Meditation
Mindful Meditation (Vipassana) has been proven to be affective in reducing stress levels. Research from major universities and medical facilities has shown lower anxiety and strengthening of positive emotions in people who practice Mindful Meditation. The University of Wisconsin-Madison found increase activity on the left-side of frontal region of the brain. It is believed that this activity is what controls anxiety and stress levels. Though there is still much more work on meditation to be done, the research looks encouraging. My techniques combine mindful Vipassana meditation and nature to reduce stress anxiety. I work in the Santa Cruz and San Francisco Bay Area.
My long-time friend Noah Levine, author of Dharma Punx and Against the Stream, shaped my first experiences in meditation and counseling. His father, author Stephen Levine, is a mindful meditation teacher, and a leader in the early hospice movement. He is a formative inspiration to the both of us. Stephen used Vipassana meditation with healing techniques that include all faiths.
In 1990’s I began to sit with Noah’s San Francisco Dharma Punx Vipassana meditation group. In those days, the Dharma Punx group consisted of four or five people. Noah included those early meditation experiences in his Dharma Punx book published by Harper’s Collins of San Francisco. Today, there are Dharma Punx groups throughout the world and Noah’s personal group is made up of hundreds of people from around the Los Angeles area. I started the Santa Cruz Dharma Punx Vipassana group in 2005. In 2008, overwhelmed by the recent arrival of my daughter and psychology graduate school, I turned the group over to Jason Murphy, who still teaches the group at Santa Cruz Vipassana. Today I have broaden my meditation and counseling approaches since those early Dharma Punx days but will always be grateful for those valuable lessons in stress and anxiety reduction, spirituality, and mindful philosophy.
We’ve all developed some degree of concentration and awareness. Just to be able to read a book, to live our complicated lives, takes awareness and concentration. ~ Stephen Levine