness works for most people, provided that they don’t have disabling stress, clinical depression, or extreme anxiety. In the latter cases, a guided practice is far preferable.

He makes a valuable analogy to physical exercise. Probably about 20% of those who start off at a gym get injured because they haven’t gotten appropriate instruction.

Mind/Body Crises

When I began to teach Reiki, I was discriminating about who I would take as a student. Years of working in a metaphysical store in Manhattan and dealing with countless customers had taught me how to recognize if someone had serious emotional/mental issues. The prospect of spending money seems to bring up those issues.

Reiki can also bring such issues to the surface, as can any mind/body practice. Many people habitually push down their emotional issues. These may include unresolved traumas. Depending on how severe these are, a mind/body practice may remove the protective seals.

Anyone who knows or suspects that they have major traumas is far better off not trying to address them without professional guidance. By that, I don’t necessarily mean a psychotherapist. Trained EFT and Matrix Reimprinting practitioners, especially those who have had training in trauma practice, can responsibly assist a traumatized individual (and can benefit anyone who would like assistance in unraveling blockages).

I imagine that going to one of Thich Nhat Hanh’s retreats may also provide a safe and supportive setting, but I have no first-hand information on this. I’d recommend that anyone who knows they have such issues research this further.

Mindfulness Training is Powerful.

The most important point for me is that what is being done in Great Britain (and the US) is to trivialize mindfulness as if it’s some kind of useful trick like memory improvement that gives your life a quick fix. It’s the psychological equivalent of a pharmaceutical drug. However, mindfulness practice is far from a quick fix. has deep effects on the body/mind. That’s why, like yoga and chi kung, people have been practicing it for centuries or more. It works, and it works in ways you can’t always anticipate.

In terms of whether going to a training or retreat is a good idea for someone, consider the following:

  • Whether deprivation, whether of food or sleep, is involved
  • The qualifications of the trainers/leaders
  • If the individual has known traumas that remain unaddressed
  • If someone is uncomfortable with strong emotions
  • If an individual likes privacy for emotional expression
  • If one has never had therapy, whether individual or group, or any kind of psychological coaching.
  • More broadly, if one has never before explored the mind-body connection.

In any of the above cases, I recommend coaching. An additional reason for my favoring of EFT and Matrix Reimprinting (which can be combined in a coaching session) is that you can learn and practice them in between coaching sessions. Something else, though, may feel more comfortable for you. Have an introductory session. Decide if you want to go further.

In the final section of this series, I’ll write about easy, beginning mindfulness practices.

Creating Can Be Easy

Recently I listened to an interview with Carol Look, who teaches EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique) and who has created some very useful teaching tools in audio and DVD form.

In the interview she described how, if you’re in a negative mood, you can shift your focus. Some of the methods she listed were petting your cat or dog, taking a walk in nature (which can include a city park), and listening to music you love.

This may sound simplistic, and I’d rather say it’s simple, by which I mean easy. Because of its ease, simple methods for changing one’s mood get overlooked. We are so trained to believe that only the complicated and difficult methods can help us change our lives. That’s another way of saying we must struggle and suffer so that we appreciate the achievement of our goals.

The trouble is, after a long journey of struggle and suffering, we are often too exhausted to be appreciative. We’d rather take a nap.

When we, instead keep it simple, we’re able to enjoy the journey. The purring cat or tail-wagging dog, the pleasure of watching birds fly, or the pure enjoyment of music you love are their own rewards. When we change our focus, we aren’t waiting to be happy. We are happy and ready for more.

What could be more creative?