In our day-to-day work with people who stutter here at the American Institute for Stuttering, we often introduce our clients to various aspects of mindfulness. We describe mindfulness as a calm awareness of what is happening now, internally and externally, without judgment. The application of mindfulness in stuttering therapy has broad implications, but can range froma simple focus of noticing more about a difficult situation, to a daily practice of greater mindfulness. A personmight, for example, apply mindfulness throughout the day in order to become more aware of where they carry tension and/or pay attention to how their automatic thoughts fire.

Based on the experiences reported by our clients, and our own personal experiences exploring mindfulness, we know that it is a skill that requires practice. Sometimes it just seems toodifficult to get out of the emotional haze of the stuttering moment. For many of our clients, this struggle with mindfulness leads them totry meditation. Specific to the social experience of stuttering, meditation can be useful in flexing the mindfulness muscle in preparation for difficult stuttering moments.

If youre hoping to become more mindful, and considering meditation, here are a few basic considerations:

Below is a list of resources for guided meditation that we often recommend to our clients. They are not specifically designed for people who stutter, but are a very helpful way to start practicing mindfulness.

For many of our clients, this is a good starting point for trying out meditation for the first time, especially when they are looking for something free. In this guided meditation by Jon Kabat-Zinn, you are first asked to lie down and then you are guided through a detailed, 30-minute, body scan. Caution, he encourages you to try to stay awake. If you do this one before bedtime, that might be hard to accomplish.

We love his Energy Awareness Meditations album but hes also got a website with a free 20-minute guided meditation, and several podcasts.

Calm: Meditation to Relax, Focus & Sleep Better (iTunes Google Play)

Calm has a bit of free content and large library of meditations with a paid monthly membership. We like the ability to select the background sound/imagery (e.g., babbling brook, fireplace, rainforest, beach sunset, etc.). It also offers a good introduction to daily meditation with a 7-day program.

Buddhify Modern Mindfulness for Busy Lives (iTunes Google Play)

This app currently costs $5. It is designed to provide targeted guided meditations for various life activities. It asks you what you are doing, and offers a handful of shorter (~2 min) and longer meditations (7-10 min) for each.

The Mindfulness App: Meditation for Everyone (iTunes Google Play)

A good, easy to navigate meditation app offering both free and paid premium content. Its useful for advanced meditation, but great for beginners as well.

Sitting Still (iTunes Google Play)

This app is targeted specifically for teens. It is made by the folks who make the Mindfulness App. Similarly, It offers a mix of free and paid guided meditations.

Headspace (iTunes Google Play)

Headspace offersboth free content and an optional monthly membership. We love the buddy system option, if youre interested in trying this out with a friend. This app has a very current, modern look. It might be a bit cartoonish for some, but we like it. The also have an article on their site discussing meditation and stuttering.

Omvana Meditation for Everyone (iTunes Google Play)

This app offers a lot of customization (background, length) for each meditation and a variety of meditation experts, in case you want to experiment listening to different voices.

Insight Timer Meditation App (iTunes Google Play)

The most noticeable feature of this app is the sheer amount of free content, and we lovehow the app brings a sense of community to the experience.

Looking for more information on mindfulness and meditation and the application to stuttering? Check out Dr. Ellen-Marie Silvermans book, Mindfulness & Stuttering, or an ISAD Article she wrote. StutterTalk has published a few episodes on this topic as well one with Dr. Michael Boyle and another with Dr. Paul Brocklehurst.

Like a meditation resource that isnt listed here? Share it in the comments below!

The American Institute for Stutteringisa leading non-profit organization whose primary mission is to provide universally affordable, state-of-the-art speech therapy to people of all ages who stutter, guidance to their families, and much-needed clinical training to speech professionals wishing to gain expertise in stuttering. Offices are located in New York, NY and Atlanta, GA, and services are also available Online. Our mission extends to advancing public and scholarly understanding of this often misunderstood disorder.

