Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course - A RL Writeup
 

I'm finding it difficult to figure out how to write the intro to this dynasty. Lets start with the basics I guess, and then I'll explain (probably over the course of a few posts), how I got here, what I'm hoping to learn/accomplish myself, and what to expect from this dynasty.

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction is the title of a specific 8 week long program that appears to be taught at many medical universities. It originated at the University of Massachusettes. The wiki page I linked is pretty sparse. There are a few of these programs in the Raleigh Durham area, notably at Duke and at UNC. I'm going to be in a program that starts in Chapel Hill on Monday.

What Is This?

Structurally, I'll be attending an orientation on Monday that will last about 90 minutes. Then I'll be attending weekly sessions every Monday for the next 8 weeks that last 2 1/2 hours each. Towards the end there is a 6 hour thing on a Saturday.

Conceptually, I'm not entirely sure yet. I have intentionally done a fairly limited amount of research into this to try to limit bias and pre-conceived notions as much as possible. I'll explain what I do know at this point:

Mindfulness is described as "A kind of nonelaborative, nonjudgmental, present-centered awareness in which each thought, feeling, or sensation that arises in the attentional field is acknowledged and accepted as it is." Its got roots in Eastern... stuff (religion/practice/philosophy) that I know little about. Another description from the wiki on Mindfulness that I see mentioned a lot in what reading I have done is "Bringing one’s complete attention to the present experience on a moment-to-moment basis". Ok... so sort of a living in the present kind of vibe. This specific program, MBSR, talks about learning how to practice mindfulness, using meditation and yoga to help, and learning how to apply these things to daily life.


Why?

The short answer is that this is that this program is a complement to other work that I'm doing to combat some issues I've had with chronic pain over the last few years.

This program was specifically recommended to me by physical therapy (I've referenced PT in a few places on FOFC, but I'll go into more details later here). If I'd stumbled on these websites about mindfulness, or MBSR on my own, I'd instantly dismiss them, despite how open minded I may claim to be - or want to be - about the world. But honestly, in just a few months I've seen some improvements in PT for issues that other doctors of mine have been completely disinterested in over the last few years. I've been able to talk about problems in PT and in many cases received theories for specifically why I have some of the problems I do, and have been given hope that many of my issues are fixable. Again, problems that doctors of mine - doctors that I like, mind you - have had extremely limited answers for, at best throwing medicine vaguely at symptoms and seeing what sticks.

As a result, I'm putting a very large amount of trust and weight into the recommendations of my physical therapists. I've spoken to some other people whose opinion I respect (notably my psychologist that I started seeing when my dad was dying, and continue to see as I work on other issues), and all feedback about me doing this has been incredibly positive, so I'm in.


My Own Bias

Ok, lets get real. I've got some serious bias here, and its why I've done so little research on this. When I talk to my physical therapists (there are two... again, more on this later), I'm expecting to hear talk about muscles, and nerves, and physical problems with physical solutions. I'm smart enough to accept that psychology and physical issues go hand in hand. I can dig that and appreciate that. But there's a point where these conversations get a little... airy? weird? spiritual? abstract? ... where my bias kicks in, where I actively realize I'm talking to people smarter than me, people who have already helped me greatly, but I start to feel seriously dismissive, and I have to fight that to keep listening. Its critical to point out that I DO keep listening, and that I recognize (and don't like) this bias. But it exists. With this mindfulness course, we are FIRMLY within that realm.

There are a lot of statements in the websites I've linked above where my first response is to roll my eyes and shut off a bit. I'd expect that response from many people here, probably just at seeing the title of this thread, would be "What the fuck is this bullshit?" and I wouldn't fault you at all. The people that I trust have talked about the methodology behind this course and have made me feel comfortable that its a solid, sound program, at least enough to give it a fair shake :)


What do I want to get out of this?

