Coronavirus Tools: Adapting To The New Normal Through Titration, Portioning & Mindfulness

This talk is from a series devoted to providing resouces and tools to cope during stressful times, such as those during a pandemic, under social distancing, in emotional isolation, financial distress, and so forth. Tools include contemporary therapeutic modalities, as well as ancient Buddhist relaxation techniques.

Transcript

Tonight's talk,

Which is going to be on adapting to the new normal,

The new world as it unfolds,

Developing ways to process what's going on.

So let's just start.

The brain is,

Especially the left brain,

Is very reliant on the capability of representing life in sequential plans,

And otherwise known as positive expectations of what will happen,

A sense of reliability that our world is predictable.

When we can make plans,

When we have a sense of how things will unfold in the future,

We can use what's called the default mode network of the brain,

The midline regions.

We can make plans,

Visualize futures.

We can feel reward.

And the default mode network of the brain doesn't trigger needlessly the amygdala,

Which essentially activates stress,

Cortisol,

And so forth.

Fear center of the brain,

The amygdala,

Or at least amplifies fear impulses.

When we can make plans for the future,

We can engage the frontal cortex to inhibit what's called subcortical impulses,

Which otherwise are known as fight-flight-freeze impulses.

But of course,

Right now,

Our ability to confidently know how the future will unfold for most of us,

I think,

The vast majority of us,

Has been compromised.

Really,

Nobody knows how this will play out.

Nobody knows whether this will be a matter of a treatment that allows a sense of greater security for those who are immune compromised,

Or just including pretty much everyone,

Will be safe going back to a world where we connect and live in proximity with each other.

But even if a treatment or a vaccine magically arrived very quickly,

Which by all accounts,

It doesn't look like that's the case,

Life is not going to go back to the way it was as if this never happened.

Even if we contain COVID soon,

The emotional shadow of these events are going to linger.

There's going to be not just an ongoing sense of mistrust in the way which is the inevitable result of emotional experiences like this.

There'll be mistrust not only in our safety in proximity and close gatherings with others,

But even more so,

We're going to have a profound mistrust in all the broken institutions that have been sadly revealed,

Especially the federal governments ineptitude and just how paltry their response has been.

There's a sense now,

I think most of us have,

That there's really no one minding the shop,

No one steering the car.

Don't know how far to take this metaphor.

I think you get the idea.

I've heard a lot of Buddhist teachers and spiritual teachers have laid say with some sense of hope that these events will somehow result in a better world where people realize how many people have fallen into the poverty line,

How poorly we've treated the Earth,

The vast disparity between the haves and the have nots.

And so there's this yearning that we have that somehow this will lead to a more humane Earth.

But nobody knows if that's actually the case.

I happen to be a Jew from New York.

And I grew up with parents reminding me that when catastrophes happen,

They don't always turn out for the better.

In 1929,

30,

When both Germany and America's economy is completely tanked,

Well,

America in 32 brought in FDR,

Who started the New Deal in 1933,

Which addressed the rampant unemployment.

But Germany,

Of course,

In 33,

Hitler became appointed as chancellor.

So none of us know how this plays out,

Whether income disparity and the way we treat the environment will get any better or perhaps worse.

So not knowing can have some devastating emotional effects.

Along with the social distancing and the isolation that that inevitably brings,

Which takes a severe toll on many people,

Because as a species,

We depend on each other for emotion co-regulation.

But not knowing in and of itself is associated with what's called cognitive dread.

Cognitive dread is essentially being with the unknown.

And it's been found that it's just as disabling as experiencing a painful event.

In fact,

It leads to a psychological syndrome known as negative time preference,

Which is people expect,

When they expect catastrophes to linger or they don't know how they'll turn out,

Many people will attempt to actualize the pain immediately rather than waiting.

And one of the ways we do that is by,

Of course,

Catastrophizing and giving into very negative visualizations of how this will play out.

