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Video recap: Experiencing humanity

16 August 2017
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The world is always waiting to be discovered. Studying abroad allows students to explore it, challenging their perspectives and introducing them to various cultures while confronting them with pressing issues they’ll face as professionals and throughout life.

Saybrook University encourages this type of personal journey and interactive educational experience for our students.

Witness our inspiring video recapping a 10-day visit to Berlin for the “Immigration in Contexts” course offered last year. Students encountered refugees at the emergency refugee shelter of the Berliner Stadtmission (a.k.a. “The Balloon”), an air-inflated shelter assembled in 2014 to assist in housing a growing number of refugees and asylum seekers.

It was the first in a series of study-abroad programs from the “Education Beyond Borders” initiative of TCS Education System. Students bonded with the shelter’s residents, inviting them to participate in the PhotoVoice project. It paired the fortunate and the less fortunate, asking them to tour Berlin while using simple photography to answer a complex question: “Who Are You?”

Experiencing humanity in its darkest hour, many students found that even in darkness there remains a beacon of light. As one student said, “I can’t forget the noise—not from crying, yelling, or other sounds of distress—but from people laughing and talking and children playing.”

Education isn’t always found in a book. Many times it must be sought out through transformative experiences. At Saybrook University our students learn about the world by engaging with it. This creates opportunities to truly learn about the issues affecting the global community, and then act to solve them.

Watch the full video to discover the impact you can have on the world while pursuing an education that goes beyond borders.

Calm, cool, collected: Saybrook alum assists highly sensitive people find inner joy

9 August 2017
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Saybrook University alumna Julie Bjelland is on a mission to help highly sensitive people (HSPs) find inner joy and self-acceptance with the help of her 2017 book, Brain Training for the Highly Sensitive Person, and her eight-week online global course on the topic of HSPs.

Julie Bjelland

Bjelland’s initial interest in psychology came trotting out on four legs. The 2012 MFT psychology graduate and then-guide dog trainer learned that a person’s behavior doesn’t just affect him or herself. It also reflects those around them, including family pets.


“I used to think about being a veterinarian when I was in my 20s,” says Bjelland, who earned a master’s in Psychology with Marriage and Family Therapy.

“I got a job as a vet tech in my early 20s and later applied for a job to be a trainer at Guide Dogs for the Blind. I ended up starting my own business to train people’s pet dogs. This is where my interest in psychology was heightened. Most of the time while I was training dogs, it was about what the human was doing.”

Using one client as an example of why this theory still holds strong, Bjelland received a call that a dog was uncharacteristically barking “all the time” when the pet was previously never this loud.

“I would find myself asking questions like, ‘What’s changed in your life?’,” Bjelland says. “And the owner would say something like, ‘Oh, I just got this new job. I’m totally stressed out.’ It became so apparent that the dog was reacting to the guardian’s behavior. I started loving the human psychology part of the work and instances like this were part of what made me decide to become a psychotherapist.”

These findings were used as inspiration for her first book Imagine Life with a Well-Behaved Dog: A 3-Step Positive Dog-Training Program.
 

We have two parts of our brain: the emotional/irrational brain (limbic system) and the thinking/rational brain (cognitive brain). … Research shows that most HSPs spend more time in the limbic system (emotional brain) than non-HSPs. … When our stress levels are very high on a daily basis, we are too close to activating our limbic system so it becomes nearly impossible to bypass it.  Fortunately there are tools that can teach us how to lessen our daily stress and therefore be more successful at getting out of and bypassing the limbic system.

— excerpt from Brain Training for the Highly Sensitive Person

Another major influencer in Bjelland’s psychotherapy work

The author chose to further her education at Saybrook because of the school’s “humanistic, client-centered approach.” And there was another Saybrook talk that left a mark in her higher education degree—a discussion with a student about Elaine Aron, the author of “The Highly Sensitive Person.”

“I had come across her book before,” Bjelland says. “But there was something about the conversation that I had with some of the students who were familiar with her work that really lit a light bulb inside of me and made me think that was my calling. That’s where I started to really get into the research about the sensitivity trait.”

As the kind of reader who would read a neuroscience book for fun, it made sense that Aron would intrigue her. But in Bjelland’s case, there was also a personal connection that linked her to psychotherapy and her future clients.

“HSPs tend to be some of the most successful people at their jobs,” Bjelland says. “On the flip side of that, HSPs like myself also have some of the highest levels of stress and anxiety. The training in my book and my HSP course is a practice of being able to lift that overwhelming feeling and have more access to all those great cognitive gifts that come along with the trait. But it requires a lot of self-care. And that is something that a lot of HSPs need more of.”

The brain has what is called a “negativity bias.” Once we understand why our brain responds the way it does, we are able to find compassion for ourselves and compassion is the key that opens the door to be able to make changes. … It’s interesting to note that negative messages tend to go directly into our long-term memory, but positive ones require several more seconds of awareness to be deposited into our memory. This means that if you start to focus more on positive things longer, your brain will finally store more positives than negatives. That’s why we generally learn from pain faster than we learn from pleasure.

