- Email: [email protected]
Meditation
~nseling manic tenden-
~cl was on medirdthe manic side, ~ e of his :moblemwas just [at work and ~ . He was deft~i~at. He wanted
a
nita ~ n ~ in~r ~
/A and stalled ~ 7 ~
the coast, m o v e d ~ k doing much of a n y ~ She had no ~d~ w":i:! ~ ....... she wanted tO be: . ~ i .... '" ions, but she couldn::~:~ clarity. ::, :~,~
f you look at these two people from the standpoint of their issues, problems, or diagnoses, they seem very dissimilar. On another level, however, they have a strong commonality: meditation training became part of their treatment plan. How does meditation help? We'll get to that question in a minute, but first let's.talk about the concept itself.
:
:,: :::;j.
What Is Meditation? is one of those words like love or depression--it means very different things to d~fferent people. There is no "one true way" to meditate, contrary to what some practitioners may say. Meditation can be passive or active, silent or expressive, still or moving, solo o r groupfocused. You can't say, "Let's meditate," and expect everyone to k n o w what to do. This diversity is good news for the mental health counselor because meditation's filany forms all6w it to adapt to fit individual client needs. Meditation
Why would a counselor want to devise a meditation program for a particular person? Because meditation helps train people to do three basic things that health care providers always want clients to learn on their journey to improved menMarch/April1999
T C M 35
tal health: focus, discipline, and witnessbuilding.
Focus No matter what its particular form, one of meditation's underlying purposes is to learn h o w to stay on task. For example, if we are practicing a type of mantra meditation, we repeat a certain set of words or phrases over and over again. The object is to stay with the mantra, to think it, to breathe it, to be it; no planning what to have for dinner, no rehashing the fight with Morn. That's focus--one-pointed, all-consuming focus, which is very difficult to achieve for any stretch of time and very rewarding if it happens. As focus is developed, so are clarity and effectiveness. The noise and trivia of life cease to steal so much time and energy, and we can participate in our lives at a more meaningful level.
Discipline Meditation isn't a talent; it's a skill that has to be practiced regularly to have any positive impact. Just the action of doing the meditation, day after day, teaches
structure and effort and reward for effort. That's one lesson in discipline. Another is the discipline of the self. In meditation, we learn how to have greater control over our physical emotional, and mental components. To achieve the one-pointed focus I mentioned earlier, the body has to respond appropriately, which means relaxing and becoming still or following certain types of movements. For some very active people, just the effort of sitting and not "doing anything" for 15 minutes is quite an accomplishment of mind over matter. Willing our bodies to do our bidding and nothing more is physical discipline. Meditation is not catharsis, nor is it a time when emotions are invited to run the show. Sometimes they come out as we become quiet and calm enough, when we stop running from them. If that happens, we have to make a choice: go with the feelings or continue the meditation. No judgment occurs about right or wrong choices; sometimes the emotions have to be expressed before
any focus can be attained. We just need to keep in mind that the goal is to remove ourselves from being dominated or manipulated by our feelings. That's emotional discipline. Then there's the mind, the trickiest part of all. In meditation, we are training our minds to do our bidding rather than the other way around. The more we identify with our minds, the more difficult the task becomes. The mind wants to complicate and obfuscate. It tells us that we're doing it all wrong or all right. It condemns us for wasting our time or creates fantasies of becoming superbeings. It gets bored and doesn't want to take a back seat. It tells us we should be doing something else or wants to review yesterday's movie. In meditation, we learn to ignore all the mind's dramas and chattering. We do our practice, and we attempt to stay focused. That's mental discipline.
Witness-Building In the course of learning one-pointed focus and ordering our bodies, feelings,
and thoughts to stand aside, we discover something: we aren't who we thought we were. Somehow, something or someone else is attempting to stay focused, someone who has not identified with the physical, emotional, or mental clamor. An "I" exists b e y o n d the usual identifiers. W h o is this? We might call it "the witness." The witness has great value for us. From the witness position, we can observe ourselves with greater insight and understanding. We're not caught in our regular habits or ways of thought. The v6ice of the witness sounds something like this: '~.h, there you go, getting all worked up into one of your temper tantrums. You sure you want to do that?" Or "You've just jumped from o n e uncomfortable fact to an entire tragic scenario. Maybe you could gather some more information?" The witness helps us stay calm, clear, in control. It observes, comments, and is proactive. Sounds kind of like a good counselor, doesn't it? In fact, in the beginning, one
Use
coming still and expansive in her meditations was easier. N o w she's beginning to get a glimmer of what she wants to do and is learning to stay true to her own aspirations.
of our primary functions as counselors is to be the witness for our clients. As they develop this skill for themselves, we become less and less necessary. Results
So what happened to Russell? Because he had such difficulty with mind chatter, he used a guided imagery form of meditation. Through this imagery, he learned to calm and relax himself. Avoiding impulsivity was easier w h e n he felt calmer. As he learned the discipline, he realized he didn't have to be controlled by what he was thinking. He developed greater abilities to focus and stay on task. He's now considering retraining and following a career path he always wanted to explore.
