How mindfulness meditation redefines pain, happiness & satisfaction | Dr. Kasim Al-Mashat | TEDxSFU

Translator: Rhonda Jacobs Reviewer: Peter van de Ven I'm here to talk about the elephant in the room. I know, but it's there for all of us, one way or another. It's this dis

satisfaction

and un

happiness

with what we have in our lives. Maybe if you're here or watching this, you've got all the basics covered: food, water, safety, shelter. But somehow we long for something more. As a psychologist, I have really seen how we all want to be happy, but we keep chasing it in the future. And I know it myself very well, because I had everything in life.

I had loving support, education, career, but it wasn't enough and that really frustrated me. I finally discovered the real and obvious reason. It's really obvious. It is our mind. You really get distracted and lost in the negative, and find it difficult to be here in the present moment. What helped me see that so clearly was

mindfulness

meditation

. I found it in research in my field and started using it with clients. And that led me on a personal journey, which eventually led me to this ridiculous feeling of what I had to do, which was to leave everything in my life and go on a six-month

meditation

retreat in Southeast Asia, at a monastery in the forest. silent.

I tell you, it was the most difficult, unpleasant and

pain

ful six months of my life. (Laughs) But it really taught me profound lessons that have inspired me to be here today. So I'm here to share with you my personal insights and professional understanding of

mindfulness

meditation in the hope that you'll give it a chance, so you can see for yourself how it can redefine the way we approach

happiness

, fulfillment. and reduce the suffering in our lives from the

pain

that is already there. Well, back to some not-so-good news about our mind: It has a tendency to have a negativity bias, or evolutionary psychologists refer to it as a survival mechanism.

So if there is a bunny in the bushes and there are sounds, our mind is ready for a stress response, for a flight or fight response. Actually I did it the other way around. (Laughter) fight or flight response. Even if there is only one bunny, we are preparing for a tiger. And neuropsychologists refer to this as if our brain is like Velcro for negatives. (Thoop) He clings to the negatives. Anyone familiar with that? Just wait. And being like Teflon fabric is positive. (Whoosh) Letting them all escape. Okay, so it's not all bad news. With advances in neuroscience, mindfulness meditation has been shown to change the structure of our brain.

And it is not necessary to make a six-month withdrawal in a . That's the good news. Even in eight weeks of mindfulness programs, practicing 40 to 45 minutes a day, we can improve concentration, decision making, compassion, and life

satisfaction

. So what exactly is mindfulness meditation? It is a form of meditation and basically trains the brain to be present. It is based on thousands of years of wisdom tradition in Asia. And one way to do this is to put our attention on the belly to observe our breathing. But we do it in a particular way, or as Jon Kabat-Zinn, who brought mindfulness to medicine, which is quite big, in fact, defines it in four words: we pay attention on purpose, that is, with an intention.

And in the present moment, right now, and the hardest part for all of us: not judging. Very hard. So let's say this is our attention. We place it right on the belly. Guess what is going to happen to our mind? (Whoo) We're going to get distracted. But, without pressing against the thoughts or hating them, or clinging to them, good or bad, back. Now, if you want, you can get a sense of that, if you want to join me, by placing your hand on your belly, and we're just going to look at two breaths. Natural inhalation; natural exhalation.

Even slightly. Inhale Exhale. Inhale Exhale. Well, now, when we do that, and some of you may have noticed, there will be thoughts, emotions or sensations. But we don't get lost in them. We return our attention. And every time we do that, guess what we're doing to our brain? We are strengthening the muscles of the brain, all the time. It's a gym exercise for the brain. And in the process of doing that, with patience (I mean, it takes a lot of patience) and with compassion, we learn to work with our minds and be present with whatever is here.

We don't have to like what's here. When I first arrived at the forest monastery, I asked the monk, "Is it true that there are poisonous snakes in the compound?" He said, "Yes, yes. Deadly. Deadly." (Laughter) "Just stay away from them. Walk carefully." Excellent. (Laughs) "Use a flashlight at night." And I love this one too: "Check your meditation cushion before you sit on it." (laughs) I mean...he could have died. That was, you know, a possibility. But the best part, he said, is "send them love." (Laughter) "They were here before us." Well, Mr. Monk, I wasn't ready for that yet. (Laughs) But I did notice, even before I went on this long retreat, I noticed some changes in my mind and how I reacted, just from the daily meditation.