— excerpt from Brain Training for the Highly Sensitive Person

The 8-week course to combat anxiety, help HSPs

So far, Bjelland has taught the eight-week “Techniques to Reduce Anxiety and Overwhelming Emotions: An Eight-Week Online Course” three times. The next eight-week course will start in September 2017, with a goal of teaching the course on a seasonal basis.

“When I put a group of HSPs together, I knew it was going to be a beautiful experience ,” Bjelland says. “This course is a space to go ‘Wow. Other people are like me and have some of the same challenges and some of the same beautiful traits as well.’ It’s really a beautiful experience to share.”

If you are among the 70% of us that are introverted HSPs, you will have limited social energy, so you want to be sure you are prioritizing where that energy goes. If you have people in your life that drain your energy too much, you might want to limit your interactions with them. Teach your closest friends and family that when you are invited to things, you will need to determine how full or empty your energy tank is before you can say yes to going. Good friends will want to understand you and do things that support your well-being.

— excerpt from Brain Training for the Highly Sensitive Person

In addition to teaching the eight-week course, next up for Bjelland is to write a third book on HSPs and intimacy in relationships. Bjelland also loves working with HSPs individually all over the world.

“One of my biggest goals is to be able to help HSPs connect to their super strengths, live their best lives and thrive.”

Relax, release, rebuild through silent meditation

3 August 2017
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The second entry in a multi-part series of blogs, Saybrook alumna Dr. Tamami Shirai speaks to her experiences with silent meditation. In part one, she discusses “Mindfulness or McMindfulness: Can we learn from the West adopting Asian cultures?” and in part three “The importance of ‘checking in’ after silent meditation.” 

Music-induced meditation

In my meditation group for a San Diego cardiac rehabilitation hospital, I always start by having participants engage in silent meditation for five to eight minutes with soft music playing. Silent meditation is the first part of four parts of a mindfulness-based meditation class. In order, the four parts are:

  • Silent meditation
  • Checking in
  • One modality
  • Sharing

The entire four-part class takes about 30 to 40 minutes for a small number of participants and 40 to 60 minutes when there are more than seven participants. The purpose of the class is to teach participants how to be mindful. The first silent meditation is when many participants fall in love with mindfulness-based meditation. Also, it comes in handy for those struggling with “monkey mind” —when the mind cannot be quiet.

Of course, many meditation textbooks and articles suggest using breathing techniques during meditation. However, rather than have participants focus on their breathing, I prefer to use contemplative healing music such as the music of Deuter (a German-born, US-based musician) for silent meditation. I have observed that music makes people concentrate easier, ignore outside noise, and calm down faster during the meditation session.

I once had a participant named “Michael” who returned to my class after two years. Michael had participated in my class only a few times before his condition forced him away. But when he came back, he asked me which music I had used two years before. He still remembered. Although the music collection I draw from for my meditation class consists of more than 120 recordings, I always pay attention to which participant likes what kind of music. So after playing only three pieces of music, I was able to find the one Michael had tried and failed to find on his own for over two years. He looked very happy to have finally found what he was looking for. Music is very influential in our lives, and its power makes people long for it. Famous neurologist Oliver Sacks noted that the question of why music has so much power goes to the very heart of our being.

Personalized objectives

My class is part of a cardiac pulmonary rehabilitation facility that includes both phase II and III cardiac patients. Phase II is the acute phase, for example, when they have just been released from the hospital after open-heart surgery. Phase III is a maintenance phase after the participant has experienced a few months of rehabilitation.

Pulmonary rehabilitation is often applied for patients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD); some need oxygen and/or a wheelchair in the everyday life. We also have people who are waiting for a lung or heart transplant. The fundamental objectives of my meditation classes are stress management and lifestyle modification.

For cardiac patients, the goal of meditation is to reduce anxiety and depression, and control their medical conditions, including maintaining appropriate blood pressure. For people with COPD, specifically, the goals of meditation are overcoming inactivity and feelings of helplessness and controlling their medical conditions.

Sometimes people with COPD hesitate to join my meditation class because they are concerned that their cough, the sound of their portable oxygen tank, or the use of their wheelchair will interrupt other participants during silent meditation. That is not an issue, and I welcome anyone who is open to participating. I also think it is beneficial to include their family members to join meditation classes, a group of people who can also benefit most from meditation.

A participant with COPD named “Sally” had difficulty speaking because of a cerebral infarction. She came to my class in a wheelchair pushed by her daughter. Immediately after their first meditation experience together in my class, they told me they found it “amazing!”

Due to Sally’s limited ability to walk and speak, silent meditation was, she said, the only moment when she could gain freedom from her disabilities and regain her dignity. Sally was one of the most unforgettable participants in meditation class—someone who was very committed to coming to rehabilitation even when she did not feel well and was very close to the end of her life. She would sometimes come to my meditation class and leave home afterward if she didn’t feel like exercising—just coming to my class took a huge amount of energy and effort for her. Sally’s healthy daughter “Roberta” also enjoyed silent meditation because as a caregiver she needed restful time, even if it was only a half hour.

