Thomas Ernst / 15 June 2010
May I speak in the name of the father and the son and the holy spirit amen.
I wish to speak about 3 parts of my ministry
1) Explain a little about my work as a Consultant Physician at St Thomas’ Hospital
2) Speak about the conference on the neuroscience of compassion I went to last week.
3) How these two items are related to today’s readings and today’s life concerning health.
I have 3 areas I work in: Acute Medicine leading a team in the A&E department. I run half an elderly care ward and I have 4 outpatient clinics specialising in patients with falls, blackouts and dizzy spells. This includes patients with anxiety and often associated problems such as depression, chronic fatigue and problems with sleep and stress.
Fear is an important contributor of disease and causes anxiety. Anxiety changes the pattern of a disease from a stable and manageable problem usually dealt with in outpatients to an unpredictable condition often requiring urgent care. Chronic anxiety tends to put so much strain on the body that the threat system or fight and flight system is activated. Anxiety accelerates ageing.
The current problem in the health service is the ever increasing demand for urgent services which are costly and outcomes are generally poorer compared to routine outpatient management of disease. So more cost and less outcome.
It makes hence sense to focus on reducing anxiety in parallel with the currently predominant biomedical approach to disease itself.
2)
This is where I would like to talk a little on the key findings presented at the conference on Neuroscience of Compassion which was held last week at Samye Ling Buddhist Monastery in Dumfriesshire, Scotland.
Neuroscience is a fairly new area of research looking at changes that happen in the brain and body in response to changes in human behaviour, in this case behaving in a more compassionate and mindful way to oneself and also to others.
The mind tends to change the brain and the brain changes the body. So all change starts at the state of the mind. Contrary to popular belief the mind can be trained fairly easily.
Mindfulness and compassion training is a process where the individual learns to observe their own body feelings without interfering with these feelings in any way. The key is not to change, judge or interfere with anything that is being felt or thought during the exercise, just observe.
Through this type of training research has shown that the right brain hemisphere is activated. The right brain wishes to connect with everyone and everything in the immediate environment and only lives in the present moment, it has no concept of past or future. It relies on the universe to guide the way and has little to no own will.
The left brain however is concerned with the chronological past and future of the individual alone largely cut off from their current environment and focuses on the survival of the fittest and strongest. It excretes a large amount of stress hormones and as it lacks connection to the present moment there is little to no universal guidance as it does not integrate with everyone else about at the same time, hence acts in isolation. This causes anxiety.
Mindfulness training is derived from ancient Buddhist meditation and shifts the balance towards the right brain achieving a greater connectedness with our environment and hence more mindfulness. We cannot decide to be mindful, we have to be compassionate with ourselves to achieve mindfulness, in other words we have to love ourselves. With that I mean expose ourselves to our own feelings, worries, thoughts, pains but also pleasures with a non judgemental non interfering just watching and self compassionate mind within our body framework.
So why do I explain this all to you?
Mindfulness of others is easiest created by switching on one’s own right brain rather than forcing the left brain to do it by deciding to be mindful. The left brain is quite frankly crap at being mindful. It is like asking a plumber to put a new roof on.
3)
Compassion features heavily in today’s readings: It is compassion and not logical thought that is used to save the barren woman in Isaiah. “ For a brief moment I abandoned you but with great compassion I will gather you” and “with everlasting love I will have compassion on you”. The abandonment seems necessary in order to be able to feel the opposite which is God’s compassion. Once this compassion has healed her she will have many offspring which will fill whole towns she is promised.
In Luke’s Gospel the sinful woman who speaks no word at all but acts compassionately by using her hair and tears and ointment to comfort her redeemer receives most pardon. By deeply feeling the pain with the heart rather than thinking it through with the mind she communicates compassionately with Christ.
Coming to the Conference I went to last week, in the Buddhist tradition it is well known that pain hides several functions which come to light if we have compassion with our pain but are hidden further if we fight pain.
The obvious function we will all learn is that pain warns the individual to avoid harmful situations and behaviours.
But behind the pain lies also a guiding and healing force. By being compassionate with one’s pain - being prepared to make time to feel it and embrace it non judgementally without trying to change it - God’s compassion is kindled and the pain is starting to melt. Revealed is the wisdom of what needs to be done which was previously hidden by the pain. This wisdom will lead the person to the help he or she needs - whether what is required is the right doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a priest, a social worker or a psychologist to name just a few.
The same holds true for other negative symptoms. If we have compassion for our hunger the path to food will be kindled or the hunger will go depending on what we need at the time. If we have compassion for our tiredness good sleep may follow or we will wake up. Again, whatever is needed at the time. And soon we will find out that what is needed is better than what we want.
I am not advocating ignoring pain. Quite the opposite. I am encouraging everybody to be compassionate with themselves and have a relationship with one’s body every day in a self compassionate way. That way we will reveal the guiding forces that lie hidden behind the negative symptoms as long as we fight them and are revealed by compassion and gratefulness towards them.
We need to practice what we preach. I strongly believe that by training ourselves to be mindful and compassionate with ourselves and others in daily practice others will follow suit so that God can give us a hand to living healthily and guide us to the help we may need.
I am happy to discuss any points in more detail over some tea afterwards and conduct training if required.