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Meditation resources to help in your stuttering journey - American Institute for Stuttering (blog)

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In an interview with Rolling Stone published Monday, the 55-year-old singer-songwriter said a song from her latest album titled Heartbeat Away in which a president launches nuclear weapons was written before Trump received the Republican nomination.

My sleep has been disturbed. My insides are ridden with unease, Crow told the outlet. I wrote that song before Trump got the nomination it already felt apocalyptic that people were entertaining the idea of making a man like that the most powerful person in the world.

Heartbeat Away is a track on Crows latest studio album, Be Myself, which was released April 21. The lyrics of the song include references to the unnamed presidents possible connections to Russia, including a reference to Russia blowing up the phone.

I had to go into deep meditation and find a way to have compassion for the people of this country that are hurting and believe [Trump] cares about them, the nine-time Grammy-winnertold Rolling Stone. Im worried, but my meditation teacher said something fascinating. Her phrase was, This is the way forward.'

In her interview, Crow also opened up about her battle with brain cancer and how it felt to have been embraced by some of her musical idols through her decades-long career in the music industry.

My idea for music was that I didnt want to be great. I wanted to be important, she explained. I wanted to write important music, and so, when you start having a music career and youre certainly not one of the cool kids, but youre embraced by the older class I was just like, Wow, I cant believe these people know me. As hokey as it might sound, I still feel really humbled by that.

Crow has previously spoken out about her dislike of Trump.

Inan October appearance on The View, the singer said she doesnt let her children watch television when Trump is on screen.

I want to be able to say to my kids, being the president of the United States is the most honorable position and it needs to go back to that and we need to change the dialogue, she said at the time.

Follow Daniel Nussbaum on Twitter: @dznussbaum

Excerpt from:

Sheryl Crow Uses 'Deep Meditation' to Stave Off Fear of Trump ... - Breitbart News

She was the fairy godmother of style makeovers and then she gave a makeover to meditation.

Suze Yalof Schwartz did style makeovers for everyone who was anyone (and everyone in between) for over 14 years. She worked at all the big fashion magazines. She lived in New York City and traveled the world doing what she loved.

But then she and her family got an opportunity to uproot their big city lifestyle and move to Southern California for a change of pace and some space. And they took it.

What Suze couldnt have anticipated was the introduction she would get to a whole new way of thinking.

It didnt happen overnight, but once Suze found out what meditation was, she was hooked.

After trying to find where she could go to practice, she realized there was something missing in the modern world of meditation --a studio space with daily classes. So she created it.

Fast forward a few short years and Suzes dry bar of meditation studio, Unplug, is a wildly successful and hugely popular one-of-a-kind space in Los Angeles.

Its been featured in all the big press and has a line of people waiting for every class -- and shes just getting started.

But the core of Suzes success is not her awesome connections to teachers or the press, its her core conviction of the power of meditation for anyone, at any time, anywhere.

We discuss the simple truths of how to meditate (no matter who you are) inEpisode 473.

Subscribe oniTunes,Stitcher Radio,Google PlayorTuneIn.

Lewis Howesis theauthor of The School of Greatness. He is a lifestyle entrepreneur, business coach and keynote speaker. A former professional football player and two-sport All-American, he is a current USA Men's National Han...

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Meditation That Works for Anyone - Entrepreneur

Learning to meditate is the best thing I ever did for myself. I used to be at the mercy of my mind. It was impossible to focus for more than ten seconds at a time. Distracted was my natural state of being. Meditation taught me how to control my consciousness, which made a huge impact on my quality of life. Want to accomplish the same thing? Follow these thirteen meditation tips and tricks for beginners.

Meditation is not a competitive event. You wont get a trophy for meditating all day. Meditate for a minute. If you can do that everyday for a week, meditate for two minutes the next week. Repeat this process for as long as you like.

Its easy to have aspirations. Its hard to act on them. Dont just say, Ill meditate everyday. Youll get busy and forget. Set-up an alarm in your phone. When that alarm goes off, meditate right away.

Meditate at the same time consistently. Mornings might be best. Its easier to make time for meditation before your day gets crazy (and youll go to work with a calm, focused state of mind).

