Tag: mindfulness trainig

Mindfulness answers to life • faith • hope • mindfulness meditation • mindfulness practice • mindfulness trainig • mindfulness workshop • mystery • suffering June 28, 2016 By Christina de Valencia 0 Comments

We Are Suffering.

The world loves a person who speaks loudly and shows no doubt. Just take a look at what is going on in our political arena right now.

We want to follow someone who seems to have answers, seems to know. I think, secretly, we all long for answers to the uncertain things in life. Maybe, just maybe, there is that one person out there who really does know.

However, the answer never lies outside and there is never one solution that fits all.

The answers are always within!

Whether it’s about our relationships, attitudes, diets, spirituality, actions, way of life, or whatever. The answer is unique to you.

So it becomes an exercise of willingness, openness, introspection, and personal responsibility. (A good therapist, who asks the right questions, can help).

We try so hard to make sense of our humanity, our weaknesses, fears, doubts and hopes. Wanting to make sense of life. Always striving for strength of character, strength in front of others and within, looking like we are having fun. The hard part is that our lives just aren’t that simple.

Life is deep and mystical. Mysterious yet straightforward, complex yet simplistic, full of hope yet full of despair….Life is the greatest paradox.

We will never completely understand it.

Through the millennium many great minds have tried to analyze it, pick it apart….. only to find more questions.

And that’s ok.

We can never fully know ourselves or one another; we are as mysterious as the universe. We are so much more than what can be seen and heard. Our words can never fully convey what lies within.

The best we can do is work on the things that are essential to our happiness and leave the rest. Sometimes we wrestle with fears and frustrations, but if they don’t make a huge difference in our big picture, we can simply set those things aside.

One of my fears is to go under water. Diving under a wave or even just jumping in the deep end, that so many people enjoy, is torture for me. Some deep primal panic takes a hold of me on those rare occasions when it does happen. I’ve looked at it enough to recognize that it doesn’t significantly change who I am and how I feel about life, so I let it be.

The important parts, however, like my relationships, who I want to be in life, my spirituality….those deserve my full attention. Sometimes the smallest step in the right direction can end up being the biggest step in our lives. Sometimes we need to do more.

Recently, seemingly, from out of nowhere, I found myself hopeless. I had lost my faith in God. Everywhere I looked, people are struggling and suffering, animals are being mistreated, children are dying and I noticed all the pain everywhere. My own father, nearing the end of his life is in agonizing pain. I felt helpless, wondering who’s really in charge? Why all this pain? Life looked grim and pointless.

THIS needed my attention!

We can try to be present to ourselves and another, but within each of us there is a shapeless, shifting, deep inner being that is unknown even to ourselves.

So we often don’t recognize that we are suffering. We are simply doing, drinking, eating, talking, sleeping, gambling….. too much. We have no balance.

At times, when things happen to us….. losing a loved one, being confronted with something previously unimaginable or perpetual struggles with issues….. we just crumble. The turmoil of life, after many years on this earth, can bring with it an exhaustion so deep, like the pull of the moon on the tides, we cannot ignore or push aside.

Maybe our lives are not what we had hoped they’d be. We grieve the losses, the hopes, the dreams.

What I know for sure in all this, is that:

love and kindness toward ourselves and others, heals.
Receiving is as great an act of love as giving!
We must trust in a higher power.

Somehow, given enough time and willingness, we can regain some of our energy, find answers, hope and the courage to go on. That is our built in survival instinct.

However, I wish I had a magic wand to take all the darkness away and leave only sunshine.

Here is another good article: https://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2015/05/17/how-to-stop-suffering-from-painful-emotions/

Please share if this was helpful.

Inspiration Mindfulness Plans life • life's duality • mindfulness • mindfulness meditation • mindfulness practice • mindfulness trainig • mindfulness workshop • new ideas • plans don't turn out June 17, 2016 By Christina de Valencia 0 Comments

Sailing to Cuba

We had a plan and as it often happens….plans don’t turn out the way you want.

Life happens, while you are making other plans, right!

