Daniel Davis, LMFT

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Do You Know the Secret to Joy?

September 1, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

“Perhaps ultimately, spiritual simply means experiencing wholeness and interconnectedness directly, seeing that individuality and the totality are interwoven, that nothing is separate or extraneous. If you see in this way, then everything becomes spiritual in its deepest sense.” Jon Kabat-Zinn

What is mindfulness? I define my mind as a process in my body that is related to others and myself that regulates the flow of energy and information. Also, the tasks of the human mind are to monitor and change things. Mindfulness includes different exercises that improve my ability to monitor and modify my internal world. The basic element of mindfulness is focusing on something or some process. We can focus on our breath during mindfulness meditation. In yoga, we focus on our postures. During tai chi, we focus on movements. In qigong, we focus on the sense of motion of energy. While practicing centering prayer, we focus on words. During walking meditation, we focus on our feet. Daniel Siegel writes, that “over 100 years ago, the father of modern psychology, William James (1890/1981), said that such a practice of returning a wandering attention back to its target again and again would be ‘education par excellence.’”

There is a difference between concentration and mindfulness, according to Dr. Roger Walsh. Concentration allows us to direct our attention to whatever we wish to experience. Mindfulness enables us to explore our experiences sensitivity. Mindfulness is where we bring greater awareness to each activity. We are more present in each moment. Another gift of mindfulness is that we catch subtle experiences of which we usually remain unaware.

Dr. Walsh writes mindfulness “enhances our awareness of relationships, the world around us, and the world within us.” It also frees us from our automatic mindless reactions and heals the mind. According to the National Institutes for Health, there are 18 million Americans that practice meditation of some kind. Meditation improves the health of our body as well as our mind. It lowers the risk for cancer and heart disease. Meditation makes us happier.

Please watch this body awareness mediation video with Judith Peterson and learn about the path to joy.

Most of our thinking is subconscious. Only a small part of our brain is engaged in conscious thinking. The areas of your brain that are engaged with consciousness thinking will process about forty nerve impulses per second on a normal day. The brain areas which are involved with activity outside of your consciousness will process forty million nerve impulses per second on a normal day. Only a fraction of your brain is engaged in conscious thinking.

Donna Eden and David Feinstein write that “your subconscious mind is the storehouse of the lessons life has taught you as well as your natural abilities and intuitive wisdom. Along with countless automated actions as mundane as putting on your shoes, your subconscious mind holds innumerable instructions for more complex actions and has access to transcendent sources of inspiration for solving the bewildering problems life presents and for pursuing your most creative aspirations. While your subconscious mind is an enormous sound guidance that is available 24/7, it also stores past hurts, self-limiting beliefs, unresolved conflicts, and dysfunctional behavioral strategies. So it doesn’t always work to your advantage.”

Bruce Lipton cites studies that reveal 65 percent of our thoughts are negative or repetitive and unnecessary. Our mind is thinking thoughts that are not important and disturbing most of the time.  Additional studies indicate that people spend 50% of their time awake not thinking about what they are doing, but something else. When our mind drifts away from what we are doing, we become unhappy. There is another problem with a mind that strays from the present moment. As our mind wanders, our subconscious mind takes over. This is when we do things that interfere with our own success. We undermine our desires, because of our subconscious thinking.

We have repetitive patterns in our subconscious thinking that lead to behavior that is not flexible and responsive to our present set of circumstances. For example, a husband may be talking with his wife and experiencing fear from a memory about his dad when he was 5 years old. Fear is a signal of possible danger. His thinking and energy is preparing his body and mind for crisis. He may not be able to listen well, because he is scanning for what is dangerous in what his wife is saying. He may want to end the conversation and leave, because he is afraid. These reactions and his poor listening have an effect on his wife. She doesn’t feel understood. Her husband’s reactions do not make sense to her. The more that he has conversations with her where he is not present, the less trust the husband and his wife will have with each other.

Dr. Ron Siegel traces these type of reactions to the harsh lives of our ancestors who lived and survived great dangers millions of years ago. He describes the mechanisms of our brain that make us miserable. These are the reactions:
1. Focusing on what is bad
2. Being stuck in a stress response – heart beating faster, muscles tense, sweating, acid released to stomach for digestion
3. Comparing myself to others
4. Avoiding what is unpleasant
5. Envisioning a future with assumptions of what could go wrong

The good news is that our brains are flexible. At any age, we can acquire new information, process the new knowledge in our brain, and develop new ideas. As a result of our learning, we think differently and our brain physically changes. The idea that “I am who I am” is false. You can remake yourself, like remodeling a house. The name of this is plasticity. Our brain changes as a response to each new experience, each new thought, and every new idea we learn. At any age, our brain is like playdough; we can move it and shape it.