Most people with COPD do not encounter any problems engaging in silent meditation. However, “David,” another participant, grew anxious whenever I used the phrase “breathe in and breathe out” during my introduction to silent meditation. David has had long episodes of bronchitis since he was a small boy and wasn’t allowed to join any gym classes when he was in school. When he told me about his anxiety, I stopped using the word “breathe” in my class and instead invited participants to concentrate on music.

After a year of weekly participation in my class, David had naturally learned how to do deep breathing during the silent meditation and became s regular participant in one of my classes. He enjoyed combining exercise in the rehabilitation center’s gym and my meditation class—a perfect mind-body relationship. Surprisingly enough, after 74 years of life, David told me that it was because of our meditation class that he first began enjoying exercise and reducing his episodes of bronchitis.

Most of the participants in my class do not have prior experience with meditation. For that reason, I find that music-induced silent meditation creates a foundation of practice that quickly calms them down. I also suggest that my participants practice silent meditation for 20 minutes twice a day by themselves to make meditation practice part of their daily routines. I tell them that through continuous practice, silent meditation will gradually become their anchor for removing stress and staying connected to their inner peace in daily life. Fortunately, because most participants are experiencing serious physical conditions and have mild anxiety and depression, they are motivated to learn and practice meditation very well.

Dr. Tamami Shirai

Dr. Shirai is a postdoctoral researcher at the School of Medicine, University of California San Diego. She is a researcher, educator, and advocate of lifestyle medicine, and a facilitator of meditation classes at a cardiac pulmonary rehabilitation center in San Diego. She is originally from Tokyo, Japan.

Green burials, home funerals: Closure for end-of-life care

3 August 2017
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Diana Johnson, a Transformative Social Change degree student at Saybrook, grew connected to the aging process and caregiving early in life. Her mother was a volunteer caretaker. But instead of going into the medical field, Johnson wanted to learn more about the social aspects of aging, including end-of-life care. This summer, Johnson attended a training on green burials and home funerals taught by end-of-life-doulas. She left with new ideas to make end-of-life care “more intimate and meaningful.”

As a Saybrook student, I’d like to create a space for us to delve into considerations surrounding aging and the end of life, without looking at death solely as a medicalized event. Home funerals and green burials are options that align with an intimate and sustainable approach, facets of end-of-life considerations that I find central to transformative social change.

As part of the Saybrook community, we dedicate our lives to bettering the human condition. Our collective work spans the life course from supporting the youngest among us to comforting our elders through palliative care. We promote sustainable ways of being, devoting much of our time to work that positively impacts others and the planet. So how can this work continue even after we are gone? Have we considered how we might continue this legacy in death? Green burial and home funerals provide options in line with these values.

Why the sustainable option of a green burial is in line with my mission

What we choose to do with our bodies, after they have served us for a lifetime, is one way we can continue this legacy of conscious sustainable service. Current burial practice in most of our nation’s cemeteries requires a cement vault for internment. Cement vaults, in addition to nonbiodegradable caskets, perpetuate a burial system that is not sustainable. Cremation offers a more environmentally friendly option but still requires the use of natural gas and may release harmful chemicals. Some cemeteries have set aside space dedicated to green burial practices, and there are also burial grounds dedicated to preserving the land and local wildlife. Green burials do not include embalming, an invasive practice, which uses cancer-causing chemicals, harmful to workers and the environment. Rather, a body in its natural state is buried in a biodegradable casket, or shroud.

While participating in the Green Fair this summer, I was surprised that even among the socially and environmentally conscious, most people were unaware of these options. However, each person stated that they would prefer them now that they had more information.

There’s no place like home … funerals

Home funerals are an option that often precede a green burial. It is standard practice for funeral homes to require embalming, which would rule out a green burial. Historically, people have cared for their own loved ones after death. It was only after the Civil War, and the invention of embalming, a practice created to get fallen soldiers home to their families, that our modern death care industry was born. Death care eventually became big business, and a symbol of status—the grander the display, the better.

Home funerals provide space to create an intimate experience. Families can either pre-educate themselves in after-death care, or hire a support person (ex. end-of-life doula) to provide guidance. Over the course of a number of days, family and friends can stop in to honor their loved one. There is the option to partake in the healing power of art, ornamenting the casket. Sometimes people chose to paint on, color, or otherwise decorate the biodegradable casket. Children can be a part of the process at their level and comfortability.

There are no set standards for a home funeral, but this is the beauty. Time and presence are afforded to create an intimate and personalized experience with the potential for ceremony, healing, and closure. This is a family-led time, with the option to bring in a celebrant, or someone experienced in guiding the process.

Preplanning is essential for home funerals. Some barriers exist, but each state does legally allow you to care for your loved ones in your home. They don’t have to be taken somewhere else. The end-of-life doula that I worked with provides guidance on how to care for a deceased family member’s body within the home. This includes washing the body, dressing the body, and laying them out at home rather than a traditional funeral home. Family and friends come to the home to sit and honor their loved one, similar to a traditional memorial service, but from the comfort of the deceased’s home (or caregiver’s home).

