WEEK 3: MINDFULNESSJOAN MARLOW

PEACEFUL EASY HEALING

Meditation Workshop

How Attitudes/Behavior are Shaped

Mindful Awareness…

… paying attention to present moment experiences with openness, curiosity, and a willingness to be with what is. It is an excellent antidote to the stresses of modern times. It invites us to stop, breathe, observe, and connect with one's inner experience

UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Ctr

Mindful Awareness…

…helps us become aware of what is already true moment by moment. We could say that it teaches us how to be unconditionally present; that is, it helps us be present with whatever is happening, no matter what it is.

Psychology Today

Mindfulness

• When practicing mindfulness one must remember to maintain attention on the chosen object of awareness, "faithfully returning back to refocus on that object whenever the mind wanders away from it.“

• Mindfulness means not only, "moment to moment awareness of present events," but also, "remembering to be aware of something or to do something at a designated time in the future".

• The primary connotation of this term is “recollection".

-Wikipedia

Mindfulness

…means living in a state of raised consciousness, knowing how our minds have been programmed to work, and then making healthy, long-term decisions about how we choose to conduct our lives. This includes mindful eating, mindful relationships, mindful speech, mindful livelihood, etc.

Mindful Breathing

Focus on your breathing As one breath ends; the next begins Your eyes don’t have to be closed, but your mind

should be in the present (focus on ‘something’, a picture, a lit candle, your hands, a spot on the floor..rest your hand on your belly and focus on its rise and fall)

When your mind wanders…let the thoughts go..bring your attention back to the breath

Practice a couple of times a day for 5 mins at a time (in the beginning, 3 min/time 2x/day)…when done, reflect on your experience

Outcomes

Feeling better in the moment.. from release of ‘feel-good’ hormones dopamine and

serotonin Effects are cumulative and lasting…brain plasticity When we stop and quiet our minds, we’re building

healthier habits of thinking and feeling

Practice Makes Permanent

Mindful Sensing

Taking the time to really pay attention to the remarkable sensation of being alive, moment to moment, in our bodies

Appreciating all that we see, hear, smell, taste and feel

When we practice mindful awareness, we develop more conscious control of what we pay attention to…due to stronger neural pathways in our brain…we can discern a tree in the forest…we develop ‘focus’

Mindful Listening

Reinforces a crucial skill of emotional intelligence: the ability to listen accurately to others with our minds and hearts without interrupting or leaping to conclusions

Is there a difference between ‘listening’ and ‘hearing?’

Listening stimulates our ability to feel empathy for others…

‘We are losing our silence’…comments????

Mindful Seeing

80% of what our brains take in is visualThe human eye registers more than 35,000

visual images every hourNo wonder we feel that time is flying by!!

Mindful Smelling

The smell of apple pie baking; the smell of pine from a Christmas tree; the smell of your mother’s perfume or your father’s aftershave; the scent of roses…

What might be a negative smell?Smell evokes the emotions surrounding an

experience.Being able to smell and then remember

what any particular scent means and whether it signifies comfort or danger is a vital human skill.

Mindful Tasting…

…helps us to savor every mouthful and we tend to eat less

…increases the awareness of the importance of chewing our food which aids digestion

…it takes the brain 10 min to experience the feeling of being full…if we eat slower, we’ll eat less and enjoy it more

…is one of the ways in which we can experience the optimal state of relaxed awareness by paying attention to what we eat

Mindful Movement

Have you ever been sitting and felt you had to get up and move your body or you were going to jump out of your skin?

Our bodies and minds are very closely connected

Movement releases dopamine, which helps us experience a sense of well-being…

Other neural circuits help benefit our brain by: Improving memory Easing depression Improving cognitive ability, problem solving and

more..

Living in the Moment

• Use a reminder of the string-around-your-finger variety

• Practice slowing down time by attending to the subtleties of experience in the here and now

• Make it new• Mind the gap• Focus on the soles of your feet• Focus on your senses

PRACTICE….

What Mindfulness Practice can you create for yourself??

Thoughts Borrowed from Qigong

Slow down your breathing. This brings more oxygen to the body and brain.

Focus on your lower dantian, the energy center located behind the navel.

Breathe through your skin. Concentrate on your skin as you visualize energy coming into your body.

Breathe through your nose. This brings more energy directly to your brain.

Put a smile on your face.

• Mindfulness, paying precise, nonjudgmental attention to the details of our experience as it arises and subsides, doesn't reject anything. Instead of struggling to get away from experiences we find difficult, we practice being able to be with them. Equally, we bring mindfulness to pleasant experiences as well. Perhaps surprisingly, many times we have a hard time staying simply present with happiness. We turn it into something more familiar, like worrying that it won't last or trying to keep it from fading away.

For if you notice the above list of things we can and should be mindful about, you will find it to be not dissimilar from the Buddha's 8-fold path: Right view, Right Intention, Right Speech, Right Action, Right Livelihood, Right Effort, Right Mindfulness, Right Concentration.

It is this 8-Fold Path that we have basically distilled into what is now known as Mindfulness, I believe, without any religious connotations. In contrast, Mindfulness Meditation is one of the practices, one of the tools, of both the 8-Fold Path and of Mindfulness.