The Gift of Spiritual Healing, a Guided Meditation with Tara Brach.

‘Shiva Dances’, 2007, oil on canvas, 5′ x 5′.

Shiva Dances

Shiva dances for us, our planet, and under Shiva’s foot,

Shiva is crushing humanities ignorance of spiritual reality.

When I write about Climate Change, my emphasis is on healing; healing humanity,

and therefore our planet. I address the human contribution to pollution,

air, water, land; we have polluted our earth.

We pollute by our unconscious action and behavior,

we pollute because we are not paying attention.

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pol·lute vt

1.            to cause harm to an area of the natural environment, for example, the air, soil, or water, usually by introducing damaging substances such as chemicals or waste products

2.            to make somebody morally or spiritually impure

3.            to violate the sacred nature of a holy place

Encarta® World English Dictionary © 1999 Microsoft Corporation.

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Today I received a gift from a spiritual healer, Dr. John Fu.

When I met John, he was a Psychological Councilor for California State University, Fresno.

He now leads a therapy group about healing, in Fresno.

John sent me a YouTube link to a Guided Meditation by Tara Brach, PhD.

As a healer and meditator myself, I recognized Tara’s gift to us.

She takes us to the place where we are one with God and Nature,

which is our true self.

Published on May 10, 2012

This is a four part, 4 hour 37 minute – Introduction to the Art, Science and Practice of Meditation (combined into one file).
Part 1: Mindfulness of Sensations and Breath. Part 2: Mindfulness of Emotions. Part 3: Mindfulness of Thoughts. Part 4: Living from Presence.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6ldhUNzGhj0&feature=em-share_video_user 

Tara earned a Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Fielding Institute, with a dissertation exploring meditation as a therapeutic modality in treating addiction. She went on to complete a five-year Buddhist teacher training program at the Spirit Rock Meditation Center, under the guidance of Jack Kornfield. Working as both a psychotherapist and a meditation teacher, she found herself naturally blending these two powerful traditions—introducing meditation to her therapy clients and sharing western psychological insights with meditation students. This synthesis has evolved, in more recent years, into Tara’s groundbreaking work in training psychotherapists to integrate mindfulness strategies into their clinical work.

In 1998, Tara founded the Insight Meditation Community of Washington, DC (IMCW), which is now one of the largest and most dynamic non-residential meditation centers in the United States.  http://tarabrach.com/about.html

ENJOY: PLEASE SHARE WITH OTHERS!

D.A. HARTLEY

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RE-BLOGGED FROM:  http://naturalhistorywanderings.com , http://sandysteinman.files.wordpress.com

BY SANDY STEINMAN

The National Wildlife Association’s report on the human psychological

effects of Global Warning. 

The National Wildlife Federation released a report on “The Psychological Effects of Global Warming on the U.S.” This peaked my interest not only in natural history but as a mental health professional.

Some of the report’s findings are:

Climate Change will become a top-of-mind worry in the future.

Major Segments of U.S. Society are more psychologically vulnerable now including:

• Children will experience increasing acute stress disorders as natural disasters increase
• Elderly and low-income will be less able to pay for need good, services and have less mobility
• People with preexisting mental health conditions will find fewer resources available
• Members of military and their families may be dealing with conflicts to destabilizing economic, politically and environmental effects on fragile countries from Climate Change

The mental health system is not ready to handled the wide-spread psychological stress or climate change and there is a low first responder preparedness to handle immediate trauma of climate disaster victims.

Some climate change related conditions and their psychological effects:

• Summer heat wave – there is a relationship between rising heat and aggression
• Coastal and river flooding – stress due displacement, loss possession and future uncertainty
• High impact and more intense storms – PTSD, slow recovery of infrastructure, anger at government response
• Severe Drought and reduced snow pack – despair and depression
• Increase large-scale wildfires – anxiety and anticipation, grief from destruction
• New Disease Threats – fear and anxiety

Suggested Solutions and recommendations include:

• Mental health practitioners, first responders and primary care professionals should have comprehensive plans and guidelines for climate change; they need to develop
  tools and approaches to help respond to disasters and to take care of patients faced with emergencies.
• Priority should be given to training mental health professionals who serve the most vulnerable populations. e.g., school counselors, pediatric specialists, aging specialists, public clinic staff
• Improve the assessment, diagnosis, and treatment of people suffering from climate related mental health problems
• A rigorous estimate should be made of the cost of addressing the psychological effects of climate change vs. the costs of ignoring the problem
• Governments should develop and deploy mental health incident response teams
• Helpful models for positive individual and community action should be developed
• Psychological implications of global warming should be factored into public policy development

Please read the National Wildlife Association’s report on the human psychological effects of Global Warning.

http://sandysteinman.files.wordpress.com/2012/11/nwf_psychological-effects.pdf

Forum Participants

Victor Balaban

Travelers’ Health and Animal Importation Branch

Division of Global Migration and Quarantine

Centers for Disease Control, Atlanta, GA

William Becker

Executive Director, Presidential Climate Action Project

The Wirth Chair in Environmental and Community Development Policy

School of Public Affairs University of Colorado Denver, Boulder,

CO

Peter G. Bourne, MD, MA

Visiting Scholar, Green-Templeton College, Oxford

Vice Chancellor Emeritus of St. George’s University, Grenada, West Indies

Chairman of the Board, Medical Education Cooperation with Cuba (MEDICC)

Wales, UK and Washington DC

James H. Bray, Ph.D.

President, American Psychological Association

Department of Family and Community Medicine

Baylor College of Medicine, Houston TX

Gillian Caldwell, JD

Campaign Director, 1Sky Tacoma Park, MD

Eric Chivian, MD

Founder and Director, Center for Health and the Global Environment

Professor of Psychiatry Harvard Medical School Boston, MA

Lt. Gen. Daniel W. Christman (Ret.)

Sr. Vice President for International Affairs United States Chamber of Commerce Washington DC

Robert W. Corell, PhD

Vice President for Programs H.J. Heinz Center for Science, Economics

and the Environment Washington DC.

Kevin J. Coyle, JD

Vice President for Education and Training National Wildlife Federation Reston VA

Spencer Eth, MD

Vice-Chairman and Medical Director, Psychiatry and Behavioral Health Services

Saint Vincent Catholic Medical Centers New York, NY

Sherri Goodman, JD

General Counsel and Corporate Secretary, Center for Naval Analyses

Executive Director, Military Advisory Board, “National Security and the Threat of Climate Change” project Alexandria, VA

Jeffrey T. Kiehl, PhD

Senior Scientist, Climate Change Research National Center for Atmospheric

Research. Boulder, CO

Douglas LaBier, PhD

Founder and Director Center for Adult Development, N.W.,

Washington, DC

Andrew Light, PhD

Director, Center for Global Ethics George Mason University, Fairfax, VA Senior Fellow Center for American Progress

Washington, D.C. 20005

George Luber, PhD

Associate Director for Global Climate Change

National Center for Environmental Health

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Atlanta, GA

Edward W. Maibach, PhD

Director, Center for Climate Change Communication

George Mason University, Fairfax, VA

H. Steven Moffic, MD

Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine

Medical College of Wisconsin, Wauwatosa, WI

Jerilyn Ross, M.A., L.I.C.S.W.

President and CEO, Anxiety Disorders Association of America

Director, The Ross Center for Anxiety and Related Disorders, Inc. Washington, DC