Newsletters

  Inquiring Deeply Newsletter, May 2018   This newsletter is my first one. It is created out of my desire and intention to share my work. I begin with a question that underlies many others:  WHAT IS INQUIRY? [see below] Inquiry is the subject of my 2017 book “INQUIRING DEEPLY”.  As the title suggests, the book is about the method of inquiry. ( “Inquiring Deeply” is actually an abbreviation of a longer and more ponderous title). It reflects, in part, the strategic use of awareness practice in the investigation of personal problems. As a psychotherapeutic approach, Inquiring Deeply can be described…

  Inquiring Deeply Newsletter, June 2018 Relational Inquiry “Hunger for connection is also hunger for deep conversation to be received, to be listened to, to be deeply understood.   This is how new meanings come into being ” My signature clinical approach, “Inquiring Deeply,” involves mindful exploration of the surfaces of our connection with others: the “relational field.” There is a great deal we can learn about ourselves by using the “relational field” as a mirror. Being mindful of our experience of connection to others – the quality as well as the depth of connection – can be very illuminating. Hunger…

  Inquiring Deeply Newsletter, July 2018 To Think Or Not To Think: That Is Not The Question* As is often said, the mind makes thoughts like water makes waves. So to think or not to think is not the question! The more appropriate question is how we relate to the process of thinking. In my view, thinking in meditation is not merely the unwanted source of ruminative distraction it is often painted to be. To the contrary, there is transformative opportunity in paying attention to the content of the conversations that take place within our minds during meditation. The word…

  Inquiring Deeply Newsletter, August 2018 The Path of Problems A central tenet of my book, INQUIRING DEEPLY*, is that problems are a basic organizing principle in psychological life. Consider, for example, (as every reader can certainly notice) the fact that everyone has problems. In my view, problems have a role in our minds analogous to the role of pain in the body; they call attention to what we most need to see. Beyond the particular circumstances, we need to address the underlying view that having problems is itself a problem; as if life could be without problems or that…

Inquiring Deeply Newsletter,   September 2018   Wise Understanding of Emotion One of the salient qualities of inner peace is equanimity, defined as the ability to maintain mental and emotional balance in the midst of whatever is happening.  For human beings, emotional turbulence is the major surface of challenge.    As the tightrope illustration suggests, emotional balance is a capacity which entails both skill and practice.   It rests on a foundation of wise and compassionate understanding of emotional life.   I find it useful to engage awareness practice to amplify emotional experience around these issues. Deep inquiry—  “Inquiring Deeply”— investigates emotional reactivity…

Inquiring Deeply Newsletter, October 2018   Inquiring Deeply About Praise The famed German novelist Thomas Mann apparently experienced quite a bit of anxiety about how his work would be received.  He quipped that he suffered from a  “P vitamin deficiency”:  chronic hunger for praise. I personally resonate with the idea of P vitamin and its implied meaning: that approval fills deep needs and is an essential psychological nutrient.  It is quite evident that the need for approval is a driving force in human behavior, as well a basic regulator of self-esteem.  We are motivated to be seen in a myriad of different…

INQUIRING DEEPLY NEWSLETTER November 2018   Inquiring Deeply About Emptiness There is a not uncommon experience people allude to as “emptiness”, meaning a deep sadness, yearning, or inner sense of something missing.  It often connects to a felt sense of deep deficiency or unworthiness.    This psychological emptiness is quite different in meaning from the Buddhist concept of the same name, which refers to the reality that things do not exist in the way we suppose that they do;  that life is empty of anything which is inherently substantial or permanent enough for us to hold onto. A good way to think…

Mindfulness of Conversation: The Dance of Speaking and Listening Since we spend a large part of our lives talking to people, engaging in conversation can itself be a dynamic and fully engaged mindfulness practice.  Just as we can explore the internal world of the body and thoughts in sitting practice, we can explore the external world of language in vocalized words, gestures and spoken interaction.   This focus of attention helps open the senses, heart, and mind to receive the present moment more fully.  Mindfulness of conversation begins with the embodied experience of speaking and listening. However, far more than simply denuded …

CONTEMPLATING THE NEW YEAR “I call the moment when you fully know that a change is achievable realizing the imaginative possible.  When you are able to envision that an alternative is real, you experience a sudden energetic surge toward actualizing it, which becomes self-reinforcing.” ……Phillip Moffitt  (2012)  Emotional Chaos To Clarity The New Year holiday is a natural time to reflect on the cycles in our lives – the beginnings and endings, the losses and renewals, the ongoing narrative themes that weave in, out, and through our life story.    In the ritual of new year’s resolutions,  we also have an…

Meditative Listening There is a kind of magic in the experience of feeling deeply heard. A special set of relational moments, “moments of meeting,” are those in which there is a profound sense of mutual connection.  Such “moments of meeting” occur in conversation when something is said and received in such a way that the speaker feels deeply seen, felt, accepted, and understood.    The prototype of this experience is the moment that occurs immediately after birth, when the new baby looks into the eyes of a mother who is looking back.  Such moments of mutual deep contact are what the…