A Note From George (October 2017)

In October, on the Vipassana side, Morning Meditation will explore emotional regulation, working with the Noting Feeling States technique. This technique brings sensory clarity to the embodied emotional experience and develops equanimity with emotional reactivity. We will then explore the personal, conditioned, emotional-regulation system we each developed in our family systems, with attention on developing antidotes to negative self-talk using the Investigating Self-Generated Emotion meditation strategy. On the Metta side, we will begin a Forgiveness Practice cycle. 

Registration for Mettagroup’s March 2018 The Meaningful Life Intensives open on October 15th. There are 20 spaces maximum in each training (we expect full trainings, just saying). Intensives meet twice a month on Wednesday evenings.

The Meaningful Life Level 1 training offers basic instruction in Buddhist theory, Attachment Theory, and meditation technique with an emphasis on developing a daily practice. This training is appropriate for people at any level of meditation practice (even people without a practice), and is a prerequisite for the next levels of training.

We’re also very excited to offer The Meaningful Life Level 2 Intensive for the first time. In this class, the basic instructions from Level 1 will be put to good use exploring the nature of attachment strategies as they manifest in daily life. Working with a meditation mentor, your attachment strategy will be individually evaluated so you can develop the meditation-based, metacognitive skills necessary to shift your relationships toward secure functioning. A great part of our excitement in offering Level 2 is that each class will include practice of Daniel Brown’s Idealized Parent Figure protocol, a meditation strategy for remapping the internalized working model of self and world toward earned security. To be eligible for this class, you will need to have completed a Level 1 training or any of the previous The Meaningful Life or Meditation Interventions for the Addiction Process trainings we’ve offered in the past. (If you have any questions about eligibility, please call the office to discuss.)

In addition, we plan to offer a Meditation Interventions for the Addiction Process (MIAP) Intensive in March as well. We need to have at least 15 registered students to make the offering, and as of today we have 13 people on our interest list. MIAP is a relapse prevention training structured around G. Alan Marlatt’s relapse prevention research, focusing on four of the main pathways to relapse (Craving and Urging; Stress, Anger and Depression; Persistent Negative Emotions; and Difficult Interpersonal Relationships), so you can develop strategies to stay on the path. The training is for both substance and process addictions (most people have a combination of both), and works with both abstinence and harm reduction models. We believe that the underlying cause of addiction is attachment disturbance, and we emphasize in this training relationship skills development and attachment repair. Please sign up on our MIAP interest list, and when we have enough interest we will schedule the training (hopefully in March!).

If you have any questions about these upcoming intensives, please call the office at 213-478- 0489 to set up a phone call with me, and I will happily answer any questions.

On a personal note, if you are in New York this fall through the spring, I will be showing 80 of my photographs, five of my films, and on a couple of occasions reading some of my poetry as part of Club 57 at MoMA. The show if focusing on the work of artists who were active in New York’s Lower East Side from 1979 to 1983, a period that is increasingly compared to Paris in the early 1920s. The opening is on Halloween. What to wear? What to wear?

Happy sitting everyone, love to you,
George