First up in this year long series of retreats was the Cultivating Emotional Balance Teacher\u00a0Training Led by Eve Ekman ( The Daughter of Paul Ekman ) and Alan Wallace. The\u00a0original reason i wanted to do this training was mostly to spend some time with Alan Wallace personally. For those of you who are not\u00a0familiar with him , i highly\u00a0recommend\u00a0you check him out. He has written many books on practical meditation practice with a deep\u00a0appreciation of modern science, as well as\u00a0criticizing views in modern science that are not based on fact and harmful to\u00a0society. Such as the stand point of scientific\u00a0materialism, which claims the only things that are real and important are physical and quantifiable, reducing the\u00a0enormous capacity and mystery of the mind to complex configurations of brain activity. I’ll be writing much of his framework here, but if i could recommend one book that was the basis of this training it would be “Genuine\u00a0Happiness”. In addition to Alan, I was interested in\u00a0receiving a\u00a0credible training and certification to teach a complex framework of meditation in a secular fashion, that would be\u00a0beneficial across many areas. What i actually experienced from this training was far more than i would have anticipated and I am\u00a0incredibly\u00a0grateful to have the\u00a0opportunity\u00a0to be a part of it.<\/p>\n
From the CEB Web site:<\/p>\n
“Cultivating Emotional Balance is a research project, which arose from a dialogue between biobehavioral scientists studying emotion and the Dalai Lama, Buddhist monks, and scholars at the Mind and Life Institute in Dharamsala, India in March of 2000. This meeting was one in a series sponsored by the Mind and Life Institute to foster an interchange between Buddhist tradition and Western science.<\/p>\n
At this meeting, the Dalai Lama asked scientists if they could conduct research to determine whether or not secularized Buddhist practices would be helpful to Westerners dealing with “destructive” emotional experiences. In response to this request, Dr. Paul Ekman and Dr. B. Alan Wallace, developed a training program that integrated Buddhist contemplative practices with Western techniques for dealing with negative emotional experiences. The training\u2019s purpose is to reduce emotional responses that are destructive to self and others and enhance compassion and empathy. This research project, “Cultivating Emotional Balance In Challenging Times” (CEB), is the result of that interchange.”<\/p>\n
The training was broken down into two parts. For the first two weeks we would spend time with Eve Ekman Learning emotional skills based on the framework of her father Paul Ekman. The last 3 weeks would be a retreat led by Alan focusing on attentional\u00a0balance (shamatha\u00a0meditation), cognitive balance (the four applications of mindfulness) and conative \/ emotional balance (the four\u00a0immeasurables).<\/p>\n
I’ll start with a summary of the emotional skills which is the western\u00a0psychological portion of the training. If your interested in learning more most of the material can be found in the book “Emotions Revealed” by Paul Ekman.<\/p>\n
The idea of emotional balance is not to get rid of our emotions. Emotions are\u00a0necessary aspects of our\u00a0conscious experience. Not only is it not possible to turn them off I’m not sure anyone would really want to. There are\u00a0obviously the emotions that we enjoy, and then ones we don’t and sometimes wish they would go away. There isn’t a problem with the\u00a0constructive ones, but its the destructive ones we would like to have better control over. Among the seven major families of emotions ( Anger, Fear, Sadness, Disgust, Contempt,\u00a0Surprise\u00a0 Happiness) any one of them can be experienced in a constructive or\u00a0destructive\u00a0way. \u00a0Constructive emotions furthers\u00a0cooperation\/collaboration\u00a0between\u00a0you\u00a0and\u00a0the\u00a0other\u00a0person(s)\u00a0in\u00a0a\u00a0way\u00a0that\u00a0will\u00a0benefit\u00a0humanity,\u00a0or\u00a0at\u00a0least\u00a0not\u00a0be\u00a0harmful\u00a0to\u00a0the\u00a0other\u00a0person\u00a0or\u00a0to\u00a0others\u00a0who\u00a0are\u00a0not\u00a0present. Destructive emotions create conflict and\u00a0separation and may led to\u00a0regrettable\u00a0episodes.<\/p>\n
