Practice Mindfulness

Body awareness is one way to "anchor" our attention to the present moment. It gives our minds something to focus on and assists us in being with the body and what it is experiencing.

We can shift our focus from our mind and thoughts to our bodies when we are emotionally upset, worrying, or ruminating. Focusing on the body can help ground us. 

Paying attention to our bodies without judgement and with curiosity gives us valuable information about our physical and emotional well-being and what we might need to care for ourselves.

Everyday Mindfulness Practice:

• Today, be curious about your body. Bring awareness to any movement of the body: walking, dancing, playing an instrument, playing a sport, drawing, using crutches, sitting in a chair. If and when you move your body, notice any sensations that come up - warm or cold, tired or rested, hungry or full; what position it is in; your body's alignment; and your abilities and limitations, which we all have. If you do this regularly, you will be more in tune, and will be more likely to notice current experiences, sensations, and changes in your body.
• When you wake up or right before you go to sleep, take a moment to notice your body and any sensations you are experiencing. 

Formal Practice

A body scan will help you pay attention to your body, as you are guided to move through parts of your body and become aware of any sensation.  It is designed to help you be more aware of your body as it is during the present moment.

Reflection:

Here are some questions you might choose to use to reflect on this skill:

• What did it feel like to notice your body? What sensations did you feel?
• How was the body scan meditation? Did any thoughts or feelings come up? Did you fall asleep during the meditation? (If you did, that is okay, your body was telling you were tired and needed to sleep.)
• Did you notice any sensations, any physical discomforts?

Breathing is such an automatic process, we usually don't notice it. But in addition to giving us life, the breath is the link between the mind and body. When we are feeling stressed, overwhelmed, frustrated, anxious, our breath reflects this – it is shallow, irregular, fast. When we are relaxed, calm, settled our breath is deep and slow. We can use our breath when we are stressed, unfocused, scattered, or anxious. Simply by noticing the breath entering and leaving the body, we can calm, center, and ground ourselves.

Our breath can serve as an "anchor" to the present. When the mind wanders, we can focus on the breath and it will bring us back to the present moment.

Everyday Mindfulness Practice

Pay attention to your breath. Here are one or two ideas to try.

• Notice your breath at various times throughout your day when you remember. It can be helpful to choose an area of the body where you most notice the breath as it comes and goes from your body. For instance, notice the sensation of your breath as it moves across the tiny hairs under your nose. Notice the rise and fall of your chest. Notice how the breath feels on the back of your throat as it moves it up and out. 
• Try focusing on the breath any time you are waiting - for the light to turn green, the crossing sign to say WALK, or while in a line at a store. Often we are in a rush when we are waiting, so check in with yourself. How does focusing on your breath change the experience of waiting? 
• When you are feeling upset, unsettled, overwhelmed, anxious, take a few deep breathes to settle your mind and body. Are there any physical sensations in your body that change as you breathe more mindfully?  
• Use the breath as an anchor (in class or while working, for instance). Whenever you notice your mind wandering, focusing on the breath can bring your mind back to the present moment. If your mind wanders again, simply notice that you mind is wandering and bring it back to the breath.

Formal Practice

Try the following meditations to help you pay attention to your breath:

Reflection

Here are some questions you might choose to use to reflect on your breathing practice.

• Were you able to notice your breath throughout the day? If so, what did you notice about the breath and how it was connected to what you were doing and/or feeling? Did it change any physical sensations in your body as you breathed? 
• What was the breath meditation experience like for you? What did you notice? If your mind wandered, how did you respond? How did you feel? If you had distracting thoughts were you able to return to the meditation? 

As we become more aware, mindfulness can help us develop compassion and kindness for others and ourselves. Mindfulness helps us practice acceptance of experiences, feelings, thoughts, others and our self as they/we are. Mindfulness also makes us aware when our thoughts and actions are mean, jealous, or intolerant (without judgement). It can help us recognize how these feelings impact us and others to whom they might be directed. 

When we are compassionate towards others, we build connections, gain acceptance, and increase our understanding of them and ourselves.  

When we are compassionate with ourselves, we treat ourselves better both physically (e.g. more likely to eat better, drink less, move our bodies, and seek medical care when needed) and emotionally (e.g. we're kinder to ourselves, more in touch with what we need, and work to provide this for ourselves). 

Kindness, compassion, focusing on the good, and seeing opportunities where there are struggles all help us to be more resilient.

Everyday Mindfulness Practice:

Here are some things you can do to help deepen your mindfulness practices through compassion both for self and others. If you can, choose one practice that focuses compassion towards others and one that focuses compassion towards yourself.

• Look for the good in yourself – say it, and write it down.
• When you make a mistake or struggle, remind yourself you are human. You are imperfect, but you are doing the best you can.
• Write a letter as if you were writing to a good friend who is experiencing the same struggle as you are.
• Do something kind for someone. It doesn’t have to be big or take a lot of time – hold a door, say thank you, smile and say “hello.”
• Work to listen fully to another person when they are talking with you.  Give them your undivided attention and direct eye contact, taking an interest in what they are saying without needing to have a response.

Formal Practice

The following Loving-Kindness Meditation can help you focus on compassion:

Reflection

Here are some questions you might choose to use to reflect on this skill:

• How did it feel to show compassion for self and/or others?
• Was it easier to show yourself compassion than others or vice versa?
• What did you notice in your body and mind?