Sit outside and listen to the birds sing. Closeyour bedroom door and turn on classical music. Meditate in a quiet place where you wont be disturbed. The less noisy distractions, the better!

Texts can wait. Emails can wait. Social media notifications can wait. None of this stuff is so importantthat it needs to be answered immediately. Leave your phone in a different room.

You dont have to sit cross-legged. You dont need a special cushion. You can sit on a chair, bed, sofa, pillow, rock, or whatever. As long as youre not slouching, the specifics dont matter.

How do you feel (physically and mentally)? Dont over-analyze it. Trust your intuition. Dont judge any thoughts or feelings as good or bad. Accept them as they are. Everything is okay.

Paint a mental picture of a surfer riding a giant wave. If he loses focus for one second, hell fall. Ride your inhales and exhales with the same level of concentration. Be one with your breath.

On every inhale, say: One, I am breathing in. On every exhale, say: Two, I am breathing out. (Dont literally say it think it to yourself.) After you reach ten, go back to one anddo it again.

Breathe in through your nose. Follow your breath as it travels to your belly, lungs, and chest. Feel the sensation of air filling up those areas. In what order do those body parts rise and fall?

Dont get upset when your focus wavers. It happens to everybody. If your mind goes elsewhere, go back to one and start counting again.Its a meditationpractice (not a meditationperfect).

You are not your thoughts. Do not identify with them. Perceive them with love and compassion, not fear and judgment. As you continue to meditate, your thoughts will have less power over you.

Are you less reactive during times of stress? Were you able to stay calm when a client got angry? Do you find it easier to focus on your work or studies? Appreciate these benefits as they arise. This will motivate you to stick with your meditation practice.

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Meditation for Beginners: 13 Practical Tips to Easily Build the Meditation Habit - PakWired (press release) (blog)

Well+Good

Just 10 minutes of meditation helps anxious people have better focus Science Daily The study, which assessed the impact of meditation with 82 participants who experience anxiety, found that developing an awareness of the present moment reduced incidents of repetitive, off-task thinking, a hallmark of anxiety. "Our results indicate ... This is exactly how long you need to meditate for it to workWell+Good Natural Anxiety Relief In 10 Minutes Or Less: Mindfulness Meditation Helps Eliminate Repetitive ThoughtsMedical Daily Want to stay focused? Waterloo study says meditation may be the answerCTV News all 4 news articles »

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Just 10 minutes of meditation helps anxious people have better focus - Science Daily

Forbes

Meditation for Manifesting Your Dreams--And Accomplishing Your Goals Forbes I don't believe in magic. But I believe in the power of positive intent. And I also believe if you're committed to accomplishing a goal, and are consistently looking for ways to advance this goal, and signals the world is supporting you in making it ...

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Meditation for Manifesting Your Dreams--And Accomplishing Your Goals - Forbes

Rose Gold, (still) 2017. SARA CWYNAR, COURTESY FOXY PRODUCTION

Why does harvest gold connote sad old appliance but rose gold say sexy new iPhone? Thats one question posed in the centerpiece of Sara Cwynars captivating new show at Foxy Production, a seven-minute film collage, with voice-over, whose subjects include, but arent limited to: consumerism, obsolescence, sexism, melamine dinnerware, brightly plumed parrots, and, for reasons that Ive yet to grok, the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation. The tone of Cwynars movie mimics mid-twentieth-century educational filmsif they had been peppered with quotes from Wittgenstein and Merleau-Pontybut none of the footage is found. Cwynar shot it herself, on 16-mm. stock, not digital videoa crucial detail, given that one of her central subjects is film itself. (The exceptions to the rule arethe scenes in which Cwynar appears onscreen, a pretty blond woman identifiable by her telltale earrings, a tiny gold S and C, which were shot by somebody else.) Cwynar belongs to the same lineage of camera-minded conceptualists as Tacita Dean, who filmed the production of Kodaks last rolls of 16-mm. film on obsolete stock, and Christopher Williams, whose beautiful, if recondite, pictures make hay of commercial photo-studio conventions.