Our plan was to sail to Cuba.

We have a large Catamaran sailboat, fully stocked, and after many months of preparation we were finally ready to go.

Very soon, a series of unplanned things happened along the way. Our engines broke, not just once, but 3 times. The plumbing started leaking into the boat and it had to be completely re-plumbed. We had to wait for better weather…..sometimes for weeks.

I really do enjoy being on a boat, cooking nice meals, making it comfy and appreciating the sun. Being out on calm seas is the most relaxing thing I know, because you literally can’t do anything else. I love the steady rocking of the boat and being on the water has a soothing effect on my psyche.

What I can’t handle is being at the constant mercy of the weather, wind and water. Everything is perpetually damp or wet. I am petrified when the waves are more than 3 feet and pound the boat, or you lose control of your direction, because the wind has other plans for you.

So when we hit bad weather, I learned that I’m not a sailor!

Everything in life has a good side and a bad, positive and negative. It’s life, the duality. How else would we appreciate the good, if we didn’t experience the bad?

The bad in this case is that we aren’t going to Cuba on a sailboat. Our lovingly planned trip isn’t happening. We aren’t sailing to Cuba. It’s a disappointment.

The good side is………….

When you are on the water, you meet lots of people of all ages and backgrounds. Boating people are generally very friendly, hospitable and generous. I think the transient nature of boating makes us more open, we stick together and support each other.

We help each other tie up as a new boat approaches the dock at a marina, provide a lending hand if there is a problem and easily sit together over dinner and a glass of wine.

In the course of this, you learn quite a bit about people. You learn their stories, their struggles and their triumphs. You learn about their lives.

What I learned was the almost infinite variety of life-styles that exist on this planet.

As good citizens of western culture, we grow up participating in the norm. We get educated, work at an accepted job, live in an acceptable home and generally follow the cultural “dream”.

We are conditioned to believe that is the right and only way to live. We don’t have another yardstick by which to measure. We believe that this is life and we strive toward it, often at the expense of ourselves….getting stressed out and worn out in the process.

It’s a case of “you don’t know what you don’t know”.

I didn’t know there was another way for a long time. I grew up in a middle class household. My father grew his business into success and my mother stayed home. All the people around us had similar lives. Discussions revolved around our expectations for this life and what we kids would become when we grew up.

We didn’t know people who went against the norm, who lived on boats, climbed mountains, traveled on a shoestring or chose to live with very few possessions, because they recognized what was important to them. Someone in the course of their lives gave them permission to do it differently or they had the calling and courage within to go against the cultural pattern.

Being an observer and a voracious reader, I learned that life can be done differently. It’s easy to see when we look at the lives of other cultures. Within those cultures we find the rebellious, the brave, the different. If we aren’t exposed to other options, we can learn by trial and error, as I did on our sailing trip.

It was an adventure explored. The good far outweighed the bad.

My point is: This is your life! No one else can live it for you, you don’t need approval from anyone. It takes courage to contemplate what you might like outside of the box that was set up for you. Being constantly stressed out with what you are doing might be a good indicator to re-examine things.

Socrates said: “The unexamined life isn’t worth living”

It’s about feeling happy. When you feel good, you have more to give. A depleted soul has nothing to give.

Someone in one of my workshops mentioned feeling guilty when she did things for herself.

This is not about selfishness. Everything worth having needs to be nurtured. Especially the Self! Whatever we don’t nurture withers away.

Ask yourself….how do you feel when you constantly neglect yourself and only look to please others? You neglect your body, mind and soul. Your body will get sick, because you don’t care for it properly. Your mind will be exhausted and frazzled by others’ demands, because you don’t know your limits. Your soul will feel no peace, because you are dismissing the very essence of yourself.

Whatever your philosophy, there are a few immutable truths in life:

What we regret most at the end of our lives are the things we didn’t do.
The degree of understanding and compassion you have for others is in direct relationship to how you treat yourself.
Quality friendships and relationships keep us happier and healthier in the long run.