One day I got stuck in a traffic jam, very early in the morning, at 5:40, on my way to the gym, and unexpectedly. And, instead of the usual, "Why aren't these people moving?", getting tense, agitated, and the mind thinking, "This is going to be a horrible day. I'm late for some things," what surprised me is how which I heard and thought, "Oh, interesting." The thought? "I hope no one gets hurt." Maybe there was an accident, or maybe it was construction and those workers were up all night, and I started wishing them well. "May you be safe today." Now, I was still late, so that didn't change, but I didn't fall into a spiral of negativity of the mind.

And it really showed me, "Wow, it was worth working that muscle and the daily practice." So, let's put together what I shared so far, with a little illustration. Imagine this is pain. It could be anything. Let's just say, stomach pain. The signals travel to the brain. If you imagine it, this is our brain, our mind, relatively calm. Now we have a sign of pain. But the thing do not ends there. We generally don't love it. We hate it, we flail, and we wish it wasn't there. And then what we do is we let the negativity seep into the rest of our mind. "Because I?" "Why is this happening?" And then?

We shake everything up with negativity. "What kind of horrible thing is this." We care. And instead of being present with the pain? Our mind takes us for a ride. I know this very well because I experienced it deeply on this forest retreat. You see, the honeymoon phase of “Ahh, following my dream, meditating for so long” (Laughs) ended after the first night. (Laughter) You know, everything that brought me happiness, or I thought brought me happiness, was ripped out from under my legs. The people I love have no technology, no social media, no internet, just isolation and deprivation.

And there was a wake-up call in the morning, at 3 in the morning, every day. But it wasn't that nice sound of (Ding), (Laughter) "Good morning, Kasim." No, it wasn't that, it was (Boom, boom, boom) every morning - amazing - that started our 13-14 hours of daily meditation. In the heat with those adorable insects, scorpions, yes, scorpions. In fact, someone got stung by one while he was sitting on his cushion when I was there, so... (Laughs) And sleeping on this beautiful wooden bed with just a little bit of foam. Daily hunger. Why the last meal of the day?

Guess what? Lunch. And when? 10:30 in the morning. (Laughs) That was the reality. So every time my mind shook with that pain, it was crushing. I felt trapped. In fact, one night I woke up screaming from all of this. I really saw how when we start to fight and resist our reality, it gets worse. Things started to change for me when I started to see pain as pain and saw so clearly that it was my mind that was creating the suffering, which is optional. Wow. All I have to do is be in this moment. And mindfulness showed me that we can be in the eye of the storm.

Watch it all happen, moment by moment. And there is so much freedom in trusting impermanence in that way. And then, really bear our pain with great compassion. Because it's already painful. You don't need to hate him anymore; just stay with that. You know, there's a psychiatrist, Viktor Frankl, who said, "Choice is the last human freedom." Choice. I learned that using mindfulness is a choice. And even when I felt like all my freedoms had been taken away from me, I experienced freedom right here. And my biggest epiphany is that happiness and fulfillment are not in the distant future, or when I return home, they will actually be available to all of us in every moment.

It flourishes naturally from a calm, non-agitated and peaceful state of mind. So I want to leave you with this... - Oh, that was me - (Laughter) I want to leave you with this acronym that captures some of my learning, and I hope you use it when you find yourself lost in any type of suffering. AND IT'S LOST. The first letter: L. Just know that you are lost in suffering and thoughts. Return to the present moment. Or: Offer loving kindness. You don't have to like pain; just hold it with compassion. Look and smile. See pain as pain, or joy as joy, without the additional agitation of the mind.

And smile knowing you just did that. And T to breathe deeply, knowing that you are not alone; We are all dealing with the condition of the mind. So I invite you to join me in breathing deeply through your nose. (Inhale and exhale. (Exhale) So, to summarize: if we don't retrain the brain, it can cause additional pain, and the training can start with mindfulness meditation. It is not a quick fix with magical results, nor will it make us immune to life's challenges. But imagine, imagine if half of us created a daily meditation practice to be more present in life with the good and the bad, offer more compassion and feel more moments of contentment and happiness, and let that blossom naturally from a state mental which is more peaceful.

That's a recipe for positive change and it can start with you. Thank you. (Applause)