Week #8: Appreciate the Now for Always

This week is about cultivating your regular mindfulness practice that will sustain you for the long term. 

Williams & Penman (2011) talk about the tendency to postpone our lives. We make promises to ourselves about what we will get to, what we will catch up on, later. . .when we have time. “Well here it is: now is the future that you promised yourself last year, last month, last week. Now is the only moment you’ll ever really have” (p.242). Nothing. Nothing ever happens outside of the Now! 

Exercises for this week. . . and for the rest of your life! 

You need to work to maintain mindfulness. Just like physical health, there is no point at which you arrive - no point at which physical health is achieved. There is no point in time in which you can abandon your regular exercise or your healthful diet because you have met your goal. Physical health needs to be maintained through the regular practice of healthy behaviors, every day or as many days a week as you can. Mindfulness is the same. In our mindfulness practices we are working toward the point where our default mode becomes mindfulness as opposed to unconsciousness or autopilot, but once this is true, we can’t assume that it is a fixed, irreversible state. The incessant “noise” of modern society -- the barrage of incoming stimuli from myriad media sources, the stressors, the pressures will beg for the return of Monkey Mind. To keep mindfulness our default mode, one must keep practicing, daily, regularly. The following is a summary of the suggested “program” for ongoing training as outlined by Williams & Penman (2011). (Much is verbatim, but I am abbreviating the sections and paraphrasing in some cases for the sake of brevity, so I am not using proper citation here. .  .Forgive me.) 

Start the day with mindfulness: 

--When you open your eyes, gently pause before taking five deliberate breaths. This is your chance to reconnect with your body. If you feel tired, anxious, unhappy, see these feelings and thoughts as mental events not actual events. If your body aches, acknowledge them with compassion and acceptance. You are not trying to change anything! Remember, resistance does nothing but exacerbate them! By doing this, you have begun the day decidedly from a place of mindfulness, not autopilot. Now you may scan the body for a minute or two or focus on the breath and do some easy stretches while still lying down. 

Do the Breathing Space Meditation a few times a day, at pre-set times -- especially when you are feeling overwhelmed, stressed, anxious, or fearful or are experiencing any other intense emotion. 

Do the formal meditations -- your choice -- once or twice a day. 

Befriend your feelings. . .Always! 

--Bring and open and kind-hearted awareness to all of your feelings. As Williams & Penman (2011) say, “roll out the welcome mat” to all of your painful feelings:” This will deactivate your tendency to automatic reactions typical of autopilot mode. 

Practice mindfulness as a way of being! 

--Practice mindfulness throughout the day, as much as possible. Be aware of the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, and sensations involved in everything you do. 

Increase your level of exercise, the frequency and intensity. 

--Bring a mindful and curious attention to your body as you exercise from the ground underneath your feet to the myriad sensations throughout the body -- your heart racing, your breath, points of tension, tightness, whatever arises. 

Williams and Penman (2011) say that the “everydayness” of the practice is important. You are cultivating a new way of being as opposed to the obsessive compulsive state of doing. 

“Practice as if your life depended on it, as in many ways, it surely does. For then you will be able to live the life you have - and live it as if it truly mattered.” 

Congratulations on completing the 8-week mindful meditation training! If you get a chance, please let me know your experience with the program. In the meantime, enjoy the Now -- this week, forever, and always. 

Be well my friends! 

Jennifer

Week #7: Find Balance, Reclaim Joy

This week’s mindfulness practice is about reclaiming our joy and finding balance between the stressors in life — the activities that deplete our energy, creativity and enthusiasm — and those that nourish and renew our mind, body, and spirit!

In the face of mounting responsibilities and piles of work, our first line of attack is too often to cut back on the pleasurable or healthful activities that nourish us and double down on the tasks that deplete us. We may be able to “find” extra minutes or hours for the work to be done by eliminating our yoga practice or morning jog, but if our health and happiness suffer as a result, we approach those tasks with less energy, enthusiasm, and creativity.

This week you are asked to take an audit of your current level of balance. Start by making a list of all of your typical daily activities. Then go through your list item by item and think about whether they are nourishing or depleting to the mind, body, and soul and label them respectively, “N” or “D.”  Then make an honest assessment of the balance between the two and the impact of that balance — or lack thereof — on your mood and energy level. Next, make a list of five nourishing activities you can incorporate into your day to bring about more balance. These don’t need to be big things. Small rituals or nourishing little nibbles of time can make a powerful cumulative impact. 

Some examples:

-Take a coffee break every two hours

-Flip through a magazine during lunch

-Take a walk after dinner 

-Involve the entire family in meal prep 

-Organize one drawer or clutter spot in your home or office

Williams & Penman (2011) suggest that we approach all activities mindfully —  the nourishing and the depleting. We can’t always eliminate the depleting activities, but if we can approach those activities with intent and focus and respect the value of those activities, we can reduce their negative impact.  

This Week’s Exercises

#1 Your Choice Meditations, Pick 2! 

There are no new meditations this week. You are to pick two previous meditations —  one that you felt was nourishing and one that didn’t quite resonate with you the first time around. Spend 20-30 minutes on these two meditations either in sequence or at separate times during the day, six out of seven days this week.    

#2 Breathing Space Meditation

Do this twice a day or whenever you feel stressed and overwhelmed. This time, however, follow the meditation with one of three courses of action intended to nourish and renew:

Do something pleasurable

-Take a walk, garden, bake a cake, call a friend, etc.

Do something that gives you a feeling of satisfaction and mastery

-Pay a bill, organize a clutter spot, clean a room 

Continue acting mindfully

-Whatever it is that you need to do or continue doing, do it with focus. Bring all of your five senses to bear on the task at hand.

Link to meditations:  http://bit.ly/rodalemindfulness

That’s it for this week!  One more week to go!!! 