Why sustainable end-of-life practices matter in my Transformative Social Change studies

I strongly believe that attention and resources need to be directed toward the oldest among us, and as a Transformative Social Change student, this is where my passion lies. There is an intergenerational disconnect that I believe leads to our current death-denying culture. I hope to be a part of the bridge that leads us back to ourselves and our awareness that our time here is finite. Death is indeed a sensitive topic. However, we will all eventually be faced with the death of a loved one, and one day, our own mortality as well.

The gift of time can be honored in so many ways. We can take time to consider, discuss, and record our own wishes for what we would like done when “our time” comes. We have the option of giving our own time and attending to our loved ones during and after this sacred transition, within the home environment we chose.

And finally, as we consider the ultimate resting place of our own body, the body that has been the vessel in helping us serve humanity and the natural world, we can choose to honor this lifetime through the sustainability of green burials. If we are able to look at ourselves as aging beings, we will be that much more cognizant and helpful at addressing the challenges and wishes of the loved ones around us.

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Connecting ancestral healing and psychological health

25 July 2017
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Dr. Daniel Foor, a Saybrook University alumnus with a Ph.D. in Psychology, has guided trainings throughout the United States since 2005 focused on ancestral and family wellness. This experience inspired him to write his new book, “Ancestral Healing: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing.“

Daniel Foor

From 2005 to 2009 at Saybrook, my doctoral research focused on the use of shamanic healing in clinical mental health settings. During this period and in the years since my public teaching and work with ritual arts has focused on ancestral and family healing. The result of my studies, my book Ancestral Healing: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing, is a guidebook connecting blood lineage to healing ancestral trauma and self-empowerment. The excerpt below gives some context for this offering:

Healing Ancentral Trauma

Everyone knows there are certain physical and psychological realities to being dead. However, most people on Earth also believe in some sort of afterlife or continuity of consciousness after physical death. Belief itself is a tricky thing. One might adopt a certain perspective and then have experiences that reinforce those views. Other times, new experiences challenge our ways of seeing the world. For me, it was a mixture of both. I was not raised with an awareness of my family or lineage ancestors. However, through personal experience, clinical training in mental health, and two decades of immersion in diverse lineages of spiritual practice, I came to experience them as an important source of relationship and support for the ancestral healing process.

As I engaged with this work, it became clear that it was beneficial and healing on several levels. On a personal level, research confirms that relating in conscious ways with one’s ancestors supports physical and psychological health by boosting intellectual performance and confidence (1), raising awareness of family predispositions, including behavioral health risks, to encourage beneficial life choices (2), and finding forgiveness, a common component of family healing that promotes greater physical and mental health (3). Ancestral healing work also encourages introspection and greater clarity about life’s purpose, which in turn creates more personal satisfaction and a sense of meaning in life. In getting to know and love my family ancestors, I feel more confident, supported, and comfortable in my skin. Moreover, I maintain a sense of healthy pride in my roots and culture of origin, which helps in my journey to healing generational trauma.

Healing as a Family

On a family healing level, sustained ancestor work can help heal intergenerational patterns of family dysfunction. By working with spiritually vibrant ancestors, one can start to understand and transform patterns of pain and abuse, and gradually reclaim the positive spirit of the family. I’ve seen situations time and again where one person engages the ancestors, and it creates a ripple among living family members, who may suddenly reconcile after years of disagreement or restore overlooked blessings. When you engage your loving ancestors, you can catalyze healing breakthroughs in your family, including establishing appropriate boundaries with living relatives. Also, when you make yourself available for the ancestral healing to take place, the recently deceased are in turn more able to help living family members navigate their journey to become ancestors after death.

The Psychological Effects of Generational Trauma

Finally, on a collective level, the ancestors are powerful allies in transforming historical and generational trauma relating to race, gender, religion, war, and other types of collective pain. Recent findings in epigenetics are showing that in a very real way, the pain of our ancestors can endure through generations. In a landmark 2013 study on the biological transmission of trauma, a team of researchers in Jerusalem showed that the children, as well as grandchildren and further descendants, of Holocaust survivors, are especially prone to depression, anxiety, and nightmares. This tendency is tied to a biological marker in their chromosomes that is absent in those not descended from Holocaust survivors (4). This transgenerational transmission of trauma is a new field of study. In many ways, it overlaps with the ancestral healing process I present in Ancestral Medicine: Rituals for Personal and Family Healing.

When we reconcile with ancestors who experienced different types of persecution or who enacted violence and oppression, we make repairs in our personal psyches and family histories that, in turn, mend cracks in the larger spirit of humanity. This supports us in moving beyond identifying with victim/victimizer consciousness and in embodying what is beautiful and helpful from the past. Transforming generational trauma and cultural pain also frees us to draw upon the support of our loving ancestors for prosperity in our vocation and service in the world.