The sole driving force initiating this is dealing with some very awkward chronic pain. The primary physical therapist I'm seeing is a pelvic floor physical therapist. Pelvic Floor deals with bowel/bladder/sexual function. Everyone's got their issues, and this has been mine for the last 3 years or so. I don't even have a diagnosis of anything. Just lots of different types of chronic pain in these systems. We're doing a lot of physical work to try to fix my problems, but anxiety, stress, and other psychological issues can be a big factor, especially with the vague types of problems I have, where I don't get a diagnosis, but rather a lot of symptoms and sort of halfway match a lot of different problems. Sort of.

So that leads to two concurrent goals:

1) If its not possible to make all of my physical symptoms go away forever, I hope there are strategies I can learn in this course such that the pain is less disruptive in my life. And lets face it, none of us here at FOFC are getting younger, so even if my current problems are cured completely, eventually, things are gonna happen, maybe I can equip myself to deal with them better.

2) I do have issues with anxiety. My anxiety likely makes my issues worse, or makes them linger in some way. So I'm hoping that whatever I learn over the next 2 months will help me manage my anxiety.

My honest intention though is to be completely open minded and see where this takes me.


Why write this up on FOFC?

The love of text sim gaming seems to carry with it a lot of similar traits. I believe a large majority of people here would define themselves using many of the same words I use to define myself... highly logical, highly analytical, very thoughtful. I mentioned above that I expect a lot of people to have an initial "what the fuck is this?" response, and it'd be my response if anyone else here started a similar writeup. But there's a lot of stuff here that makes me curious too, so I am thinking it might be interesting to write about my experiences with this program with an audience of like minded individuals.

With most of my other dynasties, I've found that writing about the games I play enhances my immersion and enjoyment, whether anyone is reading or not. So I'm hoping to get that benefit myself out of this, as well.


What to Expect?

Can't say for sure yet since I don't know 100% what to expect yet myself. But with classes on Monday, I'm assuming I'll have an awful lot to write about every Monday. There is also the expectation that I'll spend 30-45 minutes a day on my own time to work on the things we're learning. I intend to write about that as well... but there's a chance that gets too weird, or too personal, or that it will be redundant and boring, so no promises.



-- That's it for the (very) long intro. I intend to write a little more background over the weekend in another post or two, to establish a "starting point" to describe in a little more detail my physical issues, and my issues with anxiety.

Comments/Questions are all welcome here. My intention is to be a complete open book with this.

Something I found funny going into orientation tonight. I signed up for this program January 9th. I got a form e-mail welcoming me to the program, telling me to show up at some building on UNC's campus on February 9th for orientation.

No new info was received until Thursday night, where the guy running our class sent out a short welcome e-mail, telling us he's looking forward to meeting everyone, what items we may consider bringing/whats provided there. The doors lock at 6pm, they can't control that, so please try to be a little early. At the end is a casual mention of the address and the parking situation. The address is different from the one in the only official correspondence received so far.

I e-mail the guy asking about it, getting an e-mail confirming the correct address on Saturday afternoon. Today, at 2:30, a solid 3 1/2 hours before orientation starts, we get an e-mail with the subject "Please note the CHANGE in location". I cannot wait to get there tonight and find out how many people don't show up because of this, how many are late (the doors lock at 6pm!) and cause a disruption, blaming the late notice.

Mostly though, I find it hilarious that a course with the phrase "Stress Reduction" in its title, where a "reduction in anxiety" is listed at the very top of the list of the benefits of the course, and thus I am assuming this course is attracting people who have specific problems managing stress and anxiety in mundane situations... is starting out with an unannounced change in location and a correction e-mail literally hours before it starts.


Mind you, I'm laughing about this because the one thing that trumps anxiety for me is an obsession with detail and correctness, so I instantly opened the e-mail when i got it, instantly spotted the incorrect address, stopped everything else I was doing, researched the locations online myself, researched information about the class online myself, immediately contacted the instructor, etc,etc. So I figured it all out before I even had time to get anxious about it :D

Not sure what direction this will go but this has been an amusing start to your stress reduction! Post 2 in and of itself makes this a good read!!

Good stuff! I am following along. I hope it works for you and brings you relief.

