Being in the present is often something I struggle with – with thousand of thoughts and ideas popping into my mind like a stream of constant notifications, along with the constant notifications that come through on my phone, like I have turned off notifications on my phone, I was intrigued to see what possibilities might lie ahead of doing the same with my thoughts. This week I began the Mindfulness Stress Based Reduction course for professionals – which as a Psychology teacher who has taught the benefits of this in terms of physical and psychological health, is something I am excited about!
Mindful Eating
After session 1, one of the first tasks we took part in was mindful eating. I was surprised how much I enjoyed taking five minutes to eat a raisin – how have I not done this before I found myself asking…and laughing too. I have never held a piece of food to my ear to hear how it sounds! And whilst I haven’t done it since, the momentary relief I found not by not having a time limit to complete a task is something that I want to really grasp and hold onto. I am not saying no more grabbing a handul of raisins before my next class or when you get home and you want to raid the cupboards, but maybe there is a lesson I can learn here by acknowledging how I feel when I do this. Not to provide a guilty thought process but to be aware of that intention, and to enjoy it!
Body Scan
So next came the body scan, and I can safely say that the majority of my body was not ‘scanned’ during this exercise, I fell asleep. I think I managed to focus on my toes and the top of my head but all in between was just nothing. Thoughts were trying to invade and it almost felt that to focus the only thing I could do was fall asleep. I shared this with the group and I don’t think I was alone in that experience. So since the session, I have done some guided body scans in my own time, with an aim to at least focus on my breath rather than falling asleep. At the moment I can’t say I look forward to doing the body scans as focusing purely on one aspect of the body without my mind becoming distracted is proving to be a challenge.
So my two aims for this week are:
Focus on my breathing in the body scan
Schedule in a body scan during day time to avoid temptation to fall asleep
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