What is ASMR?

Just my thoughts.

I wonder if it is a part of a biggger trend.

YouTube addiction.

https://www.google.ca/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/may/03/youtube-addiction-mental-health

If depression anxiety can be considered as the condition of involuntarily paying prolonged attention to past regrets/glories or future fears/hope; or the inability to choose the present moment as the object of ones attention; 

then YouTube, social media or video game can provide a substantial object of attention to ground one’s attention to the present moment.

If addiction can be considered as the inability to redirect attention away from a certain object of attention; to the extent that one experience Craving, Compulsion, loss of Control without regard for Consequences;  then perhaps one can suffer Youtube addiction.

If insomnia can be considered as the inability to redirect attention away from thinking; then ASMR can provide an audiotorily curious and visually attractive object of attention to escape the involuntary attention to self-identified thoughts of regrets/glory or fear/hope; at least until one is overcome by fatigue.

?

Who wants to grow a social enterprise?

I am converting a cattle farm to a permaculture food and medicine forest.

It is open to hobby “farmacist” collaborators who are interested in the following buisiness model:

Growers keep 50% of sales; 25% donated to social enterprise; 25% reinvested to build farm infrastructure.

I have two collaborators so far.

One experimenting with the Iroquois techniques.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Sisters_(agriculture)

And growing garlics.

The other will grow, sell and promote edible and medicinal cold climate trees.

I can see the possibility of a wellness retreat that promote chemical free and carbon negative plant based food source and mindfulness training.

If you alway wanted to be a hobby farmer, growing is your passion and learning is your life; please reach out!

What is Resilience?

re·sil·ience
/rəˈzilyəns/
noun
1.
the capacity to recover quickly from difficulties; toughness.

So this is just my perspectives on resilience.

Ability to recover from difficult past experience in a given present moment depends not on changing an immutable past.  If that were necessary, then the solution would require changing the past or waiting for a society without challenges or any need for resilience.

A (positive attitude may be) SUFFICIENT COLLECTION OF PERSPECTIVES IS required to take advantage of opportunities (as you find them), (but no) AND PRECISION OF AWARENESS AND thinking (on its own) is going to (help survive) HELP IN a natural disaster, a bad workplace or childhood abuse. Change (your) THE world (first) by finding the relationships that nurture (you) ALL, the opportunities to use (your) talentS and the places where I CAN PROMOTE experience OF community and governmental support and social justice. (Once you have) WAIT NOT FOR these, (your world will help you succeed more than you could ever help yourself) EXPAND MY AWARENESS AND PERSPECTIVES NOW AND MY WORLD WILL BECOME A KINDER PLACE.

Free online mindfulness healthcare summit May 23-27th

You can sign up for free here: https://www.mindfulhealthcaresummit.com/summit-home.

The summit is especially designed to tailor mindfulness skills and knowledge to healthcare providers, to support our own well-being.
Jon Kabat-Zinn and one of our Toronto locals, Patricia Rockman, are speaking today.  There are lots of other good speakers in the line-up.

boundary in group vs individual therapy, empathy, compassion, burnout, vicarious trauma

Thanks for permitting me a chance to share my perspectives on boundary in group vs individual therapy, empathy, compassion,  burnout, vicarious trauma.

In my group, we emulate the First Nation’s talking or healing circle idea.

Talking circles are a non-hierarchical form of dialogue. Participants sit in a circle, which symbolizes completeness, and discuss a topic. The thoughts and feelings of all participants are valued equally. The seating arrangement allows all participants to see each other's non-verbal cues.

http://www.edu.gov.on.ca/eng/aboriginal/strategygr05lancircle.pdf

The group norms are reviewed at the beginning of each and “every” session after introduction and before sharing begins.  It is also reinforced during the session whenever opportunities arise.

The norm results in a safety boundary that is the delineation between the intention to serve the oneness (the greater good) and the intention to serve the contracted notion of self. 

Patients do not have to share at all or may share their authentic and personal struggles and solutions within above boundary.  Listeners are to accept these perspectives  as other’s reality and not to comment or criticize.

In my case, individual therapy are run as a group of two with above boundary and solution-focused sharing.   Individual therapy allows  patients to share personal narrative in greater details than that is relevant to others in the case of a larger group.  I don’t think the details is necessarily important for healing; infact the preoccupation with life challenges that are without an actionable solution is often the root of the mental health challenge.  I generally try to redirect their attention to a solution-based perspective and eventually invite them for group therapy to gain and share more perspectives if appropriate and possible.

Empathy is one of the neurodiversities.

It is not necessarily independent of other neurodiversities.

It is the ability to reflexively mimick or mirror another’s emotional experience.

It is neither good or bad.

We all innately possess this ability  but to varying degree.   One possess too little empathy may more likely be a psychopathic killer or tyrannical dictators.  One possess too much may more likely be “borderline”, anxious and depressed.  Having little less may be useful for a funeral directors, a soldiers, a police chief, maybe even a trauma surgeon.  Having little more may be useful for a nurse,  a counselor, a parent, a teacher, a spouse, a friend.

While, individual’s perception of the world is influenced by this ability; the net experience can be modified by the ability to appropriately assign attention to it.