Dr. Joe Dispenza writes that meditation can change how the brain works. He described the research. Meditation alters brain wave patterns. Another benefit of meditation is that it grows “new brain cells that are the product of inner mindfulness . . . . Most of the participants (in the research study) were average people with jobs and families, who meditated only 40 minutes a day.”

Please watch this video by Santa Clara County’s first Poet Laureate, Nils Peterson on the gift of focus.

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Bruce Lipton, negative and redundant thinking
Nils Peterson, presence
Judith Peterson, mindfulness
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meditation
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“Do You Know the Secret to Joy?”

Filed Under: Blog, Mindfulness, Uncategorized Tagged With: adaptability, brain, Bruce Lipton, changes, Daniel Siegel, David Feinstein, Donna Eden, Joe Dispenza, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Judith Peterson, meditation, mindfulness, negative and redundant thinking, Nils Peterson, presence, Roger Walsh, Ron Siegel, William James

How Would the World Be Different if Everyone Around You Was Calm and Peaceful?

July 28, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

“Anger is an emotion of enormous power. Surveys show that more people find it the hardest of all emotions to master,” writes Dr. Roger Walsh.

I see the impact of anger every day not only at work as a marriage and family counselor, but also driving on the roads, shopping in stores, and waiting in line at Starbucks for tea. On a warm July day, I sit in my white 1993 Lincoln Towne Car at a stop light with the driver’s window down. I woman stops next to me and begins to lecture me in a rageful voice. I have no idea about what she is talking. On rainy, cold December evening, walking around a grocery store, I see all the exhausted and sad faces. Some of us turn our anger in toward our self with criticism and self-punishment.

When we feel fear we sense danger nearby. When we feel anger someone is invading our space. Someone may break into our house. They may also interrupt us in the middle of our sentence. We feel they are intruding in our psychological territory. Most of the anger we experience personally or see in others is resentment. Everyone’s experience of anger is unique to them. Often, we feel hot in the face and tension in the muscles of our arms and hands.

Yet we also can see the hatred of discrimination because of race, grievances against unjust bureaucrats, grudges against ex-husbands, as well as murder and war. “When the cat gets angry, its tail swells up to almost twice its normal size, and the cat tries to look imposing. The biological purpose of expansion is to intimidate one’s apparent enemy,” writes David Hawkins. We often can spot anger when someone is inflated, meaning they are behaving as if they were a god. When we are struggling with our appropriate human limitations, anger is a problem for us. We try to force or manipulate people, things, or events.

There are also physical reasons that people experience unhealthy anger and rage. Seventy percent of people who assault others or damage property have problems with their physical brain, specifically the left temporal lobe. When we experience anger frequently, it affects the health of our body. When we live an angry lifestyle, the chemicals that anger releases into the body can lead to heart disease or cancer.

Yet not all anger is bad. Anger has its place in our lives. It is healthy to feel angry when we experience oppression as someone interferes with our ability to choose and express our thoughts. Anger can motivate us to leave a relationship where we are slapped or punched. Anger may also lead us to quit a job where we are asked to so things we believe are wrong, because it violates our cherishes values.

What do I do when I am angry? I cannot sleep because I am so angry. I cannot listen to my children, because I feel so angry. I react at my friends and family who love me, because I feel so angry. What will help me?

The place that I think it is best to begin is with myself. Before I complain to the person with who I am angry, I need to look inside at the source of my anger. There is the 2% rule. He may be 98% wrong, but what is my part. How am I responsible for my anger? The deeper I examine my responsibility, the more I may realize that I play a significant role. For example, I look at my boss who it demanding and critical. He always asks the impossible of me.

It is often beneficial to examine my own role in my anger, before I confront another about a grievance. When the anger is out of proportion with the event that triggers the anger, I have work to do. I examine my projections around anger. (Look for my blog and video on projection for a more detail explanation of what it is.)

I would generally prefer to be civil. Being in a whole brain state seems to enable me to be civil and emotionally congruent. Learning to get into a whole brain state is another key aspect of managing my anger and self-regulating my emotions generally. (Look for my blog and video on “EMDR Self-Help – The Butterfly Hug” for more information on how to achieve a Whole Brain State.) What a difference if the world were full of calm people. Image this! Please consider watching this video on anger and calming yourself down.

 

Filed Under: Anger Management, Blog Tagged With: anger, David Hawkins, inflation, Roger Walsh, self soothing

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About Daniel Davis, LMFT

I create an environment where clients experience their unique significance, authentic empowerment, and profound acceptance and collaborate with clients to identify solutions to their current crises. For more information on how I can help you, contact me today by calling 408-249-0014 or emailing info@danieldavislmft.com. I look forward to speaking with you! Read More…

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Daniel Davis, M.A., LMFT
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