 Aloha and welcome back to Shrink Rap Hawaii and welcome back to me too. I was on a little vacation and it's a little nerve-wracking being here in the hot seat again, but I have my good buddy Tomas Cummings, PhD. Welcome Tomas. Thank you. And Tomas is the director of Mindful Matters in Kailua. And before we get into the nuts and bolts of that, I'd like to get to know you a little bit. Where are you from? Where'd you grow up? I grew up in the M states, Minnesota, Michigan, Missouri, and really grew up a lot later in Colorado and then moved to Hawaii in 99. Uh-huh. Yeah. Why all the moving around to the M states? It's just the nature of the economy at the time and my father's employment. I see. And how did you end up in Hawaii? I actually got my internship at the Honolulu VA and it was the first year for psychologists that did this computer matching and I ended up in paradise. Lucky you? Yeah. And obviously you stayed. When was that? 99. 1999, so 17 years ago? Yeah. Yeah. And so reading the little information that you sent to me and from our conversation way back when, meditation is an important part of your practice, is that right? Yes. It's part of my personal life, it's part of my therapy practice when clients are open to it. Yeah. You were saying before we started how meditation is hard. Yeah. Why is it so hard? It sounds like the easiest thing in the world, doing nothing. Yeah. It's actually elusive because there's not much in our culture that has us doing nothing. We've become human doings. We've forgotten how to be. We're always multitasking and we're rewarded for this, right? I mean, we're on the phone, we're texting at the same time, we're having conversation and drinking our coffee and some people are even driving while they're doing all that. Right. So it's a culture of multitasking, we're rewarded for it and we've long since forgotten how to sit and be still. And yet our brain needs this, our brain needs stillness in the awake mode. We can get stillness in our sleep but it's different. Meditation restores our brain in a way that sleep alone cannot do. So is it actually possible to think about nothing? I don't think so. I've tried. I've tried. Maybe if you grow up being a monk from a young boy or a young woman. But you know, meditation techniques that are approached by most normal human beings, not the supermeditators, involve focusing the mind on one thing, to still the mind. And using that as kind of a ground and every time the mind wanders, you notice, you bring it back to that one object of concentration. Like your breath? Yeah. The breath is the most common across centuries, across cultures, across the globe. The breath is a common focus of meditation. The breath, the body scans certain muscle groups, a mantra and TM, transcendental meditation. You're given a mantra. Right. It's a special word. It's a saying in Polyer Sanskrit. And you repeat that over and over again to serve as the object of focus. I'm so glad that you said that when I asked you, you know, is it possible to think about nothing because I had a discussion with somebody else who said that they meditate. And I've never found it possible to think about nothing, right? And this person said, oh yeah, I do that. And I was just, so I think they just weren't being honest. Yeah, I can't think about nothing. Yeah. I mean, thinking is a habitual behavior of our brain, if you will. It's really hard to rein in the brain. I think a key to being very successful in life is to be able to focus intently on one thing at a time so that you're fully present and not distracted. And the fact that, you know, what people have come to identify as a moment of happiness is when we're in flow and it's when we're totally in the moment of doing something in such a way as we're fully engaged without any other voice going, uh, you shouldn't have done that or you should do this or mom said this or you gotta do that, just totally in the moment. Right. Those are beautiful moments. That's the flow. Playing basketball, running on the beach, making love. Yeah. Yeah. Live for those moments. Yeah, we do. We do. Yeah. And so some of the resistance that I run into sometimes is when I talk about meditation, especially with people who are extremely anxious, is the first reaction, I just can't do that. Oh, that's a common reaction. Yeah. You couldn't walk when you first were learning to walk either. It takes a while. It's a skill we develop with regular practice over time. And that's what I see my role as as a psychotherapist is helping people steal the mind, helping them get a little more mental discipline because with anxiety, the mind goes and goes and goes way ahead thinking of all the possible things that could go wrong. Right. And focusing on that rather than focusing on success, focusing on, it would be folly not to think about what could go wrong and not to be prepared for that. You need to protect yourself, right? Yeah. We protected ourselves enough and after that, we're just kind of almost what Ram Dass calls praying for what