Amen
I wish to speak about 3 parts of my ministry
1) Explain a little about my work as a Consultant Physician at St Thomas’ Hospital
2) Speak about the conference on the neuroscience of compassion I went to last week.
3) How these two items are related to today’s readings and today’s life concerning health.
I have 3 areas I work in: Acute Medicine leading a team in the A&E department. I run half an elderly care ward and I have 4 outpatient clinics specialising in patients with falls, blackouts and dizzy spells. This includes patients with anxiety and often associated problems such as depression, chronic fatigue and problems with sleep and stress.
Fear is an important contributor of disease and causes anxiety. Anxiety changes the pattern of a disease from a stable and manageable problem usually dealt with in outpatients to an unpredictable condition often requiring urgent care. Chronic anxiety tends to put so much strain on the body that the threat system or fight and flight system is activated. Anxiety accelerates ageing.
The current problem in the health service is the ever increasing demand for urgent services which are costly and outcomes are generally poorer compared to routine outpatient management of disease. So more cost and less outcome.
It makes hence sense to focus on reducing anxiety in parallel with the currently predominant biomedical approach to disease itself.
2)
This is where I would like to talk a little on the key findings presented at the conference on Neuroscience of Compassion which was held last week at Samye Ling Buddhist Monastery in Dumfriesshire, Scotland.
Neuroscience is a fairly new area of research looking at changes that happen in the brain and body in response to changes in human behaviour, in this case behaving in a more compassionate and mindful way to oneself and also to others.
The mind tends to change the brain and the brain changes the body. So all change starts at the state of the mind. Contrary to popular belief the mind can be trained fairly easily.
Mindfulness and compassion training is a process where the individual learns to observe their own body feelings without interfering with these feelings in any way. The key is not to change, judge or interfere with anything that is being felt or thought during the exercise, just observe.
Through this type of training research has shown that the right brain hemisphere is activated. The right brain wishes to connect with everyone and everything in the immediate environment and only lives in the present moment, it has no concept of past or future. It relies on the universe to guide the way and has little to no own will.
The left brain however is concerned with the chronological past and future of the individual alone largely cut off from their current environment and focuses on the survival of the fittest and strongest. It excretes a large amount of stress hormones and as it lacks connection to the present moment there is little to no universal guidance as it does not integrate with everyone else about at the same time, hence acts in isolation. This causes anxiety.
Mindfulness training is derived from ancient Buddhist meditation and shifts the balance towards the right brain achieving a greater connectedness with our environment and hence more mindfulness. We cannot decide to be mindful, we have to be compassionate with ourselves to achieve mindfulness, in other words we have to love ourselves. With that I mean expose ourselves to our own feelings, worries, thoughts, pains but also pleasures with a non judgemental non interfering just watching and self compassionate mind within our body framework.
So why do I explain this all to you?
Mindfulness of others is easiest created by switching on one’s own right brain rather than forcing the left brain to do it by deciding to be mindful. The left brain is quite frankly crap at being mindful. It is like asking a plumber to put a new roof on.
3)
Compassion features heavily in today’s readings: It is compassion and not logical thought that is used to save the barren woman in Isaiah. “ For a brief moment I abandoned you but with great compassion I will gather you” and “with everlasting love I will have compassion on you”. The abandonment seems necessary in order to be able to feel the opposite which is God’s compassion. Once this compassion has healed her she will have many offspring which will fill whole towns she is promised.
In Luke’s Gospel the sinful woman who speaks no word at all but acts compassionately by using her hair and tears and ointment to comfort her redeemer receives most pardon. By deeply feeling the pain with the heart rather than thinking it through with the mind she communicates compassionately with Christ.
Coming to the Conference I went to last week, in the Buddhist tradition it is well known that pain hides several functions which come to light if we have compassion with our pain but are hidden further if we fight pain.
The obvious function we will all learn is that pain warns the individual to avoid harmful situations and behaviours.
But behind the pain lies also a guiding and healing force. By being compassionate with one’s pain - being prepared to make time to feel it and embrace it non judgementally without trying to change it - God’s compassion is kindled and the pain is starting to melt. Revealed is the wisdom of what needs to be done which was previously hidden by the pain. This wisdom will lead the person to the help he or she needs - whether what is required is the right doctor, a surgeon, a nurse or a priest, a social worker or a psychologist to name just a few.
The same holds true for other negative symptoms. If we have compassion for our hunger the path to food will be kindled or the hunger will go depending on what we need at the time. If we have compassion for our tiredness good sleep may follow or we will wake up. Again, whatever is needed at the time. And soon we will find out that what is needed is better than what we want.
I am not advocating ignoring pain. Quite the opposite. I am encouraging everybody to be compassionate with themselves and have a relationship with one’s body every day in a self compassionate way. That way we will reveal the guiding forces that lie hidden behind the negative symptoms as long as we fight them and are revealed by compassion and gratefulness towards them.
We need to practice what we preach. I strongly believe that by training ourselves to be mindful and compassionate with ourselves and others in daily practice others will follow suit so that God can give us a hand to living healthily and guide us to the help we may need.
I am happy to discuss any points in more detail over some tea afterwards and conduct training if required.
Amen