Cultivating\u00a0Emotional\u00a0Balance\u00a0means\u00a0creating\u00a0choice<\/em><\/strong>: One of the most\u00a0surprising things i learned about emotions is what the they actually are ! They are short (ones that tend to linger are actually re triggering of the same emotion or may turn into a mood), they have a quick onset, they are unbidden and happen to us not by us, they involve a quick automatic\u00a0appraisal, they have\u00a0universal\u00a0triggers, they produce a refractory period that filters and focuses what\u00a0information is available to us, they contain physical and psychological\u00a0components. Emotions are so complex it difficult to really define them , but easier to list\u00a0characteristics\u00a0of them, this list above is not the whole picture but some of the more interesting aspects. The take away for me is that for the most part the onset of emotions are mostly out of our control, they happen to us quickly in response to triggers from the\u00a0environment, once they arise they filter our experience such that we only see the world through the lens of that emotion. From a psychological perspective we cant really do much about the arising of emotions, what we can do is notice that we have been caught in their grip as quickly as possible and then choose if we wish to act in\u00a0response\u00a0to them. That is where the meditative component can make a big difference (more on that later).<\/p>\n To briefly give an overview of emotions ill describe whats called the emotional episode timeline. As we experience the world around us we are\u00a0automatically appraising the\u00a0appearances\u00a0to our senses. Information from our\u00a0environment is being checked\u00a0against our emotional alert database, which is the stored collection of our triggered experiences from the past as well as universal triggers for emotions. Triggers are those things that set us off\u00a0emotionally, some of them are\u00a0biologically\u00a0ingrained and universal while others are learned. When something we experience matches a trigger in our database the process has begun. The affect program takes effect and we begin to experience preset and learned changes in our\u00a0physiology. Shortly after that begins the refractory period where we are caught in the grip of the emotion and our cognitive frame of reference filters our experience in a way that reinforces the emotion. We then act either\u00a0physically or\u00a0mentally, in a reactive way if we are unaware of the emotion or in a mindful way if we can bring in some\u00a0awareness.<\/p>\n This process happens very quickly, and may happen again and again as we spin in emotion. Once we understand that this is going on what can we do about it ? The most important is to see if we can be aware of the spark before the flame, increase the gap between\u00a0impulse\u00a0and action. If we can, through self reflection, become aware of what our triggers are ? What sets us off ? What are the common themes to our emotional reactions. We can prepare for situations that we know have a high likely hood to cause an emotional response. At the time we are triggered, when the very first signs of an emotion arises, if through developing our\u00a0awareness\u00a0skills we can recognize that an emotion has arisen we can stop the onset of the refractory period and have greater freedom in our choice of action.<\/p>\n In the training we went through each of the 7 emotional\u00a0families to\u00a0understand, what are our own triggers, what are the universal facial and physical\u00a0responses to these emotions. Through various\u00a0exercises of recalling memories, role playing, creating facial\u00a0expressions we would gain greater\u00a0awareness of each emotion to be able to\u00a0recognize it as soon as it is present.<\/p>\n Understanding this much alone is a great basis for\u00a0beginning\u00a0to develop some freedom from your\u00a0destructive\u00a0emotions. Although coupled with the contemplative\u00a0components of developing greater\u00a0awareness, attentional control, seeing what reality is presenting and what you are superimposing on reality and cultivating qualities of the heart some real changes can occur.<\/p>\n More on the contemplative part coming soon.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" First up in this year long series of retreats was the Cultivating Emotional Balance Teacher\u00a0Training Led by Eve Ekman ( The Daughter of Paul Ekman ) and Alan Wallace. The\u00a0original […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":23,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[2,3,5,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-362","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-balance","category-ceb","category-happiness","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
\n\u2022 Whether\u00a0to\u00a0engage\u00a0emotionally
\n\u2022 If\u00a0you\u00a0do\u00a0engage,\u00a0to\u00a0have\u00a0a\u00a0choice\u00a0over\u00a0how\u00a0to\u00a0engage
\n\u2022 Have\u00a0your\u00a0emotions\u00a0work\u00a0for\u00a0you\u00a0not\u00a0against\u00a0you
\n\u2022 Have\u00a0your\u00a0experience\u00a0of\u00a0emotions\u00a0be\u00a0constructive\u00a0not\u00a0destructive<\/p>\n