Conclusion
Meditation is a great adjunct to counseling. It's not a panacea, and it's certainly not the answer to every client issue. Even if everyone meditated, we still would have work to do. Meditation teaches us h o w to focus and requires discipline as a practice and as a tool for self-management. It helps us develop a larger sense of who we are. Meditation doesn't take care of everything and everyone, but it certainly can help make the road to well-being a little smoother and a little more direct, rn
Anita was in need of clarity. She used a mantra form of meditation because she needed to create and handle emptiness. Clearing out all the noise was difficult at first, but she stuck with it. As she got quieter, she tapped into unexpressed grief over her father's death. She allowed her sorrow to find its voice. After that, b e -
Renaissance
COMPREHENSIVE INTEGRATED CARE MANAGEMENT
True enlightenment:
Marilyn K. Wright, PhD, is a licensed mental health counselor in Des Moines, Iowa, who has practiced and taught meditation for many years. Reprint orders: Mosby, Inc., 11830 Westline Industrial Dr., St. Louis, MO 63146-3318; phone (314) 453-4350; reprint no. 68/1/97539
CARE:" AND UTILIZATION REVIEW
t e c h n o l o g y with fast, easy access to s y s t e m s a n d
Renaissance CARE s u p p o r t s all
databases across a w i d e range of c o m p u t e r a n d
medical and related adminis-
communication platforms. A n d easy interface with
trative processes from the
external systems such as
enaissance CARE : F F
inception of medical episode
medical guidelines, claims,
• Guideline Integration
provider m a n a g e m e n t ,
• Productivity Tracking
t h r o u g h case closure. Create cases, determine a n d authorize appropriate care. I m p r o v e o u t c o m e s with reduced costs via prospective, concurrent and retrospective review. All on a multi-tiered, client/server browser-based
medical bill review and a c c o u n t i n g systems. Enlighten your case load, with Renaissance CARE.
ThemGroup, We Make Everything Click. T M www.ssigroup.com
• Treatment Planning • Clinical Outcomes
.- Medical Bill Review • Client/Server Web
Enabled Technology • Remote Access • Unlimited Scalability
g/] COMPLIANT © 1999 The SSI Group, inc. All rights reserved.
~cl was on medirdthe manic side, ~ e of his :moblemwas just [at work and ~ . He was deft~i~at. He wanted
a
nita ~ n ~ in~r ~
/A and stalled ~ 7 ~
the coast, m o v e d ~ k doing much of a n y ~ She had no ~d~ w":i:! ~ ....... she wanted tO be: . ~ i .... '" ions, but she couldn::~:~ clarity. ::, :~,~
f you look at these two people from the standpoint of their issues, problems, or diagnoses, they seem very dissimilar. On another level, however, they have a strong commonality: meditation training became part of their treatment plan. How does meditation help? We'll get to that question in a minute, but first let's.talk about the concept itself.
:
:,: :::;j.
What Is Meditation? is one of those words like love or depression--it means very different things to d~fferent people. There is no "one true way" to meditate, contrary to what some practitioners may say. Meditation can be passive or active, silent or expressive, still or moving, solo o r groupfocused. You can't say, "Let's meditate," and expect everyone to k n o w what to do. This diversity is good news for the mental health counselor because meditation's filany forms all6w it to adapt to fit individual client needs. Meditation
Why would a counselor want to devise a meditation program for a particular person? Because meditation helps train people to do three basic things that health care providers always want clients to learn on their journey to improved menMarch/April1999
T C M 35
tal health: focus, discipline, and witnessbuilding.
Focus No matter what its particular form, one of meditation's underlying purposes is to learn h o w to stay on task. For example, if we are practicing a type of mantra meditation, we repeat a certain set of words or phrases over and over again. The object is to stay with the mantra, to think it, to breathe it, to be it; no planning what to have for dinner, no rehashing the fight with Morn. That's focus--one-pointed, all-consuming focus, which is very difficult to achieve for any stretch of time and very rewarding if it happens. As focus is developed, so are clarity and effectiveness. The noise and trivia of life cease to steal so much time and energy, and we can participate in our lives at a more meaningful level.