we don't want to happen. Right. That's what worrying is, right? Like focusing on what we don't want to happen. So there's a myth in the mind that says, oh, we're protecting ourselves, but actually we're living in kind of a futuristic hell in how when we think about all the stuff that could go wrong, whereas really it's from psychological research and many paths of inquiry from philosophical or religious perspectives, happiness resides in the moment, being in the moment, being in the present as much as possible. Whereas anxious people tend to live in the future are so worried about what can go wrong to press people off and live in the past about, oh, I wish I didn't do this. Oh, my life sucks. I'm such a loser. Living in the present is what we have, ultimately, that's where we have some control over our destiny. Yeah, it's amazing. I mean, I actually did a workshop with John Kabat-Zen a long time ago and he developed this way to deal with chronic pain through mindfulness and even when people say they're in pain all the time, they're not aware of their pain all the time. Correct. I think that's true almost universally. So the trick seems to be to expand the moments when you're not focused on the pain. Yeah. Yeah. And the other part of the trick is when we're focused on the stories our head tells us we should be focusing on the scary stories of the future or the pain and how limiting it is to be able to notice that you're doing that, acknowledge it, and then go back to focusing on solving problems, to prevent that stuff from happening, or to just enjoying the moment. Right. Focusing on this, there's a whole new movement in pain management that's about focusing on comfort and developing a sense of comfort. So yeah, John Kabat-Zen started in 1979 with mindfulness-based stress reduction. Right. He started in the basement of Massachusetts Teaching Hospital, said to all the docs and all the words, give me your hardest patience. And now they have a whole wing of mindfulness center where on any night of the week there are two or three classes running filled with 20 to 25 people because the research on mindfulness-based stress reduction is pretty powerful in terms of reducing anxiety, fighting depression, and in terms of pain management, in terms of many health outcomes that are relevant to all of us. Do you use that particular model? Yeah. I've been trained by John Kabat-Zen and Saki Santarelli. Oh, wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because they've taken it and developed it in such a way as it's accessible to the average Joe, the average Joe or Alice, and makes it very accessible and doable. John Kabat-Zen says it's Zen without the Zen. Right. So you can be Christian and do this. You can be of any faith and do this, and it's not a conflict. Because what they've done is kind of distilled the essential features of meditation and some of the essential features of a Buddhist approach to controlling the mind, and it's a good practice that has been demonstrated to have a lot of results for increasing peace and happiness in people. Yeah. He told some funny stories. One of them was he was working with a group of therapists, and so they did his workshop, and then a year later they came back, and he asked them, how's your practice? And they started talking about their clients, which is what not what he meant. He meant how's your own meditation practice, right? And then the other funny thing he said, at the very end of our week-long seminar, you know how like very often at the beginning and end of a meditation period they'll have that little bell, that little thing? And it kind of got mixed up, what was the beginning and what was the end? So the last time it rang, you know, somebody said, was that the beginning or was that the end? And he said, yes. Because I guess the whole point is to try to make your life to be mindful about everything you do. Exactly. You know, that's a good point because I think a common conception is that meditation is you're checking out to rest the brain, you're checking out. When in fact you're checking in with this kind of meditation, and that's what makes it so applicable to everyday life. When you sit, as we call it, it's just sitting, you know, and there are many positions for sitting, but there are certain postures that are more conducive to sitting for longer periods of time without hurting, you know. It's good for you and also less distracting from pain. But when you sit, difficult emotions do come up, like you said, with anxious people. Difficult memories do come up. But you learn to just keep breathing, you note them as one of my Bapasana teachers told me, the happiness is in the noting. You note it, it's just that story again. Excuse me, you focus your mind again on the breath, on the object of concentration. And so you learn through the practice in sitting how to manage your mind in day to day life. So if you're driving, it's not a good time to get all caught up in some sad memory. You learn to say something like, okay, that's a sad