It’s Time to Start your Ancestral Healing Process

Ancestral Medicine grew out of my training with human teachers, my relationship with the ancestors, and my experience in guiding others in ancestor work. My goal was to offer a practical guide to understanding and navigating relationships with the spirits of those who have passed. My experience tells me that anyone who is psychologically stable has good intentions, and is willing to listen to their intuition can cultivate an empowering relationship with their loving ancestors. We all have loving and supportive ancestors and can draw upon these relationships for greater clarity about life purpose, increased health and vitality, and tangible support in daily life. Start your family or ancestral healing process today. If you want to learn more about psychology, check out the various psychology degree programs at Saybrook University.

(1) Fischer, Sauer, et al., The Ancestor Effect, 11–16.

(2) National Society of Genetic Counselors, Your Genetic Health

(3) Luskin, Forgive for Good

(4) Kellerman, Epigenetic Transmission of Holocaust Trauma

Daniel Foor, Ph.D., is a licensed psychotherapist and a doctor of psychology. He has led ancestral and family healing intensives throughout the United States since 2005. He is an initiate in the Ifa/Orisha tradition of Yoruba-speaking West Africa, and has trained with teachers of Mahayana Buddhism, Islamic Sufism, and different indigenous paths, including the older ways of his European ancestors. He lives in Asheville, North Carolina. For more information, visit his website.

San Francisco Bay Park, Dusk

25 July 2017
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Adjunct faculty, Creativity Studies Program
Saybrook University

For my friends at Saybrook University

Pink clouds camp out along the far shore.
They are the homeless ones, who live here.

Roots of trees ripple the path, trunks roiled
at the base, as if with great cancer. They lift

their thin arms overhead, and survive.
Egrets bury their bony beaks in wet sand.
 
Gulls prance near the water line, tracing
the squiggles and bends. They have grown

used to the rolling thunder of planes,
which slide through the clouds like pages

of a fairy tale, turning in the leaf-light
breeze.  Here and there, planted markers
 
denote public shore, reminding us
each one is free to be here, each

free to travel to a new world. Inside
a grand hotel, rafts of students gather
 
to begin their journey, protected,
for now, from uncertain winds.

They are flying visions, faint as first
stars. They are massaging dreams

in rooms where teachers listen, pause,
laugh, and cry, circling the heart’s compass.
 
When they touch their fingers together
like the partnered bridge of Virginia Reel

memories swell — the seventh wave,
sudden, full. Now they are breakdancing
 
twists and turns of the mind. Already,
visions are dressing themselves

in clay or silk, blue feathers, or beads.
This is a place of launch.  Few here

call this city home. We have dropped
our moorings, let the waves be guides. 

We have come from the everglades,
from long winters in Kansas, the fog
 
of Seattle lights, the high desert
where Coyote howls at the moon.

We have come knowing there is no
return, only the moment

when the curled bark of an old
madrone peels itself loose

and the tree and the seeker are one.

 This poem was originally published in Forage.

Saybrook psychologist questions the normalcy of eating meat

24 July 2017
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Dr. Melanie Joy didn’t become a vegan until her 20s. But during her psychological studies at Harvard and Saybrook University, she pondered what it is that makes humans think it’s normal to kill and/or eat animal products. And why it is that so many vegans and vegetarians have a tough time holding onto relationships with nonvegans after their perspective on animal agriculture changes. In her third book, which releases the last week of November, she tackles these topics and more.

“Every day we engage in a behavior that requires us to distort our thoughts, numb our feelings, and act against our core values,” Joy, a Saybrook alumna, said during a TEDx Talk she gave in February 2015.
That “integral, human behavior” Joy is speaking of is eating and wearing animal products. The author of three books—Strategic Action for Animals: A Handbook on Strategic Movement Building, Organizing, and Activism for Animal Liberation and Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism, and a November 2017 release Beyond Beliefs: A Guide to Improving Relationships and Communication for Vegans, Vegetarians, and Meat Eaters—has traveled to 39 countries on six continents to speak about this topic: carnism.

According to her nonprofit organization’s official site, Beyond Carnism, carnism is defined as “the invisible belief system, or ideology, that conditions people to eat certain animals. Carnism is essentially the opposite of veganism, as ‘carn’ means ‘flesh’ or ‘of the flesh’ and ‘ism’ refers to a belief system.”

Her second book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows emerged from her Ph.D. dissertation in psychology.

“When I found the Saybrook program, which had a focus on Social Transformation and also Ecopsychology, I was very interested in the courses,” Joy says. “That’s what made me go to Saybrook. I had not developed my theory of carnism. I was just interested in how it was possible for compassionate, rational people to turn away from atrocities that are carried out toward humans and also nonhumans.”
Joy became a vegetarian at the age of 23 and a vegan a few years later. In her recent TEDx Talk in 2015 and at speaking events, she’s received “a tremendous positive response” via emails and social media comments regarding the topic. Through one of Beyond Carnism’s programs, Center for Effective Vegan Advocacy, people can attend trainings and workshops to learn more about the nonprofit and effective communication for animal activism. However, Joy is aware that not everybody may be as open to hearing about animal agriculture and carnism, specifically when it comes to seeing graphic imagery.

