Tangerine Meditation

If I offer you a freshly picked tangerine to enjoy, the degree to which you enjoy it will depend on your degree of mindfulness. If you are free of worries and anxiety, you will enjoy it more. If you are possessed by anger or fear, the tangerine may not be very real to you.
One day, I offered a number of children a basket filled with tangerines. The basket was passed around, and each child took one tangerine and put it in his or her palm. We each looked at our tangerine, and the children were invited to meditate on its origins. They saw not only their tangerine, but also its mother, the tangerine tree. With some guidance, they began to visualize the blossoms in the sunshine and in the rain. Then they saw petals falling down and the tiny green fruit appear. The sunshine and the rain continued, and the tiny tangerine grew. Now someone has picket it, and the tangerine is here. After seeing this, each child was invited to peel the tangerine slowly, noticing the mist and fragrance of the tangerine, and then bring it up to his or mouth and have a mindful bite, in full awareness of the texture and taste of the fruit and the juice coming out. We ate slowly like that.
Each time you look at a tangerine, you can see deeply into it. You can see everything in the universe in one tangerine. When you peel it and smell it, it’s wonderful. You can take your time eating a tangerine and be very happy. (Thich Nhat Hanh, Peace is Every Step)

This is the essence of mindfulness. Being Present with whatever you are doing. Mindful walking is being deeply attuned to every step. Mindful eating is being acutely aware of the subtlety of every bite. Even if you’re day dreaming, being aware that you are day dreaming. Everything can be done mindfully, and with mindfulness comes a great sense of peace and relaxation. This months meetup will focus on this quality of mindfulness.

www.adamsewardcounseling.net

Our Deepest Fear

Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate. Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure. It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us. We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, fabulous? Actually, who are you not to be? You are a child of God. Your playing small does not serve the world. There is nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won't feel insecure around you. We are all meant to shine, as children do. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us. It's not just in some of us; it's in everyone. And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same. As we are liberated from our own fear, our presence automatically liberates others. -Marianne Williamson

Adam R. Seward
Individual, Couple, and Group Counseling
www.adamsewardcounseling.net

Guidelines for Conflict Resolution

Conflict is a part of life. I've heard it said that in any relationship where both parties agree on everything, one of them is unnecessary. Therefore, it is essential that we develop and maintain skills for resolving conflict in our lives. Below are some helpful tools that can guide you in your efforts to resolve conflict in your life.

1. Seek first to understand, and then to be understood. Hear the other persons point of view before stating your own. People are much more willing to hear another's position once they feel they've been heard. This one strategy may be enough to resolve most conflicts.

2.De-personalize conflicts in so far as possible. When you are identified with a want, need, or position, you will be more likely to become angry and defensive when attempting to resolve a conflict. This is generally not helpful. Further,if you can, avoid behavior which may inspire defensiveness in those you are working with about the positions they have taken. Recognize that how something is said can be as important as what is said.

3.Concentrate on obtaining a common understanding of the knowledge, assumptions, and ideas used by the parties involved in the conflict. Many conflicts are easily resolved when such a common understanding is reached. Listen to all of a message before responding.

4.Avoid hidden agendas and “score carding’. In so far as possible, deal with the current situation rather than past perceived transgressions.

5.Create an atmosphere conducive to resolving the conflict. Timing is important – particularly when a cooling off period is in order to let emotions simmer down before seeking an acceptable solution. Keep the discussion in a low key.

6.Encourage effective listening. One of the primary causes of conflict is the inability or unwillingness of people to listen to those who think differently.

7.Make it common knowledge that your goal is to search for the solution that will best satisfy the mutually agreed upon objectives. Be open-minded. Insist upon evaluative exploration of alternative approaches before arriving at a conclusion.

8.Some conflicts are virtually irreconcilable, such as a serious personality clash among organizational members. It may be necessary to reorganize or re-staff to work the problem, but it still must be worked – one way or the other.

Cultivate Love and Gratitude

Love does not flower in a vacuum, but rather is nourished by supportive attitudes such as generosity and gratitude. Generosity is so important, not only to love but to all spiritual life.

While forgiveness heals the heart of old hurts, gratitude opens it to present love. Gratitude bestows many benefits. It dissolves negative feelings: anger and jealousy melt in its embrace, fear and defensiveness shrink. Gratitude deflates the barriers to love.

Gratitude also evokes happiness, which is itself a powerfully healing and beneficial emotion. The great Taoist sage Chuang Tzu even went so far as to say that "When one reaches happiness, one is close to perfection." When we are happy, we like to make others happy, and this fosters kindness and generosity.

Gratitude is a gift to everyone. No wonder Saint Paul urged us to "Rejoice always" and to "give thanks in all circumstances." Like other attitudes, gratitude can be cultivated. We can't have to wait for our fairy godmother to shower us with gifts before feeling thankful. We can develop gratitude by reflecting on the gifts that are already ours. This reflection can be done for a minute, a day, or throughout a lifetime. Most people celebrate their birthday and holidays, but those who cultivate gratitude celebrate every day. We can be grateful because we are happy but we can also be happy because we are grateful.