Above all, Cwynars film, which is titled Rose Gold, is a meditation on color. Cwynar is intimately acquainted with the vagaries of palettes: prior to earning her M.F.A. in photography at Yale, the Vancouver-born artist worked as a graphic designer, notably for the TimesMagazine. (Full disclosure: The New Yorker commissioned Cwynar to take the photographs for our 2015 Fiction Issue.) As her gimlet-eyed show, which also includes three series of photographs, makes vividly clear, color is a cultural construct. Consider an old box of crayons: in 1961, Crayola retired flesh and replaced it with the less Caucasian-centricpeach. As absorbing as her short movie is, the strongest part of Cwynars exhibition is a group of still pictures that pull back the veil on an obscure episode in the history of color film as it relates to capturing skin tones.

Tracy (Pantyhose), 2017.

Credit SARA CWYNAR, COURTESY FOXY PRODUCTION

The six pictures in question are portraits of the artists friend, Tracy, a beautiful young woman of Asian heritage, who poses in pink, red, and yellow outfits against backdrops of deep blue and green, wearing expressions that range from side-eyed disinterest to direct-at-the-lens gaze. In four of the pictures, Tracys image is partially hidden by arrangements of found snapshots, clippings from dictionaries, and nostalgic objectsan empty ring box, perfume bottles, womens nylons in a jumble of hues. The last detail is a clue to the secret history thats hinted at more directly in two other pictures, in which Tracy lounges against giant colorful grids, in lieu of cloth backdrops. They suggest the CMYK standard (cyan, magenta, yellow, and black) used in match prints, which insure that the colors in a reproduced photograph are correct before it goes to press.

But from the mid-nineteen-fifties to the early seventies, Kodak supplied commercial photographers who bought its film with so-called Shirley cards, images of womenalways Caucasianthat were printed on card stock and used as the standard for lighting in studios. (Apocrypha has it that that the first woman whose image was used on the cards was a Kodak employee named Shirley.) The protocol was eventually updated to include black, Latina, and Asian modelsbut not for the same reasonsthatmade Crayola retire its flesh crayon. Rather, it was complaints from furniture manufacturers, frustrated that blond and dark woods were indistinguishable in advertisements, as well as from the candy industry, irate that milk- and dark-chocolate bars looked just the same. (For a deep dive into the subject, consult the Colour Balance Project of the Canadian scholar Lorna Roth.) In her portraits of Tracy, Cwynar performs a sly bit of color correction herself.

Sara Cwynars exhibition Rose Gold is on view at Foxy Production through May 14th.

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An Artist's Meditation on Color Reveals a Secret History of Film - The New Yorker

Fadel Zeidan(Photo: Submitted)

For 4,500 years, practitioners of meditation have sworn it changed the way they felt.

But it's only been in the past decade or so that researchers have been able to use technologyto show how meditation can change the brain's activity and physiology.

"Clinicians, and people as a whole, have been skeptical of mindfulness because of a lack of objective evidence," said Fadel Zeidan, a researcher, assistant professor and director of the Brain Mechanisms of Pain and Health Laboratory at Wake Forest School of Medicine in Winston-Salem, N.C.

But with improved neuroimaging, "it's something we can actually see," and that physical evidence makes doctors more likely to recommend it.

Zeidan, who is studying the use of mindfulness and guided meditation to manage pain, is one of several experts scheduled to present at the second annual MindfulnessTN symposium, 8 a.m.-1 p.m. Saturday at the Knoxville Convention Center, 701 Henley St. Admission is $10, which goes to East Tennessee Children's Hospital. Students with valid IDs are admitted free.

Zeidan is particularly interested in whether people including those already addicted can reduce or eliminate their use of opioid drugs through mindfulness practices. He's done some small studies that indicate they can and is seeking grants for a large-scale controlled study. Meanwhile, he's partnered with Knoxville's Dr. James Choo of Pain Consultants of East Tennessee, who uses meditation with some of his patients.

