There are four Foundations of Mindfulness. As we practice, we discover our thoughts, feelings, and body sensations are all transient, they come and go like clouds in the sky. As we go deeper, we discover each offers valuable information as to how we are experiencing life. This awareness enables us to consciously respond to life with greater clarity and focus and, as a result, increase our mental, emotional, and physical well-being.
FOUNDATIONS PRACTICES
A network of 100 million + neurons throughout the body inform what our physical, emotional, mental, and spiritual needs are at any given moment. As a society that spends 13+ hours a day up in their heads while in front of one type of screen or another, we’re cut off from this life-generating knowledge. Mindfulness of the body practices reconnecting to the fiesta of life prompting sensory data our body provides.
What is the tightness in your belly telling you? What is the ache in your lower back asking you to do? Practicing mindfulness of the body reconnects us to the fiesta of life promoting sensory data our body provides us and allows us to foster of physical, mental, and emotional well-being.
Perhaps the most universal place to collect and deepen focus is the breath. This becomes apparent with a simple search on Spotify or YouTube. There are hundreds of songs inviting us to calm ourselves by simply taking a breath. This meditation begins with an intentional breath that calms the nervous system and then opens to a clear, intimate presence with our natural breathing. With breath as a home base, we practice returning again and again when the mind becomes distracted by thoughts, sensations, or emotions. As we can let the gentle undulation of the breath brings a quieting of mind and body.
It’s your mind’s job to think, just as it is your stomach’s job to digest the food. Many believe the goal of meditation is to clear the mind completely, but that is like asking the body to stop breathing.
This meditation’s invitation is to attend and befriend our thoughts allowing all to come and go. As we watch our thoughts, we as the observer can train the mind in greater life-generating ways.
The National Science Foundation estimates we have 12,000 to 60,000 thoughts daily. 80% are negative and 95% are reoccurring. Yes, that means 95% of what you think today you thought yesterday, and without intervention, you will think tomorrow, and yes, 85% percent will be negative. This Meditation offers ways to counterbalance our negativity bias.