memory, it can wait. I've got to focus on driving. I've got to focus on this conversation. I've got to focus on my work. So two things are happening, two or three, when we meditate. And even the Dalai Lama talked about this. One is that we do get into a very rejuvenative state. It's good for our health. It activates or up regulates the parasympathetic nervous system, which builds the immune system, helps our digestion, helps our muscles recover, and many other benefits. So we get into this restorative state. But the second thing that's happening is we are flexing in a mental muscle we might call concentration. So we're developing a discipline of the mind that's done in a very gentle way, by the way. A discipline of the mind to think about what we want to think about when we want to think about it. Which is a great skill to have, to stay focused on your work when you're working, to sit with the difficult feelings in therapy or with a friend when you need to do that. Sit, feel the feelings, process them, and move on, you know? Because I think what happens is this all gets mixed up in our day-to-day lives and we're less efficient at everything we're doing. So that's second skill, developing a certain discipline of the mind to focus on one thing at a time or a few things at a time to be more efficient and more effective. Yeah, it's so difficult though. So I always like to talk about specific examples because that's how I learn. Sure. So somebody comes in and says, I'm worried that my husband is going to cheat on me again. Mm-hmm. And of course, that could happen. There's possibilities in the realm of possibility. Right. But let's say she knows that that worry and mistrust is not helpful to the relationship. Yeah, yeah. But she can't stop herself. Yeah. And she thinks that somehow worrying about it and being vigilant or hyper-vigilant, checking his phone, looking at his computer, doing all of these things, is going to prevent him from doing that and or make her feel better. Mm-hmm. But of course, it doesn't work. Mm-hmm. So I would love to be able to have this person begin meditating so that she can take control of her own thoughts because she'd be happier in the end. Right. No matter what happens. Exactly, yeah. How would you talk to somebody like that? It's funny you bring that up because probably half of the couples that come to me for therapy are dealing with recovering from an affair likewise with you. It's much more common than we would think. You know, I'm going to stop you right there because he just whispered in my ear, but let's remember where we're at. We have to take a break and we'll be right back. OK, thanks. Don't go away. Don't touch the mouse. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, Hawaii's leading digital media platform for civic engagement, raising public awareness on tech, energy, diversification, and globalism. Great content for Hawaii from that. Aloha, I'm Richard Emery. I'm with co-host James Sugimura of Kondo Insider, Hawaii's weekly show about association living. The purpose of these videos is to educate board members and Kondo residents about issues relating to association living. We hope they're helpful and that they assist in resolving problems that affect the relationship between boards and their residents. Each week, Thursday at 3 p.m., we bring you exciting guests, industry experts, who for free will share their advice about how to make your association a better place to live and answer a lot of very interesting questions. Aloha, we hope you'll tune in. Hello, this is Martin Desping. I want to get you excited about my new show, which is called Humane Architecture for Hawaii and Beyond, and it's going to be on Think Tech Hawaii from downtown Honolulu on Tuesday afternoon at 5 p.m. And we're going to talk about to make architecture more inclusive on the islands, which is one of the definitions of humane, which is being tolerant of many people, of nature, of many other influences. So we're going to have some great guests, like today's guest, for example, my collaborator, David Rockwood, who's the author of the awesome manifestation of humane architecture in the background. So see you on Tuesdays, 5 p.m., and look forward to... Welcome back to Shrink Rap with Thomas Cummings, PhD, Thomas. And so you're saying couples come in with that... That's an area of somebody who's cheated, and there's all this anxiety, and then what do you do? But, you know, in the general overview, there has to be a rebuilding of the trust. That's inevitable. It's necessary. And of course, the person who's been cheated on is distrustful, hurt, there's some shock and trauma they have to deal with, and then, as you said, a lot of anxieties is going to happen again. Is it continuing? And so there's always a period during which the person, if we call him the victim of the affair, needs to be able to rebuild that trust. So they do need to be able to look at the cell phone, and the person who offended, who broke the trust, needs to be very forthcoming and open, transparency