Overall, people who were using opioid drugs, either for pain or medication-assisted addiction therapy, "reported using significantly less medication," Zeidan said.

Related:

Beyond pills: Treating pain without opioids

Town hall addresses pain management, addiction

Zeidan said his work focuses on "brief bouts" of meditation training, because he's working with people who might choose to take "take a pill, and in 30 minutes, start feeling some relief." Longer-term practice is necessary for large, more permanent changes, he said, but most people aren't interested in expending that effort until they see rewards.

"We can teach folks to self-regulate how they react to their pain, daily stressors and other life events," Zeidan said.

He said his research, performed over 16 years, has demonstrated thata change in perspective can have a "dramatic" impact on health,positivelyor negatively.

"When one learns how to utilize self to benefit health, they are less likely to catastrophize the experience of pain and become dependent on drugs," he said.

Other presenters at this year's symposium include East Tennessee Children's Hospital nurse practitioner Lorna Keeton;Norman Farb, University of Toronto,"Turn yourself in! A neuroscientific account of why mindfulness begins with the body";J. David Creswell, Carnegie Mellon University,"Pathways linking mindfulness training programs with health"; and Dave Vago, Vanderbilt University,"Mindfulness Research: Past, Present, and Future."

A panel discussion and question and answer session will close the event.

For information, seewww.mindfulnesstn.com.

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Can meditation replace opioids? Presenter at MindfulnessTN says yes - Knoxville News Sentinel

Neil Gaimans 2001 novel American Gods has a fascinating premise: all that we believe in becomes real, and as we add to the pantheon of our self-created idols, the avatars of older beliefs fade into irrelevance until they decide to declare war against the new kids.

But left out of Gaimans tale is the God of the Bible and His Son.

The temptation to mess with that proved too great for the new TV version of the story.

On Sunday, April 30, Starz premieres an eight-episode adaptation of American Gods, from Michael Green (Kings, Heroes, Everwood) and Bryan Fuller (Hannibal, Pushing Daisies, Dead Like Me).

Ricky Whittle (The 100) stars as Shadow Moon, a prison inmate about to get out of jail and be reunited with his wife (Emily Browning). Tragedy intervenes, and hes released early.

He stumbles into the company of the enigmatic Mr. Wednesday (Ian McShane), who hires him as a driver and bodyguard. They embark on a phantasmagoric road trip across America, meeting embodiments of ancient beliefs and modern obsessions, such as Technical Boy (Bruce Langley), Bilquis (Yetide Badaki), Mad Sweeney (Pablo Schreiber), Mr. World (Crispin Glover), Media (Gillian Anderson), Easter (Kristin Chenoweth) and Mr. Nancy (Orlando Jones).

Interspersed with this story are seemingly after four episodes, anyway random vignettes featuring new characters interacting with other avatars.

Much as with The Handmaids Tale, TV critics with politics on the brain are rushing to declare the series prescient and relevant and prophetic and whatnot, because of the notion that the old gods came over with immigrants to America. Well, yeah, but people taking old gods to new places has happenedall over the world, throughout human history.But, sure, this is a time like no other, in the age of Trump blah blah blah.

Jesus is indeed added in physical form intoGreen and Fullers take on Gaimans story. Now, there are a bunch of different Jesuses, of different ethnicities and races, and one of them is an illegal immigrant. I cant tell you if its incredibly offensive or not, since Jesus is mentioned, but not yet seen, in the four episodes Starz has made available for review.

Im pretty sure Im not going to find out, either, because thats four hours of my life Im not going to get back, and Im currently not in the mood to hand over any more precious time.

Among the biggest killers of good storytelling are self-indulgence, self-regard, wretched excess, an inability to get outside of ones own fixations, and the conscious or unconscious needto bend stories to make a political point.

Starzs American Gods could have been a satirical look at the self-inflicted and dangerous idolatry of our age, if only it could have gotten out of its own way.

