Origins of Mindfulness: Religion, Philosophy, or Psychology? Mindfulness is seen to have its roots in ancient Eastern, primarily Buddhist, traditions. However, there are enough references in
Many of us encounter moments in life where forgiveness feels impossible. We might hold onto contempt or resentment towards someone, struggling to understand their actions
Often just like any other skill, once people start meditating they try to master meditation. They want to excel at it. They imagine themselves becoming quiet
Stress is really an overused word and yet it is a defining aspect of our current, modern life. When you are in the loop of
I feel so worried
I’m extremely sad today
I’m very very angry
A feeling is equal to some thoughts and a state of mind – is that it though? When you speak of sadness, anger, fear, despair what do you think these emotions really include? A lot of us mistakenly believe that emotions are just about some thoughts and the way one feels.
This understanding is hugely incomplete
Emotions have a big, big manifestation in the body too. In fact, the body is the seat of emotions.
As December sets in, everything around you oozes of cheer, joy and happiness. Daily life seems to get a boost of excitement when you see that preparations for the celebrations have begun all around – be it Christmas, New Year’s or weddings. However, amidst all the December enthusiasm, there may be people who are feeling low, depressed and lonely.
Your senses are your window to the world; you experience life through your senses. Yet, in your everyday routine, you remain busy in trying to make meaning of whatever you see, hear, smell, taste and touch. This is necessary and an essential part of survival! However, if you think about it, every sensory experience is so rich on its own.
Keeping this in mind, this blog describes a mindfulness exercise that involves paying attention to one sense at a time.
Diwali is here-a time of the year for festivity and rejoicing and I love all of that. The sweets, the gifts, the general feeling of gaiety and energy in the air-its invigorating.
There is another image, a slightly different one that also stays with me which I want to share with you. It is the image of the lamps burning away into the night, much after all the noise and the gaiety subsides.
Okay! So here we come to the end of the Mental Health Week with our last post, and all along we have made it a week of mindfulness for you and for us.
As promised in the last post, we are taking you into somewhat deeper levels of mindfulness since the last two days. In today’s post we will work on mindfulness with emotions and feelings. As in the last six days, we will do a small exercise to help you observe your emotions, mindfully. But before the exercise a little bit more on observing emotions:
How can emotions and feelings be observed?
You know when you are happy, sad, angry, disappointed and so on… Well how do you know? Maybe you will quickly answer “I just know”! But this is mindfulness week remember? We do everything with a pause…so I Invite you to try to not answer immediately! Take a moment and think on how you know what you feel. Think before you go on reading…
We have already discussed in our first post for the mental health week, the exercise of creating present moment awareness through looking, through isolating one sense at a time and focusing on it in order to be mindful, or in the present.
Most of you who have been following the posts this week we are sure are already into the mindfulness groove. Hence for the last two posts for the week, we take you a little deeper into the mindfulness experience. Before I introduce you to today’s exercise, just a little background..
We specialize in combining psychotherapy with deep wellness practices like mindfulness and meditation and creating a customized mental health plan for individuals and organisations.
We specialize in combining psychotherapy with deep wellness practices like mindfulness and meditation and creating a customized mental health plan for individuals and organisations.
A young woman from another country moved with her family to live for one year in a town near the monastery. When, in the course of the year she discovered the monastery, she would periodically visit to have discussions with the Abbess. The Abbess introduced her to meditation, which became very meaningful for the young woman.
When the family’s year-long stay was drawing to an end, the young woman asked the Abbess, “In my country there is no Buddhism and no one has even heard about meditation. How can I continue to learn and deepen the practice you have started me on?”
The Abbess said, “When you return home ask far and wide for who, among the wise people, is recognized as having the greatest ability to listen. Ask that person to instruct you in the art of listening. What you learn about listening from such a person will teach you how to further your meditation practice.
― Gil Fronsdal, A Monastery Within: Tales from the Buddhist Path
