Transcript
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This is Crappita Happy and I am your host, Cas Dunn.
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I'm a clinical and coaching psychologist. I'm mindfulness meditation teacher
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and of course author of the Crappita Happy books. In
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this show, I bring you conversations with interesting, inspiring, intelligent
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people who are experts in their field and who have
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something of value to share that will help you feel
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less crappy and more happy. Hello and welcome to another
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solo episode of the Crappita Happy Podcast. Today, I want
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to talk about mindfulness meditation. But before you switch channels
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because you don't want to hear about mindfulness meditation, what
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I want to talk today about is when is mindfulness
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meditation perhaps not the answer? When is it not good
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for you? And what are some of the circumstances in
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which it might be really helpful to consider what some
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of those adverse effects might be. Anybody who knows me
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knows that I'm a big fan of mindfulness meditation. And
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somebody asked me last week if I could share with
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her some resources demonstrating the benefits of mindfulness meditation. She
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asked me because she was trying to convince somebody else
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who was skeptical about the practice of mindfulness and meditation,
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And of course my first response was, of course, there's
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so much research. How could anybody be skeptical because I've
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been practicing and teaching it for so long, and I
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am really a huge fan and very familiar with what
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some of the studies are that have proven the benefits
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of mindfulness for physical and mental health and improving overall wellbeing.
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I'm obviously a huge fan. Just from the perspective of
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any kind of behavior change as a therapist and as
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a coach, I think if we want to make changes
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to our patterns of thinking and behavior, the ways that
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we kind of undo ourselves and sabotage ourselves, and the
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old patterns that we repeatedly fall into in our lives,
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I think we have to start with a level of
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mindful awareness, that is, being able to observe ourselves in
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the moment, to see what we're doing, to watch what's
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happening as it's happening with no judgment, to bring that
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element of curiosity to ourselves in order to be able
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to pause and choose a different response, to be able
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to recognize a pattern of behavior is unhelpful, and to
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be able to then choose a more wise response and
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to be able to do that with kindness and compassion.
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So even as a coach, I feel like having that
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base level, that foundation of mindfulness, that mindful awareness, the
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capacity to be able to observe ourselves and what's happening
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around us and within us without judgment is just key.
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And then when you add to that all of the
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reported benefits to your wellbeing, reducing relapse rates, depression, helping
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you manage stress, anxiety, improved communication in relationships, physical benefits,
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improved experience of pain, lengthening of telomeres like reducing signs
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of aging and illness, thicker gray matter, and your brain.
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I could go on and on and on. To me,
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it seems like a no brainer. Of course mindfulness meditation
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is good for you. But when I was asked this question,
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I thought, well, in the spirit of me being mindful,
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noticing my own automatic response the path that I go down,
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wanting to just say, of course, mindfulness is great, why
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wouldn't everybody be practicing mindfulness meditation, I thought, well, maybe
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I need to pause and check myself and have a
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look into what are some of the times or situations
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when maybe mindfulness meditation is not the right thing. What
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are potentially some of the adverse experiences that people have
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when they try to practice mindfulness meditation? And I think
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this also came about. I felt this was important because
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when I was supporting a friend of mine a while
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ago who was delivering a mindfulness teacher training, I was
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asked the question, what about if a student, for example,
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has experienced trauma, like, how do we be aware of
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people's trauma when my teaching mindfulness meditation? Bearing in mind
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that these people who were taking this teacher training are
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not mental health professionals, and so my response in that
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situation had been, I think we need to treat everything
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as trauma informed. We need to practice trauma informed everything.
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By that, I mean a significant proportion of the population
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has experienced some trauma. So my view is classrooms, workplaces, courses, classes,
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anybody we interact with, I believe we should all be
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practicing trauma informed behaviors. And so I guess my response was,
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there are certain things that you can do in a class,
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and the way that you manage a classroom situation if
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you're teaching a group of students and you don't know
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what they're history, is that you would do things in
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such a way as to be mindful that some people
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may have a traumatic background, empower people to make their
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own decisions about what they're comfortable with, what they're not,
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give people permission to participate, to not participate, et cetera,
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et cetera. But then afterwards I thought, well, maybe that
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wasn't really a full response, and maybe it is worth
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and I do believe now it is worth equipping people,
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particularly people teaching mindfulness and people who are practicing mindfulness,
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for them to have some awareness of what might happen
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when you're practicing mindfulness meditation if you have a history
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of trauma. And so that's what I mean also by
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a potential adverse experience or an adverse reaction to a
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mindfulness meditation. So with that little bit of context, I
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thought today I would just like to spend a bit
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of time explaining what some of the research has been
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because I did dig up some research which is looking
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at what the adverse reported effects potentially can be from
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mine meditation, and also just cover a little bit of
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this trauma stuff. So if you are looking at initiating
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a mindfulness meditation practice, if you're looking at taking a
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class learning mindfulness, if you are teaching mindfulness meditation, then
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what are some of the things that we all need
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to probably be a little bit more aware of, Because
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in my experience as a student for many years of
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mindfulness meditation, typically if you are not comfortable, if you're
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not having a good experience, if you're struggling with meditation,
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the answer always seems to be, sit with it, take
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it back to the cushion, observe, be curious, allow All
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feelings are welcome. All experience is a welcome observe without judgment.