Discipline Meditation isn't a talent; it's a skill that has to be practiced regularly to have any positive impact. Just the action of doing the meditation, day after day, teaches
structure and effort and reward for effort. That's one lesson in discipline. Another is the discipline of the self. In meditation, we learn how to have greater control over our physical emotional, and mental components. To achieve the one-pointed focus I mentioned earlier, the body has to respond appropriately, which means relaxing and becoming still or following certain types of movements. For some very active people, just the effort of sitting and not "doing anything" for 15 minutes is quite an accomplishment of mind over matter. Willing our bodies to do our bidding and nothing more is physical discipline. Meditation is not catharsis, nor is it a time when emotions are invited to run the show. Sometimes they come out as we become quiet and calm enough, when we stop running from them. If that happens, we have to make a choice: go with the feelings or continue the meditation. No judgment occurs about right or wrong choices; sometimes the emotions have to be expressed before
any focus can be attained. We just need to keep in mind that the goal is to remove ourselves from being dominated or manipulated by our feelings. That's emotional discipline. Then there's the mind, the trickiest part of all. In meditation, we are training our minds to do our bidding rather than the other way around. The more we identify with our minds, the more difficult the task becomes. The mind wants to complicate and obfuscate. It tells us that we're doing it all wrong or all right. It condemns us for wasting our time or creates fantasies of becoming superbeings. It gets bored and doesn't want to take a back seat. It tells us we should be doing something else or wants to review yesterday's movie. In meditation, we learn to ignore all the mind's dramas and chattering. We do our practice, and we attempt to stay focused. That's mental discipline.
Witness-Building In the course of learning one-pointed focus and ordering our bodies, feelings,
and thoughts to stand aside, we discover something: we aren't who we thought we were. Somehow, something or someone else is attempting to stay focused, someone who has not identified with the physical, emotional, or mental clamor. An "I" exists b e y o n d the usual identifiers. W h o is this? We might call it "the witness." The witness has great value for us. From the witness position, we can observe ourselves with greater insight and understanding. We're not caught in our regular habits or ways of thought. The v6ice of the witness sounds something like this: '~.h, there you go, getting all worked up into one of your temper tantrums. You sure you want to do that?" Or "You've just jumped from o n e uncomfortable fact to an entire tragic scenario. Maybe you could gather some more information?" The witness helps us stay calm, clear, in control. It observes, comments, and is proactive. Sounds kind of like a good counselor, doesn't it? In fact, in the beginning, one
Use
coming still and expansive in her meditations was easier. N o w she's beginning to get a glimmer of what she wants to do and is learning to stay true to her own aspirations.
of our primary functions as counselors is to be the witness for our clients. As they develop this skill for themselves, we become less and less necessary. Results
So what happened to Russell? Because he had such difficulty with mind chatter, he used a guided imagery form of meditation. Through this imagery, he learned to calm and relax himself. Avoiding impulsivity was easier w h e n he felt calmer. As he learned the discipline, he realized he didn't have to be controlled by what he was thinking. He developed greater abilities to focus and stay on task. He's now considering retraining and following a career path he always wanted to explore.
Conclusion
Meditation is a great adjunct to counseling. It's not a panacea, and it's certainly not the answer to every client issue. Even if everyone meditated, we still would have work to do. Meditation teaches us h o w to focus and requires discipline as a practice and as a tool for self-management. It helps us develop a larger sense of who we are. Meditation doesn't take care of everything and everyone, but it certainly can help make the road to well-being a little smoother and a little more direct, rn
Anita was in need of clarity. She used a mantra form of meditation because she needed to create and handle emptiness. Clearing out all the noise was difficult at first, but she stuck with it. As she got quieter, she tapped into unexpressed grief over her father's death. She allowed her sorrow to find its voice. After that, b e -
Renaissance
COMPREHENSIVE INTEGRATED CARE MANAGEMENT
True enlightenment:
Marilyn K. Wright, PhD, is a licensed mental health counselor in Des Moines, Iowa, who has practiced and taught meditation for many years. Reprint orders: Mosby, Inc., 11830 Westline Industrial Dr., St. Louis, MO 63146-3318; phone (314) 453-4350; reprint no. 68/1/97539
CARE:" AND UTILIZATION REVIEW
t e c h n o l o g y with fast, easy access to s y s t e m s a n d
Renaissance CARE s u p p o r t s all
databases across a w i d e range of c o m p u t e r a n d
medical and related adminis-
communication platforms. A n d easy interface with
trative processes from the
external systems such as
enaissance CARE : F F
inception of medical episode
medical guidelines, claims,
• Guideline Integration
provider m a n a g e m e n t ,
• Productivity Tracking
t h r o u g h case closure. Create cases, determine a n d authorize appropriate care. I m p r o v e o u t c o m e s with reduced costs via prospective, concurrent and retrospective review. All on a multi-tiered, client/server browser-based
medical bill review and a c c o u n t i n g systems. Enlighten your case load, with Renaissance CARE.
ThemGroup, We Make Everything Click. T M www.ssigroup.com
• Treatment Planning • Clinical Outcomes
.- Medical Bill Review • Client/Server Web
Enabled Technology • Remote Access • Unlimited Scalability
g/] COMPLIANT © 1999 The SSI Group, inc. All rights reserved.