Referencing my last post, there were about 4 people who arrived after the doors were locked and orientation had started. One person arrived 20+ minutes late. No open complaning about the change of venue or late notice. Well done, group! I'm still figuring out how long it takes to get there in rush hour traffic. I arrived 30 minutes early, and sat in my car playing bejewled on my phone until 5 minutes before things were to start. The alternative would be to go inside and talk to people. Shudder.

2/9 - Orientation

Absolutely the most important note from orientation: I like the instructor. That was my biggest source of anxiety going in. I mentioned above being aware of my own biases about some people in these kinds of fields. Logical vs Abstract, etc. Some voice inflections and personality traits I (probably) unfairly attribute to making me feel dismissive of a person or topic initially. No problem with that. The instructor seems very nice, and very straightforward. One of the first things he said was "I encourage everyone to approach this with a healthy skepticism" which put me at ease. He was referencing the fact that there will be lots of things that we will try over the next two months, some may help us, some may not. The goal is to find things that help.

-- There is research being done that involves a couple short in person things (described briefly as 'breath counting tasks'), and an online survey taken once a week throughout the course. I'll be participating. $25 Amazon gift card, oh yeah.

-- The instructor said there were no issues discussing anything that he said/does throughout the course, and of course discussing our own experiences is fine, but to not discuss anything from others in the group. So if my reactions to someone else are relevant, I'll find a way to bring it up, but I'm going to make sure I don't say anything about anyone else in the class that would allow any of them to identify themselves if they somehow ended up here through a google search or something.

Expectations

We didn't go into a lot of detail here. Every class will begin with mindfulness practice of some sort, typically something related to the previous week's "homework". Every class will also end with a specific mindfulness practice. There will be homework every week, basically some sort of task related to mindfulness that we should try to work on for a half hour a day. Materials will be handed out to record our thoughts/reactions/observations to this half hour a day work. If you skip a day, or many days, and don't spend the half hour doing anything related to the class, that's ok, but we should write down the reason(s) why. Was it because of a dislike/distaste for what we are working on, or was it that we were too busy, etc.


Also mentioned is that we are encouraged to ask questions at any time. We are encouraged to discuss with each other our own experiences, both good and bad, with the homework, and to discuss what is working for us and what isn't. There was talk of how the class would pretty much drive itself as everyone got to know each other. THIS. IS. TERRIFYING. One thing I was 100% unsure of would be how much of this work would be private, and how much would be "sharing with the group" type stuff. I'm sure no one will be forced to speak/share if not comfortable, but damn. Ok.

-- The biggest part of anxiety for me is social anxiety. I avoid group situations that aren't highly structured, even when it comes to good friends of mine. If I am not 100% sure who will be there and what we will be doing at nearly all points of an event, I will likely not go, even if the event is something that I would find extremely enjoyable. If there is ANY chance that I may become the focus of attention, I will not go. If that happens unexpectedly for some reason at an event that I thought was safe, I will leave, even if I have to lie or make up a horrible excuse to get out of the situation. The concept of talking to strangers... or even listening to strangers share their own potentially very personal thoughts, is uncomfortable.


The Group

There were about 25 people there tonight. You don't need social anxiety to hate the thing where you go around the room and introduce yourself. We do that. Most people there are older than me, some are recent grads though. Most people there are parents. Most appear to be highly successful.

-- About 5 people are taking the course for the second time.

-- Primary reasons for taking the course: Stress Reduction was the clear #1. The second most common reason is an improvement in sleep quality and to obtain the ability to sleep through the night. Many mentioned mindfulness as something they've learned about but fallen out of practice with. I suspect I know less about this than anyone here.

-- More on my brand of social anxiety. Everyone was sharing a little about themselves. When it was my turn, my exact words: "I grew up here, moved to Atlanta for a time for college. I moved back when my parents got ill and needed help. I am here because my physical therapist recommended this to help with chronic pain. I also would like to learn to manage anxiety better, a major part of that being social anxiety, so I'm going end this as quickly as possible if that's ok."

Whew, ok. We got through that. I meant to mention I was a self employed software developer. Everyone else mentioned their professsion. I forgot once I started talking.



