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Meditation
Tara Brach on the Healing Effects of Meditation
How to make a U-turn, reduce anxiety, and boost resilience.
Posted June 25, 2020 Reviewed by Lybi Ma
I had the distinct privilege of catching up with Tara Brach, Ph.D., one of the top experts in meditation and author of Radical Acceptance, to ask her about the benefits of meditation during these extraordinary times whether we’re working from home or in the office.
Bryan Robinson: Let’s talk about the importance of meditation as the world is going through the pandemic and racial injustice.
Tara Brach: Meditation helps with that. If we don’t have meditation and we get that spike of fear, we go into reactivity—into fight-flight-freeze. Meditation is a way to come back home to a calm refuge inside where we can respond to what’s going on with more intelligence and heart.
Robinson: Yes, our lizard brain fears can run rampant when we’re threatened.
Brach: At times like this, our conditioning is to run away from our vulnerability. If ever there’s a time that we use meditation and the courage to be present with ourselves and to know how to calm ourselves and be real with ourselves and each other, I think that’s the opportunity.
Robinson: For people who might not be familiar with meditation, the idea of taking time out and going within might not strike a chord. What would you say to them?
Brach: Perhaps the handiest way to think about it is we know physical exercise is what we need for a healthy balanced body. Meditation is a mental training that gives us access to our resources like mental clarity, creativity, compassion, and empathy. And it takes training but not a huge amount of training. In fact, we know if somebody puts in 5 or 10 minutes a day, there’s a growing momentum of a pathway back home again. We’re working with neural pathways, changing the habitual neural pathways that leave us anxious and reactive and finding pathways that let us access the more recently evolved part of our brain.
Robinson: And that ushers in compassion.
Brach: Exactly right. I often use this metaphor for the workplace. You’re out in the woods and see a little dog. You go over to pet it, and it lurches at you with its fangs bared. You get angry but then you see one of its legs is in a trap. Then you shift from being angry to feeling compassion, although you still don’t go near it because it could still bite you. But your heart has shifted.
Everyone we meet is struggling hard in some way. Instead of feeling like a victim of others or jumping into blame, if we could pause enough to ask, “How does that person have their leg in a trap?” When a colleague isn’t responsive, not holding up their part or acting snippy, maybe something is going on at home or they don’t feel well. Or maybe they’re anxious about a deadline. In other words, if we could enlarge our perspective, we can respond in a way that can move the relationship forward. Meditation lets us pause enough so we can enlarge our perspective. It interrupts whatever pattern we're in.
Robinson: And that brings in the concept of neuroplasticity.
Brach: We know that the brain is plastic. Let’s say you have a pattern of getting anxious about performing, going into circling thoughts, and because of the thoughts and anxiety, making a lot of mistakes. That pattern is grooved in the brain. If you can begin to notice, “Okay, this is an anxious thought,” then take a few deep breaths and come back into the body, in those moments of interrupting that pattern you’re beginning to introduce a new neural pathway. With practice, you can change the whole pattern of anxious thinking and living to one where you have much more stillness, calm, and perspective.
Robinson: Could you walk through the RAIN meditation process?
Brach: The R of rain is to recognize; the A of rain is to allow what’s there; the I of rain is to investigate; and the N of rain is to nurture or bring compassion to what’s there.
By way of example, I worked with a woman in a new job where she was highly qualified but intimidated by the CEO who was short-tempered and brusque. She would go to weekly meetings and feel anxious and not able to bring forth all she had to offer. We trained in RAIN.
Before she went into the meeting, she would recognize how anxious she was and mentally whisper the word “anxious.” If you note the emotion, it activates the prefrontal cortex and calms down or reduces the strength of the limbic system. The A of rain is allow, which doesn’t mean 'I like this.' It means 'I’m willing to pause and let it be here, not judge or fix it.'
The I of rain is investigate—somatic, not cognitive. You find where it’s living. For this woman, it was a squeezing, twisting in the chest. I often encourage people to put a hand where they feel it to bring attention to it. Instead of running away, you’re investigating and staying with the experience. For her, the fear needed to be accepted that it was there.
The N of rain is to nurture. She let the hand on the heart be a comforting, loving touch, and she sent the message to her fear that this belongs. And it’s okay. That gave her more space, and she did that before each of the weekly meetings. She was able to develop a pathway back to her natural intelligence and clarity that was being covered over by her anxiety.
Robinson: How does meditation help us react to someone who is attacking us?
Brach: The inner practice that can give us the most strength, intelligence, and empowerment is the U-turn—shifting our attention from “Oh, that bad, attacking, aggressive boss”—from what they’re doing wrong to what’s going on inside when this is happening. We might feel anger back at them. Then we find out what’s under the anger, which is probably fear or hurt, so we feel that.
In other words, be honest with what comes out and nurture that with self-compassion before we respond to the person. If we respond right when we’re triggered, we’ll perpetuate a cycle of hostility and reactivity. But if we make the U-turn, get in touch with ourselves, and bring self-nurturing, we respond from our whole resources with a lot more strength, clarity, intelligence, and compassion. Usually, when people are acting out, something is going on in them. And we’ll see how they have a leg in a trap.
Tara Brach joins Resiliency 2020 on Zoom September 10, 2020. You can register for the free live-streaming webinar at resiliency2020.com.
