Mindful Meditation

Greetings my friend, I am so glad you are here.  We started talking a bit about a meditation challenge that will be coming up soon.  I will be guiding a challenge online FREE of charge this time only and plan to lead a face to face journey in my community.  For those of you not around here this entire journey can be taken from the comfort of your own home or office. Look for more to come on that later. 

I mentioned that I want us to explore some unique ways that I find to meditate at times.  As I said last time it is my truth that anywhere you are you can access an ability to be mindful and get in a few minutes of mindful meditation.  Then there are the different types of mediations that we will discuss as well.  

First, let's chat about last weeks take away tips.  Anyone try these?  I did, despite the fact that I have been practicing for a long time, it is still a practice and it helps me to go back to the basics at times.  It is all basics really because it is all about being present, being aware of your internal and external enviornment without judging it.  This week I used laundry as my mindful activity.  We all have dirty laundry, right?  I don't just love doing it and my guess is you don't either.  However, if we use mindfulness you  will find that everyday "chores" have more to offer than you think.  A few of the take aways from my mindful laundry include the following;  clean laundry smells so good, fresh and delighfully scented from the detergent, it is warm and a delight for your sense of touch fresh out of the dyer, taking the time to feel the materials, sort the piles and fold, hang and put away is really not all that bad.  In this participating in this activity guess what else happened?  I was present, alive and living in the moment.    If I had not used mindfulness then I would have lost moments of my life that I could never get back but I didn't just exist, I lived and what a joy.  Did you try the take away tips?  Please share your experiences and let me know what you think.

So some types of meditaion that we will be talking about are mindful meditation, mantra meditation, sound meditation, walking meditation, moving mediation and then a few of the things that I have made meditative in my own journey.  First and foremost to address is this...you can't do it wrong...period...no one has ever meditated wrong.  This is a non judgement allowed area.  You will not sit down and your mind and magically have your thoughts, worries, fears or everyday thoughts just go away.  That is ok, it is safe to say that no matter how long you meditate or study mindfulness and breathing practices your thoughts will NEVER just go away.  Nope, we just learn to become aware without judgment and without getting stuck. 

Let's chat mindful meditaiton this blog post or at least touch on it as it is an ever evolving practice.  You will find that the definition of mindfulness, meditation and such will become your own when you find your groove of the mindful living.  This is perfect, this is what I want.   However, for the sake of consistency in starting let's define mindfulness the way that Jon Kabat Zinn (MBSR) does 

It is the intention to pay attention to each and every moment of our life, non-judgmentally. While there are many possible definitions, the key aspects of any definition of mindfulness involve purposeful action, focused attention, grounded in the current experience, and held with a sense of curiosity. The Center for Mindfulness believes that we all have the capacity for mindfulness.  Please see link at the bottom of the page.

Let's look at that last line again.  The Center for Mindfulness believes that we all have the capacity for mindfulness. I believe this too, I beleve we can all do this and we can all benefit from it.  There is so much research to support this and more being done all the time.  This means, YES, YOU CAN DO IT.

What is mindful meditation?

mindfulness meditation,
a technique of meditation in which distracting thoughts and feelings are not ignored but are rather acknowledged and observed nonjudgmentally as they arise to create a detachment from them and gain insight and awareness.
Mosby's Medical Dictionary, 8th edition. © 2009, Elsevier.
 

A technique in which we simply sit with and observe our thoughts and feelings, we ackowledge them and send them on there way.  You are not your feelings or emotions, you are not your thoughts; these are all just a part of the experience.  You are the experience!  You have thoughts, emotions and feelings but they are NOT you.  If I had to choose a favorite part of mindfulness and mindful meditation is is the nonjudgment.  We will learn to detach from having to label things as good or bad and learn to just observe.  

Next blog we will talk creating your sacred space in which to meditate (and it can be found in so many different places).

Take away tip- Create your own definition inclusive of your thoughts and feelings about the above definition and talk to someone about mindfulness or mindful meditation.  Ask people what they know about it, ask if they are interested in learning more and if they are send them my way.  Let them know you are learing about it and they can too *

*This is, in part, a shameless way to start achieving my 2015 goal of spreading mindfuless everywhere.  What?  Did you think I could do that all myself?  No way, we have to do this together.  More soon and please leave me comments.

love and light,

Jamie