Until the next post, enjoy the Now!

Jennifer 

Week #6: Letting Go of the Past, Finding the Now

This week’s exercises are about letting go of the past and living in the present. Williams & Penman (2011) say we “carry around the dead weight of past failures, unfinished business, relationship difficulties, unresolved arguments, or unfulfilled ambitions for ourselves and others.” This prevents us from fully engaging in the present moment. It is the greatest barrier to peace and contentment. 

According to Williams & Penman (2011), Western society was built on a foundation of guilt and shame. We feel guilt and shame for all of our perceived failures -- shame for our failed endeavors, shame for our imperfect children, shame for our broken relationships, shame for our unfulfilled dreams.

Much of our guilt and shame is grounded in fear. After all, is it not our duty to worry about our loves ones, our jobs, our pets, our bank accounts? Sometimes our worry seems self-protective - as if we can prevent our fears from manifesting just by worrying about them, as if without fear, we surrender some control. Williams & Penman (2011) call fear the “inner bully” making us believe that “if we relax, we’ll begin to fail. . .if we let ourselves off the leash, all hell will break loose.” And if that is not bad enough, we compound the whole fear, guilt, shame cycle by feeling bad that we feel this way! 

So this week’s exercises are about giving yourself the opportunity of “dwelling, moment by moment, in a state of mind that cradles you in nonjudgmental, compassionate wisdom.” Williams & Penman (2011) liken this to cradling an inconsolable infant. You’ve fed, diapered, and rocked the baby, but still the baby cries. Sometimes all you can do is cradle the baby, accepting the is-ness of the situation. You can’t ignore your fears and your shame or shove them aside, and brooding only compounds them. But you can sit with them, accepting them for what they are and hold them in a compassionate embrace. Cultivating kindness for yourself has powerful effects: research shows that “the “aversion pathways” in the mind --- that tend toward resistance -- are switched off, and the “approach” ones -- that tend toward acceptance --  are switched on instead.     

“This change in attitude enhances openness, creativity and happiness while at the same time dissolving the fears, guilts, anxieties, and stresses that lead to exhaustion and chronic discontent.”

The new meditation this week is about cultivating kindness toward yourself which, in turn, opens up a wellspring of available kindness and compassion for others.

This week’s exercises:

#1 Befriending Meditation, Track #7                                                                                        

        http://bit.ly/rodalemindfulness

#2 Continue with the Breathing Space meditation twice a day or as often as needed.  

After the Breathing Space meditation, spend a few moments noting your thoughts and feelings being careful to view them as thought, not as objective reality. Name your thought patterns: “anxious,” “worrying,” “planning,” or simply, “thinking, thinking.” Now try to determine what’s behind the thought pattern or try to think more objectively about what is going on: are you tired, cranky, exaggerating the circumstances, or just being unreasonable about your expectations?

#3 Habit Release

This week do one of the following:

Indulge in an activity that used to give you pleasure that you haven’t done in a long time. It can be a 5-minute or 5-hour activity like listening to a particular piece of music, going for a hike or reading a magazine.

Or,

Do a good deed for someone else: one random act of kindness, like cutting someone a bouquet of flowers or gathering some items for donation.

That’s it for the week. Until the next post, enjoy the Now!

Week #5 Progress Check

I hope you are doing well and keeping up with your mindfulness practice!  

The meditation this week is about building distress tolerance --- something that is particularly relevant in the midst of a pandemic. This practice is deliberately delayed until the latter half of mindfulness training with the assumption that by now one has achieved a basic foundation of body and breath meditation focus. Our fight-or-flight system can be a bit trigger happy. Meditation helps calm the sympathetic nervous system which reacts to an actual threat or a mental threat such as an anxiety-provoking thought. Without a base of practice, however, asking one to intently focus on their distress may be risky. Being able to pivot away from the distress back to the serenity of the body and breath is helpful. There are ample studies that attest to the effectiveness of meditation to build distress tolerance. . .the ability to cope with uncomfortable feelings, events, and thoughts -- even fears -- as opposed to turning away from them in an act of avoidance. . ."flight.”

If you get a chance, please share your experience with this meditation. What kinds of things came up for you -- mentally and physiologically? Have you noticed an improvement in your tolerance for uncomfortable thoughts and emotions with successive meditation sessions? Is there anything that has been particularly helpful? 

Also, I’d be interested in hearing about your experience with the Sounds & Thoughts meditation. While you are being asked to really tune into this sense this week, you have been using it all along. Sound is just one of the five senses that tether you to the here-and-now. When I suggested that handwashing be your mindful activity, you are tuning in not only to the visual experience of the activity, but the feel of the water and the lather of the soap, the scent of the soap, as well as the sound of the water as if you are trying to hear what the water is saying. Sound is also a key component of a simple breathing exercise. The sound of your breath is not only calming, it gives your busy brain something to do. I once suggested that you focus on the sound of your breath as if you are “straining” to eavesdrop on someone across the room. This straining isn’t a physiological function of course, it is a mental one. 

There is an important lesson in this, and it is one that my teenagers -- who had always assumed that thinking was essential to experience -- had to learn for themselves: your brain is central to your ability to hear, but thinking is not! Presence -- hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, tasking -- is “beyond the mind.” 

In your quest for mindfulness, sound is fun to explore. Since hiking in the great outdoors is a wonderful activity with which we can still indulge, experiment with sound as your primary tether to the now the next time you go for a wander in the woods or a park. If you have kids, engage them in this exercise too! Pay attention to all of the many layers of sound in your environment from the sound of your breath and your footsteps on your path, to the nearby sounds of the birds rustling in the bushes or tweeting on the branches above, to the more distant sounds of hawks crying in the skies, to the softer-today rumble of traffic on the road and the rarer-today sound of the jet thousands of feet above. How many layers of sound can you find? 