It is so easy to lose sight of all the opportunities to be grateful in a day. When we practice mindfulness and work to truly live in the present, we start noticing our thoughts, experiences and feelings more clearly.  We can begin to notice more positive things in our lives and also notice those things that might block us from feeling and appreciating good things that happen to us. By practicing gratitude, we also increase our skill of being more mindful because we recognize and acknowledge those things in our lives that we are thankful for. When we experience more gratitude, we are happier and better able to face and manage life when it is particularly hard. An attitude of gratitude can be life-changing.

Everyday Mindfulness Practice

• Write down ten things in your life today that you are grateful for. These can be the simple, small things.  Dwell on being grateful for these things. Let these feelings linger more than usual. 
• As positive things happen in your day take a moment to appreciate them.  Allow yourself to notice and take a moment to be grateful.
• Keep a journal this week and write down all the things you are grateful for each day. Look for things that you typically don’t notice. This is a nice activity to do at the end of the day right before bed.

Keep practicing gratitude and notice how you or your mindset may be changing as you concentrate on those things you are grateful for.

Formal Practice 

The following meditation can help you focus on gratitude:

Reflection

Here are some questions you might choose to use to reflect on this skill:

• How was the gratitude meditation? What did you notice?
• How did you feel after completing it?

Mindfulness challenges us to be fully immersed in our daily activities. It encourages us not to focus on the past or future, but instead to use all of our senses to stay present. As we quiet the mind, we can simply become very curious about the present moment experience. Ultimately, daily practice can help us to be more focused, less distracted and more present to what is happening now.

Everyday Mindfulness Practice:

To practice being present, try one or more of these mindful activities in your day:

• Brush your teeth and focus only on brushing your teeth, the sensations in your mouth, what it feels like, smells like, tastes like.
• Take a walk without your phone and focus on each step, what the air feels like, what it smells like, what you are seeing and hearing.
• Drink a glass of water slowly and focus only on the activity of drinking the water. Envision the water filling and nourishing your body. 

Other activities can include showering, washing dishes, cleaning your room, eating, playing a sport, shaving – any daily task.

Formal Practice

The following meditation can help you focus on being present:

Reflection

Here are some questions you might choose to use to reflect on this skill:

• What was the meditation experience like for you? What did you notice?
• If your mind wandered, how did you respond? How did you feel?
• If you had distracting thoughts, were you able to return to the meditation?

Sometimes we hold on to thoughts, feelings, situations, and experiences. We might ruminate, worry, judge someone else or ourselves, or get stuck in the past. This doesn’t usually serve us well. Letting go is a way of accepting things as they are. We can work to let go of unhelpful thoughts by accepting them instead of letting them control who we are, how we feel or what we do. 

Everyday Mindfulness Practice

Letting go can be a challenging skill to master. Practice often and observe your process with non-judgment and curiosity. 

• Are there some persistent thoughts you notice you have that don’t help you to achieve your goals or enjoy your day? Make a list of them. Then work to imagine the thoughts are helium balloons. When they enter your mind, simply let go of your grasp and let them fly away. Practice this over and over again and see what you notice.
• Pay attention to your emotions (all of them) and allow yourself to feel them instead of pushing them away, ignoring them, or dealing with them in other ways.
• Try practicing not taking things personally in your day.

Formal Practice

The following meditation can help you focus on letting go:

Reflection

Here are some questions you might choose to use to reflect on this skill.

• Were you able to do any of the everyday mindfulness practices?  Which one?  What did you notice when you did it?  How did it feel?
• When we meditate we notice that thoughts, feelings, sensations and experiences are ever-changing. They can also come up unexpectedly. What did you notice during the "letting go" meditation? What did it bring up for you?
• Were there any thoughts you had a hard time letting go of? Any that were easy?

When we practice mindfulness we are working to cultivate an attitude of curiosity without judgment -- accepting the moment, the experience, the feeling, or the thought as it is.

Our minds tend to judge automatically. We are often not even aware of it. Judgment (e.g. good or bad, right or wrong, fair or unfair, important or unimportant) means that something doesn’t live up to an external standard and is not good enough.  It can cause us to be hard on others and ourselves. It places limits on us, on others and on our experiences. Letting go of judgment decreases stress and builds compassion. Non-judgment allows us to see things, people, and ourselves as we really are in the present moment.

Mindfulness helps to increase our awareness of judgments that we have in our thoughts, so we can stop being controlled by these judgments and stop trying to control others because of them.

Noticing when we judge others or ourselves is the first step. It is also important to not judge ourselves for judging. Acknowledge it with compassion and be kind towards yourself. We are all a work in progress, and we are not our thoughts. They are just thoughts.

Everyday Mindfulness Practice:

Most often, the challenge is to let the judgment go. Return to one of the "anchors" you have learned about in past sessions--your breath or your body. Anchoring can help "get you out of your head" and back to the present moment. Over time you will see that you can increase you ability to let go of judgment within your meditation practice and in your daily life.

• Throughout the day pay attention to thoughts that are judgments of others or yourself. Just notice them and try not to judge yourself for the thoughts. 
• Set an intention that you'll try to notice whenever you use the word "should" throughout the day. When you have these thoughts, practice letting go of the “shoulds” that you make for yourself and others.

Formal Practice

The following 10-minute meditation can help you to focus on releasing judgment:

Reflection

Here are some questions you might choose to use to reflect on your non-judgment practice:

• How was it to think about judgments that you might hold? Could you let go of any of your judgments? Why or why not?
• How was it to do the formal practice meditation?  What did you observe about this experience?  How did it feel to do it?