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