Doctor, nurse, therapist, social worker . . .
. . . we all have roles we identify with, both personally and professionally.
But, what do these roles we play have to do with experiencing unconditional love, and how can changing our awareness impact our sense of it?
In this video clip, Ram Dass, PhD, explains how shifting perspective away from our roles and being mindful of the soul can open up our capacity for unconditional love.
To know what it means to cultivate loving awareness, and how it can help people overcome feelings of fear, anxiety, and inadequacy, check out our courses on minfulness.
Also, our course Applying Mindfulness to your Clinical Work talks about how practitioners can incorporate specific techniques into their practice.
How has mindfulness changed your perspective? Please leave your response in the comment section below.
I feel and extend so much gratitude to you, Loving Awareness in the body of Ram Dass. You are a bright light in the darkness in this world. You have and continue to help so many to find their way out of the darkness and into the light of Loving Awareness.
You make me smile inside, make my heart sing for joy. I’m alive, oh my, I’m alive!
Hello! I simply would like to give a massive thumbs up for that wonderful information you could have here during this post. I am coming back to your blog to get more detailed soon.
Where are the prices and CEUS for seminars
Mindfulness has helped me be more compassionate towards others and myself. I have been listening to many CD’s by Rick Hanson, Jon Kabat-Zinn, Daniel Siegel, Elisha Goldstein, Tara Brach and others. These have enriched my practice of mindfulness and meditation and yoga. I’ve done a lot of personal work on my own issues as I’ve studied mindfulness and meditation and I believe that helps me be a better therapist.
Thank you very much for your webinars!! Peace.
42 years ago Ram Dass opened a door to the life I’ve pursued, and there are no words to express this level of gratitude. I find the “egoic: i want things to be my way” comments entertaining, especially when spoken by those who practice heightened consciousness. Learning opportunities abound. 🙂
From a practical perspective, I often ask my clients to notice when their patience is tested by another’s “pace,” or using a different approach (video/words/cartoons/metaphors/drawings) than they would’ve chosen. Use this trigger to consciously NOT have a mere reaction, but to go deeper for a conscious response. Are they talking too slowly? What’s your hurry? What are they saying with micro-expressions? tone? All of the other information they’re giving you w/o words… has it no value? And again (thanks Ram) what’s your hurry? Why is “my way” better than theirs? What am I afraid of, by allowing them to express the way they express?
As each of us is an individual curling wave, yet we are all ocean, differentiation is a given; we don’t need to stomp our feet and assert it so much.
In Oneness, and Serve Us,
ian
Yes, it is great to be able to hear and see Ram Dass again. Thank you Ruth for this opportunity.
Loved his closing remark about when we reach enlightenment we no longer sit next to those with unfortunate reincarnations but rather we sit next to souls…..
so hard to do but that is why we practice,
Thank you Ruth for providing access to so many of us to this peaceful man.
namaste
Noreen
I am sorry, I lost the first comment I wrote.
I am rewriting it here.
I broke into tears when I first saw this video. I have not seen Ram Dass for a number of years and certainly in the past he had been my North Star. I was inspired by his teachings and I felt so motivated to follow them. I am so sad to see his frail body now and how so much of illness has taken his incarnated body and mind away. I was so moved to see him again after so long and amazingly, even though he was struggling with his words and thoughts, I could still feel the soul that housed his body and the love that I have for him is reactivated by the presence of himself on video. I look forward to his talk.
I am enjoying the webinar. I am doing healings based on different spiritual practice and I am finding that using mindfulness helps me and my patients to arrive a t a different level of depth in healing.
Thank you Ruth,and all the teachers in this program.
Thank you for your comment. This is a good place for me to practice unconditional love. Your irritation triggers me. I am sure it is a mirror for me to work on for myself.
I love Ram Dass and am looking forward to the privilege of hearing him with Ruth on Wednesday.
Whatever the session is will be what it is.
Inappropriate though not surprising that some young souls negatively evaluate things they perhaps do not yet understand.
