Mindfulness Program: Week 1 of a 4 Week Introduction to Mindfulness

Welcome to Week 1 of this 4 Week Introduction to Mindfulness, so whether you’re a complete beginner and curious about learning more or have read about mindfulness and would like to start a mindfulness practice with weekly guidance, this may be of interest to you. See how it is to commit to this online 4-week mindfulness course – each week I will have a blog for you and a meditation to listen to each day with some home practice exercises to try. If after the 4 weeks you have noticed some differences or are curious to try this training more fully, then you can check out our range of 8-week evidenced-based mindfulness programmes at The Mindfulness Centre, mindfulness.ie

‘Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose in the present moment and without judgement’ (Kabat-Zinn, 1990).

Mindfulness is a type of mental training which allows us to cultivate awareness. In mindfulness we learn skills which support us in developing the quality of attention, and the capacity to come back, again and again, to this present moment with curiousity, compassion and patience. Being with this present moment and whatever is arising is quite different to our usual modes of day dreaming, worrying, planning and preoccupations. We are often unaware of the current of our thinking but it can have a big impact on how we live our lives, interpret events and respond to what is happening around us (Segal, Williams and Teasdale (2013).

Awareness and Automatic Pilot

Have you ever travelled in your car to a destination, and not remembered how you got there? Or found you’ve eaten your dinner would out really tasting the food? We can often be in ‘autopilot’ for large parts of the day and not really be present to the unfolding of our lives. Mindfulness is a way to open up to the experiences that are happening, as they are happening moment by moment, and moving out of this automatic pilot.

Research shows the average person is in autopilot 47% of the time…our attention is absorbed in our wandering minds and we are not really ‘present’ in our own lives. (Harvard Gazeette, 2010)

When we are on automatic pilot we are often unaware of how we are feeling, our thoughts and body sensations. By becoming more aware of how we are feeling, we are less likely to get our buttons pushed in difficult situations and give ourselves more opportunities to open up to range of experiences.

Mindfulness of the Breath

1. Sit in a comfortable position, with your spine in a dignified upright position, let the shoulders drop away from the ears.
2. Close your eyes if it feels comfortable.
3. Bring your awareness to the feel of the body breathing each breath, focusing your attention on the sensations of touch, contact and pressure in your body where it makes contact with the floor and whatever you are sitting on. Spend a few minutes exploring these sensations.
4. Bring your attention to your belly, feeling it rise or expand gently on the in-breath and fall or recede on the out-breath.
5. Keep the focus on your breathing, ‘being with’ each in-breath for its full duration and with each out-breath for its full duration, as if you were surfing the waves of your own breathing.
6. Every time that you notice that your mind has wandered off the experience of the breath, softly note what it was that took you away and then gently escort your attention back to your belly and the feeling of the breath coming in and out.
7. If your mind wanders from the breath a thousand times, then your ‘job’ is simply to bring it back to the breath every time, no matter what it becomes preoccupied with. It is just as valuable to become aware that your mind has wandered and to bring it back to the breath as it is to remain aware of the breath. (Adapted fromKabat-Zinn, 1996)

The Swan
Did you too see it, drifting, all night, on the black river?
Did you see it in the morning, rising into the silvery air –
An armful of white blossoms,
A perfect commotion of silk and linen as it leaned
into the bondage of its wings; a snowbank, a bank of lilies,
Biting the air with its black beak?
Did you hear it, fluting and whistling
A shrill dark music – like the rain pelting the trees – like a waterfall
Knifing down the black ledges?
And did you see it, finally, just under the clouds –
A white cross Streaming across the sky, its feet
Like black leaves, its wings like the stretching light of the river?
And did you feel it, in your heart, how it pertained to everything?
And have you too finally figured out what beauty is for?
And have you changed your life?
By Mary Oliver 1992

Home Practice for the Week Following Session 1

1. Try this 10 minute Breath & Body Meditation each day

2. Take 5 minutes to take a piece of chocolate or fruit: hold it, look at it, smell it, place it on the lip, take a bite, allow to melt/chew slowly, noticing the urge to swallow, the act of swallowing and the aftertaste and sensation left in the mouth. Jot down anything you noticed about this. Is this how you normally eat?

3. Choose one routine activity in your daily life and make a deliberate effort to bring moment-to-moment awareness to that activity each time you do it. You don’t need to slow down or do anything differently, we are just shifting our attention to fully notice what we are doing. Possibilities include brushing your teeth, showering, drying your body, getting dressed, eating, taking out the rubbish, walking etc. Simply zoom in on knowing what you are doing as you are actually doing it.

FOR FREE DAILY MEDITATIONS, CLICK ON THE LINKS BELOW:

For Breath and Body (10 mins)

For Body Scan (13 mins)

For Mountain Meditation (15 mins)

For Mindful Movement (30 mins)

For Three Step Breathing Space (3 mins)

Click on this link for Fiona’s introductory article to this 4 week mindfulness course which offers further mindfulness techniques to try out, the benefits, the research and more free resources for starting a daily practice. Click here to read about how mindfulness helped our founder Niall Breslin and why we are so passionate to bring this free program to you. Best of luck with it!

For more information about 8 Week MBSR/MBCT Courses and Free Meditation Resources please visit The Mindfulness Centre

REFERENCES
Segal, Z.V., Williams, J.M.G., & Teasdale, J.D. (2013). Mindfulness–Based Cognitive Therapy for Depression: A New Approach to Preventing Relapse (Second Edition). London: The Guilford Press.
Kabat-Zinn, J. (1994). Wherever you go, there you are: Mindfulness meditation in everyday life. New York: Hyperion.