Heart Meditation in the context of traditional healing practices

A valuable mindfulness “tool” that I found in the blog “Curanderismo, the healing art of México”   < http://www.curanderismo.org/#!blog/c1dc  >  If you have time, please read the whole post as it contains valuable information.

I invite you to enjoy this meditation and this beautifully made blog. This might be a great resource also for those thinking of joining the Webinar session “Culture-bound syndromes and Traditional healing practices among Hispanic patients” that will take place on June 6th via BVCMI to start formulating observations, experiences, questions, vocabulary, etc.

 

Heart Meditation:

Once you’ve gotten a better idea of what your own thoughts and beliefs are and how they may be holding you back from a healthier and happier life, sit on a chair or on a cushion on the floor, facing towards your left, inhale and exhale four times. Each time capturing the particular thought or emotion which is causing your to feel unwell. Inhale from your left, then exhale as you slowly turn your head from left to right. As you exhale release any fear, anger, thought, or anxious feeling that came up for you. After doing this two to four times (four inhalations/exhalations), sit quietly, breathing normally. Next, still sitting quietly, facing forward, place your right hand over your heart, breath in the spirit of love. If this is hard for you, imagine that you are holding or touching the person you most love. If I’m having difficulty with this, I hold the image of one of my grandsons in my minds-eye, or I may see/feel/hold the image of Our Lady of Guadalupe or Kwan Yin as enfolding me in their arms and feeling the love She has for me.

Please feel free to share your experiences and opinions!

Dr. Lizbeth Mendoza, MD, CMI.

http://www.bvcmi.com

STOP and RAIN as much as you can to train you brain!

Medical Interpreters, like other health care workers, need tools to help them release the tension, stress, and even trauma related to the situations they go through on clinical settings (and outside of work too!)

I am a health care professional, scientist, advocate for self-care, disciple of MBSR therapy, and enthusiast of contemplative approaches to health care. But mainly, I am a human being with feelings for others, empathy, and the regular conflicts that come along with compassion.

Compassion fatigue is a problem among us, health care workers, and you may have experience the symptoms of this serious condition. This is material for another blog, but today I want to share these wonderful and so easy to use techniques that are very useful to prevent compassion fatigue, and in general to train your mind, body and spirit to stay in your healthy zone, both mental and physical. The techniques are known as S.T.O.P. and R.A.I.N.

S.T.O.P.

By Bob Stahl and Wendy Millstine

S  Stop – temporary stop the doing and business of mind… gentle return to and rest in present moment

T  Take a breath – 3 slow deep breaths…allow attention to rest on the movement of your breath

O Observe – the present moment while breathing

1. Sound
2. Sight
3. Sensation

P  Proceed with Awareness and a SMILE

R.A.I.N.

Taken from Tara Brach’s work

R Recognize what is happening … What is happening inside me right now? Kindly bring awareness to thoughts, emotions, feelings, or sensations arising right here, right now

A Allow life to be just as it is… “let them be”—the thoughts, emotions, feelings, or sensations

I Investigate inner experience with kindness… calling on your natural interest redirecting attention to the present experience… and welcoming whatever surfaces

• What is happening inside of me right now?…
• How am I experiencing this is my body?…
• What am I believing?
• What does this feeling want from me?

N Non-identification or Non-self – Natural awareness … the liberalizing realization of your natural awareness… nothing to do as realization arises spontaneously … simply rest in natural awareness…

 

Practice these easy techniques every day and mostly after a difficult situation and share with us your experience!

 

Thanks for visiting this blog. Please feel free to participate.

 

Dr. Lizbeth N Mendoza. MD. CMI.

http://www.bvcmi.com

dramendoza@bvcmi.com

Compassionate listening is to help the other side suffer less. If we realize that other people are the same people as we are, we are no longer angry at them. 

Thich Nhat Hanh

Extra materials:

STOP AND RAIN PDF

Please visit this link to Tara Brach’s article on RAIN. http://tarabrach.com/articles/pdfs/RAIN-WorkingWithDifficulties.pdf

Professional interpreters refrain from projecting personal biases or beliefs – a matter of ethics but also of inner peace

We all know that an ethical principle for professional medical interpreters is to maintain impartiality and refrain from projecting personal biases and beliefs during our assignments. Then, we must keep confidentiality and whatever happened during the interview, we must keep to ourselves. And we also know that in certain cases this is extremely difficult to achieve, because some medical encounters can be extremely challenging and difficult to deal with emotionally, conceptually, and/or linguistically.

The truth is that we cannot deny our beliefs and biases, and these beliefs lead to judgments, which the mind uses to make decisions of what to do or stop doing, what to say or omit, what to request or contribute, and so on. Another truth is that we all need to unload the heaviness of a stressful situation at work or any other aspect of our lives. When we allow judgmental thoughts to take over, and we don’t do anything to stop this, we become stressed and cannot think clearly and react appropriately. Moreover, when we don’t discharge this stress right away and just go on as if nothing happened, we start building up conflicting thoughts that will eventually lead to a spiral of escalating stress and confusion.

We all have the resources within ourselves to maintain the balance between our thoughts, beliefs and judgments, and the subsequent response, reaction and resolution. Mindfulness is a great source of inner peace and balance in this sense, defined by Dr. Kabat-Zinn as “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment. “

I recommend today this video about the Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) program at the University of Massachusetts Medical Center. developed by Dr. Kabat-Zinn.

