Mindfulness Trainers' Resources
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Mindfulness & Neurobiological
Tools for Healing - A Training Resource
By Jim Messina, Ph.D., CCMHC, NCC, DCMHS-T
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Table of Contents:
1. Introduction to Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) In Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Own Words
2. Layperson's Introduction to Mindfulness
3. Bibliography
4. Tools available to use in Mindfulness Training
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1. Introduction to Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)
In Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Own Words
What is Mindfulness
Mindfulness is:
awareness, cultivated by paying attention in a sustained and particular way:
-on purpose,-in the present moment, and-non-judgmentally.
(Source: Jon Kabat-Zinn (2016). Mindfulness for Beginners: Reclaiming the Present moment-and your life. Sounds True, Inc: Boulder, Colorado, p. 1)
What is Meditation
Meditation is any way in which you engage in:
-Systematically regulating your attention and energy-Thereby influencing and possibly transforming the quality of your experience-In the service of realizing the full range of your humanity-Your relationship to others and the world.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p.1)
Two Forms of Meditation in MBSR
There are two complementary ways to do this:
-Formally: Formally means engaging in making some time every day to practice with the guided meditations
-Informally: Informally means letting the practice spill over into every aspect of your waking life in an uncontrived and natural way
These two modes of embodied practice go hand in hand and support each other, and ultimately become one seamless whole, which we could call living with awareness or wakefulness
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p2)
Practice of Mindfulness
-The very intention to practice with consistency and gentleness — whether you feel like it or not on any given day — is a powerful and healing discipline.-Without such motivation, especially at the beginning, it is difficult for mindfulness to take root and go beyond being a mere concept or script, no matter how attractive it might be to you philosophically.-While mindfulness and the current high levels of public and scientific interest in it may indeed appear to some to be much ado about nothing-it is much more accurate to describe it as much ado about what might seem like almost nothing that turns out to be just about everything-As you practice Mindfulness you are going to experience firsthand that “almost nothing.” It contains a whole universe of life-enhancing possibilities.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p3)
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Opportunities provided by practicing MBSR
Mindfulness as a practice provides endless opportunities:
-To cultivate greater intimacy with your own mind and-To tap into and develop your deep interior resources for learning, growing, healing, and-Potentially for transforming your understanding of who you are and how you might live more wisely and with greater well-being, meaning, and happiness in this world.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p4)
Importance of Breath in MBSR
-The fact is that you are a being that breathes-You drink in the air on each in-breath, giving it back to the world on each out-breath. Your life depends on it.-Your breathing can serve as a convenient first object of attention to bring you back into the present moment, because you are only breathing now — the last breath is gone, the next one hasn’t come yet — it is always a matter of this one.-So, it is an ideal anchor for your wayward attention. It keeps you in the present moment.-This is one of many reasons why paying attention to the sensations of breathing in the body -But attending to the feeling of the breath in the body is not only a beginner’s practice. It may be simple, but the Buddha himself taught that the breath has within it everything you would ever need for cultivating the full range of your humanity, especially your capacity for wisdom and for compassion
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p11)
What is Awareness
-Awareness is a capacity that you are intimately familiar with and yet are simultaneously a complete stranger to.-The training in mindfulness is really the cultivation of a resource that is already yours.-It doesn’t require going anywhere-It doesn’t require getting anything-But it does require learning how to inhabit another domain of mind that you are, as a rule, fairly out of touch with.-And that is what you might call the “being mode” of mind.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p17)
“Doing Mode” vs “Being Mode”
Most of your life you are absorbed in doing
-In getting things done-In going rapidly from one thing to the next-Or in multitasking — attempting to juggle a bunch of different things at the very same time-Often your life becomes so driven that you are moving through your moments to get to better ones at some later point-You live to check things off your to-do list, then fall into bed exhausted at the end of the day, only to jump up the next morning to get on the treadmill once again.This way of living is compounded by all the ways in which your life is now driven by the ever-quickening expectations you place on yourself and that others place on you and you on them, generated in large measure by your increasing dependence on ubiquitous digital technology and its ever-accelerating effects on your pace of life.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p18)
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“Human Doing” vs “Human Being”
-If you are not careful, it is all too easy to fall into becoming more of a “human doing” than a “human being”, and forget who is doing all the doing, and why.This is where mindfulness comes in.-Mindfulness reminds us that it is possible to shift from a doing mode to a being mode through the application of attention and awareness.-Then your doing can come out of your being and be much more integrated and effective.-What is more, you cease exhausting yourself so much as you learn to inhabit your own body and the only moment in which you are ever alive — this one.(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p18)
Mindfulness is Universal
-Mindfulness is often described as the heart of Buddhist meditation. Nevertheless, cultivating mindfulness is not a Buddhist activity.-In essence, mindfulness is universal because it is all about attention and awareness, and attention and awareness are human capacities that are innate in all of humans-Historically speaking, the most refined and developed articulations of mindfulness and how to cultivate it stem from the Buddhist tradition, and Buddhist texts and teachings constitute an invaluable resource for deepening your understanding and appreciation of mindfulness and the subtleties of its cultivation.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p21)
Mindfulness is a state of being awakened
Awakened to what?