(Without knowing above, two individuals on opposite side of the normogram would have difficulty understanding each other.)

Compassion is not a decision.

It is the awareness of oneness.

This awareness depends on the sufficient accumulation of precise perspectives of interdependence.  

These perspective are often painfully leaned after their opposites have caused pain, suffering, illness or calamities.

Examples of such more precise perspectives are:

What my mind wants to eat is not necessarily what my body needs.

I can not truly be happy if my wife and kids are not.

My body will it get what it needs unless others grow and transport food, utility to me and take garbage and sewage away from me.

I can not really enjoy my life, if my neighbours locally and globally are hungry.

I can not truly have peace if there is no world peace.

With sufficient perspectives, compassion is a consequence.

As compassion is the awareness of oneness, then self-compassion and compassion for others is one of the samething.

Eg. 

If am truly ok just the way I am (self-compassion) then what I do for you is truly for you (compassion).

If what I do for you is truly for no other (compassion), then I must be ok just the way I am (self-compassion)

Burnouts is the inability to pay sufficient attention to both demands real and imagined.

One solution is:

1. Distinguish between needs real vs imagined ( gaining precision through listening to groups collective perspectives)

2. Let go of what’s imagined and focus on the real by increasing ability to choose object of attention ( mindfulness training).

Vicarious trauma is the inability to redirect attention sufficiently away from empathetic emotions mirrored from patients traumatic experiences.  I believe one with high degree of empathy are more prone to VT.  

One solution is to  become mindful of this neurodiversity; make external choices to adapt; let go of imprecise judgement of self and others; and to increase the ability to choose object of attention through mindfulness training.

Thanks for reading!

Empathy vs compassion

Please allow me to share my perspectives on empathy  and compassion.  We discussed these topics during groups on this Wellness Tuesday.

Empathy is one of the neurodiversities.

It is not necessarily independent of other neurodiversities.

It is the ability to reactively mimick or mirror another’s emotional experience.

It is neither good or bad.

We all innately possess this ability to varying degree.   One possess too little empathy may more likely be a psychopathic killer or tyrannical dictators.  One possess too much may more likely be “borderline”, anxious and depressed.  Having little less may be useful for a funeral directors, a soldiers, a police chief, maybe even a trauma surgeon.  Having little more may be useful for a nurse,  a counselor, a parent, a teacher, a spouse, a friend.

While, individual’s perception of the world is influenced by this ability; the net experience can be modified by the ability to appropriately assign attention to it.

Without knowing above, two individuals on opposite side of the normogram would have difficulty understanding each other.

Compassion is not a decision.

It is the awareness of oneness.

This awareness depends on the sufficient accumulation of precise perspectives of interdependence.  

These perspective are often painfully leaned after their opposites have caused pain, suffering, illness or calamities.

Examples of such more precise perspectives are:

What my mind wants to eat is not necessarily what my body needs.

I can not truly be happy if my wife and kids are not.

My body will it get what it needs unless others grow and transport food, utility to me and take garbage and sewage away from me.

I can not really enjoy my life, if my neighbours locally and globally are hungry.

I can not truly have peace if there is no world peace.

With sufficient perspectives, compassion is a consequence.

As compassion is the awareness of oneness, then self-compassion and compassion for others is one of the samething.

Eg. 

If am truly ok just the way I am (self-compassion) then what I do for you is truly for you (compassion).

If what I do for you is truly for you (compassion), then I must be ok just the way I am (self-compassion)

Thanks for reading!

Group norms promotes safety

In my group, we emulate the (Anishinaabe) talking or healing circle idea.

https://www.learnalberta.ca/content/aswt/talkingtogether/facilitated_talking_circle_fact_sheet.html

The following group norms are reviewed at the beginning of each and “every” session after introduction and before sharing begins.  It is also reinforced during the session when opportunities arise. 

The boundaries these norms delineates is between the intent to help the self  vs intent to benefit the oneness.

Do you suffer an addiction?

Every form of addiction is bad, no matter whether the narcotic be alcohol or morphine or idealism. - Carl Jung

For me, it is important to understand that addiction is a common humanity and opioid is just one of the many many objects of addictions.  Without this fundamental perspective, the answer, that is within everyone and requires everyone’s participation, will remain hidden from awareness.  Believing that somehow social determinants or anything external are the root causes only deepen stigma, conjures more divides and misguides the society’s attention away from the real problem.

What I see is a general lack of awareness.

The political leaders elected to better our society seem to spend too much time defending against accusation of being antisocial.  Professionals who feel powerless against imminent burnout are expected to teach, heal and lead the masses who suffer the same. Consumers who are willing to yield to what the mind want and don’t want at the horrific expense of the body, the community and the planet are looking for magic cure for the natural consequences of their questionable choices.  Opioid crisis, rising suicide rates, type 2 diabetes crisis all seem to respect no external divides - age, gender, ethnicity, social economic, education, nationality, etc. Being unaware of the many subtle addictions created yet more divides between those who suffer addictions socially unacceptable vs what’s “acceptable” (but equally harmful).

I think addiction to the mind may be a common humanity; and the expansion of this awareness is one essential component of the real solution; and it needs to begins with the individual at every meal, every conversation and every moment.