Given the unknown and given how awkward it is for the left hemisphere not to have any capability with any confidence predicting how the future will play out,

Many of us will try to be productive,

Will try to work and move and accomplish at the same pace we were doing before this pandemic,

Essentially at the beginning of March,

Really began to take its toll.

And many will be grateful for the distractions of their job,

Will feel grateful that they can focus attention exclusively on work.

Others will,

With the absence of work,

May turn to binging on Netflix or fixate on the news or engage in too many Zoom meetings with family members or simply tune out with the idea that this is not happening where I am.

I don't have to,

I don't want to pay attention.

I don't want to know about what's going on.

And for many who are actually feeling the emotional reactions to these events,

Be they depression or anxiety or any other form of grief,

Sadness,

Despair,

Overwhelm,

And so forth,

Might feel a sense of shame if they don't or they cannot keep up with others who are simply producing and acting as if nothing is or at least trying to act as if they can maintain the normal pace,

The normal productivity,

Get as much done as they did before.

And of course,

That can induce a sense of shame if we can't.

I remember when this,

I don't know,

It's not too far to look back,

When this started,

In my last talk in public was probably around the 7th or 8th of March and then starting around the 15th,

Immediately I noted that a lot of Buddhist teachers who are friends of mine went on and started immediately transitioning to giving weekly talks.

Some gave daily talks.

And I was feeling kind of frankly distressed about the pandemic.

I was trying to put together some talks,

But they just weren't congealing or coming together in ways that I felt good about.

And I immediately started to feel this sense of shame or this sense of I'm not good enough.

Look,

My friend Vinny is giving weekly talks.

Or look,

Jill Gill is giving daily talks and so forth.

And I was feeling like,

Oh,

God,

I'm failing.

And of course,

That's not the case.

We're actually,

Well,

It's fine that some Buddhist teachers can immediately respond and can practice both the tools and develop a great degree of self-soothing at a rate faster than I did.

But it's not in any way,

Sense,

Or form of failure to need time.

In fact,

Tonight's talk is going to be arguing that in many ways,

It's actually beneficial to slow down,

To not try to produce,

To not try to act as if we can keep up the same degree of productivity.

Trying to get as much done and to keep ourselves to standards that were normally present before this pandemic essentially,

In many ways,

Acting as if we can still function at high levels during a global disaster where countless people are sick and dying,

Facing poverty is inauthentic.

And while some people can immediately,

Effortlessly produce,

For many people,

It's a form if we try to be productive,

If we try to live up to the standards,

Whether they are not work or whether they are being as good a parent or being as attentive a caregiver or being as creative or doing as much exercise as we did previously can lead to one of the great challenges we have,

Which is compartmentalization.

In our culture,

We're used to not looking at certain areas of life that are unpleasant and focusing on just work or something that's under our control.

In America,

Compartmentalization has also led to a culture of outsourcing,

Where we let a whole groups of others fight our wars for us.

And that way,

We don't have to look at it.

People do the dirty work of driving,

Shelving,

Putting out food.

We don't see the sick and suffering,

Because of course,

They are outsourced to hospitals or other facilities,

Hospices for the dying.

So we're used to not looking.

And this can be a time where that practice is a tendency that we can fall into.

And of course,

I would argue that it's not particularly what I think is the authentic path.

But not only would I argue it's not authentic,

I don't think it's particularly adaptive.

It hinders our ability to process and turn towards the new normal,

Which requires a world that's changing all around us in unforeseen and unpredictable ways,

Where we don't know where we're going to be working maybe in the future,

How we're going to be making money.

We don't know how our society will turn out.

We don't know,

God forbid,

That we have once again a return of a government that is inept.

So all of the stimuli that's going on around us requires a slowing down and a portioning of the info and the productivity,

Not just so that we can spend time processing what's happening,

But so that we can protect our autonomic nervous systems,

The subcortical regions of the brain that determine our levels of stress,

The damaging amounts to cortisol,

Whether we shut down,

Tune out,

Or whether we can function in a way that we still can practice self-care by maintaining that very,

Very fragile window of tolerance,

Where we're not overly reactive,

Where we can breathe,

Regulate the nervous system and the neurotransmitters in a healthy way.

