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Mediation Cultivates Mindfulness

Once you work towards being able to build a foundation and then eventually your own mediation practice/routine you’ll find yourself more effective at reducing stress levels, along with anxiety, depression and many other negative emotions. Mindfulness is a way or a quality of being fully engaged in the moment and nowhere else. No analyzing or over-thinking about the experience. Instead of worrying about the future or dwelling too much on the long-ago the mindfulness mediation switches the focal point to what’s occurring right now in this present moment.

Techniques

The mindfulness meditation focuses on a few techniques:

• Body scan
• Walking meditation
• Mindful eating

Body Scanning – Body scanning encompasses one focusing on various parts of the body and cultivating mindfulness. You don’t tense or relax the muscles; however, you simply put your attention on your bodies’ feelings. No labeling just how it feels, the sensations, with this exercise there is no “good” and there is no “bad.”

Mindful Eating – We have the tendency to rush our meals, gulp them down or partake of our food on the couch, watching TV or simply eating on the run. Mindful eating encompasses simply taking time away from these things and sitting down at the table and giving our full attention to nothing but the meal before us. Eat your food slowly and take both the time to fully enjoy your meal but also put your concentration on each bite.

Walking meditation – Mediation isn’t for being seated still anymore. As you’re walking be mindful of the physicality of each of the steps that you take, the sensations that you feel as your feet touch the ground and the rhythms of your breath as you’re moving, feel it as the wind touches your face.

Starting Your Mediation

The Needs

• A quiet environment
• A position that’s comfortable
• A focal point
• A noncritical observant attitude

Whether you are in your home, garden, office etc… you need to find a place with no distractions and where you’ll get no interruptions, a secluded place. After you’ve went to your place begin to get comfortable and be sure to avoid lying down since if you do you may fall asleep. Sit up either on the floor or in a chair keeping your spine straight. If you prefer you can either be in the lotus position or cross-legged.

Pick a word or a phrase that has meaning to you and repeat it throughout the entire session. You can also pick an object that is in your surrounding area to focus on in order to enhance your concentration. You can also close your eyes.

You might have distracting thoughts going through your head about how you are doing; do your best to ignore these. If those thoughts do make their way through; however, don’t fight, simply move your mind back to the focal point you chose.

The No Zone – Zone

Your mindfulness meditation practice is not a time to “zone out.” Getting and maintaining your concentration level and then to bring it back into the present moment should you start to drift or your mind start to wander. Once you’ve gotten practice your brain will actually change by strengthening those areas that give us joy and relaxation and making those that cause stress and the negativity in our lives weaken.