Let me know how you do! Week #6 (if you can believe) will be posted on Sunday. In the meantime, enjoy the Now!

Week #5: Turn Toward Your Fear

This week’s exercises are about “turning toward difficulties.” Why pray tell, would you want to turn toward what’s bothering you? Because we are biologically programmed through millions of years of evolution to the mode of “fight or flight,” readying ourselves for threats -- lions on the Savannah or marauding tribes stealing our women and children. Our fight-or-flight system is a little obsolete -- oversensitive -- and in need of a little updating. This week, instead of gently pushing away our bothersome thoughts when they enter our meditation, we will bring our full awareness to them as well as any corresponding physiological manifestations -- muscle tightening, queasiness, heart-rate changes, etc. The motive for these exercises is to build distress tolerance, to reprogram how our bodies react to certain stimuli, thoughts, or distressing events. It is much like exposure therapy where you help someone overcome a fear of spiders by first talking about spiders, then viewing pictures of spiders, then watching a video of spiders, then looking at one in person. 

If we can sit with our discomfort and learn how to cope with it, we change our body’s reaction to it. It loses its power over us. 

This week, complete the following three meditations in sequence, one immediately following the other: 

Use the following link: http://bit.ly/rodalemindfulness

• 8-minute Breath and Body, track #4

• 8-minute Sounds and Thoughts, track #5

Followed by this week’s new meditation,

• 10-minute Exploring Difficulty, track #6

Also this week, perform the Breathing Space meditation as often as you like, whenever you feel stressors arise. But, this week, try adding words to your inner experience during step one, such as, “I feel anger or fear or boredom,” and during step three of the meditation, allow yourself to bring awareness to any sense of discomfort, tension or resistance. Tell yourself to be OK and open to anything you are feeling. Spend a few more minutes on this last step this week while you breathe in and out from those locations in your body where you feel the stress manifesting.

That’s all for this week! Acquaint yourself with your discomfort, find the peace beneath, and -- until next week -- enjoy the Now!

Week #4 Progress Check

Hello friends! How are you doing this week? Hoping you are building your mind control skills and starting to notice yourself feeling a bit lighter, less anxious, and less stressed. If not, continue to be patient. 

Remember that you are attempting this not in “ordinary” times. Our present reality is quite disturbing, not at all something that we are simply going to lie down and just accept. . .Or is it? What is our choice? Our present reality IS our reality. Acceptance is the opposite of resistance. It is not the opposite of action. Acceptance is acknowledging without fear and judgment every kernel of the practical and existential, tangible and intangible truth of our present reality. Acceptance does not mean to surrender to something that is within our power to change. Although, my mindfulness guru Eckhart Tolle is not identified with any particular religion, he draws from the wisdom and insights of Zen Buddhism, Sufism, Hinduism and the Bible. His teachings echo and reflect the wisdom of the Serenity Prayer: 

“God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, Courage to change the things I can, and Wisdom to know the difference.”

It’s hard for us to accept, but our misery - our anxiety and depression -- is not the product of our present circumstances, it is the product of how we view our present circumstances. Screaming “this is not happening!” is always false. The “this” that you are screaming about is always happening, and saying that you “hate it” doesn’t change it, it only digs you in deeper. These and other exclamations are useless protestations and condemnations by the ego -- that is to say, the mind. Our thoughts of hopelessness and uselessness begets fear and fear begets anxiety and depression. But we are not hopeless or useless. When we climb out of the rabbit hole that we have thunk ourselves into, we can take constructive steps to protect ourselves, to protect our community, and to advocate on behalf of both. But there is a time for thinking, a time for doing, and a time for being. Nothing about your present reality short of death (and even this is a point of debate) denies you the opportunity to be, to find the serenity that lies beneath. .  Right. Now.

Be well my friends! 

Week #4: Choosing Presence

This week’s exercises target our habit of compulsive thinking. Eckhart Tolle says we are so accustomed to the constant, incessant hum of our thoughts -- what Williams and Penman (2011) call the “thought stream” -- that we don’t even notice it until we are free of it. He likens this to the relief we experience when an air conditioner is turned off and a peaceful silence fills the sound gap.

My thought stream often becomes trapped in an eddy that I call the "to do list death spiral." (Because I think this is a common problem, I recommend that before you begin your first meditation practice of the day, you take a moment to write down your daily "to-do list." This way you “clear the minefield” of potential distractions.) The thought stream is a running soundtrack of commentary, judgments, criticisms, comparisons, daydreams, and predictions. Williams and Penman (2011) call this the “propaganda stream.” This is another sort of death spiral that plays out in three stages: there is the situation, our interpretation of the event (that is determined by all of our past experiences, what we think and feel about our self, and our cultural orientation), and our reaction to the event – our emotions and corresponding physiological manifestations and our impulses to react in certain ways.

The three-stage process plays out in a loop with one negative thought-reaction resulting in another negative thought that spawns another negative thought, and so on. According to Tolle (2004), most of us are “compulsive thinkers.” He says that “thinking has become a disease.” I think he’s right. To not be able to stop thinking, in Tolle’s words, is “a dreadful affliction” (p. 14). I’ve experienced this, and I agree.   

Mind control, a test:

Don’t think this is you? Think that you control your mind and not the other way around? Let’s test that. Go to your alarm settings on your phone and choose the “stopwatch” mode. Take a deep inhale. On the exhale, start the stopwatch and see how long you can go before a thought enters your mind. Go ahead. . .I’ll wait. . .

How did you do? Did you make it 20 seconds? 15? 10? Only 5?