“It is important for people to be aware of what’s happening to animals,” Joy says. “And it’s important to share graphic material. However, how this material is shared matters very much, and so there are certain situations and events in which it would be less appropriate to show it. If the event was organized as kind of a get-together where people are casually eating and talking about veganism, that may not be the place to do so.

“It’s important to get people’s consent before sharing graphic imagery with them. Otherwise people can get traumatized by the imagery and become angry with the vegans who showed them the imagery rather than get angry at the companies that are exploiting animals.”

And if that happens, the larger goal to educate attendees about carnism may fall by the wayside.

On Joy’s international tour, she also takes into account cultural differences when presenting her messages on carnism. When her second book Why We Love Dogs, Eat Pigs, and Wear Cows: An Introduction to Carnism” released in Hebrew, it was well-received by the Israeli public. But because Israeli people as a whole do not eat pork, the title was tweaked to The Cow in the Room.
“Although the type of animal consumed changes from culture to culture, with carnism, people have a similar experience regarding eating animals,” Joy says. “Some animals are meant to be food in their minds, and some animals are meant to be friends or family. And what I found is that the title of my book gets people to question why that is.”

In addition to violence against animals, Joy’s studies at Saybrook explored why people commit violence overall, including person to person.
“Why is it that atrocities happen in the world?” Joy asks. “Why is it that good people turn away from atrocities and enable them to continue? I was asking this question, thinking about wars and genocides for example. And also obviously about the environment and what’s been happening to animals under carnism and speciesism. What I found was the same psychological mechanisms that enable us to carry out violence toward humans enable us to carry out violence toward nonhumans, which is probably not surprising to most people. The goal of my book and the goal of my work has not been to tell people what they should or shouldn’t eat, but rather to talk about why we’re conditioned to see some animals one way and other animals another way.”

In Joy’s new book though, her goal is to help improve the relationships vegans and vegetarians have with nonvegans.

“Many vegans and vegetarians find themselves unable to communicate effectively with the nonvegans in their lives,” Joy says. “They feel that their relationships have become compromised. This kind of an ideological difference can put a tremendous strain on relationships. So the book is basically a how-to guide—what are the principles of a healthy relationship, and specifically for people in veg/nonveg relationships: how to navigate conversations and potential conflicts so that you can strengthen your connection and communicate more openly and effectively.”

Joy, who has resided in Germany since 2014, will have a book launch in Los Angeles on August 8. For more information about Beyond Carnism or her other books, visit her website.

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Mindfulness or McMindfulness: Can we learn from the West adopting Asian cultures?

7 July 2017
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The first entry in a multi-part series of blogs, Saybrook alumna Dr. Tamami Shirai speaks to her experiences merging Asian and Western techniques in her own professional practice. In part 2, she discusses “Relax, release, rebuild through silent meditation” and in part three “The importance of ‘checking in’ after silent meditation.”

In many ways, the cultural divide between Asian and Western cultures can be illustrated with their respective approaches to mindfulness. Mindfulness has long permeated Asian daily life and culture, and the West has been gradually adopting facets of it over the last half-century. Recently, this gradual adoption has skyrocketed as mindfulness is being explored in everything from health care and wellness to pop culture. While many are pushing back against the Western approach—calling it “McMindfulness”—I think there is still so much that both the East and West can learn from each other.

Growing up in Japan

I’m originally from Tokyo. Growing up, mindfulness was a constant part of my life, and I was immersed in it from a very early age. My home had both a Butsudan and a Kamidana—a Buddhist alter and Shinto altar. Also, I attended a Buddhist kindergarten (inside of a temple) and a Shinto-related private school from junior high school through college. You might say I grew up in a daily environment soaked in Buddhist and Shinto ideas.

When I made my way to the United States, I witnessed my first meditation practice. I was taken aback when the instructors used Buddhist singing bowls as the beginning and end of a short meditation. In Asia, when singing bowls are used, it is for religious purposes. Moreover, large singing bowls are only for priests; others are not even allowed to touch them.

While many religions practice mindfulness in various ways, much of what the West has adopted seems to be rooted in Buddhist traditions. Though, while they are using a few Buddhist techniques, many in the West are practicing only a very small part of what makes up Buddhism.

Mindfulness and McMindfulness

Mindfulness has been gaining momentum in the West for decades. Western philosophers and psychologists, including Alan Watts and Terrance Mckenna, have espoused the benefits of mindfulness. Indeed, much of what they discussed was adopted with the peace movement in the ‘60s. Although much of it seemed to go below ground during the ‘80s, ‘90s, and early 2000s, mindfulness has resurfaced in the last 10 years or so and, arguably, become even more mainstream. Mindfulness even recently made the cover of Time magazine.

