The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and Amazon.com. Here's a question I received on meditation. What comes to your mind when I say meditation? My mind goes down two different paths. One is, "Oh, I really enjoy that," and another one is, "Oh, that's weird stuff." So let's talk about this.

Hello, Dr. Kenner. I am wondering about your thoughts on meditation. My thought is that it can be useful, but too often people meditate to repress emotions as opposed to feeling them. Thank you, Randyll. Randyll, I agree with you that meditation can be useful, very useful, and it can be used to shift the blame, move away from those emotions that are kind of torturing you, and repress emotions, push them down, try not to feel them, and try just to put on a blank face or a smiley face. So let's talk about the upside, first of meditation. On the positive side, I love relaxation exercises, and that's a form of meditation, and I think many people enjoy relaxation exercises. For me, when I've taken my yoga classes, at the end, we usually end with a minute or two. You know, every minute counts, but with relaxation and meditation, maybe it's five minutes. And I just love that period of time. You do all these wonderful stretches, and then you reward yourself at the end, even though the stretches are wonderful too, with just being able to relax your mind, relax your body, and maybe think of something good. Sometimes it's a little bit guided. The yoga teacher may say something, you know, a phrase, or focus on something good in your life. So just a suggestion. Sometimes the suggestions she makes I cringe at, and I go in my own direction.

But I also used relaxation, or what you might call meditation, in my therapy practice, when it was appropriate, obviously. So say someone came in and after getting to know them, they're very tense, they've got a lot of anxiety. I might teach them how to do a progressive muscle relaxation, where you tense, you start at one end of your body, and you just will start at your feet now, but tense your feet, and then you relax. And then you tense your calves and relax them. You go through your body progressively. That's where the word progressive comes in. And you tense, and then relax. And the relaxing is so wonderful in contrast to the tension that your body just has a wonderful response of relaxing.

Also, I would use guided relaxation interventions with my clients, and sometimes they involve cognitive therapy suggestions or guidance that helped a person not only relax but focus on what was most important in their life. And "important" is an interesting word because important can mean very good in your life. My career, my kids are very important, and maybe they would come to a realization that, "Oh, my God, I'm not spending enough time with my kids. I want to spend more time with them," and they feel excited about doing that. That's a wonderful experience to become aware that that's a top value that you're letting you're putting on the back burner. You don't want to do that. Or "important" can mean something very negative. What if I lose my job? I think there's a good chance that that could happen. Well, it's good to focus on that because then you can come up with contingency plans. What if I lose my job? What if I don't? Can I ask for a raise? I was about to say, but you probably, if you think you're about to lose your job, you wouldn't go asking for a raise. But I guess depending on the circumstances, but you focusing on what's important in your life is crucial, and sometimes these guided exercises, guided relaxation, can help you.

So I've used relaxation, or what you might call meditation, guided relaxation, with people who are anxious or maybe they're coping with an illness or a medical condition, and they can gain some skills to relax both muscular tension and mental tension, and it can help them become more self-aware, mentally and physically. And what I've just mentioned helps them explore what's most important to them, and even one step further, what they could do better for themselves. Maybe they talk to themselves in ways that are like a critical parent. "Why did I do that? I'm so stupid," or "I'm always a loser," or "Nobody will ever like me." Maybe they can come up with alternative self-talk that rings true to them. "Wait, I've had friends in the past. I'm capable of that," and that's wonderful.

So let's talk about the word meditation because that covers a broad spectrum of activities, and I think where that's where the confusion lies, unlike a simple word like sitting or standing, you know, which we can easily observe. The word meditation has a mental component, a psychological component, and that varies greatly in its meaning and in its practice. For different people, it has a mystical connotation, which is not surprising because where was meditation derived from? Eastern religions.

So on the downside of meditation, hey, I got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds, that's it. A very quick ad, and then Alan will be back.

Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw? Here it is. The Selfish Path to Romance, a serious romance guidebook. Download chapter one for free at selfishromance.com and buy it on Amazon.com. Hmm. The Selfish Path to Romance, that is interesting.

So on the downside of meditation, sometimes people use meditation to run away from their problems. For example, say you're an alcoholic, you don't want to meditate so that you can forget you're an alcoholic. You want to be able to take healthier actions. Now, you don't want to empty your mind either. You know, what does that mean to empty your mind? Now that's not the same as quieting your mind or analyzing an emotion, introspection, focusing on good things in your life. These are all things you can do when you're meditating, you know, and it can be very helpful if you're feeling on emotional overload or you're conflicted or confused or anxious or depressed. Sometimes just taking a station break and pausing and relaxing and focusing on something better changes your mood, and you're able to cope better or reduce some of the confusion.

There are many other skills to do that too. In a more bizarre use of the term meditation, an acquaintance of mine, who I happen to like, teaches meditation to help her students get to the other side. Now, that doesn't mean the other side of the street. That means the other side to life beyond death, and for me, that's totally irrational thinking. I don't know what she's teaching them, but it's just weird. So that type of meditation, I would never endorse. So I enjoy a lot of meditation. I enjoy massages, which is a form of relaxation. I enjoy something called the Alexander Technique, where I learned how to focus on the mind-body connection. It's kind of a self-administered biofeedback. And I learned how to relax my shoulders and my back and my jaw. You know how we can tense our jaw when we're thinking in ways that have reduced the pain, or I just don't have back pain anymore, and I used to have it. And the most powerful meditation that I've ever been in was when I did an exercise where they used music, which evoked all emotions, from gentle to real anger and powerful emotions. And boy, that was very profound.

So meditation, relaxation, I think, is great as long as it's on the rational side of things. For more Dr. Kenner podcast, go to DrKenner.com and please listen to this. Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner. Imagine you're a woman on a first date with a dashing, handsome man. You're immediately sexually and emotionally attracted to him. The chemistry seems solid, but then your friend in the police department warns you that this man is a well-known con man who has left broken and domestically abused women in his wake. What do you feel now? Notice what happens to your so-called chemistry; your new knowledge changes your appraisal of him according to your value standards, and your emotions change as a result from admiration and pleasure to disgust, instantaneously. Chemicals did not cause your new knowledge.

You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy The Selfish Path to Romance on Amazon.com.