 Tolle (2004) believes that “many people live with a tormentor in their heads who continuously attacks and punishes them and drains them of vital energy” (p. 18). Williams & Penman (2011) liken the mind’s running commentary of the world to a rumor mill. “Once the mind’s propaganda stream has begun, it becomes more and more difficult to argue against it. It becomes difficult to separate fact from fiction. Future events will be interpreted by those facts accepted before it. Competing information is ignored and supporting facts wholeheartedly embraced” (Williams & Penman, 2011, pg. 138).

The good news is, we can break this cycle. We can learn to control the incessant mental noise that separates us from the stillness and peace that that lies beneath – and it is there. All we must do, says Tolle (2004), is start listening to that internal voice and as often as possible! Tolle (2004) calls this, “watching the thinker.” What does this look like? Reflect on that mind control experiment you just did moments ago. Maybe you managed to go a few seconds before a thought popped into your head, such as, “I forgot to buy milk,” or, “I should go for a run.” If you had decided to continue, you would probably have gone another few seconds before another intrusive thought broke through and this pattern would likely continue. This may not feel like progress, but it is. When you “watch the thinker,” you come to realize that there is a level of intelligence – a level of consciousness – beyond thought. “When you listen to a thought, you are aware not only of the thought, but also of yourself as the witness of the thought” (Tolle, 2004, p. 19).

Let’s be clear, the opposite of thinking mode is not trancelike. . .it is presence. Being fully receptive to what is happening in the Now. Think about those times when you are fully in the moment – engrossed and absorbed by something – a titillating tale, a profound performance, a beautiful sunset, a passionate kiss. Your joy and pleasure in those moments was not predicated on your thoughts. Quite the opposite: thinking would only contaminate the experience or distract from it. The fact that television and movies provide an escape from reality – freedom from the thoughts that are oppressing and depressing us – is precisely why we indulge so much in them. But living our lives should be our goal, not escaping from them. Abuse of drugs and alcohol is a more toxic form of avoidance, but any amount of avoidance is a sad waste of the short time we have.

Mind control: What does progress look like?

Those gaps of mind – those breaks from compulsive thinking – will be short in the beginning but will gradually become longer. Eventually, your default mode will become presence, not thinking. And thinking will become something that is deliberate and intentional. “Your mind is an instrument, a tool. . .there to be used for a specific task” (Tolle, 2004, p. 21). In the meantime, be patient. When you are practicing mindfulness, have self-compassion. Watch the thoughts, watch the thinker, but don’t judge or criticize. Just note the thought, let it pass, and bring yourself back to the moment. This is the training.

The following exercises are intended to break the “propaganda stream,” the “rumor mill” that is running rampant and unchecked in our minds:  

Link to meditations:

 http://bit.ly/rodalemindfulness

1. Do the eight-minute body and breath meditation (track #4) immediately followed by the eight-minute sounds and thoughts meditation. (track #5). Do this sequence twice each day.

2. Do the three-minute breathing space meditation (track #8) twice a day or as often as needed.

3. Habit Releaser: This week, Williams & Penman (2011) suggest you show up at the movies at a designated time without checking beforehand what’s playing – the idea being that if you make a spur of the moment decision based upon your impulse in that moment, you may opt for – and find yourself unexpectedly enjoying – a selection that is out of your norm. During our quarantine time, I would suggest a modification of this assignment. If you have access to a movies-on-demand service, plan your movie night to begin at a predetermined hour. Don’t investigate your options or even think about what you’d like to watch beforehand. “Show up” at movie time and give yourself about 10 minutes to peruse the options and make a choice based upon how you are feeling at that moment. Since you will have many more options in this format, try to opt for something a little outside of your normal fare! If you don’t have a movies-on-demand option, peruse the guide channel and choose among the limited options what strikes your fancy at that moment.

That’s it for this week!  Until the next post, enjoy the Now!

Week #3 Progress Check

Hello friends! 

This week incorporates body work into the meditation exercises with the “Mindful Movement” meditation (track #3). As I am one who struggles mightily with monkey mind, I find body work essential to my mindfulness training. The sensations of stretching muscles, tendons, and ligaments -- such that are achieved through yoga practice -- are useful anchors for the busy mind. One simple stretch, such as the side bend, gives the mind so many feelings to explore. As you bend to the left, you may have a significant awareness of the lower spine, the energy of muscles anchoring the right hip, or the stretch of the skin of the right torso. You may become aware of some tension in your neck or at the base of your skull. You may even find that you need to bring more intention to your inhalations and exhalations as your ribs collapse into and crowd your lungs. All of these sensations help tether your mind to the Now like the ropes that keep giant parade balloons from floating off into the sky. If you choose to boost your mindfulness practice, I recommend incorporating some daily yoga practice. My favorite online yogi is Adriene found at yogawithadriene.com youtube. 

The “Three-Minute Breathing Space Meditation (track #8)” is also an indispensable tool for your emergency grab-and-go mental health bag! Make this and all meditations a form of body work by really harnessing the power of the breath! We do this by breathing properly with intention: this is referred to as belly breathing. This is how it works:

Belly Breathing, The Basics 

On your inhale, think of your breath filling the core of your body like water fills a pitcher -- from the bottom up. When you belly breathe, your abdomen should feel like it’s feeling with air first and should visibly distend. As your belly fills and bloats, allow your breath to then fill the lungs so that your chest cavity expands. (Here I think of a rooster puffing up his breast!) As you exhale, the air pours out of your body from your chest cavity (the top of the pitcher) first. Force out the last remainder of the breath by contracting the abdominal muscles. Remember to focus your mind on the feel and sound of your breath as it passes through your nose on the inhale and through the lips on the exhale.  This focused, intentional technique of belly breathing gives the busy mind many sensations and movements to explore in addition to the breath itself. 