So, go out and do what lights you up, excites you and invigorates you. Do it with others who are supportive of your life-style and show your appreciation and support in return.

In case you want to sail to Cuba, here is some information: https://cubajournal.co/how-to-legally-travel-to-cuba-from-the-u-s-on-your-yacht/

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Acceptance Forgiveness Mindfulness compassion • doing our best • forgiveness • love • mindfulness • mindfulness meditation • mindfulness practice • mindfulness trainig • mindfulness workshop • non-judgment May 6, 2016 By Christina de Valencia 0 Comments

Are We Doing The Best We Can?

Years ago, while studying the Course in Miracles, I read that we shall not judge one another, because everyone is always doing their best in any given moment.

That stayed with me…….but I didn’t really believe it.

Looking around, it appeared that people should know better than to do hurtful things to one another, ignore each other, or make stupid choices.

Don’t we all feel that someone has wronged us?

⦁ That our parents did stupid things, hurtful things that we would never do?

⦁ We judge others’ lifestyles, because they look weird to us.

⦁ We see the husband cheating on the wife who believes she is doing her best to make the marriage work.

⦁ The man who chooses not to forgive the father who used to berate and beat him, but now desperately wants a relationship.

⦁ The friend who declares eternal love, but keeps “forgetting” dates to get together, doesn’t call, goes out with other friends and doesn’t invite you.

⦁ Or, the person in the super-market who won’t smile back, just stares or looks away.

⦁ The people that are so irresponsible, it’s hard to understand how they make it through life.

⦁ The person who lies about everything.

Observing all this, it seemed clear to me that it was simply not true that everyone is doing their best.

Some things are just obviously right or wrong and we should know this.

To be truthful, I just didn’t get it…. for years. I continually judged, because it seemed so straightforward to me that some people’s choices were just plain selfish, stupid and mean.

It took some painful events to wake me up (isn’t it always that way!), to humble me and my opinions.

To see it differently.

It took going deeper. It took realizing that we are sacred beings, each of us with a purpose that only God knows.

But it helps to understand. Our mind likes organization and order. So I began taking a closer look at what might prompt some of the behavior that looks so hurtful.

⦁ What causes a person to act selfish?

We are complex beings, but we have learned that there are certain things children need to become healthy, well functioning adults. If they are deprived of those basic needs, parts of their psyche become misaligned or crippled.

Babies need touch. That’s a fact. Some years ago this tragedy was all over the media about some orphanages in Eastern Europe where babies and toddlers were left neglected in their cribs without human touch. They simply died.
Our body and psyche need to be connected, acknowledged and appreciated. We need to be bound to others, be nurtured, understood and loved. Human beings are social animals.

When our parents are incapable of nurturing our body, mind and spirit, parts of us wither. Typically then it becomes difficult to develop compassion, integrity, understanding, generosity, kindness and connection as we grow into adulthood.

We first have to receive, before we can give to others.

If we do not receive compassion, we can’t give it. If we do not experience kindness and connection, we can’t give it.

Worse .…..depending on the degree of isolation, we might become narcissistic. That is the epitome of self-centeredness, wherein someone is so lacking that they are incapable of forming a bond or giving selflessly.

So, selfishness, I found, exists on a continuum.

Our ability to give depends largely on what we received in childhood.

⦁ Why are some people always critical?

One of my clients was perpetually criticized and reprimanded as a child. The parents didn’t know any better, because that is how they were raised.
They had good intentions, they believed that this would make him an aware person, who would know the difference between right and wrong.

This young man found himself constantly being critical of others, either aloud or silently. Particularly of his girlfriend. He was letting her know that he knew better and she needed to listen to him. He was certain he was doing the right thing. Eventually she left him. This scenario repeated a few more times until he realized he needed some help.

He felt so insignificant as a child, that by degrading someone else as an adult, he made himself feel more significant.

It’s painful for everyone involved, because the person who is hurt by the behavior suffers and the person who perpetrates recognizes on some level that something isn’t right. They may even feel imprisoned in their emotional state.

⦁ What about all the other strange behaviors?

