Time to hear how Jane got on with her home practice for 4th week of her Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course:
I am pleased to report that I found it a lot easier this last week to incorporate my formal mindfulness meditation into each day. I seemed to think of it as an essential part of my daily routine and actually looked forward to it, so felt no resistance to making time for it.
This last week we have had to alternate between doing a half hour sitting meditation and half an hour of mindful movement. I have enjoyed the variety and have also used different forms of mindful movement including yoga. I am really interested in noticing where my body says ‘ouch, stop there!’ during a stretch and then how much further I can go if I notice that, breathe into the tension in the muscles and then see if I can move any further. Through this physical process I can see how we can let our minds restrict us and impose limits on us that don’t need to be there. I found I had a much more positive experience of walking up a steep hill when I tuned into my thoughts about how ‘I don’t like walking uphill’ and breathed into the tension in my legs which I noticed I labelled as ‘painful’ and tried to get rid of.
I am finding the sitting meditation really calming and grounding. I still struggle to observe my thoughts but yesterday I felt I had a breakthrough and for some reason could make out a cascade of thoughts. Unbelievable how many thoughts go through our mind in a minute and the randomness of them. I feel that the sitting meditation is really helping me to ‘just sit’ with the uncertainty I feel about the future at the moment and learn how to still function whilst you have an anxious feeling in your stomach. I notice that whenever I feel that anxiety or stress feeling, I want to get rid of it and immediately start thinking what can I do to fix this. During the sitting meditation I simply notice that thought and then bring my attention back to either my breath; my body; sounds around me or thoughts and feelings, depending on which part of the sitting meditation we are in at that moment. In this way I am turning towards the emotion and giving it some air time rather than the more draining process of turning away from it and blocking it out.
Thanks for the update Jane. Looking forward to hearing about next week.