Santa Clara Meditation Education – Looking Back On Myself Through Meditation Method, A Clue To Relieving Stress
Stress, how do you relieve it?
People have many ways of relieving stress.
Gossiping, sleeping,
Listening to music, eating tasty food.
But as time passes or similar situations arise,
Once again, we have stress.
Did you know that the repetition of stress in daily life builds up and lea to emotional disorders?
These days we find emotional disorders not only in middle aged women
but also in middle aged men who have stress due to reasons such as
Financial crisis and work related anxiety.
We also find it in young adults who are preparing for employment,
and even teenagers are showing emotional disorders.
Stress, how do I relieve it?
Then how can I effectively cope with stress and relieve my stress?
To answer this question, there is a research thesis focusing on “mind discarding meditation”.
Published by the Korean Stress Society in the journal <Research on Stress>
“Emotional disorders and stress related symptoms: the impact of mind discarding meditation on coping strategies”.
Changing my mind
In the research publication, they looked at preferences for the different treatment options for patients with emotional disorders.
“Changing my mind in order to resolve conflict with others” was the most popular preference.
To effectively deal with emotional stress caused by repeated accumulation in an individual’s life,
“Changing my mindset” was recognized as the most important conclusion.
The research team focused on mind discarding meditation method to bring about this change in mind.
And they looked to see if through this meditation method emotional disorders and daily stress were prevented and treated.
Within 1 week, decrease anger and stress through mind discarding meditation
The results of the research showed that mind discarding meditation method had positive effects on anger and stress.
If you look more carefully at the study, you will see the following.
Anger, stress levels decrease.
The above graph shows that emotional disorder symptoms decreased. Females had greater decrease in symptoms. Men also had a decrease in symptoms. (y-axis: level of emotional disorder symptoms; x-axis: Left point = before meditation, Right point = after meditation, solid line = male, dashed line = female)
This study consisted of 120 meditation level 1 participants who were analyzed before and after 1 week of doing this meditation. The study confirmed that emotional disorder and stress related symptoms all decreased.
Change in Stress Coping
They also found changes in the ways people were coping with stress.
People have stress when they come across something difficult to resolve and will usually try to avoid those situations. Nobody goes head on into those types of situations.
In the paper, this type of behavior is called “negative withdrawal”.
But the majority of the mind discarding meditation participants had a decrease in the level of this negative withdrawal behavior.
That negative withdrawal behavior had disappeared.
Personal experience of the effects
The effects of the meditation were also confirmed through the participants subjective experience.
On one hand, if we look at the subjective experience of the participants immediately after the meditation program, first, the degree in which the symptoms resolved were: completely resolved = 6 participants (5.2%), nearly resolved = 32 participants (27.6%), much resolved = 47 participants (40.5%). Overall, out of the 120 participants, 85 of them (73.3%) felt that their biggest problems/difficulties were much resolved.
– Joon Yong Jung, et al. “The effects of Ma-Eum Su-Ryun Meditation on emotional disorder, stress symptoms, and stress coping mechanisms”, Research Stress 2015, 23, p 73-74.
“My difficult problems are much resolved” 73.3%
Out of the many issues, the problems with the largest effect in the psychological categories including depression, anxiety, future, failure, fear of death, pressure, burdens, worries, concerns, uneasiness, too many thoughts, impatient, resentment, inferiority, guilty, daily life’s burdens, etc. all decreased, and the concentration and confidence increased, as well as stability of feelings and mood and peaceful mind were stated. The physical effects were seen with insomnia, headache, neck/shoulder and lower back pain, constipation, indigestion, chest discomfort, epigastric discomfort, dull headache, losing visual field when angry, feeling body is heavy, feeling head is clear – all of these symptoms improved.
– p. 73-74
“Burdens on my shoulders decreased”, “Peaceful”, “Head is clear”
The key to relieving anger and stress is “true reflection”
The research study not only looked at the results of removing anger and stress but also
Looked at the meaning behind such a positive and effective “method”.
It is simply a method to “look back on myself”.
“Looking back on myself” is to get away from the thought that only I am right and I am the center, and thus
Be able to think from the other person’s perspective and understand them.
That is why you are able to truly forgive and reconcile in your heart.
If we look at the psychological treatment implications of this meditation, this meditation method guides you to be mindful of your own imaginary death and afterwards, face the past experiences and memories as a video, reflecting on the past life through its discarding process. In this process, we can deduce that there is a major psychotherapeutic mechanism. – p. 74
In this meditation method, by “dying in the mind”, it changes the consciousness.
This is necessary because if you think you are alive, it is hard to let go of the minds.
From the perspective of having left everything, look back on the life lived.
By doing that, then, you can see yourself well.
The people that I should have loved and cherished but did not really love them,
Treating people with resentment and hatred inside me…
When a true reflection occurs in your mind, then all those minds melt away.
Self-reflection. Knowing my true heart.
In this meditation method, actively and intentionally bringing up visual images of memories of one’s experiences in life is related to proactively facing the self and exposing one’s true self. It can be inferred that repeating this step allows one to go from avoiding the experiences in one’s life to accepting it. Also to focus on the video brought up in “reflective review” is the mechanism of “self confession” (Pennebaker 1999), leading to forgiveness and reconciliation. One can conclude that discarding the video one has brought up and confirming its disappearance allows the meditator to have gained awareness and cognitive and emotional insight. – p. 74
Through the personal experiences described by the participants after meditating,
“True self-reflection” through mind discarding meditation was confirmed.
In interpersonal relationships and understanding of oneself,
Regarding cherishing family,
Gratefulness towards in-laws,
Problems with couples and parents, resentment in family resolved,
And reporting on my mistakes and repentance.
– p. 74
For the future me, look back on the past me
Look back on myself, change tomorrow
The conclusion of the study showed that mind discarding meditation method was effective in eliminating and managing stress and anger.
The reason was none other than “looking back on myself and being able to cleanse my mind”.
Why am I having a hard time? Why am I getting stressed? Unable to know these answers and reasons make life difficult.
But looking back on my mind, knowing the past minds that make my present minds, won’t it show all the clues to solving these issues?
Right now, if there is someone who is worrying about stress, how about you try looking back on yourself?
* Research Title
The Effects of Ma-Eum Meditation on Hwa-Byung Symptoms, Stress and Coping Styles
Link http://dx.doi.org/10.17547/kjsr.2015.23.2.63
* About the author
Duk Sung Women’s University, Department of Psychology and Research, Joon Yong Jung, Professor Jung Ho Kim, Professor Mi Rae Hae Kim, Department of Mental Health specialist Jung Il Kim