Experiences

Four things happened during orientation, outside of the basic description of things, to which I had a reaction worth noting:


1) Near the opening the instructor said that we were going to be silent for two minutes. He rang a bell and spoke to us for this 2 minute period. He asked us to simply be aware of our bodies, whatever that might mean for each of us. To notice whatever it is that we notice. That any reaction at this time is okay, we should just observe our own reactions. To notice our breathing. To notice if we felt calm or agitated, and just in general to be aware of how we felt. His voice was calm. This is, from my extremely basic (and perhaps very wrong still) understanding, the very beginnings and basics of mindfulness. To be able to just stop yourself, "be in the moment", and to be aware of yourself. To just notice things, and not to analyze or judge them. This is, I assure you, still a very abstract concept to me. The "not analyzing" part is further away from abstract. Its downright foreign.

My reaction: Well, I already know what happens to me in complete and utter silence like this. My mind RACES. Here are the things I remember "noticing" and thinking in a two minute period:

-- My chest is tightening ever so slightly. I'm just breathing, why?
-- Weird, I'm sitting in really shitty posture. Like the second before we started this I was sitting straight up.
-- (when noticing breathing is specifically mentioned): I'm pretty sure my heart rate is over 100 right now. Holy shit.
-- I am extremely uncomfortable. My knee hurts in this position (I am experiencing some knee pain that has persisted since Thanksgiving. Its minor, but nagging).
-- I am extremely uncomfortable. My back is hurting. (Did pull-ups at the gym Saturday. With gym+posture work my upper back has been sore most of the time lately. Not pain, just soreness.)
-- I wish I hadn't worn jeans. Do I need to pee? No, I don't. Just ignore it. (this goes to the chronic pain/pelvic floor issues. I sometimes struggle to distinguish "actual urgency" with "bladder pain". Wearing something tighter around my waist like jeans with a belt makes this sensation constant, though at a very mild level).


And this, folks, is why I'm here. The world stops, for two minutes, and I am immediately aware of everything that isn't perfect. In that two minutes I probably have literally 50 unique thoughts. MIND. RACING. I know this happens to me and its not as big a deal as it sounds. Its shockingly easy to never enter this state. There is stimuli everywhere. There's music or TV or computer on at all times. Or something on my computer screen. When I am ready to sleep I listen to a playlist of relaxing type videos I've put together on youtube.

I'm not distressed by this. I don't freak out. I just know it happens. Its always happened. My head has been like this as far back as I can remember. Absolutely back to say... 4th/5th grade. Probably earlier. Its only frustrating when I WANT to be able to just close my eyes and completely relax. I currently don't have the capacity to do that. I hope to learn it here.

-- I don't know if this is common, at all. Maybe it is. Maybe everyone is like this :) Again, I must stress that I am ok. Really.


2) A question was asked about the "day of mindfulness". Oh boy. On a Saturday towards the end of this, is a 6 hour "retreat" (fuck I hate that word). We are told that we will practice all of the different things we've learned and worked on in our homeworks throughout the course. Our class and I believe a few others will be there (OH GOD BIGGER GROUP SETTING OH GOD). Most of this 6 hours will be spent in silence, working on things we've learned (DID YOU READ THE LAST THING ABOUT THE MIND RACING... SIX HOURS REALLY? OH GOD.). Uhhh, I can do this. Right? I'm still ok. I think.


3) Everyone was encouraged to ask questions. I was the only person who mentioned pain management as a reason for being here when we all introduced ourselves. I would like to ask specifically how the things learned in this course are applied to pain management and if the instructor can talk about that. It seems... a bit more abstract than the more direct things like managing stress and anxiety. Unless of course it is by simply managing anxiety that pain becomes easier to manage.

I am too shy. I don't ask my question. I don't need to know this right now. I have another opportunity to ask my question one on one with the instructor as I was one of the last to leave. I would rather not bring attention to myself, or to the fact that I was too shy to ask in front of other people. So I choose to not ask in that setting either.