-To the nature of reality-to the potential for freeing oneself from suffering-by engaging in a systematic and very practical approach to living
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p24)
Is your Mind ready to be fully awake?
-If you are going to use the mind to observe and befriend and ultimately understand itself, first you will have to learn at least the rudiments of how to stabilize it enough so that it can actually do the work of paying attention in a sustained and reliable way-Becoming aware of what’s going on beneath the surface of its own activities. Even your best efforts can easily be thwarted by all the ways in which you distract yourself.-Your attention is not very stable and is invariably carried off someplace else a good deal of the time, as you will experience for yourself with the guided meditations. -With ongoing practice, you at least become far more familiar with the mind’s comings and goings; over time, in important ways,-The mind learns how to stabilize itself, at least to a degree. Even a tiny bit of stability, coupled with awareness, is hugely important and transforming,-So, it is very important not to build some kind of ideal about your mind not wavering or being absolutely stable in order for you to be “doing it right.”-That may happen in rare moments under particular circumstances, but for the most part, as you will see, it is in the nature of the mind to wave.-Knowing that makes a huge difference in how you will approach the meditation practice.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p24)
Inhabiting awareness is the essence of practice
-The challenge of mindfulness is to be present for your experience as it is, rather than immediately jumping in to change it or try to force it to be different.-Inhabiting awareness is the essence of mindfulness practice,-No matter what you are experiencing, whether it arises in formal meditation or in going about your life.-Life itself becomes the meditation practice as you learn to take up residency in awareness — this essential dimension of your being that is already yours but with which you are so unfamiliar that you frequently cannot put it to use at the very times in your life when you need it the most.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p26)
Mindfulness is a practice of discipline
-To cultivate mindfulness really does involve and call out of you a certain constancy of motivation and purpose in the face of all sorts of energies in your life, some from inside yourself and some from outside, that dissipate your awareness by perpetually distracting you and diverting you from your intentions and purpose.-The discipline is really the willingness to bring the spaciousness and clarity of awareness back over and over again to whatever is going on — even as you feel you are being pulled in a thousand different directions.-Just taking this kind of stance toward your own experience, without trying to fix or change anything at all, is an act of generosity toward yourself, an act of intelligence, an act of kindness.the word discipline comes from disciple, someone who is in a position to learn. So when you bring a certain discipline to the cultivation of mindfulness, you are aware of how challenging it is to bring a sustained attending to any aspect of your livfe-You are actually creating the conditions for learning something fundamental from life itself. Then life becomes the meditation practice and the meditation teacher, and whatever happens in any moment is simply the curriculum of that moment.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p27)
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Real challenge is how will you be in relationship to whatever is arising?
The real challenge is how will you be in relationship to whatever is arising?
-Here is where freedom itself is to be found.-Here is where a moment of genuine happiness might be experienced, a moment of equanimity, a moment of peace.-Each moment is an opportunity to see that you do not have to succumb to old habits that function below the level of your awareness.
