Dr. Richard Davidson: What We’re Getting Wrong with Meditation
Sep 14, 2023
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Dr. Richard Davidson, Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Founder & Director of the Center for Healthy Minds, breaks down the efficacy of meditation and its impact on self-regulation and coping with trauma. He discusses how meditation can help parenting, the influence of expectations and narratives on perception, and the concept of 'emotional fingerprints.' The importance of teaching meditation to kids, the science of well-being, and the innate nature of love and kindness are also explored.
Beliefs and expectations shape our perception of the world, and recognizing their changeability can lead to improved well-being.
Meditation encompasses more than just mindfulness and should incorporate awareness, connection, insight, and purpose for optimal benefits.
Insight involves understanding how our beliefs and expectations influence emotional responses, allowing us to detach from their grip on our perception.
Deep dives
Beliefs and expectations shape our perception of the world
Our beliefs about ourselves and our expectations of ourselves influence our perception of the world and define the world we subjectively inhabit. Our fused beliefs and expectations can hinder our ability to recognize that they can be changed or that they even exist. Reflecting on challenging situations with different beliefs and expectations can help us understand how they impact our responses. Well-being comes from changing our relationship to our own narratives and recognizing that they are changeable.
The importance of a comprehensive approach to meditation
Meditation and mindfulness are often equated, but mindfulness is just one form of meditation. Many meditation practices have been stripped of their original ethical framework when taught in the West, which can limit their effectiveness. Well-being is not just about mindfulness, it's about awareness, connection, insight, and purpose. A comprehensive approach to meditation that encompasses all these components can lead to improved brain and bodily health, influencing overall well-being.
Insight as a key component of emotional well-being
Insight, or self-knowledge, plays a crucial role in emotional well-being. Our beliefs and expectations shape our subjective experience and responses to emotional challenges. By understanding that our beliefs are narratives and that they can be changed, we can detach from their grip on our perception. Insight involves recognizing the influence of our beliefs and expectations on our emotional responses and developing the capacity to experience emotions in appropriate contexts.
The interplay between trauma and well-being
The mechanisms that encode trauma are the same mechanisms that can be harnessed for well-being. Meditation practices engage neuroplasticity and epigenetics, which can counter the effects of trauma. By cultivating well-being through meditation and mindfulness with an altruistic mindset, change can occur in behavior and biology. While trauma history may lead to different baselines, every individual has the innate capacity for kindness, compassion, and well-being.
Mapping emotional styles through research
Emotional styles describe individual differences in how people respond to emotional challenges. These styles include resilience, outlook, social intuition, self-awareness, sensitivity to context, and attention. Emotional styles can be shaped by the brain and the body and have implications for overall well-being. Understanding emotional styles can inform interventions and approaches to enhance emotional health.
Dr. Richard Davidson (Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry, Founder & Director of the Center for Healthy Minds) shows us what it truly means to be well in your emotional self by harnessing our trauma mechanisms into well-being! He breaks down the scientific data he’s gathered on long-term meditators (including monks!) to show the efficacy of meditation, the parts of the brain most affected by meditation, and what all of that means for how we self-regulate and cope with trauma. Dr. Davidson explains how meditation can help parenting, how our expectations and narratives influence our perception of the world, and what our "emotional fingerprints" are. He and Mayim discuss how his framework of awareness, connection, insight, and purpose lead us to understand the science of well-being, the notion that love and kindness are innate and hate is learned, and the importance of teaching forms of meditation to our kids.