Sometimes we have a deep fear that we will not get what we need from others. That we don’t really deserve anything good.
We develop coping skills, we will find a way to survive.

That may include drinking, drugs, sex, overeating, anger, avoidance, denial, too much activity…..keeping busy so we don’t have to be present. We get quite creative with the possibilities.

Carol grew up in an uncertain, frightening environment. As a little girl, she watched her bi-polar schizophrenic mother being taken away in a straight jacket, never to return. Her father dealt with his despair by drinking, screaming and physically abusing his children; waking them up in the middle of the night to have them pull weeds naked. Carol’s older brother left home to join the army as early as he could. Then her younger brother ran away. This left her unprotected, afraid and alone. She often had to sleep outside and didn’t know when the next meal would come.

This little girl only knew chaos, there was nothing safe and solid to hold onto.

As an adult, Carol can only focus on one thing at a time, she is easily overwhelmed. She is full of anxiety and needs to verbally outline everything she will be doing for the next few days. She has lived in the same home for most of her life and is very obsessive on how she arranges her things and her life.

One of her coping skills is denial.

Denial of her deteriorating marriage, her advanced age, the state of her deteriorating home, that time is not standing still…..

This is how she creates a perceived sense of safety.

She is doing the best she can.

⦁ Why do people lie?

As children we don’t want to get in trouble, we want to be loved and accepted. Yet at times there are things we want to do that we know we shouldn’t do.

So we learn to say….it wasn’t me, I didn’t do that.

If many things are forbidden, we become very creative. We develop a very sensitive radar to what is expected from us.
We learn that it isn’t safe to be truthful, because we won’t be accepted or worse, we will be punished.

This can become a habit, a pattern, as we grow into adulthood.

We all want to be liked. If we suspect that our behavior might upset someone, we just make up a little lie….or a big one, so we can look good to others and continue to be accepted.

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Once we step through the door of understanding, the door widens and……………

…when we begin to see others with compassion, with the intention to love, it becomes clear that everyone is always doing the best they can.

Even if we don’t know their history!

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In life the happy, joyful, peaceful times carry us forward and give us strength. The painful times help us grow…. if we are open to learning.

It’s how we all make it through life. When we know better, we do better.

Looking at it this way then, we are ALL always doing the best we can in any given moment.

Check out another perspective: https://kripalu.org/resources/what-if-were-all-doing-best-we-can

Happiness Mindfulness acceptance • awareness • Happiness • inner peace • life changing • mindfulness • mindfulness meditation • mindfulness practice • mindfulness trainig • mindfulness workshop • observing • peace • self-awareness • watching April 8, 2016 By Christina de Valencia 0 Comments

The One Thing That Will Change Your Life

How do we change? Some of you have heard me talk about this before, but it’s so powerful, it’s good to hear it again.

Most of the time we learn through pain. I am no different.

There it was again, this sense of feeling trapped and helpless in my situation. Someone who means a lot to me had done something that rocked my world…..not in a good way.

This triggered old thoughts and behaviors, like “no one really loves me and I am a bad person”. I went into a downward spiral, feeling overwhelmingly alone and betrayed.

Before I knew it, I was in a dark pit, taking me to a scary place…… making me feel like this was the theme of my life.

Yet, some small part of me recognized that I had felt out of control like this too many times in my life!

There had to be a better way!

This led me on a journey where I discovered that there is an easier way to change old patterns than practicing psychotherapy. Don’t get me wrong, I believe it is invaluable to explore the origins of our thoughts and behaviors.

But it takes a long time…..and doesn’t always work.

I know……. I had spent my life exploring and analyzing and, still here I was, falling right back into my old patterns. It happened in a flash, like someone else was pulling all the strings.

You may recognize this. It’s not just something that only takes hold of me. I’ve seen this with clients, in classes and retreats.

A trigger sets off an avalanche of emotions and behaviors. We are feeling trapped in ourselves.

We don’t always recognize the fork in the road. I didn’t at the time.

