"Hear; see; smell; touch and taste all that you encounter."
A healthy appetizer of meditation is a delicious beginning; a palate-cleansing gelato. Clearing one's mind, much like clearing the palate, will provide a significant improvement in your sense of taste.
Learning to relax, being led through gentle breathing exercises, experiencing the calmness of becoming less aware of "usual" thoughts and exercising your mind's ability to let thoughts "come and go."
Mindfulness allows you to further focus on the "here and now." The emphasis is on that millisecond between past and future, further allowing you to examine strengths and weaknesses in relation to future relationships and life challenges. In addition to these new insights, nonjudgmental self-observation of one's life history through Naikan can readily improve your relationships and enhance the quality of your future.
Get Connected presents a brief introduction to meditation, mindfulness and the Japanese introspective method of Naikan. It provides definitions of each and guidelines for practice. It challenges you to use them in daily life.
The consistent emphasis is on the here and now. It is to be thought of as an immediate, in-the-moment encounter to influence the quality of your future relationships with self and others.
Get Connected encourages you to be skeptical, yet open; curious, yet cautious, about forgiveness, mindfulness and the intense self-reflection of Naikan.
Meditation and Mindfulness are probably relatively familiar practices to you. However, Naikan may well be a new concept. Developed in Japan in the early twentieth century, Naikan advances your ability to focus on past and present relationships. It combines meditation and mindfulness with the answers to three questions: what gifts have I received from another person, what gifts have I given them and what trouble have I caused them. The answers to these questions will prompt new and long ignored memories of these past relationships. New awareness is developed which allows for significant positive thoughts and feelings regarding past, present and future relationships and life challenges. In my work I have added group discussion and person-to-person interaction, which further enhances the quality of the experience.
It is anticipated that your curiosity will open you to additional readings and experiences in your future. Read and enjoy: focus on practicing meditation, mindfulness and Naikan. The results will be astonishing! You will not be disappointed! Anticipate a life changing experience! No lie!
About the Author: Dr. Manuel S. Silverman earned his PhD degree in Psychology from Northwestern University. He trained psychologists at the graduate level, specializing in psychotherapy supervision. He taught at Loyola University Chicago from 1968 until retirement in 2002. He was also invited to lecture in the United States, Mexico, Canada, Singapore and the Philippines. As a professor, he authored two books and many journal articles. He also moderated a local mental health television show in Chicago. Since academic retirement, he has pursued training in meditation, mindfulness and Naikan. He attended numerous classes and workshops, culminating in residential training and certification as a Naikan instructor. He left his clinical practice in 2016, choosing to focus on presenting workshops on Meditation, Mindfulness and Naikan. His current goal encompasses educating the general public about well-documented, scientifically-proven methods contributing to the attainment of contentment, self-other acceptance and life satisfaction.
