Monday Meditations Part 5: Hindrance Meditation
May 25, 2009 by dr. lam · 2 Comments
Many of our meditative thoughts drift to our concerns and our fears. We cannot stay centered very well because we tend to start to let our worries consume us and we are propelled back to our daily anxieties. This exercise allows us to see what our hindrances are and confront them in a meditative and non-judgmental way. As we start this exercise like all meditations so far, we begin with a grounding in our breath. We focus on the nature and quality of our breathing before we proceed. As our mind naturally begins to drift toward a hindrance or an encumbrance in our life, we center that thought into our mind and allow it to float in front of us. We relinquish our judgment of that thought and let the fear and anxiety that typically surrounds it go and we replace those emotions with love, peace, and acceptance. As further hindrances enter our mind and our spirit we continue to allow those thoughts to mature and to float but we withhold negative ruminations and prejudices about our perceived hindrance. We allow us to see ourselves overcoming our hindrance and allowing us to go beyond the limitations of this hindrance. We allow ourselves to move forward without perturbation or restriction. We begin to see the hindrance no longer as a hindrance but just as, i.e., just let it be. When we have “overcome” or accepted these hindrances, we return back to our centered breathing and end with a focus on the breath. Here is a video guide to help you with this exercise. Wishing you and your family a blessed Memorial Day weekend. Namaste.
Monday Meditations Part 4: Walking Meditation
May 18, 2009 by dr. lam · 5 Comments
Many of us Type A/high-strung individuals cannot meditate sitting still. Our bodies become agitated and our minds begin to wander easily. We need movement and stimulation to keep us centered. This exercise allows our bodies to flow so that our mind can remain centered. We permit our mind to focus on the activity of walking so that we have a grounding and a focus for our thoughts.
Start with either bare feet or stockinged/socked feet so that you can feel the ground under you. Plan a path where you will be walking either in nature or indoors. Even if the path is relatively short, you can traverse this distance and redouble on your tracks without a problem. Just plan your path out in advance so that you don’t need to worry about where you will be going.
As you begin the exercise, remember to start with the fundamental of your breath. Focus on the rhythm of your breathing and allowing yourself to breathe more quickly or more slowly depending on your body’s needs. As you breathe, enjoy the rich breath that is giving you nourishment and life. Then start to focus on your legs and toes as you walk over the terrain and enjoy the feeling of the ground under your feet and the related sensations. As you walk, enjoy the feeling of walking. If your mind wanders, bring it back to the focus of walking and the feeling of the air against your face if you are outside and the sounds around you or if you are inside just stay centered on your breathing and walking. As you conclude the exercise, return your thoughts back to your breathing and finish with your breath meditation.
Here is a video guide to help you with this meditation. Namaste.
Monday Meditations Part 3: Mindfulness Meditation
May 11, 2009 by dr. lam · 10 Comments
Oftentimes when we meditate, we become distracted with our daily concerns. We lose the Power of Now and begin to let our mind drift to the concerns of the day that distract our inner peace. We try to pull our mind back to the fundamental of our breathing but we fail. This exercise allows our mind to travel and to enjoy the travel that our mind takes.
We begin with the fundamental exercise, which is our breathing, enjoying and focusing on the rise and fall of our breath and the natural cadence that our breath takes. From there, as our mind travels, we do not constrain it but let it be. Wherever our mind goes, we allow it to “daydream” and when we arrive at a thought, we don’t judge the thought or deny the thought, we just allow. We label the thought as “thinking” and we allow the thought to exist without force or implication. If our mind goes elsewhere, we allow the thought to blossom. If it is a negative thought, we do not label it as such but we allow it to be just there floating in front of us and around us. We allow the thought to just be withholding fear, anxiety, or judgment. We accept the thought as being part of us, our nature, our being. We then close the exercise with a return to our breathing, focusing again on each in-breath (inhalation) and each out-breath (exhalation) before we return to our world.
The following video is a guided tour to help you stay on a budgeted time of under 10 minutes and to help you stay on track during this exercise for those who can have the luxury of playing the video in their quiet place of meditation. Namaste.
Also, I just started a new Facebook group that is non-profit (don’t worry no donations), non-sectarian (no religious affiliation), non-political and that is dedicated to promoting love and peace to everyone in the world. I would greatly appreciate it if you joined the group and then invited ALL of your friends to join. Let’s start a revolution! Spread the word! Here is the link to the page.