As always, I would love to hear your feedback! Specifically, let me know what you found of the “valuing television” exercise! Did your brainless TV time become more of an “experience”? Was the quality of the time enhanced? Were you able to enjoy it more because it was time intentionally spent instead of time “killed” or “wasted?” 

Week #4 will be posted this Sunday. We are almost half way there!  

In the meantime, enjoy the Now! 

Week #3: Acceptance.

Welcome to Week #3 my friends!

This week I want you to think about approaching life from a place of acceptance as opposed to resistance. Mindfulness is about accepting the present circumstances without judgment. It does not mean that you need to accept the unacceptable, only the unchangeable. Only a masochist would accept intolerable circumstances if it were within one’s power to change them. However, even the unacceptable cannot be effectively addressed from a place of denial. How can you change what you cannot accept to be true?

Eckhart Tolle, author of “The Power of Now” (1999), offers the example of getting your car stuck in the mud. When you get out of your car, kick the tires and curse, you are approaching the problem from a place of resistance. You are toggling between a past and future orientation. The part of you fixated on the past is screaming, “how stupid of me to have done that.” If you are honest, you are suffering great agony over the fact that the universe is failing to rewind time and undo what you’ve just done. The part of your brain that is fixated on the future is lamenting the time lost to this dilemma, the moments that you are getting ready to miss. The problem is not of the past or the future, nor is the solution. The problem is of the now and it can only be solved in the present. If you think that sounds too obvious to warrant my digital ink, pay attention the next time you get yourself stuck in the proverbial mud. Watch your own mind’s resistance to the present moment. How many times in your life have you uttered the ridiculously futile phrase, “This. IS. NOT. Happening!”

You don’t need me to tell you that this is not the place from which to start problem solving. On the other hand, if you can be fully present in the moment, with acceptance and without judgment, you open your mind to creative possibilities — to solutions. The problem becomes an opportunity to be seized — dare I say, perhaps even a story to be told!

With that, let’s keep the momentum going and jump right in to Week #3.

Exercise #1, Breath and Body Meditation in Conjunction with Mindful Movement Meditation

Perform the 8 minute Mindful Movement meditation followed by 8 minute Breath and Body meditation.

The Mindful Movement meditation that is added in week #3 is again an exercise in mindfulness, anchoring your awareness to the present movement by intently focusing on the movement of your body (as with yoga). The exercises are intended to release stress built up in our bodies and physically realign many of the body’s muscles and joints. If you have any physical challenges, Williams and Penman advise that you consult your doctor or physical therapist before endeavoring on this mediation. Because the exercises are quite specific, you should defer to the link below so that you can follow along, being careful to heed your personal limitations. As you do the stretches, pay attention to your movements and the sensations that arise. You may find that the stretches help release some emotions – positive or negative. Don’t judge these emotions when they occur. Just recognize them, accept them, offer yourself compassion and goodwill for whatever arises.

You are to move seamlessly from this meditation into the Breath and Body meditation that you learned in week one. This time, when you perform B&B, note how you may feel differently performing this after the Mindful Movement meditation as opposed to coming into it “cold.” Also, pay particular attention to how you react to distractions (internal — mental — and external). If you feel frustration, are there corresponding physical reactions — tension or contractions? Williams and Penman (2011) suggest that you “cradle any and all of these sensations in a larger more compassionate awareness.”

“Remind yourself that the deepest stillness and peace does not arise because the world is still or the mind is quiet. Stillness is nourished when we allow the world, the mind, and the body, to be just as they are for now, moment by moment, breath by breath.” (Williams & Penman, 2011).

Meditation link below, track 3 then 4:

http://bit.ly/rodalemindfulness

Exercise #2, Three-Minute Breathing Space Meditation

“One of the great ironies of mindful awareness is that if often seems to evaporate just when you need it the most.” (Williams & Penman, 2011).

This meditation is for those times. Williams & Penman (2011) refer to it as “a bridge between your longer, formal meditations and the demands of life.” This is a 3-minute “emergency meditation”  for those times when you are stressed out, fed up, burned out and don’t feel you have the time to even. . .well . . .breathe.

“This meditation allows you to see clearly what is arising from moment to moment when you feel under pressure. It allows you to pause when your thoughts threaten to spiral out of control, by helping you regain a compassionate sense of perspective and to ground yourself in the present moment.”

Link below to track 8 for this meditation:

http://bit.ly/rodalemindfulness

Exercise #3, Habit Releaser: “Valuing Television”

This exercise is intended to bring a fresh focus to something we do very mindlessly, so much so that it does not seem to be a very conscious choice. We plop down on the couch at 7pm, fall down a rabbit hole and don’t emerge for hours realizing that the sun has gone down and the evening is over. It wasn’t necessarily our intention, and it wasn’t so much about “tuning in,” it was more about “zoning out.”

This week Williams & Penman (2011) ask that you watch television with intention. Look through the guide and choose a program that you really want to watch and put it on your schedule. The catch is, this can be the only program you watch for that day. If there is another program that is really important for you to watch, do so, but do so with intention, and turn it off when it’s over. Television is a form of entertainment. By all means use it, but use it “consciously,” “mindfully,” with full intention. Then record in a notebook — or share with us — how your experience of watching television changed. Was it more enjoyable? Did you savor the program more (sort of like you did the raisin)? Or did you find it irritating or more boring than you anticipated? Did you become anxious, feeling that this was a waste of time spent or did you embrace it as an intentional opportunity to refresh and recharge?

Well, that’s it for the week!  If you choose, share your progress here on my blog.

In the meantime, enjoy the now!

Jennifer

Week #2 Progress Check

Congratulations, you are more than halfway through Week #2 already! 

At this point in time, you may be noticing a little bit more control, but worries and other preoccupations are still creeping in…if a little less frequently. That’s OK. Really! I promise! 