A characteristic of trauma,

Traumatic periods and emotionally wounding periods of our life is that they overwhelm the subcortical regions of the brain.

And we wind up processing too much information too fast.

This can lead to hypervigilance,

To an ongoing activation of the sympathetic nervous system.

Or it can lead to shutting down,

Tuning out,

Sleeping.

Disengaging,

Essentially brain fog.

The only way to adapt and to honor what's going on around us in a way that's meaningful,

To sustain ourselves for the marathon that this will be,

Is we can't start at this marathon,

Which could last,

Again,

For 14,

16 months,

Is to not start out a marathon at a sprint pace,

Not trying to push ourselves to get as much done,

To accomplish as much,

To be as creative,

To keep ourselves in the same level of fitness maybe,

Or do the same level of care.

We have to allow ourselves to emotionally settle in for a marathon.

And one of the best ways to do that is to integrate,

I think,

Some of the principles I'll be now talking about.

And of course,

This is just one of my lists of healthy,

I think,

Tools.

But it in no way means that we're supposed to do all of them.

But here's just some of the ways that we can start,

I think,

To adapt to the new normal.

One is that we start with titration.

Titration is the foundation of processing difficult,

Overwhelming,

Or novel emotional experiences,

Such as the pandemic.

It's the practice of slowing down,

Moving slower,

Literally reacting slower,

Taking a breath before we have to respond to a text message or an email.

It means literally the way we move across a floor.

It means literally the very actions of eating slowing down to a mindful pace.

When we titrate,

What we're doing is we're actually essentially slowing down the processing of the subcortical regions,

Namely the amygdala,

The hippocampus,

The hypothalamus,

All of which are processing information in the background.

And the faster we move,

The faster we react,

The more information we try to process,

The more essentially these subcortical regions have to work faster.

And the tendency is to become more and more reactive.

In addition to titration moving slower,

There's also portioning.

Portioning is limiting what enters our attention.

Instead of reading four news stories in the morning,

Reading one.

Or instead of dozens,

Reading only two or three.

Instead of planning four or five Zoom calls a day,

Maybe three or four,

Slowing,

Limiting the amount of interactions and information we have to process.

We do need interactions with others.

That's how we co-regulate our emotions.

But if we follow one meeting after another after another,

And we don't allow for space,

Then once again,

We are essentially overly activating the autonomic nervous system.

And when the autonomic nervous system has to process too much too quickly,

It leads once again to fight,

Flight,

Interactions,

Or events.

I'll tell you a very specific story from today.

Up until today,

I was actually being very diligent in limiting the amount of news stories I read,

The amount of stuff I would read in the Times or the BBC.

I'd only read one or two articles.

But today,

My diligence was not quite there.

And I wound up probably reading at least two to three times the amount of stories.

And I thought that,

Well,

Nothing's happening.

I can deal with this.

I wasn't aware that in the background,

My body was becoming more and more tense.

My breath was becoming more held,

More picking up the pace.

And the faster you breathe,

The more reactive,

The less we can maintain the window of tolerance and so forth.

And so what happened is after I went out for a jog and we came back,

There was another jogger who was coming in the opposite direction.

And I had entered under the scaffolding,

This very narrow place.

And I thought this jogger would do the sensible thing and do what I had been doing constantly,

Which is if there was somebody under scaffolding and there wasn't enough space to get safely by,

I assumed he would just jog into the street because there's no cars in the street here anymore.

So it was a perfectly safe thing to expect.

But this guy,

Who was easily half my age,

Didn't.

He came running right at me.

And I had to essentially step to the side.

And he passed me maybe about,

I don't know,

Maybe a foot away from me.

And I was wearing my mask.

And of course,

Because I had built up all this unconscious stress,

I didn't have my degree of impulse control.

And so I gave him what I would like to refer to as the Brooklyn greeting.

The Brooklyn greeting,

If you don't know,

Is,

Hey,

What the fuck are you doing?

