Mind-full? Mind-less!

Mind ripples.

This has been a month where returning to mindfulness practices and meditation has been refreshing and oh so invaluable for me. Meditation is a form of exercise for the brain and it is a power tool that literally creates new places 'to sit' in the mind.  

Imagine that your mind is your living room, family room, kitchen or bedroom.  Notice the furniture.  Where are the places to sit and rest, perchance to dream?  Is this a comfortable place - a place where you can just be present?  Or are there lots of distractions.  Have you ended up in the garage?  Or the overflowing spare bedroom heaped with clutter?  

Just like we all desire a place to just BE in our homes, mindfulness practices literally creates a meditation sanctuary in our own mind.  

Now, a re-minder.  Rome wasn't built in a day.  Being mind-full, mind-less increases with practice, even a little practice.  A few moments each day will begin the creation of that new flexible-mind chair.  

I have created a sample list of exercises from some wise folks in this field.  I have a resource list below that I call the Big Idea Books.  Highly recommended reading!

Give the list a try.  

I have.

This was my old mind chair.

Mary's sad and worm out "Thinking Chair"

And this is my new one.

Mary's Technicolor Dream Chair

10 Tips To Try

Here are 10 tips culled from a variety of mind, body and spirit sources.  Pick from the list, find a favorite or try one a day for a week and notice how you feel at the end of the 10 weeks.  See which ones remain as part of your daily dose of mind-full? mind-less? experiences.  See if you don’t have a calmer, more peaceful mind…one moment at a time.

1.     Practice mindfulness when the phone rings, the doorbell, the text message or the IM on Facebook. Notice – does your response time have to be so fast (to answer the phone, the doorbell, the text, the Facebook message) that it pulls you out of the life you were living the moment before?  Great question – notice the response.

2.    Tune into your breathe when you find yourself lying down.  Feel it all through your body, feet, legs, stomach, chest, shoulders, neck and head.  Move awareness to organs, skin, and then to cells and feel it all the way through each part of yourself.

3.    Walk mindfully where every step is a miracle.  It is a gift to be able to walk.  Be aware of this simple step.

4.    Let things be as they are.  “The next time you feel a sense of dissatisfaction, of something missing or not quite right, be aware of the energy in that moment.  Stay present instead of the myriad of ways there are to distract yourself. If only for a moment, stop and breathe and notice how things are at that moment.  Don’t even think to yourself I’m going inward not.  Just sit.  Let things be as they are.”  (This tip to try comes from Jon Kabat-Zinn and Wherever You Go, There You Are.)

5.    Red light rest.  The next time you pull up to a red light; treat as if a light bulb has lit up your mind. This is your cue to ‘breathe in, breathe out and smile.’  Notice what feelings come with this time-out.  A whole new way to experience being randomly stopped by life to rest and renew.  All at a traffic light!

6.    Bells are “b”-ringing…awareness.  Whenever you hear a bell ring, a gong, a wind chime or other ‘bell’ this is a call to bring awareness back to the present moment;  the present experience - softly, gently, easily.

7.    In and Out. (Not the Burger!)  This simple focus and awareness exercise erases the past and future.  All the focus shifts when you say ‘in’ when you inhale and ‘out’ when you exhale.  Try this exercise for as little as 30 seconds and build up from there.  Notice how your mood and energy shifts.  You can add a variation and with each in set the intention to breathe in new thoughts, ideas, energy, health and inspiration and on the out the intention to release old and painful thoughts, ideas, energy, illness and exhaustion.  A ‘fuel’ with less calories than a burger!

8.    Repeat this phrase.  This is an exercise inspired by Eckhart Tolle author of The Power of Now in his book Stillness Speaks.  Repeat the following phrase:  “The opposite of life is not death.  The opposite of death is birth.  Life has no opposite.”  The repetition of certain words, sounds and phrases is in essence a mantra, (an often repeated word, formula, or phrase, often a truism).  Try this simple phrase of choice other mantras that create a new mindset or brainwave pattern.  This is a very relaxing and simple practice.

9.    Follow the beat…heartbeat.  Our heart beats in every part of our body through our pulses.  It is our bodies own natural rhythm.  Begin at the feet and notice the pulse in your ankles.  Once you can feel the pulse, move your awareness up and feel the pulse behind your knees, the small of your back, in your chest, your neck your temples and down your arms to your wrists and then send the pulse out through your fingers and start the cycle again.  Notice where else you can feel or detect the pulse in your body.  You can add a variation and begin to listen to the heartbeat or pulse in other people, animals, trees, the earth.  This is a great exercise to support interconnection and awareness.

10.  Perspective.  This one is from Martha Beck and her new book Finding Your Way In A Wild New World.

Ø  Sit, stand or lie still and focus your eyes sharply on an object in front of you.

Ø  Without moving your eyes, broaden your attention until it registers everything in your field of vision, including the original object of focus.

Ø  Now, still without moving your eyes at all, make the object the foreground of your attention, and everything else the background.

Ø  Next, make the object the background and everything else the foreground

Ø  Focus on everything in your visual field at once while repeating this yoga slogan” “Floor to ceiling, wall to wall, all things are equal.”

Ø  If you want to kick it up a notch, repeat this question. “Can I imagine the space inside the distance between my eyes?”  Les Fehmi, a Princeton researcher, discovered that this question pulls the brain straight into a ‘synchronous alpha’ wave pattern, a deeply relaxed, Wordless state.

Big Idea Books

Peace Is Every Step by Thich Nhat Hanh

Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

Arriving At Your Own Door: 108 Lessons in Mindfulness

Jon Kabat-Zinn

The End of Your World by Adyashanti

The Power of Now by Ekhart Tolle

Fully Present by Susan Smalley and Diane Winton

Improv Wisdom by Patricia Ryan Madson