Pilina is an indigenous Hawaiian word, or concept, that describes our deep interconnectedness. Harvard Clinical Psychology Fellow Jo Qina'au guides us through a contemplation of our profound interrelationships.
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How to Do This Practice:
Pilina comes from the indigenous Hawaiian language and culture. Pilina means connection, or interconnectedness.
- Settle into a comfortable position and observe your breath.
- Visualize someone to whom you feel meaningfully connected and acknowledge the feeling of Pilina, or deep interconnectedness, between you two.
- Reflect on what it is that connects you, what impact that connection has had on your life, and what it may have had on theirs.
- Notice how it feels to acknowledge these things.
- Repeat steps 2-4 with as many people as you wish.
Today’s Happiness Break host:
Jo Qina’au is an indigenous Hawaiian meditation teacher and a Clinical Psychology Fellow at Harvard Medical School.
If you enjoyed this Happiness Break, you may also like these Happiness Breaks:
- 5 Minutes of Progressive Muscle Relaxation, With Jo Qina’au - https://tinyurl.com/4f3fd97f
- Visualizing Your Best Self in Relationships, With Dacher Keltner - https://tinyurl.com/4dzpatx7
Check out these episodes of The Science of Happiness about connection:
- How to Feel Less Lonely and More Connected - https://tinyurl.com/36t6urte
- When It's Hard To Connect, Try Being Curious - https://tinyurl.com/3778r4h9
We love hearing from you! Tell us who you feel Pilina with, and what it means to you to reflect on it. Email us at happinesspod@berkeley.edu or use the hashtag #happinesspod.
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We all could use a break to feel better. That's where Happiness Break comes in. In each biweekly podcast episode, instructors guide you through research-backed practices and meditations that you can do in real time. These relaxing and uplifting practices have been shown to help you cultivate calm, compassion, connection, mindfulness, and more — what the latest science says will directly support your well-being. All in less than ten minutes. A little break in your day.
Transcript:
Dacher Keltner: Welcome to Happiness Break. I'm Dacher Keltner. This week, we're taking a break to try a practice in connectedness.
Decades of research have shown that perhaps the biggest factor in our well being is the quality of our relationships. And really relationships of all kinds. We know that strong social connections makes us feel stronger, more optimistic, and more hopeful about what we're doing.
Thinking about our good relationships is also really important. We know that reflecting and remembering the quality of our relationships activates the reward centers in our brain that give us a greater sense of delight. And it engages regions of the prefrontal cortex that help us handle stress and respond to the difficulties of living with greater flexibility and resilience.
There's probably no better pathway to a good life than engaging in and reflecting upon good, healthy relationships.
Guiding us today is Joe Qina'au, a native Hawaiian meditation teacher and clinical fellow at Harvard Medical School. They're also the founder of Pilina Center for Wellbeing. Here's Joe.
Jo Qina'au: So aloha everyone. I am Jo Qina'au. I'm really excited to be sharing this meditation with you all. It's a Pilina meditation and the word Pilina comes from the native Hawaiian language. As Kana'iolowalu, native Hawaiian, I'm always really honored and happy to share about my culture.
Pilina means connection. And so we can think about Pilina as an interpersonal connection. We're really going to explore that today. That'll be our main focus. But the word itself, Pili s a kind of grass that grows in Hawaii. And so we take this word Pili grass and we weave it together to create larger pieces for baskets or for clothing. And inherent in the word Pilina is this idea of interconnection, I like to think about it as the power of "we." And so hopefully when we bring a few things together, um, it creates something that's bigger than its two individual parts.
So to get started, you can be seated in a comfortable position or even lying down. And you can close your eyes if you like. If you aren't comfortable with the eyes closed, feel free to just have the eyelids be sort of heavy, bringing your gaze to a single point.
And we'll start to draw our awareness from the external world to the internal world. Giving yourself some space to settle in. Rooting our awareness. first on the breath, noticing the breath at the nostrils, the back of the throat, the chest, ribcage, the belly.
Noticing how the breath moves the body, and then becoming aware of the body itself where you're seated, the weight of the sip bones or wherever you might be.
And on your next inhale, starting to notice your connection, your Pilina, with breath. Breathing in connection, breathing out connection. Maybe noticing how the lines between the self and the breath are not so clear.
And now shifting our awareness, let's bring to mind a person with whom you already feel deeply connected. Anyone with whom you have a deep, maybe mutually sustaining or emotional or spiritual connection to.
Now with this person in mind, perhaps visualizing them with you here, feeling their presence, noticing the experience of your connection, your Pilina. We might say, "We are connected." Or some phrase that comes to mind just acknowledging this special Pilina between the two of you.
Notice anything that arises in your body. As you make space for this connection and acknowledge it, notice any thoughts that arise.
Perhaps noticing the emotion tone, the feeling of this connection. Then allowing yourself to reflect for a moment on what it is that connects the two of you. It could be a shared heart space or a shared mission. An unspoken connection.
Just allowing yourself the space to really acknowledge all the ways in which this connection exists, and perhaps the ways in which this connection has had impact in your life, on your wellbeing.
And perhaps even for this person who sits with you in the meditation, how it's nourished their lives. Then opening up the space to be able to express anything that comes to your mind or heart to this person you have Pilina with.
Notice how it feels to offer acknowledgement of this Pilina. And then feel free to thank this person for being a part of your meditation. As you start to allow their image to dissipate and you draw your awareness back to the breath, always there waiting for you.
And as you're ready, slowly beginning to open your eyes to welcome your surroundings.
And as you start to make your way back into whatever physical space and time you find yourself in, just noticing if there's anything your body needs right now, if you need to move, stretch, and just noticing the emotional space that your body is in.
And if it so moves you, the kinds of things you said to this person you feel Pilina with, if you happen to be lucky enough that this person is accessible to you, you can always write in an email, give them a call, send a text. And if not, just resting in the knowledge that it's been received on the other side.
Mahala for joining me today. Have a beautiful rest of your day.
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