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But sometimes that can be really difficult for people if
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the experience that they're having is deeply, deeply distressing because
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of a personal history, for example, of trauma. So let's
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just start with I hopped online and I started to
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look has there been research done into the adverse effects
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of mindfulness meditation, And recently there have been some analysis
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done meta analysis looking at a whole big bunch of
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mindfulness research studies and looking at what the adverse experiences
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were that were reported. By and large, the summary, like
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the net result of all of these studies was that
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mindfulness meditation does improve people's experience of depression, anxiety, stress,
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and improves the overall well being. That's a fact. Some
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of the analysis found that mindfulness didn't necessarily improve people's
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experience any more so than, for example, physical exercise or
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some other sort of mental health intervention. I think that's
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fair enough. I think you know, we already know that
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mindfulness can be as effective, for example, as CBT, So
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it's not like and different people respond differently to different
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kind of interventions. So I'm not sure that we're necessarily
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saying it is the one thing that is going to
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help improve your mental health. But it certainly is a
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thing and intervention a practice that is going to improve
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your mental health. The interesting thing was that many of
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these studies didn't actually measure adverse experiences. Obviously, when you
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do a research study, you're looking at, okay, well, I'm
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testing to see if this is going to be beneficial
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for people, you know, if it's going to improve their
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scores on depression scales or anxiety scales, improve their experience
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of mood, their wellbeing overall, et cetera, et cetera. But
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many of the studies were not actually looking for adverse experiences.
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They weren't asking people to report adverse experiences. So I
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guess that's an issue we probably need to be spending
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more time asking people to report adverse experiences. There have
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been some studies though, that show that people's scores on
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for example, a depression inventory are higher after they have
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completed a mindfulness intervention. So when I say mindfulness intervention,
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I'm talking about like when they do these studies, they
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will put people through like a four week course or
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an eight week course, where you go to class every
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week and you'll learn some mindfulness meditation skills, do some
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meditation in class, and then you go home and you
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practice each day and you get some instruction. So definitely,
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there have been some studies that have shown that people's
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scores are higher. There have been some other reports of
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people actually experiencing psychosis. So I read one particular case
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study of a man who had no mental health history
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who attended a the Passiona meditation program. Now this is
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a different thing. This is quite an intensive meditating all day,
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every day for a period of time. The partial courses
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are typically a ten day program. I've done one myself
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many years ago, but you can go for twenty days,
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thirty days, and this individual had attended two separate the
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Pasiona courses nine years apart, and after both of those experiences,
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the time that he spent in that intensive meditation, when
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he returned home, he had really paranoid delusions, thought his
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wife was having an affair, for people trying to kill him,
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thought his wife was trying to poison his food, stopped
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going to work, you know, really serious kind of psychotic episode.
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Needed to be medicated, and in the second instance, needed
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to be hospitalized. It's kind of a really different thing
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than what we're talking about with a brief mindfulness intervention,
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like an eight week course like I mentioned before. Those
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VI PASIONA programs are, like I said, intense. You're meditating
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from for example, four in the morning sometimes through until
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late at night. There is no contact with the outside world.
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These are the rules with these strict kind of a
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passion of courses. You don't have access to your phone,
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you're not supposed to speak to anybody, make eye contact
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with anybody. And for some people, and my understanding is
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that for the second program that he did, it was
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like a twenty day program, and it was by about
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day eighteen that they sent him home because he was
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getting aggressive and getting really paranoid, and so he had
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experienced sleep deprivation, that was fasting, he was only eating
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one meal a day. So I guess in that case,
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when you if you hear reports of that kind of
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adverse experience, that's quite a different scenario than what would
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be a typical mindfulness meditation course that the average person
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would would do to develop skills in mindfulness meditation. It
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is still really interesting and noteworthy, but I think what
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I have read is that they're not really sure did
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meditation cause psychosis or did were the other factors the fasting,
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the sleep deprivation, the sensory deprivation, And also is it
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that the meditation practice is putting stress on the individual
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which ultimately kind of induces this kind of a breakdown,
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this mental breakdown that happens in both cases. That guy,
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you know, he was hospitalized the second time around, he
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was medicated, and he made a full recovery by all accounts,
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And I guess the result of that that the upshot
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of all of that, the conclusion was that people are
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teaching mindfulness, they probably need to be more aware of
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potential adverse experienceperiences, and that mindfulness teachers need to be
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trained to be able to manage trained in mental health
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issues in case some of this comes up. But as
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a counter argument, I just wanted to make the point
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that it's really important to be clear about what you
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define as an adverse experience with mindfulness meditation, because if
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somebody reports that they feel more depressed, for example, if
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somebody reports that they feel more anxious, it could be
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argued that what mindfulness meditation is. The point of mindfulness
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meditation is to be more present with what is happening
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as it's happening, as opposed to distracting ourselves or engaging
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in unhelpful coping strategies. Unhelpful coping strategies are things that
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we do to manage feelings of discomfort, for example, drinking,
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online shopping, Facebook scrolling, compulsive busyness, just avoidance of anything
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that is particularly distressing or uncomfortable for us. Most of
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us spend a lot of our lives in avoidance, and
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the point of mindfulness meditation is to get present with
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what is actually happening in your life and in your world,
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in your emotional world, what is actually happening, and being
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able to sit with that. So, if somebody reports that
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they feel more depressed after they have practiced mindfulness meditation.
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It could well be that all mindfulness has done is
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remove the distraction, bring to their attention something that they've
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been very busy avoiding, which is not a bad thing.
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Like the point, once you're truthful, once you're honest, and
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once you can confront what is actually happening in your life,
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your unpleasant thoughts and feelings, well, then you take back
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the power to be able to make different decisions and
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make some choices about how you manage that that do
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not involve unhelpful, unhealthy hoping strategies that you might otherwise
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be engaging in. If somebody is talking about psychosis, we
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have to look at what else is going on. What
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are the circumstances in which this is occurring. Because practicing
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and sitting for fifteen minutes in meditation fifteen to thirty
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minutes and focusing on your breath, the idea that would
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trigger a psychotic episode is difficult to fathom, to be honest,
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unless there is something dormant that is there that is
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being uncovered. All I would say is that I think
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if we're going to look at adverse experiences, then we