And I then gave him also the Brooklyn salute,

Which is essentially,

You can guess what that is.

Now,

This event had actually happened to me quite frequently yesterday.

I was jogging in another place,

Avoiding people.

But still,

Some joggers would come really way closer.

And invariably,

They were much,

Much younger than me in their 30s.

So I guess they have that feeling of invincibility to them.

But yesterday,

Because I hadn't read all those stories,

Because I hadn't essentially subjected my autonomic nervous system to triggers and to images that I didn't have the time to fully feel and process and discharge,

I wasn't reactive.

I just didn't have that kind of response to them.

So I'm just going to turn back on my live feed.

It looks like it went off.

There we go,

Start live video.

So yeah,

So that's one of the reasons it's important to portion out the amount of information that we bring in,

That we ask ourselves to process.

Even if you think a news item or a conversation or a text that we're rampantly responding to,

We are not aware very often of the fact that the brainstem begins to shift the way we're breathing.

And from shifting the way we're breathing,

It actually changes how reactive,

How defensive,

How capable we are of interacting calmly with others.

So one way we can also protect the autonomic nervous system is to use the brainstem.

And the way we can protect the autonomic nervous system is through task positive behaviors,

Where we,

Task positive behaviors are things you do with your hands,

Where you pay attention to what you're doing with your hands.

These activities,

These circuits in the brain that switch off the default mode network.

And when you do that,

It actually doesn't activate your amygdala and activate stress and cortisol.

Some examples are gardening,

Drawing,

Cooking,

Playing an instrument,

Doing something with your hands.

It could be sewing or anything that involves hand pottery.

That's a really effective way to regulate the autonomic nervous system.

When people are in task positive behaviors,

Their brainstem almost immediately returns to normal functioning.

Another form of task positive is to take a stimulating,

Soothing walk outside in nature,

A walk or hike.

Another process that will protect us is to integrate some of the principles that we practice on retreat.

Now,

I don't want to compare sheltering at home or social distancing or life during a pandemic with a retreat.

It can have some of the qualities if we import them.

But to be sure,

We are surrounded by all of our distractions.

We're in our normal rooms or settings.

And so it's a metaphor,

Not a really attainable practice.

But we can integrate some of the practices of a retreat.

The first thing we do on retreat,

Along with slowing down and portioning the amount of information that people have,

By nature on retreats,

We don't encourage people to use their phones.

If they read,

We ask them to only read at night.

There's no TV or news that they follow and so forth.

Also on retreat,

We bring attention to the way we use what in Buddhism is called the requisites.

The requisites means consuming just the right amount of food,

The right amount of medication,

Having the right amount of concern over our appearance,

And so forth.

So by food,

I mean eating what is an amount that is healthy,

Not under eating,

But not eating to the point where we're actually trying to trigger the release of dopamine to repress anxiety eating or repress sadness and so forth.

Medication means,

Very often people think it means stopping medication.

But that's not the case.

It means taking the appropriate amount of medication that we need for functioning.

Concern over appearance means not getting,

On the one hand,

Unduly concerned with how we look on social media if we are on Zoom or whatever.

But at the same time,

It's also important not to decompensate,

Which means to completely abandon the habits that make us feel presentable and to make us feel that we are taking care of oneself.

In fact,

If you present in any psychological evaluation setting and people stop compensating by not doing the things that are attendant to our normal practices,

Then immediately a psychiatrist or psychologist will start to suspect a cluster A or B disorder,

Because that's one of the presenting symptoms,

Decompensation,

Failing to shower,

Clean,

Get dressed in new clothes,

And so forth.

So we bring attention to the requisites as well.

And then we engage the fundamental spiritual principles of Buddhist practice.

And I'm going to list three that I think are essential for processing and adapting to the changes that are going on around us,

To a world that is forever changed as a matter of fact.

The first is to bring attention to the breath on a frequent level.

We're doing this because we want to pay attention to the activation,

First of all,

Of the brainstem.

The brainstem is not only the hub of your autonomic nervous system,

But it actually controls how much of your frontal cortex is functioning.