for a while, right? What can help the woman, if she's the one who has been cheated on, is to help her understand that forgiveness is necessary if you're going to move forward with this man. But that's a very thick and difficult process, you know? Because one of the reasons we don't forgive is to protect ourselves. And so there's a notion we have to work with that says, you forgive, but still protect. And initially, there's going to be a natural tendency to overprotect, and over time, to protect to the amount that's more safe, insane, and comfortable for both parties. So that's why the transparency at the beginning. Each time she can look at the cell phone or the email and see there's nothing going on, a little bit more mortar in that foundation of trust, if we can look at that analogy, as the relationship being a house on a strong foundation of trust happens. Now, helping the woman deal with her anxiety, we could incorporate a practice of meditation. Again, she can have some control over this fear that it could happen again, and yet still protect. I don't want to take away this notion of protect and rebuilding the trust, but help her manage her anxiety rather than it controls her whole life now, you know what I'm saying? So with the regular practice of meditation, she can give her brain a rest and just keep focusing. And of course, while she's sitting, it's going to come up, but she can say things like, it can wait. I'll deal with that. Focus now. Relax. Focus on the object of concentration, the breath, which then applies to day-to-day life, where she needs to work, she can't be thinking about and worrying so much as her husband doing this. She has to focus and function as focus on her work, you know, her friendships, and just enjoying life, while still protecting when she needs to do that. Does that make sense? Totally. So let me throw in another example. Sometimes where I would like to use mindfulness meditation. So let's say our particular couple, the guy, is actually has an addiction problem, whether it's a sex addiction or a substance, right, or video game addiction. Have you used meditation to work on that? Yes, yes. Because think of it, addictions become this habitual behavior we turn to when we feel uncomfortable. Even if that discomfort, that discomfort is from boredom. Right. Oh yeah, sometimes I'm addicted to playing Scrabble online with my friend when I have a free moment. I turn to that. Well, it's not really an addiction unless it interferes with your life. Sometimes, yeah. Scrabble interferes with your life. There's worse addictions, I'll tell you. I know. I know. That's why I'm doing this one. But yeah, if it makes you late and so forth, then we learn to do what I work with patients who are struggling with an addiction is first just teach them the technique and really coach them along and getting it going. And I teach about five to seven different techniques, because certain people work better with one technique more than another. Well, tell me some of the different ones you use. They're all following the basic format of focusing in the mind on one thing. And every time you notice the mind is wandered, bring it back to the object of concentration. So the breath is the first one. And I have them focus on the rise and fall of the belly. Right. Keep your hand over there. Or the breath moving in and out through the nostrils where you actually feel a temperature difference. Right, right. Cooler going in and coming out. Another is the body scan. And you can focus on certain muscle groups. You can focus on a slow scan of relaxing the muscles one by one over the body, you know. When I do that, when I always fall asleep. That means you needed to sleep. That's a good thing. That's what I say to you. It's a great thing to do before we go to sleep. In fact, when people practice meditation, that's one of the first things that happens on. And we got to normalize that. It's good. You got relaxed. Now, let's deal with your sleep problem too. Maybe you're not sleeping enough and don't have good sleep hygiene. But then I have people practice sitting up. That's why we sit up. There are meditation practices we do when we lie down, but a lot of people fall asleep. That's why we sit in a certain posture. And you try it different times of the day too. So you don't just associate it with before going to bed. Right. Which it's a great thing to do before you fall asleep. Oh, I use it to help myself fall asleep sometimes. Yeah, it's a great thing. You know, I've worked with kids who kind of learn that somehow on their own. To fall asleep, I just relax my muscles. So getting back to this, how do you apply this to someone who has some form of addiction? You get them practicing the skill, developing the skill, and then we start to have them apply it by setting certain behavioral expectations and charts of when they start to feel the urge to go to the video game console, the Xbox. We'll pick up some meth. Yeah, we'll pick up some meth. It's that they're going to practice some