With great intentionality and resolve:
-You can experiment with non-distraction.-You can experiment with non-diversion.-You can experiment with non-fixing.-You can experiment with non-doing.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p28)
Thinking is your “Default Setting”
-Thinking seems to constitute your “default setting” rather than awareness.-It is a good thing to notice, because in this way, you might slowly shift from this automatic reverting to thinking over and over again to another mode of mind that may stand you in far better stead, namely awareness itself.-Perhaps over time you can adjust your default setting to one of greater mindfulness rather than of mindlessness and being lost in thought.-As soon as you take your seat or lie down to meditate, the first thing you will notice is that the mind has a life of its own.-It just goes on and on and on: thinking, musing, fantasizing, planning, anticipating, worrying, liking, disliking, remembering, forgetting, evaluating, reacting, telling itself stories — a seemingly endless stream of activity that you may not have ever noticed in quite this way until you put out the welcome mat for a few moments of non-doing, of just being.-This is what the thought-stream does, and that is precisely why you need to become intimate with your mind through careful observation. Otherwise, thinking completely dominates your life and colors everything you feel and do and care about.-And you are not special in this regard. Everybody has a similar thought-stream running 24/7, often without realizing it at all.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p30)
Befriending your thinking
It is very important as a beginner that you understand right from the start that meditation is about
-Befriending your thinking – is about holding it gently in awareness, no matter what is on your mind in a particular moment.-It is not about shutting off your thoughts or changing them in any way.-Meditation is not suggesting that it would be better if you didn’t think and were simply to suppress all those sometimes unruly, disturbing, and disquieting, sometimes uplifting and creative thoughts when they arise.-If you do try to suppress your thinking, you are just going to wind up with a gigantic headache. Such a pursuit is unwise, pure folly — like trying to stop the ocean from waving.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p35)
Not taking your thoughts personally
It is very important as a beginner that you understand right from the start that meditation is about:
-Befriending your thinking-Holding it gently in awareness, no matter what is on your mind in a particular moment.-It is not about shutting off your thoughts or changing them in any way.-Meditation is not suggesting that it would be better if you didn’t think and were simply to suppress all those sometimes unruly, disturbing, and disquieting, sometimes uplifting and creative thoughts when they arise.-If you do try to suppress your thinking, you are just going to wind up with a gigantic headache. Such a pursuit is unwise, pure folly — like trying to stop the ocean from waving.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p35)
Avoid Selfing
-If you fall into the thought-stream and get caught up with various thoughts, especially if you self-identify with them — saying to yourself: that is “me” or that is “not me” — then we are really caught.
-For this is where the ultimate attachment arises, with the identifying of circumstances or conditions or things with the personal pronouns, namely “I,” “me,” and “mine.”
-Sometimes this habit is called self-identification selfing, the tendency to put yourself at the absolute center of the universe.
-It can be very helpful to pay attention to how much of the time you are engaged in selfing, and without trying to fix it or change it, simply hold that strong habit of mind in awareness.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p40)
Mindfulness brought to all senses
-The term clearly seeing seems to privilege one particular sense. But “seeing,” in the way it is used in MBSR represents all of your senses, because it is only through your senses that you can be aware of and therefore know anything at all.-Clear seeing also means clear hearing, clear smelling, clear tasting, clear touching, and clear knowing, which would include knowing what’s on your mind, and therefore knowing both what you are thinking and what emotions are visiting-Therefore feeling what you are feeling, grounded in the body, whether it be fear or anger or sadness, frustration, irritation, impatience, annoyance, satisfaction, empathy, compassion, happiness, or anything else.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p54)
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You belong
-You are never alone.-And you already belong.-You belong to humanity.-You belong to life.-You belong to this moment, to this breath.