Slow is not synonymous here with lost or struggling or tedious, but with having to take time to retrieve words from a damaged storage system.
Ram Dass has always had, and continues to have, a remarkable presence.
This is sad… He was very lost and struggling… He has made his contribution in the past.
After his stroke, he authored the book “Still here” which was meaningful. We should hold him in our hearts…
Thank you Ruth,
I can’t think of a more loving soul, and am so honored to listen to Ram Dass. He embodies unconditional love and joy, such an inspiration! I can’t wait to listen to Wednesday’s session with Ram.
Peace,
Susan
I’m so glad you have brought mesndulfins to the forefront of our group. Mindfulness can be cultivated in the easiest of ways … so simple, in fact, that people often don’t do it. (What is this predilection to be bored by the simple?) I missed the session on mesndulfins, so forgive me if you’ve covered this but here are two simple exercises that you can do most any time of day:This will seem almost ridiculous, but when doing one thing, we often have a barrage of thoughts streaming through our consciousness. So here is one way to remind yourself to focus on what you’re doing. Say, for example, you are driving. Talk to yourself about what you are doing at that moment. “I am driving. I am on this street and checking my mirror. I am now going to signal a change in lanes. I am here, now, driving.” You get the picture. For a few minutes a day, practice breathing. “Practice!?” you may say. Most of us don’t breathe properly. From the deepest part of the base of our belly breathe in to the count of 8. Hold it for a count of 4. Breathe out to the count of 8 and squeeze the air out of your lungs and belly as you exhale. Here is the mesndulfins part … be conscious of your breathing. Feel your lungs and belly expand, the small of your back relax into the breathe. While you focus on your breathing even if for a few minutes you start to quiet your brain and focus on one thing at a time. You become more mindful of what is going on at that very moment. In a simple little book called True Love; a Practice for Awakening the Heart, I read the following: “The past is no longer there, the future is not here yet; there is only one moment in which life is available and that is the present moment….bring body and mind back to the present moment so that you do not miss your appointment with life.”…and you don’t even have to rush to make that appointment!
I am surprised by the comments above
I found this talk tedious and really totally uninspiring.
The man has been a beautiful soul on this planet, and because he is old and dying of cancer he might not be able to express himself well as he has in the pass . Maybe you should listen again. for you seem to be unable to give unconditional love because you cannot accept it yourself.
I found Ram Dass to be totally present, both cognitively and in a heart sense. It’s really a word retrieval issue. I agree with Cherry’s point above, “slow is not synonymous with lost”. I found in the interview that I just had to slow down and wait – in and of itself, that was a growth experience for me.
yes, yes, and yes! Thank you, Ruth; exactly!
I’ve been seeing almost an epidemic level of a dynamic wherein people compare how they’d say something, do something, or even their “tastes” in things, then measure against that, as if it was some kind of base-line, and the divergence is a measurement of “wrongness.” Our very survival as a species depends upon embracing our diversity (even on a genetic level).
What if we shifted our reactions to “differences” from “ew, that’s weird,” to “wow, that’s so different and interesting!” Perspectives are like pixels. The more we have, the richer the colors and the better the resolution.
Looking forward to this afternoon with Ram Dass. Bringing an open mind, an open heart, and above all: patience and love. We are One, after all.
Ram Dass’ book Be Here Now was the door to my being HERE now! I’ll be giving a Heart Math meditation program at Beth Israel in New York on Wednesday, and am forever grateful to having been touched by his grace through his books and being.
It is great to be able to hear and see Ram Dass again. He was such a pivotal part of my journey when I was young. Going to hear him and be in that space with him, an American seeker, in those days, grounded me even more in the spiritual quest. Thank you Ruth honoring him and bringing him to us again.
Sounds brilliant. Love is a compartment of the mind, we are not often in. Love endures all things, seeks not his own, is not puffed up and not easliy provoked. No wonder Marsha Lineghan told us that to get to good emotional regulation we have to work at doing the opposite of what we feel like doing.