setting meditation. You have a whole hierarchy of things to do. You call a sponsor. Right. You have a 12-step program and so forth. But you develop a whole list of alternative behaviors to engage in. Before you do that habitual behavior, go into the Xbox 360, the porn on the internet, the meth or the alcohol. You start to insert a whole list of other behaviors that they can go down. So that it becomes a kind of ritual, almost. Yeah, it breaks the cycle of I feel uncomfortable. I play Halo. I go to my 360 in there, my Xbox 360. I go to internet porn. Instead of that, I go for a walk. Instead of that, I sit and meditate. Instead of that, I call my buddy instead of this. You have a whole list of things I can do as alternative behaviors to break that cycle. Right, right. Because you can't do nothing. Yes, you can't sit there and do nothing. Just like you can't think of nothing. Exactly. You see, so you substitute a different behavior. Exactly. And so, I mean, can that be a, from what you're saying, I'm thinking no, but might as well ask, can you do that instead of going to AA and a 12-step programs? Some people do, you know, because, you know, with 12-step programs, I think it's very important to find your tribe. If you're, you know, there are certain 12-step programs that are very Christian in orientation. And if you're not a Christian, you just might feel a lot of place around comfortable. In different age groups too. And, you know, it's, why is a small state? So you have a small number of groups that you can go to and you might not really feel comfortable with your tribe. Meetings are great if you feel like you're kind of, they're like me. If you feel a complete stranger and you can't relate, you're an 18-year-old guy who has a problem with math. You're not going to fit in with a bunch of retired people with alcohol. You know, you've got to find your tribe. I think 12-step groups are great. I think 12-steps is a great recovery program in many ways. But this can certainly augment it. It can certainly augment it. Prayer and meditation is part of the 12-step process, you know. And I like to distinguish between the two, and I heard Carlos Santana say this once at a concert, you know, at Red Rocks in Colorado, he said, when you sit down and you get still and quiet and you connect with God and you talk to God and he listens, that's prayer. When you sit down and get still and quiet and you connect with God, God talks and you listen, that's meditation. Do you see the difference there? And I think both are very important in one's life, because prayer is a way of setting intentions and asking for guidance from God or asking for support or whatever your higher power is. Whereas meditation is a way of just stilling the mind. To be able to receive things you might not have received otherwise, because you're so busy doing, doing, doing. Be still. So in your paper that you gave me, I don't want to miss this because it struck me, you have the five pillars of happiness. Can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah, it comes from a field that we call positive psychology, which was born, if you will, in the early 90s. A lot of people consider Martin Seligman, the father of positive psychology, studied depression and learned helplessness for years. Maybe he got, all right, I'm tired of studying depression. Maybe we should study happy people and see what they do when they're away from them. Although there's a guy at University of Chicago, Mihai, she sent Mihai was studying flow way back in the 50s and 60s. So that's considered part of positive psychology too. So, you know, I developed this model that there are five pillars and the first is friends and family. We are social beings. We need connection. Most of us need connection. We need friends and family. Whether it's family of origin or family of choice, it's up to you. It's within your power. And then there's subcategories under that that involve patience and forgiveness and acceptance, to maintain long-term relationships that are helping. That's the first pillar of happiness, friends and family relationships. The second one is a very intuitive one, doing what you like to do. For a lot of people that's surfing, for me, it's playing music. For me, it's being in nature for a lot of people, doing what you like to do. That's, you know, living. Oh, he's telling me we're done. You're going to have to just shoot me the next three. Okay. The third one is living a good life, feeling like you make a difference, that you're part of something bigger than you. The fourth and fifth are psychological in nature, the content of your thoughts. Happy people focus on the lightness in life. They don't deny the darkness. The fifth, how you think, how you process things, how you deal with the darkness. The five pillars of happiness. Thank you so much, Tomas. Thank you, Steve. We've got to do this again. We could talk for hours. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for joining us again on Shrink Wrap Hawaii, tuning in in two weeks. Aloha.