Images: Courtesy Starz

Dont miss a thing: head over to my other home, as Social Media Manager atFamily Theater Productions; and check out FTPs Faith & Family Media Blog.

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'American Gods': Messy, Meandering Meditation on Idolatry Misses the Mark - Patheos (blog)

Credit: Flickr/Darragh O Connor. Some rights reserved.

I like to say that India changed my life twice. The first time I was 24. An English major at the University of California, Berkeley, Id turned down a job offer from McKinsey Consulting in my senior yearI want to change the world, I said, and make music. But a few years of doggy-paddling at nonprofits and singing in cafes on weekends left me confused and disillusioned. Academically Id been an excessive over-achiever, sure that life was preparing me for big things. This couldnt be it, could itmy days governed by the geopolitics of cubicles and office gossip, with a brief respite for actual living? I was depressed, and needed something drastic to test my mettle. So I decided to travel around India alone. I couldnt say why, exactly. Only that the place drew me, and powerfully.

I crammed what I needed into a backpack and spent five happy months traveling and freelance writing my way across the subcontinent. Two months in, I found myself in muted overwhelm, desperate for reprieve. In the ancient city of Rishikesh, famous to westerners as the place where the Beatles met their Maharishi, I saw a flyer for a vipassana (or insight) meditation retreat. I took a taxi straight to the ashram, located on the Ganges four miles outside of the city and approximately 700 from Bodhgayawhere the Buddha attained enlightenment.

For ten days I sat in silence and stillness, ate vegetable mush for dinner, and focused on my breath. It wasnt long before strange and beautiful things began to happen. Insights alighted like doves, one after the other. I saw, for example, that I had never loved myself unconditionallyonly in reward for achievements. I saw that I was angry and scared, and that these things could, given loving attention, shift. I sat on the ashram roof and held debriefs with God. I found a quiet spot upriver and sang and danced. I was happy, and free.

On leaving, I committed to meditating every day. When I returned from India, I had a sense of purpose. I spent the next seven years organizing, singing in, and writing about the global justice movement, with regular times-out to attend vipassana meditation retreats. I applied my intemperate drive to rigorously and exhaustingly striving to transform the world and myself. Meaning had returned to life.

The second time I visited the subcontinent I was 33. I had just completed my Masters in Fine Arts in Fiction at the Iowa Writers Workshop, and Id received a Fulbright Scholarship to work on a novel in Varanasi, where Id spent a week nine years earlier. Varanasi is also a holy city on the Ganges. According to the scriptures, death here puts an end to the harrowing cycle of samsara, or reincarnation, and brings about total liberation. But modernity, in the form of rampant urban growth, has not been kind to the place: the streets are filled with barely-moving traffic, the sidewalks with crowds of people.

After a couple of weeks, strange things again began to happen. This time, however, they were different. I found myself assailed by a rising tide of anxiety. There had been some strong prior hints, but in Varanasi I careened right off the cliff Id unwittingly been skirting. My stomachwhich had survived the on-the-cheap vagaries of five continentsfell apart, and two courses of antibiotics couldnt put it back together again. I found a lump in my breast. I couldnt find an apartment. The fear just kept growing. I stopped sleeping and fell into a hole the likes of which Id never suspected existed inside me.

I dont know whats happening, I said over the phone to the Fulbright director in Delhi. This is so weird. I meditate every day. And Ive done, like, a whole month on silent retreat. I know my mind. That month, spent at the Insight Meditation Society three years earlier, had not been easy. Id say a full three weeks of it had been hellbut it was, in hindsight, the second circle kind of hell. This was the more like the ninth. He made soothing noises and suggested I see a therapist.

Over the following weeks I began to see the deep fracture in my life: most of my days had been dominated by drive and adrenaline, while I tended to the spirit by slamming on the brakes for compensatory periods of silence and stillness. I have an Indian friend who views meditation retreats as a kind of penance. Here in the west, we rush about achieving and consuming, she says, and then we go meditate to expiate our sins. As an activist, I may have been offering a radical critique of consumer culture, but I certainly wasnt immune to its hyperactivity.

