Imagine this scene: You come home from work after a long day at work; tired and hungry. Walking in, you sense tension in the environment. Your first reaction is, “ugh, there goes my relaxing evening!” Then, you remember your mindfulness practice and take a couple deep breaths, feel your feet on the ground, hands at your side and notice your breathing in the body. This switches your attitude to one of curiosity and equanimity. When your partner rushes out of the bedroom with your screaming child in their arms, you smile, take a breath or two, remember self-compassion and conjure empathy for the situation. Your response is, “Hi there. I’m so glad to see you both. Can I join in the fun?” And the evening ends up filled with laughter and love.
Mindful meditation is a practice with wide-spread benefits, including general relaxation, full-body rest, present moment awareness and emotional wellbeing. There are many types of meditation and while its history goes back many generations into ancient Asian cultures and spiritual traditions, meditation came to the US relatively recently: during the 20th century. Jon Kabat Zinn introduced Mindfulness meditation to medical center patients over 40 years ago. His Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) techniques have more recently taken hold for the general public. From its inception MBSR has spurred a mindfulness movement that is proving crucial to our spiritual and wellness transformation.
Being aware of the present moment by focusing on an attention anchor — sounds, sensations, or most commonly, the breath — is the fundamental principle of meditation. Learning to “be present” takes practice and is the foundation of mindfulness. Anyone can learn mindfulness meditation with curious intention and personal commitment. The beginner will find it easier to learn meditation with guidance from experienced teachers at a center such as Be Meditation.
Creating and Sustaining YOUR meditation practice: Meditation 101, is an accessible way to learn meditation or renew a hibernating practice.
The class will be held for six Thursdays:
- September 23, 30
- October 7, 14, 21, 28,
- at 8:00 pm EST / 5:00 pm PST
- each class is 75 minutes.
We know the benefits of meditation and mindfulness; starting and sustaining a practice can be challenging. This 6-week course will give you the foundational skills to bring the powerful tools of meditation into your life in a meaningful way. Meditation is not one-size-fits-all, so we invite you to gather with like-minded people from all over the world and explore the many ways meditation can transform your life. And Inviting a friend to register with you adds a motivating and fun aspect to the course.
Why meditate? One reason is that meditation quiets the mind and settles the nervous system. The Autonomic Nervous System (ANS) is a bodily system that determines how we respond to emotional experiences. It is made up of the sympathetic (SNS) and parasympathetic (PNS) nervous systems. “These two systems are activated in times of arousal or recovery. Put simply, SNS activation leads to a “fight or flight” response, and PNS activation leads to a “rest and digest” response.” (Roxanna Salim, November 12th, 2019, Imotions.com). Although, as the name suggests, the ANS is automatic, we can stimulate the PNS response through meditation and deep breathing. By quieting the mind’s reactivity and calming down attachment to emotional thoughts, we settle fight, flight, freeze reactions, thereby stimulating relaxation which helps our body and mind come back to homeostasis.
Another reason is that through mindful awareness we learn about ourselves and our patterned reactions. By sitting in meditation and practicing present-moment awareness, we can pause and explore with curiosity and compassion, our internal and external environments. From this attitude of bearing witness, we learn to accept with equanimity what is going on right now in the present moment: the only time that reality actually happens. Practicing noticing what is going on in the present brings freedom of choice for how we respond to life’s experiences. Viktor Frankl famously wrote, “Between stimulus and response there is a space. In that space is our power to choose our response. In our response lies our growth and our freedom. ” That freedom of response may be the most powerful reason to learn mindfulness meditation.
Although there are many meditation traditions, using breath awareness is ubiquitous to all styles. Some of the meditation practices that can help settle the nervous system include body scanning, sense awareness, mantras and breath practice. Using the breath as our attention anchor, we stimulate the vagus nerve (PNS) and move emotional responses away from the limbic brain to the frontal cortex, the part of the brain responsible for logic and thinking. This may sound contradictory since many have heard that meditation involves “letting go of thinking”. Actually, this is a myth and one of the topics that students will learn about in this beginning meditation class.
Topics of discussion will include how meditation affects the brain, loving kindness meditation, and using mantras and gratitude in mindfulness practice. Students will also learn how to set up a meditation space, and ways to bring mindfulness into their daily routine. Between each class, students will be encouraged to practice at home the skills learned in class. A central aspect of the course is Connection and participants will have the opportunity to share their learning with others in the class.
Imagine this scene: You come home from a full day at work. Your partner and child greet you at the door with smiles on their faces. After putting down your things, the three of you settle down together for a family mindful moment before sharing the day’s adventures and then planning the rest of the evening together. Be Meditation is excited to welcome you to the life-changing practice of mindful meditation through this 6-week course.