This week you have been practicing the body scan. This is my favorite! I like it because it gives your brain very specific points of focus, and that is great for monkey minds like mine! Here again, you may be thinking you aren’t having any success at all! I’ll bet you are wrong! I’ll bet that almost none of you have ever once noticed the subtle twinges, the tingles, the electrical impulses that course through your body with every breath of your being. I bet you never really felt your being quite this way at all. 

We are made of stardust; the heavens are within us! 

At this point in your practice, you may well be struggling with isolating your focus on just one specific body part such as your feet or your calves. That is to be expected! You are more likely able to hold in your awareness larger areas of your body like your feet and your legs. But I bet that when you arrive at your face, you notice twinges and tingles that you had no idea were there when you believed you were trying and failing to focus on the soles of your feet! Am I right? THAT is success! 

So be patient my friends. Life is about the journey. Life is about. . . the Now. 

See you next week. In the meantime, enjoy the NOW! 

Jennifer

Week #2: Mind Your Body

Congratulations! You have finished your first week in your 8-week journey to achieving mindfulness.

If you don't feel like you achieved much, don’t be discouraged! Old habits die hard. Eckhart Tolle says we are so used to being in a state of of monkey mind we usually don't even notice it. He likens it to the hum of an air conditioner in the background. We don’t notice it. We aren't even aware that it's bothering us until the moment it's shut off and we experience the relief of the silence.

In the meantime, your mind will wander. Monkey Mind is relentless. Don't judge yourself. Don't beat yourself up. Just watch what the mind does. Watch where it goes. Have compassion and curiosity, not frustration, and gently bring it back to the present.

This is very important! Every time you notice your mind wandering THAT is success! Remember this was generally an unconscious habit -- something you just accepted and never really noticed! It is why Tolle calls the opposite of being mindful, being in a state of "unconsciousness."

Last thing before we begin: if you missed Week #1 Progress Check, go back and read it before moving on. I shared some tips that may be helpful.

OK, on we go!

This post details your Week #2 exercises as outlined in “Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan For Finding Peace in a Frantic World” (Williams and Penman, 2011). While I have done some summarizing of the steps involved, I have done my best to faithfully represent them.

Exercise #1, Body Scan Practice

This meditation is similar to the Body and Breath Meditation practiced during Week #1. You will work from your toes up through your feet, calves, knees, thighs, torso, arms, face, and head, holding each part of your body in awareness -- feeling all of the sensations -- until you are holding your entire body in awareness.

Follow along with track #2 on http://bit.ly/rodalemindfulness.  

Do this meditation at least twice per day for six out of seven days this week.

TIP! I find it difficult to hold both of my feet or both of my calves, etc., in awareness at the same time. I find it easier to focus on my left foot for a moment, then my right foot, my left calf, then my right calf, etc.

Exercise #2, Mindful Activity

Carry out another activity mindfully, choosing a different activity than you chose last week. For example, if last week you practiced mindfulness while you washed your hands (something we are doing a lot of these days), this week you could practice mindfulness while you brush your teeth. Other suggestions: drinking, eating, doing laundry, or going up and down steps.

TIP! I have a lot of steps in my house, so I like to make walking up the steps one of my mindful activities. That said, if I didn’t post a sign on the steps to remind me, I’d fly up and down them without giving them a second thought. Signs are good reminders! If you choose washing dishes as your activity, post a sign on the sink so that you don’t forget. I just write the word, “mind.” Also, you might make brushing your teeth a little more difficult and, thus, a little bit more mindful if you use your non-dominant hand.  

Exercise #3, Take a Walk

Go for a walk for at least 15 minutes at least one time this week. The idea here is that you walk mindfully.

TIP! Pretend you are a futuristic version of a 4-D video camera able to record all the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations of the world around you. Feel the ground under your steps and the breeze on your face. Hear the many layers of sounds in the world, distant and near. Feel what it's like to be fully present in the Now.

That's it for this week! Until my next post, enjoy the Now!

Week #1 Progress Check

Hello friends! 

For those of us who have begun the journey to mindfulness and are now well into Week #1, I wanted to officially welcome you and offer some insights that may be helpful!

All of the exercises this week are intended to wrest control of the mind from the autopilot, Monkey-Mind mode and to begin cultivating the ability to focus attention on the present moment. This program is deceptively simple! You may spend the first couple of weeks wondering how less than 30 minutes of dedicated daily practice can possibly amount to anything at all. You may feel like you're not accomplishing anything! You may find your inability to turn off the Monkey Mind VERY frustrating. If that is the case, you have already made an important discovery: 

The Monkey, not you, is calling the shots! 

If that is the case, you have nowhere to go but up! You have nothing to reap but rewards. BUT, you must be patient. You can't just flip the switch and be mindful. (If that was the case, you would have done that already!) You have probably been training the Monkey Mind for decades already. Expecting to be able to spend five to 10 minutes or even five to 10 seconds without the chatter of the Monkey Mind upon your first or 40th meditation is probably completely unrealistic! (You will, inevitably, still have to push the Monkey aside on occasion). Telling yourself to "just be mindful already," is no different than telling someone to "just quit being depressed!" This is why mindfulness training programs at major hospitals and university medical centers across the country all follow an 8-week module. This is brain training. Retraining your brain takes time!

Ok, so a few tips!

Meditations are brain training: They are about procuring focus!

There are meditations to do every week. They are less than 8 minutes, and you are asked to do them a minimum of twice a day. The distinct nuance of mindfulness -- and mindful meditations -- is that you aren't expected to achieve some trance-like state -- a blank state of blind. Mindfulness asks you to direct your senses to the present moment, and there is never any void in the present moment. The present moment is full of color, sound, scents, and sensations! Sometimes there are cookies baking and birds singing. These sensory wonders are your tethers to the now -- everywhere and always!

Use your breath to focus your mind! 

