On this West Virginia Morning, when it comes to decoding the language of the drug epidemic, advocates say using compassionate language is vital when speaking with the people behind the numbers. Emily Rice has more.
On this West Virginia Morning, when it comes to decoding the language of the drug epidemic, advocates say using compassionate language is vital when speaking with the people behind the numbers. Emily Rice has more.
Also, in this show, we have an excerpt from our latest episode of Us & Them. Host Trey Kay looks at what contributes to racial disparities in our justice system. Some say Black West Virginians are disproportionately harmed.
You can listen to this full episode of Us & Them, “Who Gets Stuck Behind Bars in West Virginia?” at 8 p.m. on June 22 on West Virginia Public Broadcasting. There will be an encore broadcast on Saturday, June 24 at 3 p.m.
West Virginia Morning is a production of West Virginia Public Broadcasting which is solely responsible for its content.
Support for our news bureaus comes from Concord University and Shepherd University.
Eric Douglas is our news director and produced this episode.
Teresa Wills is our host.
Listen to West Virginia Morning weekdays at 7:43 a.m. on WVPB Radio or subscribe to the podcast and never miss an episode. #WVMorning
As the world grapples with the fast-moving spread of the coronavirus, many of us may be out of our normal routines. Maybe we’re trying to answer email with kids at home; maybe we’re worried about loved ones or our own financial wellbeing in this uncertain time.
For many, the uncertainty is causing real anxiety. Julie Brefczynski-Lewis, an assistant research professor at West Virginia University, says one way to cope is with something called compassion meditation. While many of us are practicing social distancing to help slow the spread of the virus, tapping into our compassion for others may help manage coronavirus-related anxiety.
Reporter Brittany Patterson spoke with Brefczynski-Lewis about how thinking of others during this time can help us all feel less alone. Here is an excerpt of their conversation, which was recorded over Zoom.
***Editor’s Note: The following has been edited for clarity and length.
Patterson: What is compassion meditation?
Brefczynski-Lewis: Compassion meditation is part of mindfulness, but it takes it a step further and does an imaginative exercise where you purposefully cultivate a positive feeling of compassion. It can be for yourself;` it can be for others. There’s different types of compassion meditation, but they often follow a step-by-step sequence. So, starting with someone you really care about, and you know, just thinking of them makes you smile, and wishing them happiness and wishing them joy and [the] easing of their suffering. And from there, you can step to other people or maybe yourself if you have trouble having compassion for yourself.
Patterson: Tell us about the role this can play in a time like we’re facing right now where things seem really uncertain and fluid?
Brefczynski-Lewis:My recommendation when I was asked about it earlier by WVU is based on my own experience of also being stressed. What happens for me when I’m stressed is I sometimes get a sense of claustrophobic anxiety, or I just start to spin a little bit. In neuroimaging, you can actually see a network of self-rumination start to fire up. And compassion is sort of like a little escape from that circuit. So, we did a study on long-term meditating monks who are really good at doing this meditation, and found that they were activating pro-social areas. So, our brains are wired to be social. And this is a pretty weird time because we’re wired to be social and we’re all kind of isolated. But if we think about the fact that all those other people are out there, and they’re all kind of trying to make it work and trying to, you know, get around their own anxiety. And, ‘oh I wish them well’ then you start to activate that pro-social network, even when you’re home isolating.
julie_meditation_for_web.mp3
Follow along with this 10 minute compassion meditation led by Brefczynski-Lewis.
Patterson:It’s like we’re all anxious together.
Brefczynski-Lewis: We’re all anxious together, exactly. And that’s actually … there’s some solidarity in that. The posts that I often see on social media that I think are quite uplifting, are related to that. They say ‘hey, we’re all in this together. We’re all going to do our best to help others if we can.’ Those types of things are very uplifting and why? It’s because we can think of other people and that takes the emphasis off our own little claustrophobic misery.
Patterson: Are there techniques that could help us be more mindful and do they take a lot of time?
Brefczynski-Lewis: No, and that’s the beauty. If you’re in a moment where you’re just noticing, you know, a tree branch, a leaf, a, you know, a reflection in a pool of water — all those little things take the mind off our anxiety and place it on something that can be quite beautiful. That’s often used, for example, in mindfulness based cognitive therapy. You realize, you think, ‘Oh, I’m just anxious all day long. I’m just depressed all day long.’ Well, you know, there are moments where you might see something beautiful and you if become a little bit aware and remind yourself … maybe even on your computer screen … you could put a little reminder that comes up on your phone to say, ‘hey, breathe.’
And then when you breathe, you look around and you use your senses. ‘Hey, you know, I smell dinner cooking that smells really good.’ Or, ‘I see a little bird perched there on the tree and I can’t believe it’s spring.’