If you allow the brainstem to essentially become triggered or activated,

And it'll do so,

Its first symptom will be it'll either start catching our breath,

Holding our breath,

Or it'll start leading to a fast breath,

Where the emphasis is on inhalations.

So the simple technique of becoming aware of the breath and noting,

OK,

Is this breath faster than it needs to be?

Can I take a nice breath in and then a long breath out?

This is the fastest way to disengage not only activations of the brainstem,

But also the midbrain.

I heard an interview with the wonderful Joseph Ladeau,

One of the great neuroscientists of our age,

The man who wrote The Emotional Brain and other classics.

And the man is the expert on the amygdala,

The fear center of the brain.

And he said the most efficient way to regulate the nervous system and subcortical regions of the brain is through paying attention to the breath,

Slowing down the exhalation.

The second practice,

And that's by the way,

Paying attention to the breath and just how the basic sensations of the body feel are known in Buddhism as the first foundation of mindfulness.

They're where we always return to when we're bringing attention internally and limiting,

Portioning out the amount of information that we're processing.

The second is the somatic marker integration,

Or becoming aware of feelings as they manifest in the body.

Feelings are emotional responses to external sensations.

When thoughts become intrusive,

Repetitive,

When they cycle,

When thoughts become overwhelming,

Essentially the first way to deactivate,

To gain some distance,

And to start regulating or modulating,

As it's called,

The amount of repetitive,

Intrusive cycling thoughts,

Is to locate the somatic markers that are in the front of the body down the exact same route that the vagal nerve passes.

So essentially that means bringing attention to the muscles in the front of the face,

The cranial muscles,

The neck,

And especially the chest and the abdomen.

Somatic marker integration means just noting first how activated am I?

Once again,

Becoming aware of the unduly tightly held abdominal muscles is an indication very often,

Not always,

But an indication very often of anxiety or a mounting degree of fear that's not been processed.

If we find a lot of heaviness in the chest,

That can be a sign of grief and sadness has built up that has not yet been given the freedom to fully discharge.

The way we process affects,

Emotions,

Is to bring attention to the physical manifestations,

Especially in the front of the body.

Human beings generally face each other when we express emotion.

So the bulk of emotional expressions is in muscles in the front of the body.

And we allow them time to arise.

And we remove the clenching around the tension.

So if I'm anxious,

Perhaps,

And my belly is tight,

I wouldn't first just try to spread and soften the belly.

I first release the tension just above it,

Just around it,

And encourage that tightness to just dissipate and spread,

And then try to also breathe into it and soften.

Hey,

Kimshi.

My little cat is right here.

See if I can introduce you to her.

There she is.

She doesn't want that,

But she's the love.

And then the third foundation is what could be referred to in psychology as metacognition.

And that's essentially bringing attention to the quality of mind that's present.

What is the quality of mind?

What does it mean?

That's a very vague phrase.

It's essentially noting whether your attention feels heavy,

Whether it feels sluggish and slow to respond,

Or whether it feels tired,

Like we can barely maintain consciousness,

Or we feel like this just brain fog.

Or does it feel dark,

Where literally everything except what we're focusing on feels opaque,

Difficult to even process too much to deal with?

Does the attention feel scattered and jumpy?

Can we settle and focus on a topic or an object?

Or does the,

Essentially,

The amygdala and the right hemisphere,

The right cingulate,

Does it keep pulling our attention away to emotionally activating stimuli?

For some of us,

It might mean that the awareness is open and very spacious,

And that we're not overly focused on one thing,

But that we don't feel pulled constantly to stimuli that may or may not be in our best interests of paying attention.

Just as we can soothe the breath,

We can soothe the somatic markers and feelings by allowing them space to flow,

We can practice soothing of attention.

That can be done by maintaining a soothing image or a soothing phrase that we repeat in the mind.

These can be meta-phrases.

May all beings be peaceful,

Happy,

And free.

Or it could be phrases like,

I love you,

Keep going while you hold an image of yourself.

