Do you get up every morning and experience the same routine? You wake up, grab a cup of coffee, take a shower and think about what lies ahead for the day. You think about the long, tedious drive to work, dropping the kids at school or daycare, numerous meetings throughout the day, and on and on until your mind is already at the shut-off point before you have even walked out the door.
You think you might get a minute to yourself for lunch but something comes up where you are either running errands, in a meeting or someone interrupts your “me” time. There is never any time for you to spend with your own thoughts.
How many times do you stop when taking that shower and really feel the hot water? When you drink that cup of coffee or eat a delicious meal, do you really let your mouth absorb the flavors? If you take a walk, are you allowing yourself to feel each step knowing that every step you take is helping you to strengthen your body?
We tend to let these moments slip into oblivion never to be seen nor heard from ever again. You can turn that around and re-discover your body and what it means to you.
How would it feel to become in touch with your senses including: seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting and touching?
When you use Mindfulness to reacquaint yourself with your body, you learn to be present with the unpleasant sense experiences as well as the pleasant. By using your full sensory experiences it can free you from constantly avoiding the uncomfortable and to only seek comfort.
One of the things this process will accomplish is to allow you to see that we are constantly in the middle of changing all the time which comes and goes due to causes and conditions.
Before you can make any changes you have to learn how to incorporate Mindfulness into your bodily experiences. You have to be willing to open your body to new physical sensations with compassion and curiosity.
Are you willing to examine each experience mindfully? Any touch, sound, smell, sight or taste is open for exploration. Let’s discover a few way you can begin practicing Mindfulness as it relates to physical sensations.
We are going to be broadening your field of awareness surrounding the physical sensations you could experience at any given time.
We are replacing the stories in your head to experience life in real time, this moment in time. This exercise will transition you from concentration meditation to insight meditation.
- Do some Mindfulness Breathing. Just breathe and feel each breath.
- If you are experiencing physical sensations hold on to them without judging or trying to push them away. Ask “What is this?” Be curious. Allow the sensation to reveal itself.
- Allow the physical sensation to open and let it be. If you find that you are struggling with the sensation, return your attention to the breathing.
- Maintain your mindfulness attention on the physical sensation of when it entered and then when it passes.
- Meet them with Mindfulness and then see what happens to them. This step could help you to see more clearly how little permanency the sensation has on your body.
- Continue practicing this over and over again until the time you have allotted for this exercise is complete.
- Take a few minutes to reflect on what just happened.
- At this point, you should be able to tell the difference between the mind’s reaction to the sensation and the physical sensation.
Continue practicing this exercise until the issues become clearer for you.
How We Can Help
Here at Meditation Stepping Stones, our meditation classes assist you with learning to be mindful in your life. You can learn more about our classes below.
Our current classes:
Meditation – Wednesdays at 7 pm Central Time in Virtual Classroom
Mindfulness – Mondays at 11 am Central Time in Virtual Classroom(Next class in April)
For the online classes, you must be a member of our Meditation Stepping Stones Facebook Group. The class is streamed live to the group.
Personal Sessions – The personal sessions will run similarly as well except it will be only you and myself meeting. You will have more time to ask questions, work intimately together on goals, right technique, receive worksheets and other easy assignments to help you grow in your meditation practice.
Access our Meditation Pebbles Podcast for easy five minute practices you can do easily.
If you have further questions, use the contact form here on the website. I’m happy to answer any questions may have.
We have a Facebook Group you could join so you can ask questions, share with others and receive support.
If you live in Madison, Wisconsin be sure to see our Facebook page for our new studio opening in April 2018.
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