The greatest asset in all of your meditations --  anytime, anyplace -- is your own lifeforce. . .your very breath! Your breath is there to help you focus. 

#1 Feel the rise and fall of your chest -- a broad expansion on the inhale, and a slow, gentle fall on the exhale. 

#2 Breathe audibly. The meditations ask you to breathe naturally, and it feels more natural when you are lying on your back to keep your mouth relaxed and closed. That’s ok! When you take a good long audible inhale you can hear the whoosh of the breath enter the nasal cavity. Just putting a little bit more force behind your inhale and a closed-mouth exhale creates a very soothing sound in the back of your throat that fills your ear canal -- a lot like pressing your ear up to a conch shell. If you are doing your meditations in a seated position, it is yogi wisdom that you should exhale through your mouth. Again, exhale a bit more forcefully to create a soft “whoosh.” 

#3 Listen for Secrets! Now focus on your breath with such intention and focus as if you are trying to hear a whisper from across the room.

When you focus on your breath, you make it very hard for the Monkey Mind to multi-task! 

One last suggestion before I go! If you have tried the raisin meditation, you can give it several more rounds with any other type of dried food or a small bit of chocolate. This is a great exercise to teach children about mindfulness! 

Let me know if these tips help, and please share with our readers any other suggestions you may have! Stay tuned for Week #2 exercises which will be posted Sunday evening. 

See you next week. In the meantime. . .Enjoy the NOW! 

Jennifer King

Week #1: Time to Get Mindful!

Welcome to Week #1 my friends. During this very unsettling -- arguably, scary -- time, there is no better occasion to explore the benefits of mindfulness. It's very easy to get caught up in our heads - in our fears about what MAY or MAY NOT happen in the future. The sad reality is, all that time we spend in our heads we aren't appreciating our loved ones, our life, the very moments we are afraid of losing. So welcome to my blog. Welcome to the Now, and welcome to Week #1 of the rest of your life. . .

Let's get's started!

All of the exercises this week are intended to wrest control of the mind from autopilot mode and to begin cultivating the ability to focus attention on the present moment.  

EXERCISE #1:  The Raisin Meditation

This meditation is a practice in bringing your full attention and awareness to the present moment. Specifically, it is intended to bring conscious awareness to something we normally do on autopilot — eating. It is worth noting that mindful eating has proven to translate to weight loss!

Set aside 5-10 minutes when you can perform this experiment without any distractions. You will only need a few raisins (or other dried fruit) and a pen and paper if you want to record your thoughts and reactions to your experience.

While you only need to perform this experiment once this week, you will redeem more benefits if you repeat it. You can enhance the benefits of repeating the experiment if you introduce a different food each time. For example, you may substitute for the raisin another dried fruit, a piece of chocolate, or various types of nuts.

Let’s begin!

Step #1, Holding

Take one of the raisins and hold it in the palm of our hand, or between your fingers. Focus on it. Approach it like you’ve never seen it before. Can you feel its weight? Does it cast a shadow?

Step #2, Seeing

Again, try to view the raisin as if you’ve never seen one before. Notice the shape, the ridges, the hollows. Let your eyes explore every part of it.

Step #3, Touching

Turn the raisin over in your palm and explore its texture. Now switch hands. How does it feel in your non-dominant hand?

Step #4, Smelling

Hold it beneath your nose and take in its aromas with each inhale. Let it lift your awareness.

Step #5, Placing

Slowly bring the raisin to your lips, and gently place it into your mouth. Notice what your tongue does to receive it. Without chewing, simply explore the sensations of having it on your tongue. Roll it around your mouth. Do you start to salivate in anticipation of biting into it? Stay in this phase for 30 seconds or more.

Step #6, Chewing

When you are ready, very consciously bite into the raisin and notice the effects in your mouth. Notice the taste it releases and the texture as your teeth bites through the skin. Chew slowly for several seconds without swallowing. Notice what is happening in your mouth.

Step #7, Swallowing

See if you can detect the first intention to swallow as it arises in your mind. Experience it with full awareness before you actually swallow. Notice what the tongue does to prepare for swallowing. See if you can follow the sensations of swallowing the raisin. Consciously try to follow it as it moves down toward your stomach. Notice what the tongue does after you swallow.

Step #8, After effects

Now spend a few moments registering the aftermath of eating the raisin. Is there an aftertaste? What does the absence of the raisin feel like?

Williams and Penman write in their book that one attendee of their mindfulness course said that she tasted this one raisin more than she had ever tasted the 20 or more she would stuff into our mouth without thinking.

Imagine how conscious awareness could amplify other experiences in life, and your life as a whole! Well, that is the whole idea!

EXERCISE #2:  Mindful Awareness of Routine Daily Activity

Choose one of the following activities and whenever you are doing it this week, give it your total focus and attention. No autopilot. No zoning out. No thinking about other things.

• Brushing your teeth

• Walking from one room into another at home or at work

• Drinking

• Taking out the garbage

• Loading the washing machine or dryer

• Showering

For example:  When you are showering, pay attention to the sensations of the water on your body, the temperature, the water pressure. Feel the lather in your hands when you wash your body and scrub your hair. Smell the soap. Notice the movements of your hands and your body as you wash. If you choose to use this time to reflect on something else, do so consciously, with intention.