It could be a deva nu sati,

Where we visualize this.

An early Buddhist practice,

Deva nu sati,

Visualizing a protective entity that looks over us,

That gives us a sense of a caretaking entity in our life.

It could be repeating a phrase over and over again,

Like a chant in Tibet.

There are,

Of course,

Many,

Niringi Kium or Umpadmi.

I don't know them.

I'm not a Tibetan Buddhist.

I'm terrified.

And that's kind of embarrassing.

But I'm sure many of you know those phrases.

We have phrases for summoning in Theravada,

For summoning not only devas,

But for wishing all beings peacefulness,

Freedom,

Ease.

These are the three spiritual tools that allow us to parse,

To portion,

To down-regulate the amount of information we're processing so that we can take our time and allow our emotional responses,

Both in the breath,

The feelings,

And in the attentional mind,

Which is the right hemisphere,

To process the events going on around us,

To literally give ourselves the ability to respond rather than to react.

I'd like to emphasize that this is a time where none of us can fail.

As a Buddhist pastor,

I am now talking directly to your superegos,

Or that inner critic,

In each of your minds.

And I'm using my Buddhist magic wand and special secret symbols,

Which actually don't exist.

I'm making them up.

But I am directly addressing each of your superegos.

And any,

Essentially,

Inner voice that criticizes you,

That tells you you're not doing enough,

That you should be doing more,

Or that you should be responding otherwise.

And I am magically,

Like that,

Telling those voices to take a breather.

Because right now,

Every way we're trying to respond,

Every way we're trying to take care of ourselves,

There's no shoulds.

There's no timetable.

There's nothing to live up to.

Allow yourself to move as slowly as you need.

Allow yourself the time you need to process what's going on and to acclimate.

Even if you think your life hasn't been affected by what's going on around us,

It is.

Because the very fact that none of us knows how this will play out means that there is no predictable,

Without a predictable outcome,

There is constant need of self-care.

It's very activating to have no secure sense of how this will play out.

So in our meditation,

We're actually going to be practicing those three tools.

We're going to be sequentially bringing attention to,

First,

The breath,

Then the somatic markers,

And then the level of awareness,

The level of consciousness,

The intentional facility of the mind.

And we're going to be using three of the factors of awakening.

The first factor is just simply becoming aware of what we're experiencing internally,

Starting with the breath,

Then feelings,

Then the quality of mind,

Attention.

The second factor we'll be using is investigation.

We'll actually be turning our attention and allowing each of those experiences to have the space they need so that we can actually process the emotional events,

Not cut off the processing.

And then we use another factor,

Which is calming,

Pasadi.

And calming means using the ability to soothe the mind by sending a concentration practice towards the area that's activated.

So we'll be using our phrase,

I love you,

Keep going,

Or may I be happy,

Peaceful,

And free to essentially soothe and nurture the areas of our internal experience.

So get ready for finding a really comfortable seated position.

I should have noted at the outset that if you'd like to support the work we,

I as a Buddhist pastor who works entirely by donation,

Both the teaching and the counseling.

So if you'd like to support,

With understanding that many of you have been laid off or been furloughed,

And for those people,

Obviously,

Don't worry about it.

But if you still have means to support my work,

I would,

Of course,

Be grateful if you consider it.

The Venmo is Dharma Punx with an X,

The D-H-A-R-M-A-P-U-N-X-N-Y-C.

And the PayPal button is on the Dharma Punx NYC website.

So thank you for that.

And even if you can't contribute,

This is for you.

These teachings are for everyone.

So now let's close the eyes and let's find a wonderful upright position.

And the way I do that is simply by just trying to balance my head over my sit bones.

And then I try to just lift my chin a little bit so that my head won't sort of droop in front of my chest.

So yeah,

That little bit of effort,

Trying to lift the chin like we're looking at a top of a building,

Is just enough effort to keep the body in a requisite position so that we can practice mindfulness.

If we're slouched,

Generally what happens is it leads us to not have the degree of awareness,

Especially interoception tends to,

Interoception is awareness of the body,

Tends to falter if we slouch.