In fact, mindfulness has permeated the mainstream to such a significant degree that you’ll find its concepts emerging in nearly every medium of pop culture—from podcasts dedicated to “being present” to books about incorporating meditation into corporate consultation. Unlike its emergence in the ‘60s, mindfulness doesn’t seem to be limited to a social movement based off of peace and love. Today, you have doctors who incorporate mindfulness techniques into their health care practices. UCSD also starts mindfulness courses for medical students as a mandatory course this year.

Many religious scholars, anthropologists, and cross-cultural psychologists have pushed back against this adoption, calling it “McMindfulness.” They note that this movement is only taking small parts of certain religious practices and using them for something other than their original intent.

Having grown up immersed in religions that embrace mindfulness, I certainly can sympathize with this point of view. However, I feel that something can be learned here—from both Asia and the West.

Asian Society of Lifestyle Medicine (ASLM)

Mindfulness and meditation concepts have long permeated Asian daily life and culture. So much so, in fact, that they have become second nature.

Recently, I was invited to present at the inaugural conference of the Asian Society of Lifestyle Medicine (ASLM) in Taipei, Taiwan. An affiliate of the American College of Lifestyle Medicine, ASLM is an umbrella group for Asia-based professional medical organizations dedicated to advancing lifestyle medicine.

My presentation focused on my practice experience leading a meditation class at a cardiac pulmonary rehabilitation center in San Diego. I have provided this mindfulness-based meditation class since 2013 and have had over 300 patient interactions thus far.

Many participants in the conference presentation were physicians and healthcare professionals from various Asian countries, including India, Philippines, Malaysia, and Japan. When we started discussing the use of Western notions of using mindfulness in a medical or clinical setting, I discovered something surprising. None of the conference participants from Asian countries admitted to having experienced mindfulness or meditation in a medical setting.

One may think that because mindfulness is so ubiquitous in Asian culture that they would be quick to adopt these practices in providing care to patients in clinical settings. However, I sense that Asian health practitioners are still a bit confused about how to apply “Western-made” mindfulness and meditation ideas into their medical practice. They haven’t yet figured out how to take something that they’ve been surrounded by all of their lives and apply it in a clinical setting.

At least not yet.

In defense of McMindfulness 

In the past, Asian physicians have not adopted these practices in clinical settings because they haven’t thought of mindfulness as a technique. Recently, however, there has been a significant shift in thinking. Today, they encounter Western ideas of mindfulness and meditation as something different or new and therefore perhaps beneficial to their patients.

The research should be more rigorous about mediation and mindfulness—something that the U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) agrees with me on. Whatever people label it—Buddhist, Orientalism, or hippy culture—Western-made mindfulness and meditation ideas are still useful tools and can be implemented in Asian health care practices.

On the other side, the West may be able to benefit by recognizing the cultural and spiritual significance of mindfulness. In Asian cultures, meditation and similar techniques are not just tools to accomplish one single goal; they are integrated into our daily lives. And through that, Westerners may be able to find some spiritual or health benefits.

Whether it is intended to seek spirituality, serenity, or just to look cool, using mindfulness techniques have a proven track record of benefiting the human condition. Given that, why wouldn’t we use them to benefit ourselves and our patients?

Dr. Tamami Shirai

Dr. Shirai is a postdoctoral researcher at School of Medicine, University of California San Diego. She is a researcher, educator, and advocate of lifestyle medicine, and a facilitator of meditation class at a cardiac pulmonary rehabilitation in San Diego. She is originally from Tokyo, Japan.

How one psychologist didn’t let the fear of striking out hold him back

17 June 2017
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Dr. Drayton Patterson

Drayton Patterson knew he needed a backup plan. His parents advised him that even though he had achieved major accomplishments in baseball, there was always a chance of getting injured, which did end up happening. After getting his doctorate degree, Mr. Smoke became “Dr. Smoke” Patterson.

As with any professional sport, an athlete in his 30s usually starts looking for other jobs because he knows his time is limited. In Patterson’s case, his baseball career ended early due to sports injuries—a torn rotator cuff, supraspinatus tendinitis, knee surgery, and back surgery.

“I couldn’t throw at all, but fortunately I could hit so I was still able to play in high school and I still played semi-professionally,” says Patterson, who played during the late ‘70s and ‘80s. “I think I played my last semi pro-game in 1989.”

But by that time he’d already shied away from putting all his eggs in one basket. Patterson became a school psychologist in 1984, was a part-time scout for the Major League Scouting Bureau (MLSB) for the next five years, and then a scout part-time for the Texas Rangers, while working on his doctorate degree at Saybrook.

“I knew that my baseball days had passed,” Patterson says. “You hear people call that Cubs player Grandpa Rossy, and he’s only 39. After baseball, I had to figure out what was I going to do. My bachelor’s degree was in psychology and pre-dentistry from the University of Illinois. My parents always stressed to me to have a good education as a backup plan in case I was injured. And Saybrook had the humanistic, holistic approach that fit my needs and that I strongly believe in.”