If you just notice how beautiful something is, go into that a little bit. And then imagine sharing that with others. So if you want to turn that into a compassion meditation, you could just imagine ‘may all enjoy the beauty of the beautiful bird outside.’ Or ‘may all enjoy the beauty of a child’s smile or whatever funny video.’
Patterson:I imagine a lot of us are feeling a lot of anxiety. We’re in situations that are new and changing. What advice would you offer to people as they try to navigate staying calm and taking care of their mental health during this time?
Brefczynski-Lewis: Over and over, I would just say be gentle with yourself. If you did this practice and then all of a sudden you find yourself angry or uptight or anxious or stressed throughout the day and you feel at any point the word ‘should’ come up, please be gentle. Because all of us are struggling and that’s going to happen. You’re going to feel stressed.
As compassion training is becoming more popular in schools across the country, a school in West Virginia is taking on a pilot compassion curriculum project of its own. The goal is to improve student achievement and foster healthier communities by cultivating things like focus and empathy.
Science of Compassion
Dr. James Doty, a brain surgeon in California, is one of the world’s leading experts on the science behind compassion. Doty explains, the scientific definition of compassion is “the recognition of the suffering of another with a motivational desire to alleviate that suffering.” He theorizes that human evolutionary success is tied to our capacity to love and care for each other – and he’s proven that significant health benefits come with kindness.
“What we have found,” Doty said, “is that when you’re feeling as if others love you or care for you, then your physiology works at its best.”
His work is part of a growing body of science that shows cultivating compassion could help people become healthier, drive local economies and improve learning outcomes in schools.
Schooled in Compassion
“For any of us to do our best work,” Liz Hofreuter, head of Wheeling Country Day School, said, “we have to be in the right head space.”
Hofreuter wants to bring more compassion to her town, starting at her school. She hopes Country Day can develop best practices to be used by anyone who works with young children.
She plans to formalize existing compassion curriculum that’s been developing at the school for the past 5 years. The idea is to help students cultivate focus, resilience, empathy and level-headedness.
Credit Wheeling Country Day School
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Wheeling Country Day School
An emphasis on nutrition and things like avoiding processed foods spills out of the lunchroom into lessons, according to head of school Liz Hofreuter.
In practice, compassion training at Country Day looks like taking time between school periods to focus on the sound of a bell ringing out — an exercise designed to gently sharpen focus and listening skills and allow kids to more effectively transition between activities. There’s extra emphasis on nutrition. For example, demonstrating through school lunches how to avoid processed foods. It also means paying closer attention to the physical body by incorporating yoga or basic stretching and breathing exercises throughout the day.
Hofreuter said compassion training is basically physical and social-emotional intelligence training. The concepts are not new, but they are developing. She said students learn to self-regulate and identify emotions so that, instead of being ruled by them, emotions can be used as guides.
“You say to a child, calm down,” Hofreuter said, “but when do you teach a child what that means?”
Hofreuter’s compassion initiative also includes a variety of methods to learn conflict resolution.
“They need to be trained by age 10 how to deal with a hallway in middle school, and the city in high school and college. I feel pretty strongly about that. They need those tools the same way they need reading, writing and math.”
Conflict resolution, Hofreuter points out, is not avoiding conflict, but learning to manage it.
“Kids need problems,” she continued. “They need problems, they need failure, they need to overcome it because they need intrinsic motivation and they need persistence and they need to know they have the fortitude.”
Credit Wheeling Country Day School
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Wheeling Country Day School
Areas in the school like this one are reserved for conflict resolution.
Finding Emotional Fortitude
Alex Thompson is a grade-schooler who’s been a student at Country Day for 4 years who. When asked, he admitted to sometimes feeling overwhelmed at school.
“It’s probably because of the difficulty with always having your friends happy,” he said. “Because you can really never have all of your friends happy with you.”
Alex and his classmates have laminated cards on their desks numbered 1 – 5.
“A five is basically when you are full of outrage and anger — so much anger that you need to be sent home,” Thompson explained. “And a one is basically, you’re happy.”
One of Alex’s teachers, Joe Jividen, said students can use the cards to identify how they’re doing during a lesson. He said the feedback helps him know if he’s getting through with lesson concepts, or if he should make adjustments.
“It’s really cool to hear the language used of a student walking in a telling me at the start of a day, ‘Hey, I’m at a three right now.’ And you’re able to look at them and say, ‘Great, that’s good to know. It’s good for me and it’s good for your classmates.’ ”
Jividen said the cards are making language that’s really difficult to talk about — your emotions — easy for both kids and teachers and other adults.
Teachers like Jividen and kindergarten teacher Claire Norman said the compassion training they’re beginning to exercise is also having some unexpected consequences.
“We see a difference not only in the kids but in ourselves. As teachers, you kind of forget about yourself sometimes and focus more on the kids. Linda and I know how doing yoga makes us feel, so we can only imagine how it makes the kids feel.”
Hofreuter said she hopes that as the program takes off, compassion training will move beyond the classroom and into the home and community as well.
