Practice Suggestions:
• Over the coming 3 or 4 weeks, practice mindfulness for 20 to 45 minutes every day for at least 6 days this week using the recordings available on my site click here. Feel free to mix it up a bit, using the Body Scan some days, one or two of the other guided meditations on other days. If you are currently in a relationship, it would be great if you practiced together and read through and discussed this material when you have time to sit quietly and really listen to each other.
• Read and reflect on this article and use any of the exercises you feel led to test out.
• You might want to listen to and work with this 3.5-hour audio training by Jon Kabat-Zinn “Mindfulness for Beginners.”
• Practice mindfulness of your breathing from time to time throughout the day.
• Read and reflect upon “The Journey”
• Read and reflect upon “Meditation and the Practice of Awareness”
•You can find many more resources on my site.
•And learn about current classes and programs.
Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally. This kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity and acceptance of present-moment reality. It wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments. If we are not fully present in many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in our lives, but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth and transformation.
Dwelling in stillness and looking inward for some part of each day, we touch what is most real and reliable in ourselves and most easily overlooked and undeveloped. When we can be centered in ourselves, even for brief periods of time in the face of the pull of the outer world, not having to look elsewhere for something to fill us up or make us happy, we can be at home wherever we find ourselves, at peace with things are they are, moment by moment.
From: “Wherever You Go, There You Are” by Jon Kabat-Zinn, pgs 4 and 96.
The Journey
One day you finally knew
what you had to do, and began,
though the voices around you
kept shouting
their bad advice-
though the whole house
began to tremble
and you felt the old tug
at your ankles.
"Mend my life!"
each voice cried.
But you didn't stop.
You knew what you had to do,
though the wind pried
with its stiff fingers
at the very foundations, though their melancholy was terrible.
It was already late
enough, and a wild night,
and the road full of fallen branches and stones. but little by little,
as you left their voices behind,
the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognized as your own,
that kept you company
as you strode deeper and deeper
into the world,
determined to do
the only thing you could do-
determined to save
the only life you could save.
Mary Oliver, Dream Work, Grove Atlantic Inc., 1986 & New and Selected Poems, Beacon Press, 1992.
• Read and reflect on this article.
• How’s Your Sleep? If it’s not going well for you, here’s some help:
The Sleep Solution by Chris Winter, MD
60-min audio Interview with Chris Winter, MD
• Also, you might benefit from some of the current research concerning the connection between diet and health – both physical and psychological. Here are a few engaging videos on the topic. Sit down with a bowl of hot-air popcorn and enjoy! J
Michael Gregor 2016 talk 1.5 hour video “How Not to Die”
Foods for Protecting Body and Mind - 1 hour presentation with Neal Barnard
Michael Gregor 2013 talk 1 hour video “More than an Apple a Day”