His mother, who was a teacher and psycholinguist, played a major part in increasing Patterson’s interest in the mental health field. Although he was initially a mental health therapist who focused on pediatric, adolescent, and adult units pediatrics at Ridgeway (now Hartgrove Hospital) in Chicago, he found himself focusing on what was making so many young kids need to be hospitalized so often.

“I wondered what was going on in the school system,” Patterson says. “But after working as a clinical therapist in a psychiatric hospital for three years, I knew I didn’t want to work in a clinical setting anymore. I disliked putting patients in full leather restraints and working with patients with hardcore psychiatric difficulties. I wanted to work on the prevention end. I wanted to work more with elementary schools, high schools, and even colleges to help pinpoint a mental health issue before it got so harmful that it ballooned out of control.”

Patterson admits that he has dealt with his fair share of students who were resistant to any type of therapeutic counseling.

“There are kids who say, ‘I don’t want to be seen with him,’” Patterson says. “They don’t want to be considered ‘crazy,’ something that their peers may accuse them of. However, the same thing can happen with adults. Now I’m an independent sports psychologist, and I’ve seen the same hesitancy from athletes. I would describe our relationships as clandestine because a lot of players don’t want to be seen with me because many people know Smoke Patterson. They recognize me from my baseball career and my best-selling book. As soon as they see me, they’re asking what player am I working with.”

Patterson has had to go as far as meeting athletes at different hotels to protect their privacy. And then a cab would be arranged for the two to meet.

“I hate to say it, but there’s still that stigma associated with psychology,” says Patterson, who was a sports psychologist for the Texas Rangers and the Toronto Blue Jays. “On the upside though, I am seeing that in baseball there are more teams that are making mental conditioning skills more acceptable and available to the players.”

As “the first Ph.D. psychologist to manage, coach, and sign players’ contracts in professional baseball,” his next feat was “focusing on enhancing the self-esteem and self-concept of others to help them to realize their goals, dreams, and aspirations.”

“When I was injured and went to rehab, I was wondering what I was going to do next,” Patterson says. “I did a lot of soul-searching, and learned about the inner and outer sources of self-esteem. I had to personally know what my strengths were, what my weaknesses were, and feel comfortable with that. That was the focus of my doctoral dissertation at Saybrook, along with my experience with children. I also discuss this in many of my speeches and seminars.

Dr. Drayton Patterson and Jack Canfield

And that dissertation is what led him to adding author and public speaker to his resume. Referring to Jack Canfield as a “self-esteem, self-concept guru,” Patterson wrote about the author in his own dissertation.

“I think many of the ills in our world today are strictly from a lack of self-concept and self-esteem,” Patterson says. “Some people will see successful people and try to emulate them. Others will see a successful person, get jealous, and then try to tear that person down. I saw so many kids in my practice who felt poorly about themselves, and it was one of the reasons that I decided to read Jack’s book 101 Ways to Enhance Self-Esteem. In my dissertation, I used a blurb from that book.”

His agent took notice of the Canfield reference and asked him if he’d be interested in writing a chapter for an upcoming book. It turned out that Canfield was searching for thought leaders from around the world to collaborate together and work on a book about the road to success. Patterson agreed to write a chapter for the book, “The Road to Success, Volume 1,” about mental conditioning, goal setting, self-esteem, and self-concept.

His author credits also include a foreword for bodybuilder Ava Diamond’s book “Unchain Your Brain: Interviews & Insights to Transform Your Career with Purpose, Passion, and Power.” Patterson is noticeably proud that both books ended up ranking No. 1 and No. 3 on Amazon’s best-seller’s list in Direct Sales. Along with being affiliated with two books that help people unearth positive self-esteem and self-concept, he has since retired as a full-time school psychologist after 30-plus years, and is now a full-time professional speaker and independent sports psychologist.

“My biggest goal is to help people maximize their potential through goal setting,” Patterson says. “I want people of all ages to learn why positive self-talk is so important. Not enough people do it, but no matter the profession or experience, understanding self-talk can put a positive twist on a tough situation. Speaking professionally is a joy because it allows me to share my experiences to help to empower others to overcome adversity, learn how to set goals appropriately, make good decisions, learn ways to manage the stressors in their lives, and learn specific ways to enhance their self-esteem and self-concept.”

To contact Dr. Patterson directly, email him at [email protected], or visit reachdrp.com and draytonpatterson.theroadtosuccessbook.com.

Nature’s Escape

15 June 2017
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Faculty, College of Integrative Medicine & Health Sciences
Saybrook University

There are many traps in our lives. We can be trapped in the classroom, trapped in our offices, even trapped in our our minds, or in our moods. I took this photo on Higgins Lake in Michigan to remind myself of the necessity of escape, the power of nature, and the simple joy of a summer’s day. I was 3 months old when my parents first brought me to this lake and about 8 years old when I got my first camera. My oldest grandson is now 8 years old and he can still enjoy the crystal clear waters of Northern Michigan. I hope that all who see this photo will find an occasional escape to their own Higgins Lake.