Meditation Approach
The process of self awareness through meditation is like a spiralling staircase.
Generally speaking psychologists treat the mind while physiotherapists and the like treat the body. The word psychology comes from the Greek word, psyche, meaning soul. In modern usage the word soul can mean something has imagination or is imaginative. The Sydney Opera House can be said to have soul as it stimulates the imagination of the viewer through its symbolic sea-shell-shaped exterior.
The soul and the body are distinct from each other yet connected in the mind/body system. Bodily pain can have a physical and a psychological origin. For example,
a person can carry psychological stress in his/her body which can result in physical pain. Meditation can raise a persons tolerance threshold and reduce reactivity to physical and emotional pain. Bacash Meditation Therapy cultivates the attitude and habit of faith and non judgemental awareness to and of psychological conflicts providing a safe forum for resolution and personal development. It incorporates techniques like those used in Emotion Focused Therapy which focus on the body to evoke understanding of unresolved psychological issues which express themselves
in our bodies and in our involuntary consciousness and are often communicated
non verbally.
Just as the Opera Houses shape evokes a positive meaning and feeling for the viewer so too can a feeling of heaviness or tightness in ones shoulders evoke in ones imagination symbolism of a ton of bricks or the weight of the world on my shoulders. This may be interpreted as taking on too much responsibility or being under too much pressure. The symbolism is evoked by focusing on the physical pain which then helps one understand the origin of his/her depression or anxiety. Emotion Focused Therapy uses the connection between the body and the imagination to help alleviate anxiety, depression and a whole range of issues we deal with on a daily basis. In other words it deals with anxiety and depression indirectly through a technique rather than directly focusing on the presenting problem and expecting the solution to be implemented literally. Good psychotherapy honours the symbolic nature of awareness.
Other therapies like Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and Psychodynamic Therapy, two very different types of therapy, approach problems indirectly as well. CBT therapists may often encourage positive behaviours and thoughts to deal with anxiety and depression while psychodynamic therapists may highlight defensive denial and rationalizations to deal with lack of awareness about the origins of anxiety and depression.
In conclusion, psychologists use therapies just like physiotherapists use therapies to address problems. Physiotherapists often dont treat the distress where it hurts so to speak but approach the problem from the perspective of how it is connected to the rest of the body/mind system. A pain in ones leg may be treated by manipulating the spine. Similarly, we all know the value of a massage when we are emotionally stressed by lifes pressures. So too a psychologist can address an issue of low self esteem indirectly by encouraging a person to develop their vocation or career. A good fit between job and person will always make one feel and think better about oneself. Both psychologist and physiotherapists recognize the interconnectedness of the mind/body system and they tailor their therapies accordingly. What we present as a problem may have is origin elsewhere and its solution may require us to use our imagination.
Bacash Medtitation Therapy
Meditation is a simple and effortless technique that has been used to alleviate suffering and promote healing for thousands of years. It is a regressive technique that reduces a persons defences; it encourages and assists unresolved issues to come to the surface.
Often anxiety can hold deeper feelings such as grief and loss at bay. Meditation can reduce the anxiety and release the underlying emotion. For this reason guidance is recommended if you are considering using meditation for relaxation and stress management.
When using meditation it is very important to separate therapeutic life from decision making about real-life issues. It can be dangerous to discover something in a meditative state and act on it in real-life.
Some people use meditation to achieve higher consciousness. However, this is a no-go area for people who are prone to psychosis. In fact, it can be dangerous even for people without psychosis because it promotes acting out rather than inner freedom.
Meditation is frequently confused with forms of concentration such as yoga, tai-chi, guided-imagery and visualizations. The purpose of these exercises is often to focus full and undivided attention on a specific aspect of the mind and/or body in order to achieve a certain goal, develop a certain skill or promote a specific pathway of internal inquiry. These forms of mental exercise have a specific deliberate agenda.
Meditation doesn't have an agenda. Meditation is experienced as random and non-directed. Meditation is about free association and involuntary affective consciousness.
Meditation techniques work by promoting day dreaming. By repeating a mantra, without deliberately concentrating on the procedure or word, a daydreaming state of mind is achieved. In this meditative state one stops deliberately searching for answers to problems that don't appear to have immediate answers. The pain or pleasure associated with an unresolved issue then surfaces directing ones thoughts or consciousness.
Our normal tendency is to try to manage our emotions, whether they are pleasurable or painful. In meditation we are encouraged to keep returning to our mantra recitation and breathing exercises as a way of stopping the tendency to hold onto or manage the emotion as a way of practicing openness to our experience. In this sense meditation can be thought of as an exercise for the mind- an exercise used to promote inner freedom and openness to experience, which can help one cope with the pressures of life.
You will often hear instructors telling people to let go. By allowing the emotions to sort themselves out we allow our unconscious sense of reality and safety to unify the apparently random thoughts and emotions. We allow our being to be more directed by peaceful instincts and not destructive ones.
The process of becoming more psychologically healthy is mostly unconscious. It is not something you figure out consciously so to speak. The synthesising of what appear to be random and unresolved; thoughts, feelings, instincts, ideas, desires, quests for happiness, truth and identity mostly happens unconsciously, if we exercise trust and openness. We live in accordance with this non-observable reality by being open to our experience rather than jumping to conclusions about apparently unresolvable problems.
Meditation encourages you to trust what you don't see. Trusting your unconscious sense of reality will stand you in good stead when you are required to act in the outer world of risk. Meditation can train you to develop the habit of trusting yourself, and by doing so, break the habit of worrying. In the sense that it is a technique which encourages the habit of trust, it promotes your creative innate capacities to love and seek happiness: worry does the opposite.
Meditation techniques ought to be used under the supervision of a treating psychiatrist for people prone to psychotic episodes.