A helpful exercise is to extend this spirit of thankfulness through your day.

1) Think of the people you will meet during this time. These might include family members or friends who love you, the bus drivers who get you to and from work, or the janitor who cleans your room. See if you can find a reason to feel grateful to each person you meet.

2) Continue this recollection of gratitude throughout the day. Try to bring to mind a reason for feeling grateful to each person you meet. This need not take long; a few seconds may be enough to recall some quality or gift of theirs that you appreciate. In this way each person becomes a bearer of good feelings and each meeting is a cause for gratitude.

At the completion of the exercise period, take time to reflect on the people you met and your feelings about them. After a day like this, you may understand why gratitude is called the heart of love. (Essential Spirituality, Roger Walsh.)

Becoming a Person

Therapy is about entering into an intensely personal relationship with the client-relating not as a scientist to an object of study, not as a physician expecting to diagnose and cure, but as a person to a person.


I appreciate this description of the optimal therapeutic encounter.

First, as a therapist, I experience the client as a person of unconditional self-worth: of value no matter what his condition, his behavior, or his feelings. It would mean that the therapist is genuine, hiding behind no defensive facade, but meeting the client with the feelings which organically he is experiencing. It would mean that the therapist is able to let himself go in understanding this client; that no inner barriers keep him from sensing what it feels like to be the client at each moment of the relationship; and that he can convey something of his empathic understanding to the client. It means that the therapist has been comfortable in entering this relationship fully, without knowing cognitively where it will lead, satisfied with providing a climate which will permit the client the utmost freedom to become himself.

For the client, this optimal therapy would mean an exploration of increasingly strange and unknown and dangerous feelings in himself, the exploration proving possible only because he is gradually realizing that he is accepted unconditionally. Thus he becomes acquainted with elements of his experience which have in the past been denied to awareness as too threatening, too damaging to the structure of the self. He finds himself experiencing these feelings fully, completely, in the relationship, so that for the moment he is his fear, or his anger, or his tenderness, or his strength. And as he lives these widely varied feelings, in all their degrees of intensity, he discovers that he has experienced himself, and that he is all these feelings. He finds his behavior changing in constructive fashion in accordance with newly experienced self. He approaches the realization that he no longer needs to fear what experience may hold, but can welcome it freely as part of his changing and developing self. (Carl Rogers, On Becoming a Person.)

Meditation on Compassion

Love is a mind that brings peace, joy, and happiness to another person. Compassion is a mind that removes the suffering that is present in the other. We all have the seeds of love and compassion in our minds, and we can develop these fine and wonderful sources of energy. We can nurture the unconditional love that does not expect anything in return and therefore does no lead to anxiety and sorrow.

The essence of love and compassion is understanding, the ability to recognize the physical, material, and psychological suffering of others, to put ourselves "inside the skin" of the other. We "go inside" their body, feelings, and mental formations, and witness for ourselves their suffering. Shallow observation as an outsider is not enough to see their suffering. We must become one with the object of our observation. When we are in contact with another's suffering, a feeling of compassion is born in us.

We find ways to nourish and express our compassion. When we come into contact with the another, our thoughts and actions should express our mind of compassion, even if that person says and does things that are not easy to accept. We practice in this way until we see clearly that our love is not contingent on the other person being lovable. Then we can know that our mind of compassion is firm and authentic. We ourselves will be more at ease, and the person who has been the object of our meditation will also benefit eventually. His suffering will slowly diminish, and his life will gradually be brighter and more joyful as a result of our compassion. (Peace is Every Step, Page 82,83)

Relationships

The relationships you have with objects and foods and weather and transportation and with people all reflect the relationship you have with yourself. The relationship you have with yourself is highly influenced by the relationships you had with the adults around you as a child. The way the adults reacted to us then is often the way we react toward ourselves now, both positively and negatively.

Think for a moment of the words you use when you are scolding yourself. Aren't they the same words your parents used when they were scolding you? What words did they use when they praised you? Do you use the same words to praise yourself?

Perhaps they never praised you, so then you have no idea how to praise yourself and probably think you have nothing to praise. I am not blaming our parents, because we are all victims of victims. They could not possibly teach you anything they did not know.

Many believe that every major relationship we have is a reflection of the relationship we had with one of our parents. Until we clean up that first one, we will never be free to create exactly what we want in relationships. Are you interested in cleaning up that first one quickly and efficiently instead of attempting to do so unconsciously in your next relationship?

Relationships are mirrors of ourselves. What we attract always mirrors either qualities we have or beliefs we have about relationships. This is true whether it is a boss, a coworker, an employee, a friend, a lover, a spouse, or child. The things you don't like about these people are either what you yourself do or would like to do, or what you believe. You could not attract them or have them in your life if the way they are didn't somehow complement your own life. (Louise Hay, You Can Heal Your Life)