Have a Happy and Mindful day!

“The intuitive mind is a sacred gift and the rational mind is a faithful servant. We have created a society that honors the servant and has forgotten the gift.”  Albert Einstein

It is not pure Medical Translation – It is Health Care Interpretation. The Mindful Interpreter.

Interpreters are exposed to vicarious trauma and compassion fatigue because they need to “internalize” the message in one language and transform it into the equivalent in the other language in a way that is not only accurate but that will elicit the same response as the original message. It is not pure translation.

Healthcare workers struggle to perform their best in environments charged with highly rewarding experiences but also are constantly exposed to distressful, some times heart breaking situations that challenge the emotional, mental and physical well being.

Like physicians, nurses, psychologists, therapists, and other healthcare workers, medical interpreters will greatly benefit from a contemplative approach that will help them protect themselves from these risks without compromising their professionalism, ethics, empathy, and compassion.

Recommendation today: http://www.hhnmag.com/display/HHN-news-article.dhtml?dcrPath=/templatedata/HF_Common/NewsArticle/data/HHN/Daily/2014/Jan/012114-article-hospital-patient-experience#

Have a Happy and Mindful Day!

The Mindful Interpeter, a division of BVCMI Self-care series

https://www.bvcmi.com/self-care-series.html

 

Aerobics for the brain? Fitness experts praise mindfulness meditation NEW YORK | BY DORENE INTERNICOLA

Mindfulness is an empowering life-style, applicable to every aspect of life, and to every minute of it. The best: it is accessible to all of us! ….. BE here, right now, in balance and ease

Today’s recommendation:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/02/us-fitness-meditation-idUSKBN0ED1DZ20140602

 

Have a wonderful day!

BVCMI Mental and Emotional Self-care Workshop for Medical Interpeters

BVCMI is excited to launch this Mental and Emotional Self-care workshop for medical interpreters as a space to revisit what truly matters to the wonderful and easy “Human Being” that we all are, instead of the complicated and stressed “Human Doing” that we allow sometimes, or most of the times, to take over. The concepts and skills that you will learn will allow you to prevent and to better handle stressful situations at work and other aspects of life. You will be provided with tools to respond in a kindly, yet professional and effective manner to the risks and challenges of your profession.

During this workshop we will be talking about stress, burnout, vicarious trauma, compassion fatigue and other risks at work. Everyone is welcome and encouraged to share their experiences and perspectives.

I will be sharing some information on the science regarding the interaction between brain, body, mind, and behavior, and how these elements and different quality of experiences affect our physical health and even our anatomy and physiology.

I chose Mindfulness as the stellar self-care tool for this event because I want to share with my dear colleagues the magic of that moment when one realizes that all it takes is to set on the Being, as opposed to the Doing … so simple yet so empowering, comforting, and transforming.

Warning: Mindfulness has potential secondary effects such as an increase in empathy, forgiveness and compassion, so be aware and make sure to communicate any of these secondary effects.

—-“Mindful awareness, as we will see, actually involves more than just simply being aware: It involves being aware of aspects of the mind itself. Instead of being on automatic and mindless, mindfulness helps us awaken, and by reflecting on the mind we are enabled to make choices and thus change becomes possible” Daniel J. Siegel

Medical Interpreter Self-Care Workshop©

Presenters:  Dr. Liz Mendoza, CMI-Spanish and Marlene Obermeyer, RN

Medical Interpreters, especially freelance interpreters, may not always be aware of hazards exposure in their daily work and how they can protect themselves. We present this interactive workshop in order to support the mental, emotional, physical, and environmental self-care of new and experienced medical interpreters.

Medical Interpreter Self-Care BootCamp©

Learning Objectives:

At the end of the workshop, the participants should be able to:

1. Identify potential physical, environmental, professional and legal hazards for interpreters.
2. Identify psychological, mental and emotional hazards for interpreters.
3. Identify strategies for self-protection from occupational hazards.
4. Identify the beneficial effects of different techniques to manage professional and personal stress in order to recover and preserve mental, physical, and spiritual wellness.
5. Put into practice two self-administered, self-regulated, self-care techniques to reduce stress and maintain physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual wellness.
6. Demonstrate ability to respond to stressful situations in a calm, professional, and self-protective manner.

Part 1: “Interpreter Self-Care: Identifying Hazardous Situations”. Presented by Marlene Obermeyer, RN. A four hour interactive workshop.

The following topics will be covered from 9am to 1pm role playing, group discussion, and lectures

1. Physical Safety (Potential for violent situations)
2. Environmental Safety (Exposure to infections, radiation, allergens, etc.)
3. Professional Safety (Career planning, professional development, self-promotion, networking)
4. Legal Safety (Liabilities, role boundaries)

Part 2: “Highlights on Mind-Body self-care for Medical Interpreters”. Presented by Dr. Lizbeth Mendoza, CMI, MD-FMG Mexico. A four hour interactive workshop.

The following topics will be covered from 2pm to 6pm

1. Introduction to a mind-body approach to self-care.
2. Psychological, mental and emotional hazards for interpreters.
3. Scientific evidence behind Mind – Body medicine practices.
4. Interactive session to practice, discuss and elaborate on two self-initiated, self-administered, self-care, mind-body therapies and stress control techniques.