So yeah,

We'll get into that.

And then we'll take our normal practice that I like to do just to begin the process of just soothing the body a little bit.

So I like to take a nice full in-breath through the nose,

Squinch the muscles of the face,

Make a really ugly,

Tight face.

Nobody's looking at you,

So don't worry about it.

And then breathe out.

Allow all the muscles in the face to disengage.

What we're doing is relaxing the cranial muscles.

And when we're in that high functioning of the window of tolerance,

Still we can maintain low levels of stress simply by grinding the jaws,

Tightening,

Furrowing the brow,

And so forth.

So relaxing the cranial muscles,

Even when we're in a good place,

Is very useful.

And while we're paying attention to the face,

Just send a request to the muscles,

The muscles around the eyes to allow the eyes to settle.

And when we allow the eyes to settle,

It essentially sends a message to midbrain regions and basically says,

OK,

I'm not bouncing around like there's some external threat I have to maintain vigilance over.

I'm actually safe where I am.

We're really sending a message saying that everything's OK right now.

The mind tends to follow how relaxed the eyes are very often.

So just see if you can settle the eyes.

They're two balls floating in warm pools of water.

It's very nice.

And then take another breath.

Lift the shoulders up if you'd like.

And then as you breathe out,

Just rotating the shoulders back and dropping them.

So a nice rotation back.

And what we're trying to do is open up the chest,

Really give a lot of room for the breath,

Engage in the vagal nerve,

And so forth.

When we're in that posture,

We're again sending messages up through the insula.

I'm safe.

I'm not under attack.

When people are under attack or insecure,

They tend to hold their shoulders in front of their chest,

Cutting off the breath and so forth.

And then for our third breath,

We're going to breathe into our belly and just allow the belly to expand like a balloon as if it's pulling in the breath.

And then as we breathe out,

Softening the abdomen.

The abdomen is the hub of the vagal nerve,

That whole tree that runs down the front of the body and ends in the stomach.

And of course,

So much of our feelings of security can be essentially expressed in whether we have a tight or relaxed belly.

So we're going to just practice abdominal breathing for a little while.

Chest breathing is associated with sympathetic nervous activation as well as fast breathing.

So you want to practice.

And we're bringing awareness to the breath and just noticing how the breath feels,

How it's expressed in the abdomen,

If we can pay attention to that area,

Or if not the chest,

Or for some of us,

The tip of the nose.

Just become aware of the breath.

And if over time you realize you can relax it,

Soften it,

Extend the exhalations associated with parasympathetic calming,

Extending the out-breath.

We'll just be aware of this process that the brain stem is in control of.

And we'll work with the brain stem to try to bring neural functioning up to that most healthy area in the window of tolerance just by having that normal,

Slow,

Relaxed breath.

So at this point,

Let's move on to the second foundation of practice,

Which is to become aware of feelings as essentially emotional core affect or emotional responses to events,

Giving our time,

Our self time to process in the form of feelings,

How our experiences are affecting us to not cut off emotional responses to process.

So what I invite you to do is bring up some,

In the level of thought,

Some area that the unknowable,

The lack of sense of how this is all going to resolve the pandemic,

What kind of world we'll be returning to.

For some,

It might be whether we'll have work.

For some,

It's how soon can I return home.

For others,

How soon can I leave and feel safe outside?

Bring some element of the unresolved,

Being with the unknown.

And as you become aware of that idea,

Bring your attention down to the front of the body,

Paying attention first to muscles in the face.

Is there a sense of,

Well,

I'm going to be there beneath the underpinnings of that reflection or that thought.

Is the forehead tight or soft?

Have the eyes started to move again?

Does there feel any slight tension in the jaw?

Or does the throat feel suddenly contracted?

Perhaps the chest has some slight degree of heaviness,

Hollowness.

Maybe we notice tightness around it in the arms and shoulders.

Maybe the shoulders start to creep up.

Or maybe the abdomen telltale signs of underlying engagement.

What's going on beneath these very valid concerns?

