Well Being Psychotherapy

Has activity become mere busyness?

The issue is not how much we do. The issue is whether, in the midst of doing, we remain intimate with the life that is actually unfolding before us.

Has work become another place where the heart quietly disappears beneath habit, identity, accomplishment or concern?

We rarely ask whether the heart remains alive within our activity.

There are ways of engaging in activity in which the heart gradually disappears beneath the weight of self-concern, until one no longer encounters the world directly, but only one's own momentum moving through it.

Zen invites us to examine not the quantity of our activity but the quality of our participation.

There is no place to live except with the life that is completely before us.

Roshi Joan Halifax quotes, Raising a Broom, 6/27/26

Raising a Broom–Essay by Roshi Joan Halifax Roshi Joan Halifax explores the Zen teaching on work, busyness, and the living heart of practice, drawing on samu, nyohō, raising a broom, and a classic koan.

One way to meditate

A few minutes of meditation can make a big impact on stress.
In a recent study: The brain waves of people focusing on their breath changed to suggest they had entered a more relaxed state after just two or three minutes. Here’s how: it’s a simple meditation that involves paying attention to natural breathing. With this type of meditation, you bring your focus back to the inhale and exhale if your mind wanders. Previous studies have shown this quiet, attentive state can promote relaxation and lower stress levels.

Previous studies have shown this quiet, attentive state can promote relaxation and lower stress levels. The researchers looked at how the participants’ brain wave activity changed during a 10-minute meditation session. Within just two or three minutes, all groups showed EEG changes that suggest a more relaxed state.

Meditation primarily affects the brain’s executive function, or the ability to manage and regulate what you think, feel and do. When practicing it regularly, “we see the executive network become more intentional, so you’re more in the driver’s seat of thoughts, emotions and impulses,” said Cortland Dahl, research scientist at the University of Wisconsin Center for Healthy Minds.
Studies suggest meditation may increase brain thickness in areas related to emotional regulation and sensory processing, and that it may reduce emotional reactivity, boost cognitive functions such as focus and attention, and improve stress resilience. Meditating can also make you more resilient to stress and your body less reactive to it, decreasing blood pressure, heart rate and stress hormone levels. While the study looked at focused breathing, experts say any type of meditation can yield similar results.

- Washington Post