How's your mindfulness practice going? Last "How To Practice Mindfulness" post explained a breathing technique. Although it seems easy, given that breathing is something we do without even thinking about it, I found that paying close attention only to my breath, wasn't exactly a piece of cake. I had to let go of a lot of thoughts. Lot's of butterflies flying in my garden! Especially with two boys on summer vacation! How was your breathing meditation? Did you give it a try?
If you are looking for another technique to become aware, and promote well-being and relaxation, while building internal energy, here goes another one: the body scan meditation.
Ideally, practiced daily for about 20 minutes to half an hour, the body scan aims at bringing awareness to each individual part of the body, in order to finish the meditation connecting each part to the body as a whole.
How to practice a body scan?
1. Lie on your back. Spread your legs out and your arms to the side, palms up.
2. Notice what it feels like to be supported by the ground.
3. Check in with your left toes and see how they feel. Are they tense, or cold? Direct your breaths. Focus on the point of your attention by breathing deep into your toes. Whatever that means to you. The idea is to promote awareness to each body part and see how they feel in a non-judgmental way. The objective is simple awareness.
4. Let your awareness continue upward to your arch, ankle, calf, knee, thigh and then do the same with your right leg.
5. Continue with your lower back, abdomen, chest and shoulders. Then arms, hands, neck and head.
6. After you have scanned each and every body part, focus on how fingers connect to hands, hands to arms, and so forth. See how the body is a perfect whole, that unites by breath, flowing in and out.
Here's a 3 minute UCLA guided body scan meditation. Hope you can put this into practice, and maybe let me know how it goes? Until next week's post on how to practice mindfulness!
P.S. How to practice mindfulness: try this easy technique first.
How was last week's practice? Were you able to remain fully present while doing your every day activities? I have to say I did better. I tried to be more aware. Sometimes I did, sometimes I forgot, but whenever I remained present I felt much more at ease. How did it work for you?
For today's weekly post on mindfulness techniques I thought we could practice a short breathing technique. It's also called meditation. Before you run out the door, I'll explain. Meditation is not a religion, nor is it part of a zen/mystic, new-era-thing. It's simply a way of training the mind. The same way you train your body if you workout.
Why would you want to train your mind? In the words of Matthieu Riccard (scientist and Buddhist monk * ) "the mind is a restless monkey". It's always producing thoughts and consequently bringing up emotions. Sometimes, these emotions, become too much to handle and we end up feeling stressed, anxious, with sleeping problems, uncontrollable anger, jealousy or even sadness.
Meditating can be as simple as breathing mindfully. What I like about Matthieu Riccard's view of mindfulness is that he adds a critical component: cultivating loving kindness, compassion, altruism, or the wish for others to do well and flourish, simply because it's a win-win situation for all. He explains the difference between simple mindfulness and mindfulness with loving kindness and compassion, here. A sniper can be mindful too, you know? (!!)
How to breathe mindfully or meditate?
1. Sit comfortably. No need for advanced Yogi positions.
2. Close your eyes if you want. Otherwise, relax your gaze. Become aware of the coming and going of the breath. How it feels. Pay attention to your stomach, your lungs, your nostrils. Is your jaw clinching?
3. Thoughts will come. Become aware of the thought, of the fact that you are being distracted by it, and let it go. Don't elaborate. Let thoughts pass by, like butterflies visiting flowers in the garden. Let thoughts go.
4. Return your awareness to your breathing.
Here's a great UCLA five minute guided breathing meditation. Enjoy, and let me know how it goes! Until next week's post on how to practice mindfulness!
P.S. How to practice mindfulness: Body Scan Meditation
* Due to my background in Professional Counseling, my interest in mindfulness occurred as a consequence of trying to explain and simplify the components of well-being so that I could write clearly about them. By doing so, I came across the work of Matthieu Riccard, who has made (and is making) such an impactful contribution to the psychology of well-being.
