Loving Kindness

I started doing the Loving Kindness meditation with Amy in July 2018. These are the basic sentiments expressed in it.

May I be kind and patient with myself
May I love and accept myself for what I am
May I forgive myself my mistakes
May I be safe and free from suffering
May I feel happy and healthy
May I find peace, joy and ease of well-being

These feelings start in the heart, spread throughout the body, limbs and head, throughout the house and reach out to other people and beings, to family, friends, neighbours, the whole world, the solar system and all corners of the universe and then all the way back into the heart once more. This meditation also includes breath awareness, slow and calm, and a body scan.

The Loving Kindness meditation is used to help treat sufferers of PTSD. I have found it particularly helpful.

Take me to church

I was a regular attendee at my local Church of England for ten years between 2008 and 2018. I found it quite helpful, but the church wasn't well attended and the vicar seemed to resent getting up early for so few people. I fought a little to keep the service going, but now I enjoy my lie-ins on a Sunday morning. I kind of miss church and maybe, when I have more energy, I may become a regular church goer again.

Breath and Body

I did my first mindful meditation with my daughter in March 2018. It was the body scan from 'The beginners guide to mindfulness'. Since then I have been a regular meditator. The two basic meditations are breath awareness and the body scan; which really get you into the present moment. Acknowledging that you are essentially a living, breathing body, whatever else is going on in your life; it can keep you grounded in the now, aware of your life essence.

Upside-Down World

Upside-Down World was a SubVerse poem, it was meant to highlight the paradoxical nature of finding strength and control in acceptance and surrender. I found it also came in handy when discussing difficult and potentially contradictory concepts in Christianity.

Virtuous Dolls

I don't think I'm a terribly virtuous person, there is definitely room for improvement. However, I find that thinking about the virtues, helps me to be a better person. I became fascinated by the seven contrary virtues as a way of tackling the seven deadly sins, so my first set of virtuous dolls are named after these; patience, generosity, diligence, kindness, temperance, chastity, humility.

The Contrary Virtues

Faith, hope and charity are the theological virtues, they are pictured below.

Faith, Hope & Charity

The cardinal virtues are prudence, fortitude, temperance and justice

The cardinal virtues


There are many fruits of the spirit, my dolls depict nine of them; patience, peace and love; faith, constancy and kindness; joy, integrity and gentleness.

The Fruits of the Spirit

6B460

6B460

My 5B450 bucket list was a list of five things I wanted to do before turning 50. My new bucket list is more about things I want to keep going over many years and how I want to live my life. My big travel goal is to visit Belfast and Northern Ireland.


1. Visit Belfast and Northern Ireland


2. Work in libraries for at least thirty years


3. Keep a blog going for ten years


4. Play classical piano pieces in public for ten years


5. Practice Buddhism everyday


6. Live a good enough life

Lucy Vale

 

I was writing Lucy Vale over ten years ago, in 2006, just before I started work on ALF Creations @ the Star Heart Cafe and embarked on various social media projects. For years I couldn't work on my story, I felt it was a big mess and I was busy being a working mother, I had a lot of grief to deal with and I was also nursing a big broken heart. Then on her ten year anniversary I felt once more able to engage with Lucy and came up with a year long plan for her dream diary adventures which I am still working on.

  

Spiritual Therapy

I was a regular church of England church goer from 2008 until 2018. I thought there was something therapeutic and helpful about the church, aside from all the God and Jesus stuff. I liked the hymns, especially Christmas Carols. Churches have an inspiring and mystical feel about them, but they can also feel cold and unfriendly. I discovered Buddhism in March 2018, which marked the end of my church going life. Since discovering Buddhism I have found what I was hoping to find in the Christian church. I couldn't get the hang of prayers but the breath awareness, body scan and loving kindness meditations I do with my daughter have been very therapeutic and healing. There seems to be more Christians than Buddhists in my area, so socially the Christians are winning, although the Christians I know have not been good friends to me and my family. I think seeking spiritual connection is important, it can help you feel less lonely, even if it doesn't bring you more friends.

Exploring Bhuddist-Christianity

After completing my '5B450' projects last year, leading up to my 50th birthday, I have found myself on some kind of spiritual-psychological-philosophical quest. One of the journeys this has taken me on is a progressive shifting away from Christianity towards Buddhism, which is surpirsing and refreshing. These are the three books that have been accompanyinging me on my journey.