Sometimes it’s an article, a workshop, a retreat or a person who has something powerful to share, but you aren’t quite ready to hear it all. That’s how it started for me, years ago.

However, a seed was planted. When the soil was ready, specifically, when I was open enough, when I had had enough pain, this seed began to sprout. From there it was almost magical. Information, people and situations showed up that guided me along and showed me the way to change my life.

Here is what I discovered: Being willing to stop, breathe and observe, changed my life.

It may sound simple, but it isn’t necessarily easy. It requires practice.

It’s a skill we have to develop, a muscle we have to grow.

We think we are our thoughts, we believe we are our feelings. Yet they are only a part of us, not the entirety. We are so much more!

You are not your thoughts

We think, all day long, as long as we are awake. That is what our minds do…..one thought after another. Random thoughts, habitual thoughts, deep thoughts, shallow thoughts. Our mind analyzes, plans, remembers, likes, judges, compares, blames…… thoughts perpetually rising and falling.

We identify with those thoughts. If something happens, our mind jumps to certain thoughts and runs with those, like I’m no good, for example. You know that you can create a whole painful scenario from that one thought.

Yet, when you stop and watch your thoughts, you become aware that they are impermanent.

When we are willing to stop, breathe and recognize that we are thinking, when we step back and watch ourselves thinking, we can take back our power!

It requires a willingness to observe without judgment, like a scientist.

It is similar to lying in the grass watching the clouds or sitting by a river, just observing what flows downstream.

You recognize this is not you!! These thoughts are not a fact. You are so much more than these thoughts. They cannot take your equilibrium, your peace, your happiness.

Because, you see, just by being willing to observe your thoughts, you acknowledge their existence. Whenever we are willing to acknowledge something, it loses its urgency.

You are not your emotions

Emotions arise from our thoughts.

We may not recognize when a certain feeling originated, what thought began the wild ride downhill. But if we are willing to step back and observe ourselves feeling a disturbing emotion, we create the space in which we can recognize that we are not this emotion.

There is no need to fight or resist what is there. Just breathe and observe.

This is not you! It is simply an emotion that arose from thoughts, which are floating in and out of our minds, because that is what minds do.

We may think that these feelings are facts, because we have felt them for so long. Whatever we think repeatedly begins to appear as fact. But that is not the truth.

Simply observing without judgment, allows us to move through whatever is there. You’ve heard the saying: “What you resist, persists.”

If we don’t resist, there is no need for anything to persist.

By simply observing your emotions, you will uncover patterns in you that are keeping you stuck…..in pain, in destructive relationships, in self-sabotaging situations.

Once we become aware and observe our thoughts and emotions, the resistance disappears and this creates a space for life to show up differently.

It has the power to change relationships, to ourselves and others. It changes what we attract into our lives.

It heals our life!

You are not your thoughts. You are not your feelings. They are part of you, but not the entirety of you. Learn to be aware of them rather than become them.
Like all things in life, we must practice this. You can’t wait til you need it and expect yourself to be proficient.

We had to crawl before we walked, we had to practice holding that spoon and aim for our mouth, we didn’t learn that new language overnight.

Practice by giving yourself time throughout the day to sit quietly, without distractions, to notice, to observe, to be…….like a scientist, without judgment.

Practice, when you are in conversation with others, when you are working on something, when you are watching TV…..

Just observing, not judging.

If you forget, it’s ok. Do it next time…..

Be kind and gentle with yourself…….and don’t forget to breathe.

To learn more, come to our classes https://www.encinitas-counseling.com/events-and-classes/

or contact me https://christina@christinadevalencia.com

Healing Mindfulness being mindful • being present • gentle • mindfulness • mindfulness meditation • mindfulness practice • mindfulness trainig • mindfulness workshop • non-judgmental • noticing March 5, 2016 By Christina de Valencia 0 Comments

Why all this Mindfulness talk…..now?

It seems that the Mindfulness conversation is everywhere.