When you undertake this practice with a group of other human beings very much like yourself it becomes even more powerful because you can be inspired and motivated by other people’s
-Strength and tenacity and insights,-Often manifested in the face of unimaginable life circumstances and difficulties.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p62)
Mindfulness is not just a good idea
-But mindfulness is a way of being,-One that requires consistent cultivation.-It is a discipline all its own that naturally extends into all aspects of life as it is unfolding.-It is certainly a good idea to be mindful, but mindfulness is not merely a good idea.-And while it is simple, it is not easy.-It is not so easy to maintain mindfulness, even over very short periods of time. you saw earlier that in some ways, you could think of it as the hardest work in the world, and the most important.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p64)
Make Mindfulness work for you
Until and unless you implement it and sustain it through ongoing, regular practice, leavened with an appropriate attitude of gentleness and kindness toward yourself, mindfulness can easily remain:
-Simply one more thought to fill your head and make you feel inadequate …-One more concept-One more slogan-One more chore-One more thing to schedule into your already too-busy day
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p64)
Benefits of MBSR
-Many clients said to JKZ and staff with great regularity, that they feel that mindfulness training in the form of MBSR gave them back their lives and they are grateful to us for it.-We often point out that while that may be true to a degree,it is also true — perhaps even more true — that we didn’t give them anything. Whatever benefits they received came from their own hard work with the meditation practice, from the inspiration and support of the other people in their class, from their own willingness to engage in and sustain mindfulness practice as a discipline over time, and from the fact of their already being whole in the first place.-The flowering of mindfulness in one’s life is always more of a development and an integration of what is already here rather than an adding or subtracting of specific qualities.JKZ’s clients in the Stress Reduction Clinic, mindfulness is not a nice little idea that you pull out every time you feel stressed. Nor is it a relaxation technique. It’s not a technique at all. It is a way of being.
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p112)
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The Attitudinal Foundations of Mindfulness Practice
1. Non-Judging
2. Patience
3. Beginner’s Mind
4. Trust
5. Non-Striving
6. Acceptance
7. Letting Go
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p123-134)
1. Non-Judging
-When you begin to practice the guided meditations, notice how frequently judgments of various kinds arise.-You only need to recognize them.-No need to act on them
2. Patience
-Patience is really a wonderful attitude to bring to mindfulness practice because the practice of mindfulness is already, in some fundamental sense, about stepping out of time altogether.-When you are talking about the present moment, you are talking about now; You are talking about “outside of clock time.”-You have had moments like that. In fact, you have nothing but moments like that, but you ignore almost all of them, and it’s just once in a blue moon that you will experience a moment when time stops for you
3. Beginner’s Mind
-Beginner’s mind is an attitude.-It doesn’t mean you don’t know anything.-It means that you are spacious enough in that moment to not be caught by what it is that you do know or have experienced in the face of the enormity of what is unknown.
4. Trust
If you can’t entirely trust what you think,
-What about trusting awareness?-What about trusting your heart?-What about trusting your motivation to at least do no harm?-What about trusting your experience until it’s proven to be inaccurate — and then trusting that discovery
-What about trusting your senses?-What about Trusting your body?
5. Non-Striving
Non-striving is not trivial.
-It involves realizing that you are already here. There’s no place to go, because the agenda is simply to be awake.-It is not framed as some ideal that suggests that after forty years of sitting in a cave in the Himalayas, or by studying with august teachers, or doing ten thousand prostrations, or whatever it is, you will necessarily be any better than you are now. It is likely that you will just be older.-What happens now is what matters.
6. Acceptance
Acceptance is an expression of lived wisdom
-Not that it is easy to accept what is unfolding, especially if it is highly unpleasant-But you can shift to “awarenessing” with acceptance which immediately frees you from the narrative in your head that says” “I’ve got to have conditions be just so in order for the moment to be a happy moment.” But clinging is the opposite of acceptance.-Acceptance is letting go of the need for things to be in order for you to be happy or in order for you to even show up with awareness in the present moment-When you can hold whatever is unfolding, pleasant, unpleasant, or neutral in awareness and allow things to be exactly as they already are-then all of a sudden it becomes possible to stand fully in the moment without it having to be any different
7. Letting Go
Letting go means letting be. Letting go is akin to non-attachment to outcome
When you are no longer grasping for:
-What you want-What you are already clinging to-Or what you simply have to have
Letting go means not clinging to
-what you most hate-Or what you have a huge aversion for
Letting go is a healthy condition of mind and heart-it embraces the whole of reality