Buy•ology Part 3 of 5: Somatic Markers
February 11, 2009 by dr. lam · 5 Comments
When we see a bottle of Jif peanut butter, why do we choose it over the generic brand? Is it truly better? Is there something more reliable about it than another brand. Well, with the recent salmonella outbreak, perhaps there is some veracity to all of this. However, we choose a brand of peanut butter not because of any logic (no matter how much we would like to believe in our logical selves) but due to an emotion, an unconscious thought process that makes us instantaneously pick up the bottle and put it in the shopping cart. Or for those out there who are loyal to Peter Pan, the same instantaneous response occurs. This type of shortcut that influences our buying decisions is termed a somatic marker.
A somatic marker originates in many cases from our childhood filled with memories and with an instinctual system of reward and punishment. If we smelled a wonderful roast as a child and opened the oven and reached in to touch the piping hot Le Creuset pot and instantly recoil in pain, do we not have that experience linger with us for quite some time? These visceral subnotes that underscore how we behave today have a lingering legacy. Why do we think German cars are better? Why do we think a camera from Japan must be better than one purchased from another country? These somatic markers lead to a certain irrational way that we create shortcut stereotypes that influence our buying decisions. Interestingly, as a baby, my mother used to slather a whopping dollop of facial cream on me all the time. I still am not comfortable with facials, especially when a lot of heavy cream is used. I shutter when I think of thick facial cream. Fortunately, I have mitigated my irrational feeling and can use moisturizer every day!
These somatic markers that influence our buying decisions are more powerful than we as thoughful consumers would own up to. In England, the tissue brand Andrex outsells Kleenex brand by almost 2 to 1. The rationale for why this might be the case stems from the use of a small labrador puppy that slides down snowy hills on long trails of toilet paper in the commercials. The puppy has been casually associated with new families and toilet training and there might be something indelibly linked at a conceptual and emotional level that Kleenex does not offer the UK buyer. For all of these emotive connections, we as consumers should be more explicitly thoughtful in our buying decisions to overcome these subversive tendencies.
Story of the Week: Healing
January 23, 2009 by dr. lam · 3 Comments
It’s been close to a month since my last story of the week, but finally here is another story. I believe all of my patients’ stories are real and worthy. That is why I have created a section in the forum of this website for patients to tell their own story: the story of how LFP has affected them (patient submitted testimonials) and what they love in life (tell me about your passions). This is a story that has profoundly shaken me and reinvigorated me.
I had one of the nicest ladies come to me a couple of weeks ago who was going through a divorce and other major life changes. She told me that she had kept an ad of mine for quite some time before deciding to come in. She was clearly shaken a bit and nervous. I reassured her that she would be fine and that I would not waste her money or time and would do the right thing for her whatever her decision might be. She said she trusted me, and we talked a bit about life philosophy and healing. I truly felt compassion for her as a human being first without the imposed barriers of gender, race, etc.
She decided on some Restylane treatments, which were within her budget, and I was able to focus on small areas of aging to get her tear troughs, anterior cheek, and anterior chin balanced and looking good. I saw her as I usually do a week later to photograph the improvement and to make sure I could answer any of her questions. In the photography room, her hands were shaking and she had multiple post-it notes and note cards where she was composing her testimonial about what I had done for her. She apologized that English was not her first language so she needed time to compose her thoughts. I said the words did not matter as much as her expression of them. I was in tears as she was during her reading of her testimonial to me. I showed her the before-and-after photograph comparison, and we were both elated with the improvement.
She then told me the most profound words that I have heard in a long while. Paraphrasing a bit, she said, “I was about a year from entering medical school to become a doctor when a mentor of mine whom I respected said these words to me, ‘A doctor heals bodies, and a teacher heals souls.’ So with those words, I became a teacher of little children, which I have never regretted. However, Dr. Lam, you have shown me that a doctor can heal both, and you have done that for me.”
I can say that I was on a very high cloud for the entire day and for several days thereafter. It gave me back once again a profound mission of why I have been put on this earth, and it far exceeds what I do as a plastic surgeon. That is why if you wonder if there is some kind of incongruity in a surgeon writing a lot of blogs on self-improvement, life philosophy, and life psychology, there really isn’t. I am not here just to fix faces. I am here hopefully to touch a life. Thank you Sylvia for touching mine.