EXERCISE #3:  Meditation, “Mindfulness of the Body and Breath”

http://bit.ly/rodalemindfulness

Follow track #1 at   Do this meditation two times a day. If you don’t have the ability to listen to this track which is a guided meditation, the basic premise is this:

• Lie flat on your back with your arms laid out to your sides, palms facing up. Or, sit comfortably in a chair with both feet flat on the floor and your spine straight so that your posture supports your intent to be awake and aware. Close your eyes or just lower your gaze. First, notice all points of contact of your body with the floor and/or the chair. When you are ready, bring your attention to your feet and notice any sensations that arise. Move from the soles of your feet to your toes to your heels. Now expand the focus of your attention to include your ankles and then your lower legs. Notice how the sensations arise and dissolve in awareness. If you don’t notice any sensations, just register a blank. Expand your awareness to include your upper legs, then your buttocks, and your pelvis, then the lower back and the abdomen, then the entire torso, then the left arm, then the right arm, then the neck and the face and the head until you are holding the entire body in awareness. There is no need to control anything, just allow the sensations to be just as you find them. Then bring your awareness back to the center of your body and feel the rise and fall of your breath. For the full duration of each in and out breath, be fully alive to the sensations of breathing. If you find your mind wandering, just  take notice of where it has gone and bring your focus back to your breath.

Most importantly, remember that your breath is ALWAYS there to anchor you, still your mind,, and bring you back to the present moment.

EXERCISE #4:  Habit Releaser, Changing Chairs

For the duration of week one, notice where you usually sit at home, at the office, or at your café or bar, and choose a different chair. Williams and Penman say that the comfort of the sameness allows the autopilot to thrive. Choosing a different seat forces your mind into a higher level of awareness, making you more focused on the sights, smells, and sounds around you.

Mindfulness: A Primer

If you’ve found my blog, you are probably familiar with the concept of “mindfulness.” Simply put, mindfulness refers to the focused attention on the here and now with a nonjudgmental attitude. It requires individuals to be “open to and accepting of their present experience in order to develop tolerance for difficult feelings expressed within oneself and by others” (Erford, 2020). Though the concept of mindfulness is certainly trending, it is a centuries-old practice cultivated by the Buddha which he believed to be a path to enlightenment and the end of all suffering. 

Mindfulness training has consolidated around eight, one-week modules accounting for less than thirty minutes of daily practice, the amount of time believed sufficient to shift one’s default mode from mindlessness to mindfulness. Through this blog, I am sharing my favorite 8-week program outlined in the best-selling book, “Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World,” (2011) co-authored by Mark Williams, PhD, professor of clinical psychology at the University of Oxford, and Danny Penman, PhD Biochemist. If you follow along, each week I share additional tips and reflections based upon my personal experiences with the program. I invite you to comment in the blog and share your experience as well! 

But first. . . some background!

Mindfulness is not just the stuff of an ancient religion or hippie gurus. Since the 1970s, mindfulness has been the subject of extensive research by some of the world’s leading universities and medical institutions. In 1979, Professor Emeritus of Medicine at the University of Massachusetts Jon Kabat-Zinn created the Stress Reduction Clinic and the Center for Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care, and Society at the University’s medical school. The Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program (MBSR) was designed to help patients endure the physical and emotional pain of chronic health conditions. This was the first endeavor to integrate mindfulness into mainstream medicine. Most mental health clinicians — regardless of their theoretical orientation — incorporate some aspect of mindfulness in the treatment of a wide range of issues including anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, and sleep problems. Mindfulness skills also help improve focus, productivity, resilience, and communication.

The essence of mindfulness

Mindfulness is about presence — being fully present in this moment right now — not half here, half “lost in thought.” The opposite state — the state where most of us reside most of the time — was referred to by the Buddha as “monkey mind.” Monkey mind refers to the act of compulsively thinking. It is that internal voice that is often self — and other — critical and the cause of significant anxiety-provoking and depression-feeding distress! Monkey mind’s preoccupation with the past and the future — ruminating about the past and obsessing about the future —  prohibits one from being fully engaged and present in “the now.” According to Eckhart Tolle — my personal mindfulness guru and author of “The Power of Now: A Guide to Spiritual Enlightenment” (1999) — it is the elusive but ever present “Now” where one finds the peace promised by the Buddha. 

Don’t think you suffer from monkey mind?

Let’s consider a few scenarios. . .

• Have you ever driven from point A to point B with only a vague idea as to how you got there? Or perhaps you drove to the wrong destination entirely, intending to go to the bank and ending up at the grocery store?

• Have you ever had a conversation with a friend, your spouse, or your child and found yourself offering a generic response because you were thinking of other things?

• Do you toss and turn unable to sleep because you just can’t shut off your brain?

If these scenarios are familiar, you have experienced “monkey mind.” 

Symptoms of Monkey Mind

Mental and Emotional:

• Irritability

• Depression

• Somber mood

• Defensiveness

• Impatience

• Feeling unsettled, stressed, frantic

Physiological: 

• Tiredness/fatigue

• Heart racing/palpitating

• Headaches

• Bellyaches

• High blood pressure

• Increased frequency of illness

• Over-reliance on drugs and alcohol

(Williams & Penman, 2011)

Tick-Tock!. . .Time to Get Mindful!  

Tolle says that most of us toggle between levels of unconsciousness, scarcely ever achieving “mindfulness” but for brief snatches of time. 

Consider this startling perspective offered by Williams and Penman (2011):  

“If you are about 30 years old and have a life expectancy of 80, you have about 50 years remaining. But if you are only truly “conscious” two out of 16 waking hours a day, your life expectancy is only another six years and three months!”

No time like “the now,” my friends: it is past time to get mindful! 

Note: This entire 8-week mindfulness training program is posted here on this site, so you may begin any time. Just follow along with the program week to week; just do read the primer first. If you feel that you missed too many exercises or more than a day or two of practice, please feel free to repeat the week and keep on going! But do not worry or back track because you feel you just aren’t getting it. Be patient. The practice builds and so will your skills! I have included some mid-week progress checks where I share some additional thoughts and suggestions. I suggest you do reserve those for a mid-week “reality check” so as not to overwhelm yourself with too much information at the beginning of the week.

Enjoy the Now my friends! 

Jennifer