To process experience,

We need to pay attention to the emotional expression.

The thoughts are just ways we try to frame and make sense.

But the real core of emotional life is in somatic markers,

Feelings.

See if you can locate anything that needs your attention,

Any area of the body.

Could be slightly tight or numb.

Find some area.

And then just pay attention.

Investigate.

What is going on beneath all these very real concerns,

These unknowns?

What do I need to feel right now?

What do I need to feel right now?

What do I need to feel right now?

What do I need to feel right now?

Remove any clenching around any of these areas.

So if you feel your stomach is tight,

Your abdomen,

Abdominal muscles are tight,

See if you can,

Rather than trying to relax them first,

Just see if you can breathe up through it.

Remove any tension beneath and then any tension below.

Beneath and then any tension above.

And then as you exhale,

Release.

Be aware in the in-breath.

Release.

Relax in the out-breath.

If you feel tightness in the jaw and the shoulders,

Just imagine starting with the right shoulder,

Breathing in to the left,

And then relaxing,

Breathing out.

Releasing.

Just pay attention to what you're feeling beneath all the thoughts.

Thoughts are just the way we explain affects or emotions.

They're just the overlay,

Trying to make sense of why we feel,

Why we act,

A story that's placed on top.

Paying attention to what so desperately needs our care,

Our attention.

I can feel a little need to soften around my forehead.

Just breathing in there and relaxing as I breathe out.

And then let's move to the third spiritual concern,

Third foundation,

Which is just the mind itself.

Not the thoughts,

Not the stories,

Not the inner monologue.

But the quality of attention is what the Buddha called the third foundation.

Between the feelings in the body and the quality of attention,

Those are the two components that create emotion,

Emotional life.

So we address the feelings,

The clenching and tightness,

And the muscles in the front of the body,

The cranial nerves and vagus nerve.

Now we're going to pay attention to the mind's quality of attention.

Does your mind feel settled?

For instance,

If I asked you to just bring awareness to just the breath,

Would the mind just settle on the breath?

Or would it have difficulty?

Would it start jumping around?

Would it start paying attention to other thoughts or sounds or other body sensations?

Or would it feel sluggish,

Unable to stay,

To put enough effort in to stay with the breath?

Perhaps the mind is really spacious and wide and can hold awareness of the breath as well as sounds and pay attention to both.

Does the mind feel very distant from everything around it?

Do I feel like I'm all the way in the back of the brain and everything feels far away?

Or does it feel like everything's too close,

My thoughts are right on top of me,

I've got no distance,

No room?

So let's help settle the mind.

I'd like you to bring an image of yourself at any age,

Today or the distant past or any time in between,

Any time especially where you felt you needed care,

Kindness,

Appreciation.

Perhaps it wasn't as available as we needed.

Hold that image in your mind.

The time when we were vulnerable or just the time today,

How we look,

Hold that image in your mind and then very gently send nourishing,

Kind offerings to this image.

I love you,

Keep going.

I love you,

Keep going.

I care about you.

I care about how you feel.

I care about what you're experiencing.

I love you,

Keep going.

I care about you.

So let's see if we can settle the mind,

Allow it to just settle on the image,

Not be pulled away,

Not be too jumpy,

Not to be too scattered,

Not to be too heavy,

But just settle with care,

Kindness on this image of ourself.

May it be happy,

May it be peaceful,

May it be free of stress and suffering.

So now I'm going to ring the bowl and my normal request is that when you hear the sound,

Just open your eyes enough to integrate sight and color,

But don't look around,

Don't look back into the computer screen.

Definitely don't need to look at me.

What you want to do is integrate sight into your awareness in such a way that you still have awareness of what's going on internally,

The breath,

Feelings in the body associated with core emotions and quality of attention,

Whether the mind is open,

Attentive.

In this way we practice mindfulness,

In this way we process,

Reviews

Super helpful; clear and informative.

I’ve just discovered Josh. I really like his beautiful joining of brain science, psychology and Buddhist practice. Thank you, Josh!