In a new way. Which needs to be developed through practice
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Getting Started with MBSR Practice
1. Posture
-Adopt a posture that embodies wakefulness which means to not practice lying down unless you set your mind to Falling Awake--If you chose a chair sit in such a way that the back is straight but relaxed with the shoulders and arms hanging off the rib cage, the head erect, and the chin slightly tucked-Try to sit with your feet uncrossed on the floor and if possible, with your back away from the back of the chair so your posture is self-supporting, with the spine self-elevating out of the pelvis.(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p141)
2. What to do with your eyes
-You can be aware with your closed or open-If you sit with your eyes open, you can either let your gaze fall unfocused on the floor three or four feet out from you or on a wall if you are sitting facing the wall-*Or you could use a mandella, which is a picture which you can focus on and allow your being be open to the messages on the Meditation tape (*Note: our suggestion not JKZ's)-These suggestions allow you to stay in the moment without fear of falling asleep
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p142)
3. Sleepiness
-If you are sleepy it is best to sit with your eyes open-Find a time of the day to practice when you are fairly awake: e.g. early in the morning after a good night’s sleep-Splash cold water on your face before practicing if you feel sleepy – or even take an invigorating cold shower-Don't Forget: there will be plenty of distractions to work with inwardly and outwardly, no matter how much you regulate the external environment
4. Protecting the time
-It is best to choose a time for formal practice in which you will not be interrupted-Shut off your cell phone, pager, computer and the internet-Close the door fo your room and make sure that others know not to interrupt you during this time – good reason for doing the exercise in the morning
Make this time:
-Time strictly for being-Time for nurturing yourself through “nondoing”-Time for cultivation of mindfulness and heartfulness
(Kabat-Zinn, 2016. p142)
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2. Layperson’s Introduction to Mindfulness
What is Mindfulness
Mindfulness involves:
-An elemental and spontaneous openness to experience grounded in the body,
-Timeless, in not expecting something to happen
-Befriending and inhabiting of the present moment for its own sake
Resting in mindful awareness, you are:
-Participating intimately in life as it is unfolding
-Seeing what happens
-Experimenting
-Allowing the original beauty and mastery of the world and you to speak to you without shying away from wonder, awe and joy
-The miracle of being alive in these precious present moments that are available to all of us but that we so often ignore in hope of some “better” ones at some future date
Reflect on these Messages
1. Intention shapes your thoughts and words
2. Thoughts and words mold your actions
3. Thoughts, words, and actions shape your behaviors’
4. Behaviors sculpt your bodily expressions
5. Bodily expressions fashion your character
6. Your character hardens into what you look like
The Goal of Mindfulness
1. Reduction of painful symptoms
2. Stress reduction
3. Improved quality of life
4. Improved coping skills
5. Greater sense of inner connectedness
6. Greater sense of unconditional self-acceptance
How does Mindfulness help you achieve these goals?
Through mindfulness:
-You experience a improved sense of self-control and ease over how you relate to or cope with what is happening in your inner or outer experience
-You learn to relate to what is happening with more kindness
-You lower your physiological stress response in the process.
Metaphor for this process:
“Learning to sail in the winds of life:
You can’t change the wind - but you can adjust your sails”.
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Two Ways of Practicing Mindfulness
Formal Practice: Setting time aside daily to do specific meditations using the recorded meditations available in JKZ Series 1, 2 and 3 or other recorded meditations available on Apps or on the Internet. Recommended body posture for the formal practice is sitting.
Informal Practice: When applying mindfulness or self-compassion to something that you are already doing in your everyday life. This involves focusing on the sensations that arise in these situations. Example: Mindful eating: focusing your sight, smell, taste, touch, and sounds that anchor you in the moment of eating. Turns out that you might also focus in on your emotions and thoughts that arise in the moment
Instructions for Mindfulness Practice
1. Become aware of the present-moment experience: Focus your attention on the “Nowness of the activity” and shutter out all other thoughts if you can
2. Once you notice that your attention has wondered off, gently redirect your attention to the current present moment
3. Do not judge yourself harshly if your attention has been distracted be kind to yourself and re-direct yourself back to the target of your practice’s attention
Mindfulness frees You to be You
1. Mindfulness is a way of learning how to relate directly to your life
2. Because it is about your life, no one can do it for you or tell you exactly how to do it
3. It isn’t something you need to get or acquire-You already have it in you, it’s simply a matter of being present
4. The moment you you see that you have been trapped by your thoughts, you gain the freedom to step out of the trap
Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Definition of Mindfulness
Mindfulness is awareness cultivated by paying attention in a sustained and particular way:
-On purpose
-In the present moment and
-Nonjudgmentally
It is a form of Meditation in which you engage in
1. Systematically regulating your attention and energy
2. Thereby influencing and possibly transforming the quality of your experience
3. In the service of realizing the full range of humanity
4. And of your relationship to others and the world.
(Kabat Zinn, J. (2016) Mindfulness for beginners: Reclaiming the present moment-and your life. Boulder, CO: Sounds True)
Another way of looking at Mindfulness
Mindfulness is awareness which is:
-Attending with tenderness and patience
-Showing up to yourself
-Befriending silence intentionally
-Smiling – direct transmission of heart to heart presence
-Your relationship with your body, mind, and heart
-Heart and Mind are the same word in Asian Language
-Radical recognition of the realization of just “STOPPING” is a radical action
-Focused Meditation: How you live your life relationally by getting out of your own way
-Finding your True Way requires that you get out of your own way
-Recognize the attending and awareness and befriend them
Attitudes that support and strengthen mindfulness
1. Acceptance
2. Nonjudging
3. Nonstriving
4. Letting go/Letting be
5. Trust
6. Beginner’s mind
7. Gratitude and generosity
3 additional attitudes helpful in generating Mindfulness
1. Curiosity: is greatly needed in the work of mindfulness since it helps you to turn toward the present-moment experience to better learn about it and to perceive it fully. You become curious about the moment if you choose to by asking questions such as “What is here that I’m not aware of? Or “What is this?”
2. Kindness: with kindness present, judgment and harshness receded. You see what happens in a different light. Kindness often arises from a deeper more complex understanding of how the heart and mind work – not just for yourself but for everybody.
3. Humor: Humor allows you to take a step back from a particular situation, to see your habits of mind and find the amusement in your all-too-human foibles. You can laugh at yourself which allows you to not allow your mind to be petty and stubborn. You are able to not be overidentified with the situations and be better able to create space
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How do you display these attitudes when you go off target?
When you notice your mind goes off
-Notice where you drifted off to
-Don’t criticize yourself
-Lovingly draw your attention back to the focus of your breath, belly, body, senses etc.
-Give caring attention by reeling back your mind to the present
-Help your mind to accept itself as it is
-Don’t take it personally
-Try to stay away from the personal pronouns: I, me, mine etc. when talking about the experience of the now
Compassion and Loving Kindness
Compassion is to “sympathize” or “to feel with” especially to feel the pain of others
Compassion is defined as the wish or impulse to alleviate suffering in another living being-which is different than just to “feel with” the other.
If the suffering is within yourself, you can call this self-compassion
Compassion arises out of the foundation of a general well-wishing and benevolence toward all living beings-this is called loving-kindness
Compassion arises out of loving kindness as a natural response to suffering or pain
Mindfulness is an act of Loving Self
A goal of mindfulness is to grow in love for yourself – Do not exclude yourself from your love
Choose every day to find what is good in your life
Be grounded in yourself
Live your life for you
Do not let your life be diminished by the negatives of others
Do not let others’ negative beings diminish you either
How does Mindfulness work
The only way you can influence the future is in the present
By being fully human you influence your future
Recognize that life is bigger than you and that what is going on in life is a gift with which you will grow and be fully nourished if you just let it be – allow life the freedom to be life the way it is rather than how you want it to be
Ethically the goal is to do no harm to self through mindfulness practice
Goal is to recognize the beauty in self and in others
So the motto is: DO NO HARM … DO A LITTLE GOOD
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Coping with physical and emotional pain
Pain is distracting and conflicts with the present moment
-Desire relief from physical pain
-Desire relief from the unpleasant sensations
-Healing – is coming to grips with it in the now
Decide how you are to develop a relationship with pain – which is intense unpleasantness
-Befriend the emotion – as it is
-Turn toward the unpleasantness
-Treat it as a guest freely
-Don’t shy away from it
What you can learn about Mindfulness by embracing pain
Whatever you do to be attentive is mindful as long as it’s nurturing in the here and now
This is the heart of thousands of years old tradition
It is pure awareness
It is not a distraction
It is a way to attend to whatever is going on in the mind or body
It is profound and transcends the essence of suffering, pain, anxiety and comes into awareness of our full humanity
Tune into the feelings at the moment
-Inhabit Awareness
-Let each moment arise so you will feel fully integrated
The Four Foundations of Mindfulness
1. Mindfulness of the Body: the starting point and anchor of mindfulness practice. The meditations used are: Body Scan, Mindful Eating, Mindfulness of Breathing, Mindfulness of Sound and Mindful Walking.
