Mindfulness Meditation – you’ve heard it mentioned many times. Sounds pretty simple doesn’t it? Basically paying attention to what is going on right now, and being open and OK with whatever that happens to be.
And if your mind wanders off, gently bringing it back to the now.
Have you tried it? Mary MacVean did, and she published her experience on latimes.com.
She writes of her trip the the Spirit Rock Meditation Center in Marin County to clear her mind of worry – worry over career, worry over children and their destiny, worry over her home.
Do you find that you worry a lot too? It’s easy to do, there is so much going on these days, and so many demands upon us and our time. And chronic worry will kick in the stress response, up your blood pressure, increase your chances of depression, and a whole host of other physical and emotional issues.
Meditation is very popular these days, and studies have been done around its effects on these problems. It seems to help improve them, at least for many.
Often, mindfulness meditation begins with paying attention to our breathing. Sitting is only one of many ways to practice mindfulness, you can also practice it while walking, eating, even working.
The breathing sometimes makes it easier when first starting this practice to have something to bring your attention back to when you mind starts wandering – and it WILL start to wander! Especially in the beginning, but one of the whole points of this practice is to not worry about it or judge yourself as a “bad meditator” because of it.
Another part of this type of meditation is keeping your eyes open. You can set up some sort of little alter or canldes in front of you if that appeals, but you can also have just a plain wall.
One thing you probabaly don’t want to do is sit where you can see the TV or your computer, that can be too distracting.
Psychology Today shares a great description of how to do a sitting mindfulness meditation, you can read about it here. They say:
Mindfulness, paying precise, nonjudgmental attention to the details of our experience as it arises and subsides, doesn’t reject anything. Instead of struggling to get away from experiences we find difficult, we practice being able to be with them. Equally, we bring mindfulness to pleasant experiences as well. Perhaps surprisingly, many times we have a hard time staying simply present with happiness. We turn it into something more familiar, like worrying that it won’t last or trying to keep it from fading away.