Why now, I wonder? After all, Jon Kabat Zinn PhD., a microbiologist, started his research in 1979. He initiated a weekly practice with patients from the Massachusetts Medical Center, which he called Stress Reduction. He quickly discovered how powerful and effective mindfulness practice is. Yet it seems to have taken almost 30 years to become well known.

Could it be that we have to run faster and faster to keep up with life? We are constantly connected and have to respond. There is very little down time, if any. People have to eat fast, walk fast, talk fast and even sleep fast.

Stress and Anxiety have increased. Young people, children even, feel anxious and stressed. If, in addition, you also grew up with parents who generated anxiety in you…..well, then you are just a mess.

So, I think, we have reached a place of desperation. Desperate for some calm, some peace, some downtime, a way to really feel our lives. Only we have no clue how to go about it anymore.

Hence, Mindfulness has reached momentum. I think that is fantastic!

This simple, yet powerful practice re-balances us, physically and emotionally. We re-learn to focus on the present moment, which is all there ever is. Instead of worrying about the future and ruminating on past events, we begin to simply notice without judgment….gently, lovingly.

Mindfulness …..although I wish I could come up with another name……. is by far the most powerful, miraculous process to heal physical and psychological issues I have ever experienced. There is no shortage of things I have tried personally and in my practice, therefore I feel that I have some authority to comment on this.

Everyday people have had amazing, almost mysterious success. A client of mine with serious arthritis found relief when he started practicing mindfulness meditation. The simple act of being present in the body, listening, observing non-judgmentally can bring to the surface what the body needs to heal itself.

It’s possible, with mindfulness, to shift decade old belief patterns that keep us stuck and fill us with despair. Frequent feelings of hopelessness can bring us to the brink of suicide. Often, in my experience, some of the most gregarious acting people shock us with the decision that they cannot continue with life.

But!!! – our brains are not hardwired, the neural connections are in reality very plastic! Jon Kabat-Zinn calls it neuroplasticity. Therefore, the brain can actually learn to decrease the messages that send despair and hopelessness and increase messages of calm and joy.

Mindfulness affects the structure and neural patterns present in the brain.

I was convinced that psychotherapy was the only way to learn to change. I believed we had to learn the origin of our thoughts and beliefs, talk about them and learn to change them. It is long and laborious, but understanding the origins of our dysfunction seemed the only way out for a long time.

Yet…….mindfulness is the alternative!

It is necessary to recognize our patterns and habits, but when we are willing to pay attention, they will rise to the surface.

Here are just a few research cases, if you are a scientist at heart and need evidence for its effectiveness.

A 2012 TEDxCambridge talk in which Dr. Sara Lazar, Neuroscientist of Harvard Medical School describes her research on meditation and increased cortical thickness. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m8rRzTtP7Tc&list=PL_XZQmAKJPU9t1pNGe6ESfFxF2RLI_uYn

In 2003, for example, scientists from the University of Wisconsin-Madison examined a group that included alumni of Jon Kabat-Zinn’s eight-week course. They found that when they received flu shots, the meditators’ immune systems produced more antibodies in response to the vaccine than did the non-meditators.

In a 1998 University of Massachusetts study, patients with psoriasis who meditated while receiving ultraviolet treatments for their skin healed four times faster than the control group—regardless of whether they had any previous meditation training.

Another study (2007) reported by Greg Flaxman and Lisa Flook, Ph.D., showed better stress regulation with Mindfulness. They measured a faster decrease in levels of the stress hormone cortisol after a stressful laboratory task, among Chinese undergraduates after 5 days of meditation training at 20 minutes a day. These students also reported less anxiety, depression, and anger compared to a group of students that received relaxation training.

A University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill study (2004) demonstrated a correlation between mindfulness practice in couples and an enhanced relationship. The couples reported improved closeness, acceptance of one another, autonomy, and general relationship satisfaction.

So, wherever you are struggling in life, there is hope…..and it isn’t some complex, difficult process. It’s called Mindfulness Practice.

Click this link to set an appointment https://www.encinitas-counseling.com/appointments/ or check out upcoming classes https://www.encinitas-counseling.com/events-and-classes/