2. Mindfulness of Feeling Tones: There are three distinct feeing tones; unpleasant, pleasant or neutral. Feeling tones are not emotions they accompany them
3. Mindfulness of the Mind: This practice turns attention to mental activity like thought or emotions as mere objects that can be observed in a non-reactive way
4. Mindfulness of how the Mind Operates: This focuses on the classification of related experiences into specific categories or lists. Such as this lest of the four Foundations of Mindfulness
Awareness is the pathway that makes you human
Embrace your thoughts in awareness
Get the first-person pronouns out of the story of me
Embrace life as a journey which needs to be experienced with full awareness
Healing comes from being present
Healing comes from being Heartful - which takes you out of the center of your focus
Awareness allows you to always be “Here”
Being Here allows you to find the center of awareness which is an integral part of your human repertoire
To engage in awareness, take a lot of motivation and commitment to self to be whole
You are already whole … So, your practice allows you to embrace your wholeness
Mindfulness allows you to see your wholeness – You are already OK – This is a model of healing which allows you to find your own wholeness so you can say with confidence: “Maybe there is something good in me.”
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Components of the Focus of Mindfulness
As a human you have: Breath, Body, Mind, Senses and Emotions
You have all these processes in your DNA and the way to get there is by “Not Doing”
You too often over focus on the past, but you in mindfulness focus on the present
So, you need to work through awareness at cultivating your capacity for: knowing, hearing, seeing, feeling, smelling, tasting so that you can become fully humanly heartful
Practice of Mindfulness is living your life fully:
-I feel more in my body
-I know how to regulate myself
-Through my Body Scans I am in this together
-Awareness becomes my default state - for coming to terms with life as it is
-Kindness and self-love grow as I grow in my practice of mindfulness
Summary
Mindfulness is present moment nonjudgmental awareness
Mindfulness=Wisdom and Compassion
Learning there is more right with us than what is wrong with us
Learning we are already perfect
Don’t talk about it – BE IT!
Compassion is an active and kind turning toward suffering – your own and that of others – with the aim of relieving it to whatever degree possible.
The only hero of the moment is you as long as you don’t say it.
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3. Bibliography of MBSR Related Books
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1990 & 2013). Full Catastrophe Living: using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain and Illness. BaNtam Books: New York, NY.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994 & 2005). Wherever you go there you are: Mindfulness Meditation in Everyday life. Hachette Books: New York, NY.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2005). Coming to Our Senses: Healing Ourselves and the World through Mindfulness. Hachette Books: New York, NY.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2012 & 2016). Mindfulness for beginners: Reclaiming he present moment and your life. Sounds True, Inc: Boulder, Colorado
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2018). Meditation is not what you think: Mindfulness and why it is so important (book One). Hachette Books: New York, NY.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2018). Falling Awake: how to practice mindfulness in everyday life (Book two). Hachette Books: New York, NY.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2018). The Healing Power of Mindfulness: A New way of Being (book Three). Hachette Books: New York, NY.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (2018). Mindfulness for All: The Wisdom to Transform the World (Book Four). Hachette Books: New York, NY.
Stahl, B. & Goldstein, E. (2019). A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook (Second Edition). New Harbinger Publications: Oakland, CA
Wolf, C. & Serpa, J.G. (2015). A Clinician’s Guide to Teaching Mindfulness. New Harbinger Publications: Oakland, CA
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Tools Available to use in Mindfulness Training
JKZ Series Apps
JKZ Apps Each of the three volumes of Jon Kabat-Zinn's Meditations are also available at the Apple Apps store. Each volume can be downloaded to your devices for easy availability. Each App costs $10.00.
