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Exploring Mindfulness And Meditation
Roy Thomsitt
In our every day lives, we are all guilty of neglecting our
minds, allowing our brains to be lulled into a lazy, neglected,
and unaware state. It is as if we are allowing ourselves to
be sculpted by bland and repetitive consumerism, our individuality
being chiselled away by a tedium we cannot even be bothered
to challenge with any will.
Life need not be like that. We are each blessed with a powerful
mind; but normally people have forgotten or, most likely,
never even knew how, to use it. It is such a waste of our
own greatest resource.
One way to start to extricate ourselves from the mindless
quicksand is to gently exercise our minds, using mindfulness
and meditation as a way of bringing ourselves more emphatically
into the real world, and start the process of exercising control
over our minds and our lives.
Creating a mindfulness meditation is a gentle but powerful
exercise. But how do you go about it?
A Simple Mindfulness Meditation Exercise
As with any meditation session, you need to get into a relaxed
and comfortable position, eyes closed, and then commence with
deep nasal breathing, focusing your thoughts on the breathing
to ease yourself into a meditative state.
Once you feel that you are calmed by your breathing and that
your breath is under your rhythmic control, then you can move
on to focusing on your own body, a part at a time. I was first
taught this at yoga class, where we were taught to concentrate
first of all on the left foot, focusing on it from a position
above ourselves. Then move up the body slowly, left ankle,
knee, thigh and so on. When reaching your head, you then do
the same in reverse on the other side of the body: right shoulder,
right elbow, right hand and so on.
Once you have completed your tour of your own body, as if
you were someone else examining it, then it is time to open
your eyes and increase your mindfulness of your surroundings.
To do this, focus on any object in the room; it does not have
to be anything special: a cup on the coffee table, a vase,
a plastic flower, anything. Try to maintain that focus for
half a minute, and then move on to any other object. You can
repeat this several times, always maintaining a focus on your
own body and your own breathing, creating a triple harmony
with each object on which you focus.
By using this simple mindfulness meditation you are increasing
awareness both of yourself and your surroundings, in a very
gentle and easy way. It can serve as a prelude to some mental
task, as well as being part of an ongoing mindfulness campaign
to strengthen and expand the use of your own mind.
For example, most days I write, but sometimes I just do not
seem able to concentrate on what I am supposed to be writing
about. I find this type of exercise, even just for 10 minutes,
will snap me out of that inexplicable malaise, and I can get
right on and write what I should have written earlier.
This meditation
and mindfulness article was written by Roy Thomsitt,
owner and part author of the Routes To Self Improvement website.
Article Source:
http://www.articledashboard.com
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