When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chodron

I was going through a very difficult time when I read this book. I found it very wise. Pema has written other books too, which I have enjoyed reading, 'The places that scare you', 'The wisdom of no escape' and 'Start where you are', but I enjoyed this book the most. In 'When Things Fall Apart' Pema first talks about her spiritual inspiration from doing nothing for twelve months. The book is about giving up struggles against fear and anger and a lot of other negative emotions as well. It explores the Buddhist ideas about letting go of everything. A lot of what I have been reading echoes what I was exploring through writing about aspects of surrender in my poetry group SubVerse. I think a lot of things are related but none of them hold the complete answer. Possibly because there are no complete answers. I think that's possibly a very Buddhist conclusion. It also explains why the best thing is to just live in the moment, hopefully the present moment is OK. I have only just started exploring Buddhism, at the moment I am getting a good deal out of it. I hope I will pursue this spiritual practice further, possibly with the help of the Vietnamese Buddhist Thich Nhat Hanh.

The Book of Joy by Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu

The Book of Joy is a big book about the week when the Dalai Lama met his friend Archbishop Desmond Tutu, to celebrate a big birthday. The book starts with a reflection on human fragility and moves on to exploring negative feelings that mask joy; these are fear, anger, sadness, despair, loneliness, envy, suffering, mortality. The book then goes on to discuss the eight pillars of joy which are perspective, humility, humour, acceptance, forgiveness, gratitude, compassion, generosity. The three most practical things I got from this book were the Breathing Practice, Tonglen Practice and Acceptance Meditation. The book is written in a simplistic, friendly way. The Buddhist books I have been reading by Thich Nhat Hanh and Pema Chodron have been a lot more in-depth.

Becoming like Jesus by C.J.H. Wright

I've been a church-going Christian for over ten years. My favourite bit of the bible is St Paul and in particular his verses on the fruits of the spirit; 'The fruit of the spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control, against such things there is no law,' Galatians 5: 22-23. There is a lot of love in this book and to me that is what jesus was all about; love. It was about replacing the old testament law enforcement with this one statement 'the entire law is fulfilled in keeping one command: love your neighbour as yourself,' Galatians 5: 14. I've always tried to an open minded, free thinking person, a liberal Christian, I find myself now leaning more towards, Buddhism, due to life difficulties and embracing both Stoicism and ACT. That said I still have room for Jesus in my life and this book helps to explain why. There is a lot to think about and at the moment I am looking for positive practical stuff to keep me going. Positive practical Christian stuff you can do is go to church, pray and bring more of the fruits of the spirit into you own life and sphere of influence.

Welcome to the Third Wave

My introduction to third wave CBT came with reading the Happiness Trap by Russ Harris which introduced me to Acceptance and Commitment Therapy. Discovering the other third wave therapies has been like a journey which has finally led me to Buddhism.

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)

The six core processes at work in ACT are

1. Values

2. Committed action

3. Acceptance

4. Defusion

5. Mindfulness

6. Observing self

Working on and with the processes you can develop psychological flexibility which makes you able to better handle anything life might throw at you. One of the main areas ACT helps with is experiential avoidance, it is a kind of 'Feel the fear and do it anyway' therapy.

I was very excited when  I found out that psychology had moved on and was now putting acceptance ahead of positivity. Accepting the negative and committing to the positive seemed such a good way to go. 

The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris really opened my mind up to a new way of viewing and living my life. I would also recommend Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for Dummies which includes many helpful practical exercises.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Main Book Read: Wherever you go, there you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn
New York, Piatkus, 2004

This is a lovely book, guiding you in meditation, but not with the easy guided meditations you get in the third wave therapy books. As far as I can tell the new mindfulness based therapies started with Jon Kabat-Zinn and his Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction programme which requires participants to meditate for forty-five minutes every day. I really enjoyed Full Catastrophe Living, it was very long and very wise. I have two of his guided meditation CDs which are very helpful. He has certainly encouraged me to give Buddhism a go. I love what I have found out about Buddhism and have decided to attempt to persevere with it.