Series 1
Track 1: Body Scan Meditation (45 min)
Track 2: Mindful Yoga 1 (45 min)
Track 3: Sitting Meditation (40 min)
Track 4: Mindful Yoga 2 (45 min)
Series 2
Tracks 1, 2, 3 Sitting Meditations (10-, 20- & 30-minute versions)
Tracks 4, 5, 6 Lying Down Meditations (10-, 20- & 30-minute versions)
Track 7 Mountain Meditation (20 min)
Track 8 Lake Meditation (20 min)
Track 9 Silence with bells (custom duration)
Series 3
1. Breathscape (20 min)
2. Bodyscape (20 min)
3. Breathscape and Bodyscape – More Silence (20 min)
4. Soundscape (27 min)
5. Mindscape (20 min)
6. Dying Before You Die (30 min)
7. Nowscape (30 min)
8. Walking Meditation (10 min)
9. Heartscape (47 min)
10. Lifescape (12 min)
Meditations downloadable form Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Mindfulness for Beginners
1. Eating Raisin Meditation
2. Mindfulness of Breathing
3. Whole Body Mindfulness
4. Mindfulness of Thinking
5. Pure Awareness Practice
Meditations downloadable from Stahl & Goldstein’s A Mindfulness;-Based Stress Reduction Workbook
1. Mindful Raisin Eating
2. Mindful Check in
3. Mindful Breathing (10- & 15-minute versions)
5. Mindful Walking Meditation
6. Body Scan Meditation (15-, 30- & 45-minute versions)
7. Chronic Pain Meditation
8. Sitting Meditation (15-, 30- & 45-minute versions)
9. Mindful Yoga Introduction
10. Mindful Lying Yoga (15-, 30- & 45-minute versions)
11. Anxiety Meditation
12. Depression Meditation (10-, 20- & 30-minute versions)
13. Insomnia Meditation
14. Mindful Standing Yoga (15-, 30- & 45-minute versions)
15. Self-Compassion Meditation (10-, 20- & 30-minute versions)
16. Loving Kindness Meditation (15-, 30- & 45-minute versions)
17. Growing Joy Meditation (10-, 20- & 30-minute versions)
Meditations downloadable from Wolf & Serpa’s A Clinician’s Guide to Teaching Mindfulness
1. Introduction to Meditation Exercises
2. Ground Meditation – Wolfe (5 min)
3. Grounding Meditation – Serpa (5 min)
4. Body Scan: Short-Lying down (15 min)
5. Body Scan (15 min)
6. Affectionate Body Scan (15 min)
7. Breath: Mindfulness of Breathing (15 min)
8. Breath: Mindfulness of Breathing (10 min)
9. Breath: Compassionate Breathing (15 min)
10. Mindfulness of Breath with Spaciousness (10 min)
11. Mindfulness of Sounds (15 min)
12. Mindfulness of Sounds (10 min)
13. Loving Kindness (Metta): Short (10 min)
14. Loving Kindness (Metta) for Loved Other & Self (20 min)
15. Loving Kindness (Metta) for Vets (25 min)
16. Supportive Touch and Self-Compassion with Instructions (18 min)
17. Supportive Touch and Self-Compassion Exercise Only (9 min)
18. Exploring Unpleasant Neutral Pleasant Exercise (10 min)
19. Yoga: Chair Yoga – Short (15 min)
20. Yoga: Chair Yoga – Long (45 min)
21. Body Scan : Long (35 min)
Mindful Chair Yoga Practices for MBSR Program
Mindful Chair Yoga: A Brief 15 Minute Beginner's Practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6BxZep0w44&t=43s
Mindful Chair Yoga: A Complete Beginner's Practice (40 minutes): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=barPap-8vnw
Mindful Chair Yoga: A 45 Minute Practice: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=edZXrdcz0-w
Mindful Chair Yoga: A Practice for the Legs (30 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6_hp2xgdt3Y&list=PLN2MXztFqfFV9RiFyu0dL4qA0wKaCY8hB
Mindful Chair Yoga (30 min) Cultivating a Healthy Relationship with Thoughts and Feelings:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z4CTG2f0hRk
Mindful Chair Yoga (45 min) Cultivating a Healthy Relationship with Thoughts and Feelings: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2e3B_Z8mA0
Mindful Chair Yoga: A Playful Practice (20 min): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-WBAc7uAoWU&t=88s
Mindful Chair Yoga: A 45 Minute Practice:Through Playfulness
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JD4WzEBCGpA
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