The inability to restthe constant running, pushing and achievingwere a culturally-applauded sublimation of the fear and rage I wrestled with on retreat, and they took their physiological toll in the form of adrenal exhaustion. The fracture in my life was no more than a mirror of the fracture in my psyche, which had its roots, as I began to see, in events that had happened many years earlier.

In the end, I cut my Fulbright short and returned from India to navigate my way through a breakdown. It wasnt pretty. It felt as if everything good inside me had been tossed on one of Varanasis funeral pyresmy creativity, confidence, and capacity for happiness. Who was this petrified, tortured woman, this ghost of my former self? For months, I was so exhausted that getting dressed felt onerous. I had to scrape together all of my courage to go to the grocery store. I attended a few week-long retreats that were more or less extended encounters with unabated terror and self-loathing. And the five years since my return have resembled a drunken waltz: fall down and get back up, again and again, the falls growing gradually less paralyzing as I learned how to fall and how to relax both my body and my expectations.

I dont blame meditation for any of this. Indeed, it was a huge support in numerous ways, not least of which was the ingrained mental refrain to focus on the oatmeal on the stove, the fluttering leaves, or the breath in my bellyon what was present and actual rather than the fireball in my chest. And meditating alongside the terror certainly gave me some significant, if unasked-for, experience of my own mettle. Nonetheless, ultimately it wasnt enough to watch the madness, to greet it with awareness or even metta (loving kindness).

There has been much discussion in the media lately about the limits, and even the dangers, of mindfulness. There are stories of meditation inducing confusion and panic attacks, and of retreat experiences leading to depression and psychotic episodes. While these stories of psychological incapacitation are rare they do raise important questions. Western culture has bought selectively into Eastern practicethere are currently 700 mindfulness apps available and counting. So what to make of this reputed dark side? Does meditation have ominous powers?

Drawing from my own experience, I say no. Meditation does not wield dark esoteric powers, but rather draws away the veils covering existing darkness in our own psyches. These veils usually exist for good reason: they are the psyches brilliantly inventive answer to violation. Depending on ones history, meditation may be an insufficient response. Or it may be the wrong medicine entirely.

Theres an oft-repeated story of the Dalai Lamas first visit to the Insight Meditation Society in Massachusetts in 1979. In a meeting with western Buddhist teachers, he was asked about the phenomenon of self-hatred. Despite his translators efforts, he was baffled by the term. Buddhism has adapted to numerous cultures over 2,600 years, but in the west its only in its second generationbarely pubescent. It is still molding itself to the western mind. Western teachers are currently negotiating how to teach an integrative practice, one that incorporates communication and diversity, social justice and relationships.

And western Buddhists are just beginning to grapple with contemporary understandings of traumanot only the shock of individual experiences of war and abuse, but also the injuries of collective oppressions such as racism and homophobia. Suffice it to say that for any individual with a traumatized nervous system, sitting in silence and focusing attention on the body is not always the right response. In eliminating or minimizing external inputs, unconscious material rises to the fore. This is precisely why meditation is such a powerfully healing practiceand also why it can trigger a traumatic reaction. If meditation is a response to trauma, then it requires a very skillful teacher.

As for me, while I am grateful for meditation, it wasnt enough. I feel fortunate to have found other tools to help pry aside the darkness and expose what lay even deeper than the fear and pain: an original sense of joy, a spontaneous creativity, an integrated presence. I didnt want my dark night of the soul, and the truth is I wouldnt wish it on my worst enemy. But on stumbling my vertiginous way out I discovered myself happier than Id ever been. The breaking, Ive come to see, was a crucial part of the healingthe psyches radical stab in the direction of wholeness; a death in service of rebirth.

A friend recently suggested that I may have been better off never meditating or journeying to India. I disagree. Yes, I may have stayed stablebut I would still have been driven by what lay buried in my unconscious. Breakdown forced me to face it. I had no choice: I had to relinquish control. And perhaps thats where the greatest transformation is born.

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When meditation isn't enough - Open Democracy