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT)

The two books I have about MBCT revolve around the '8 week mindfulness course'. The courses look more or less like this:

Week 1 involves waking up from autopilot through becoming aware of your breath
Week 2 introduces more body awareness with the body scan meditation
Week 3 involves mindful movement, a kind of basic yoga
Week 4 involves listening to music more mindfully
Week 5 explores difficulties through guided meditation
Week 6 introduces the loving-kindness meditation
Week 7 involves cultivating mindful routines
Week 8 expands mindfulness into daily life

Mindfulness by Williams and Penman also includes helpful and extremely short meditations like the 1 minute meditation, the 3 minute breathing space meditation, the chocolate meditation and the frustrating queue meditation. The Beginners Guide to Mindfulness also includes useful breath awareness and body scan meditations as well as exercises on making space for difficult emotions, observing your thinking, developing non-judging skills and developing more mindful routines.

Compassion Focused Therapy (CFT)

At the heart of CFT is kindness, humanity and acceptance. This therapy involves relaxation exercises, being at peace, listening to sad music and visualisations such as 'safe place' and 'flow of life'. There is a lot of mindfulness in it. I found it a bit too light for me, I have a dark side which I have made friends with, there does not seem to be much space for this in CFT.

In Mindfulness Based Compassionate Living I encountered another breathing space meditation and the compassionate body scan. It explained the differences between the three psychological systems of Threat, Drive and Soothing, and how we can tune into them when we need them. This therapy introduces these four Buddhist friends for life: 

1. Loving-kindness. 

2. Compassion. 

3. Sympathetic joy. 

4. Equanimity. 

It also explains that living happily requires three fundamental qualities: your life should be pleasant, engaged and meaningful. I have found this to be the least helpful third wave therapy I have encountered.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT)

DBT is the last therapy I have been exploring. In many ways it has been the most practical and helpful. DBT seems to have a lot in common with the 'Serenity Prayer' used by Alcoholics Anonymous. The dialect being between acceptance and change.

'God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,
Courage to change the things I can and wisdom to know the difference'
Reinhold Niebuhr

It involves many practical coping strategies to help people cope with strong moods and emotions. These include distraction and soothing skills, doing more positive and enjoyable things, having goals, creating a crisis plan, as well as mindfulness.

DBT addresses these four areas of therapeutic intervention in great detail

1. Distress tolerance
2. Mindfulness
3. Emotion regulation
4. Interpersonal effectiveness.

Guided meditations for DBT include visualisations, naming emotions, relaxation, loving-kindness and the ubiquitous breath awareness and body scan. Other useful DBT ideas are keeping a mood diary, emotion exposure and developing assertiveness skills. It all seems to be very practical and helpful, especially for teenagers and people with BPD.

Basic Buddhism

Seeing as all these third wave therapies seem to have a big Buddhist element in them, I have concluded that I might just as well become a basic Buddhist. I think I will become more involved in Buddhism when I am older, but for the time being, with family, home and work commitments being what they are, basic Buddhism will have to do. These are the Buddhist ideas I am most eager to explore.

Impermanence
Compassion
Selflessness
Mindfulness
Non-judging
Letting-go

My favourite book I have so far discovered on basic Buddhism is the Art of Living by Thich Nhat Hanh, London, Rider, 2017. Other books with really good, basic Buddhist guided meditations have been Buddha's Brain and Siddhartha's Brain.

Selected Bibliography

ACT

Acceptance and commitment therapy for Dummies by Brown and Gillard

Chichester, John Wiley and sons, 2016

The Happiness Trap by Russ Harris

London, Robinson, 2008

MBSR

Wherever you go, there you are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

New York, Piatkus, 2004

MBCT

Mindfulness by M. Williams and D. Penman

London, Piatkus, 2011

A beginner's guide to mindfulness by Bohlmeijer and Hulsbergen

Maidenhead, OU Press, 2013

CFT

The Compassionate Mind by Paul gilbert

Croydon, Robinson, 2009

Mindfulness based compassionate living by E. van Der Brink and F. Koster

Hove, Routledge 2015

DBT

Don't let your emotions run your life for teens by  Van Dijk

Oaklane, Instant Help Books, 2011

The Dialectical Behavior Therapy Skills Workbook by McKay, Wood and Brantley

Oakland, New Harbinger, 2007

Basic Buddishm

The art of living by Thich Nhat Hanh

London, Rider, 2017

Buddha's Brain by Rick Hanson

Oakland, New Harbinger, 2009

Siddartha's brain by James Kingsland

London, Robinson, 2018