A Mindful New Year - Week One
 

A Happy Mindful New Year to all & welcome to week one for the Palouse MBSR Course introduced here:
All sections are on the course website here:
& the sections we need this week are:
Happy Mindfulnessing!

Thank you Andy. ♥♥

:tyou

watched the videos last night, I am thinking about doing the body scan meditation today.

Thanks for the thread.
I've just done a 5 min headspace Meditation...hope it's ok to post....
I'm working on the theory of some Meditation is better than nothing
Xx

started doing the guided body scan meditation yesterday. Hopefully this could be one of those rare times when I actually start something and finish it.

hopefully we can use the thread to encourage each other along :)

I watched two of the videos so far - I like the concept of "What you practice grows stronger".....(Too bad drinking is what I've gotten the most practice in....I'm looking forward to practicing better things!)

I also read about the body scan meditation but that was a lot to wrap my head around....gonna have to go over that one again...

Good stuff! :c017:

Thanks again, andy, for the inspiration. I watched the videos and did the reading.

Last night I tried the body scan meditation, in bed as I was getting ready to sleep. And of course, I fell asleep. :lmao I awoke a little while later, picked it up where I *think* I left off, and finished it, went back to sleep.

Luckily in the reading there was a lot of helpful advice about being kind to oneself and accepting that if I fell asleep, maybe I needed the rest. But maybe tonight I'll try the scan a little earlier in the evening.

No need to worry about rereading the body scan meditation since there is a guided audio recording for it. You can just jump right into it, now that you read the instructions. You will be guided along the way with the recording.

^ what shakeel said. I wouldn't worry about the reading too much, no need to over-think it. just listen to the meditation & let the audio guide you.

Thanks for posting this. I had been using an app with some great meditations but have run through all the free mediations several times and the monthly price was a bit much for the size of the catalog. I’m going to be using this now.

Awesome! I will try that.....I started doing guided Chakra meditations a few months ago, and that has been really helpful as well, Thanks again! :)

Awakened by an earthquake in the middle of the night. Decided that was a good time to do today's body scan (i keep my tablet and earphones by the bed, with the body scan audioguide dialed up). Stayed awake for the whole thing. Its interesting to notice things, like mild tension or anxiety in my chest or jaw, but to look kindly on it and not try to push it away. Its like being a friend to myself, if that makes sense..

I love this quote from the myths discussion regarding not being able to clear the mind:

"I'm having thoughts may be the most important thought you have ever thought, because before you had that thought, you may not have even known you were having thoughts. You probably thought you were your thoughts. Simply noticing that you are having thoughts is a breakthrough because it begins to shift your internal reference point from ego mind to witnessing awareness. As you become less identified with your thoughts and stories, you experience greater peace and open to new possibilities."

Like many people, when I first started meditation, I thought the object was to empty one's mind for transcendental peace. This makes far more sense. I love the non judgemental, just 'being, meditation.

Thanks again for leading this course, Andy.:tyou

I've just re-read that quote, and find it quite interesting that, "it begins to shift your internal reference point from ego mind to witnessing awareness", is analogous with the separation of self and beast thinking in AVRT.
Do you agree?

Hi Trohyn. I agree there are some overlaps or commonalities between mindfulness practice and AVRT practice. Both (to me) are about cultivating detachment from one's thoughts, instead of identifying with them and assuming thoughts must be "true" or must be obeyed.

I agree Turisops. And the non-judgemental nature of mindfulness means that it would not differentiate between AV and any other thought or feeling you may be having, and wouldn't categorise AV as bad and non-AV as good. But enabling you to step back from your mental mindstream, mindfulness makes it easier to identify AV as such and to see that it is just a mass of thoughts, emotions and sensations and not something that holds your identity, that is, you are not your AV.

Hi guys! It just so happened the 8 week live MBSR class up here started tonight- It was actually the intro class so week one is next week. Like I said, I took it a couple years ago but I decided to go ahead and take it again. I know I’ll get so much more out of it sober. If it’s okay, I want to keep in touch here throughout, even though I’ll be a week behind. I’ll have so much more in common with others in recovery here- maybe share similar experiences. There are 35-40 people in the class from all walks.

I hope everyone is enjoying the online course. I found that it was really important for me to make the time for practice- it took me a while to catch on to that while drinking. I still do the body scan before bed sometimes. After a while when focusing attention especially on my digits, I found they heat up. Strange! Best not to dwell on that I guess though. Defeats the purpose.

Another quick thing- I just watched a documentary called Mindfulness: Be Happy Now- Thich Nhat Hahn was featured. It was very good. Found it on Amazon Prime video if any of you have that...

Okay, well happy meditation!

that's great Magpie. please let us know how you get on - I'd be interested to head if/how the in-person class is different to the online one.

these threads are for everyone to use in any way they feel is useful, I'm just facilitating, I'm no more of an expert than anyone else :)

When does week 2 start, Andy.
I'm like a child at Christmas looking at that week 2 link and wondering what's inside it! (I've been good I haven't peeked.)

https://s13.postimg.org/55hi47con/pa..._must_have.jpg




Monday

I found when doing a different body scan meditation if I fell asleep during it I slept deeper and had more content dreams.

this might be of interest - it's a TED talk on Mindfulness by Andy Puddicombe who is the guy behind Headspace. it's worth a watch, he's quite an entertaining speaker & it's only 10 minutes:



I never seem to be able to get YouTube links to work on here :headbange so here's the direct link too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qzR62JJCMBQ

That was brilliant, Andy.
Love the juggling visualisation.

Thanks Andy, I actually LOL'd when he said "We get anxious about being anxious" ~ I do that all the time!

I find the "Insight Timer" app quite good - & it's free - for when you've run through all these a few times

week two thread here:

Me too! If Andy hadn’t started the weekly thread, I’d have rushed through all 8 weeks worth of material in one week. I much preferred this course body scan version, over the one I learned years ago.

My week one simple awareness practice, was being attentive to sight, sound, sensations whilst walking my drags. The stream gurgled louder, birds chattered more, felt the wind on my face, saw water droplets flying off the dog’s fur......everything was more vivid than when I’d be wandering, lost in thought.

I suddenly noticed early morning dew casting rainbows and sparkles off the grass, which instantly brought to mind thoughts of early sobriety, when I’d be awestruck and transfixed by this beauty at my feet, that had escaped me during my drinking years. Then my thoughts marched on to highlight regrettable drinking incidents, lost years.......and instead of then ‘thinking about my thoughts’ and become embroiled in a spiral of self-defeating and depressing thoughts - I continued practicing mindful awareness and the thoughts gradually dissipated and new thoughts arose.

Thanks Andy, I really enjoyed this week and I’m looking forward to week two.

Beautiful, Tatsy.