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Peter Strong

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  • March 10, 2017 at 4:29 pm in reply to: Feeling worthless #138913
    Peter Strong
    Participant

    The most important thing you can do is to learn how to meditate on those inner feelings of shame and worthlessness. Such emotions, beliefs and thoughts constitute what we call the ‘Little Self’ in Mindfulness Therapy and work. This Little Self becomes isolated and disconnected from our ‘True Self’ which is our innate capacity for limitless love, consciousness, compassion and joy; our Buddha mind. Your ‘job’, if you choose to follow the path of mindfulness, is to reunite the two, and this we do through mindfulness meditation. You learn to meditate on the emotions and thoughts, the Little Self, themselves. You will probably benefit in some guidance on how to meditate like this, but it is definitely worth learning. The product of this kind of meditation work is that you will become more grounded in your True Self (boddhicitta) as you learn to love your Little Self. Hope that makes sense?

    The Boulder Center for Online Mindfulness Therapy

    February 5, 2016 at 6:52 am in reply to: Beating body dysmorphic disorder #95096
    Peter Strong
    Participant

    Self-hatred, shame and similar core emotions are not uncommon and usually result from childhood, being raised by parents who criticize and disapprove relentlessly. This leaves a deep emotional scar – a core emotion – that then leads to all kinds of emotional, cognitive and behavioral reactivity, including bulimia, BDD, addiction and depression.

    The mindfulness path does provide a way forward. Basically, and this is what I teach my online clients over and over again, you must change your relationship to those core emotions themselves by developing your True Self. No matter how unpleasant the emotions are, there is always a bigger aspect of your Self that can become aware of those emotions and that can respond with compassion to those core emotions. This is what must happen: to form a caring and conscious relationship between your True Self and the Little Self that is the core emotions. Learn to care for your shame or self-hatred just as you would care for an animal in pain.

    This process of building an internal relationship based on conscious love with your emotions is the practice of Mindfulness Meditation and is what I teach in great detail. It works extremely well for overcoming anxiety and the intense emotional reactivity that underlies BDD, food addictions and other addictions. So, learn to meditate on the emotions themselves. Cultivate love, not hatred towards those very emotions. This is what brings about transformation and healing better than any other approach I know of.

    Peter Strong
    Boulder Center for Online Mindfulness Therapy

    January 5, 2015 at 11:27 am in reply to: Self Discipline #70518
    Peter Strong
    Participant

    Take time to meditate on your emotions. In this case, meditate on the resistance to doing things. This is a vital part of developing self-discipline – meditate on the emotions of resistance, apathy, aversion and other hindrances that hold you back. Until you have fully taken care of these fearful parts of yourself you will not be able to progress. As you know, you cannot talk yourself into being more motivated. Why? Because talk-thinking-ego operates at a subordinate level to feelings. Change the feelings and the thoughts will follow. heal the resistance/aversion and you will “suddenly” find yourself much more motivated and energized.

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by tinybuddha.
    January 5, 2015 at 11:20 am in reply to: Stuck in the past….need help #70516
    Peter Strong
    Participant

    Take time to meditate on your emotions. The worse thing you can do (and what is often taught) is to try to avoid or argue with your thoughts, beliefs and emotions. The Buddha’s path of mindfulness is about liberation from the compulsive push-pull of thoughts rather than aversion to thoughts. You need to meditate on thoughts (cittanupassana vipassana) in order to develop freedom from thoughts. The best way to break fee from thoughts (and the grip of the past) is to welcome the thoughts and sit with them. In this way you learn how to be present with thoughts without becoming overwhelmed by them and identified with them.

    • This reply was modified 9 years, 10 months ago by tinybuddha.
    January 5, 2015 at 10:46 am in reply to: Anxiety… I need some support. #70460
    Peter Strong
    Participant

    To heal anxiety you must cultivate a mindfulness-based relationship with that anxiety. This means that you embrace the emotion with the combination of conscious awareness and compassion, which collectively is the essence of mindfulness. Change begins when you can become a genuine friend to you anxiety instead of our habit of avoiding or reacting with aversion to our anxiety and negative thoughts. This shift from aversion to mindfulness is subtle and needs guidance, but in my experience it is the most effective thing you can do to produce real and lasting change. You might try mindfulness therapy with someone experienced with this approach.

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