Creating Mindfulness ...
Like many people, my mind sometimes gets the better of me ... this especially happened when I was younger ... I would wonder if someone was talking about me or thinking about me in a negative way. All in all, it came down to low self esteem and self worth. As I have gotten older, I definitely feel better about myself ... but sometimes, my crazy brain still gets the best of me!
Many years ago, I learned that Yoga helps me turn my brain off ... but more and more I was hearing about meditation and its benefits. In the past I would do a 3-5 meditation video that was on a Yoga DVD and it was always relaxing ... but I really wasn't focusing. One of my goals for 2017 was to figure out this whole meditation thing ... can it really reinvigorate me? Can it really make me heal from old wounds? Can it really help me control more of my emotions or thoughts?
Living in Denver, you find a lot of alternative medicines & practices readily available, including meditation. Earlier in the year I went to a practice where the instructor lead us through a meditation and then pretty much forced us to talk about our practice. It was a deeply moving practice for me ... BUT I really don't want to share my thoughts with the other 20 people in the room ... she pushed me until I finally blurted some stuff out ... I will not be going back to that environment. I also tried soulful breathing which was absolutely incredible and I will be doing that once a month. Look for more information on this ... later ... time just stopped and I felt completely refreshed afterward.
Tonight's instructor gave us a lesson prior to the meditation where she had us acknowledge space ... the space between objects ... the space in our lungs ... the empty space everywhere. For me it was peaceful. My mom works at a lab that crashes electrons into particles to see what happens and I grew up seeing and hearing about the experiments done there ... so I don't see space and empty ... I see it as gas that flows like water in a sense. So even though my thoughts didn't match anyone else's, it was extremely peaceful.
Mindfulness will come :) and I am definitely enjoying the process!