4) At the end we repeat the thing with the bell and the two minutes of silence and awareness and stuff. I think about the things I've learned about how much of a "group setting" this really is. I think about 6 hours with these people, wondering if its really possible that I will learn so much over the next two months that a "day of mindfulness" could actually be a positive experience. That's a long ways away. I shouldn't worry about that now. I have another 50+ thoughts race through my head, some "in the moment" and just noticing things about myself variety. Others are more distracted and thinking about what I'm going to do when I get home, and about the busy day I have tomorrow.


Homework

We were given a one page handout. It is entitled "The Seven Pillars of Mindfulness Practice". I've skimmed it, but haven't read it closely yet. Our instructions are to read it, and to simply note our reactions to it. Are there things mentioned that we have specific or strong reactions to? Additionally, wait a few days, see if/how your thoughts and reactions change after you have time to sit on it for a little while.



I will read through this handout tomorrow. I'll probably say something about it here. That will likely be all until next Monday.


Whew. Hell of a start. The things I spent the most of this space writing about really occurred over just a couple minutes, but those couple minutes stand out over everything else and really illustrate the types of issues I have with anxiety/obsessive thoughts. Honestly, reading back through this it sounds a little severe. Really what happened is that a couple of these intro things really pointed me right at the things I'm here to learn to manage and control. You have to put yourself into some uncomfortable situations to really improve, right?

Also remember that my intent here is to be brutally and completely honest about this course, my reactions to it, and as we progress the things that I learn and eventually how I am able to apply this still-abstract concept of mindfulness to be able to manage the types of anxiety that came up today.

Following along. I do yoga and meditate, though neither as much as I should or would like to. Meditation helps sometimes with getting my brain the calm the fuck down, sometimes not. I've never taken a class, just read about it. Hasn't really helped me with social anxiety. Though, like I said, I don't do it often and have never tried doing right before a social event. Something for me to try next time.

Just wanted to chime in to say I'll be following with interest. I'm a fellow "highly logical, highly analytical" person that you talked about in your first post. I've also dealt with anxiety issues at times in my life.

I started going to a mindful meditation group regularly about 3 years ago and it's been absolutely transformational in the best possible way. The group I go to isn't secular but I think you will find there isn't much in the way of "hocus pocus" when it comes to mindfulness. It's just an approach and a framework for managing the mind.

I know a couple of people joined our group to help deal with chronic pain/illness and they have expressed frequently that it helps them. They've both said that having the ability to "name" their pain and having a way to acknowledge it lessens the power it has over them.

Your mileage may vary...but I want to applaud you for the courageous effort in giving this a try! I hope that you find it helpful!

Great read so far Radii, thanks for sharing.

Applaud your efforts Radii! I like the brutally honest aspect... I usually don't have the balls to take things that far.

Thank you for the kind words everyone! Happy to have some folks reading along :)



An interesting thing here is that I am already feeling great relief from just the work in physical therapy (and the weight loss, and the gym). I appear to have had a huge success over the last two weeks. One of the meds I have been on for 2+ years was rejected by insurance on its last refill. My urologist prescribed a different med in the same class, but I decided to just not take it for a little while to see what happened. In the last couple years, I've not been without this med for more than 48 hours without signifcant and overwhelming bladder pain and urinary urgency that simply does not go away. We're up to 2 weeks now and while I am not 100% symptom free, I have had no need to try out the replacement prescription. Huge, huge progress.

A month ago when I signed up for this Mindfulness course, things were very different in my mind. It seemed like improvement would be coming, but how long it would be before I could survive without one of my meds was a complete unknown, and a mindset to attack everything made sense. To me, it still does, even if this course might prove to not be 100% necessary to reach the specific goals that led me to physical therapy. But I'm not done with physical therapy yet, there are still things that need to continue to get better, my outlook is just a ton better now than it was a few weeks ago, for a lot of reasons.

There's also the matter of my second physical therapist, working on a problem where the root cause is a foot injury I picked up when i was trying to run to get into shape about 18 months ago that has never fully healed. I think we're making progress there, though right now its less obvious to me, and shockingly to me at least, a lot of what is being done for my foot overlaps with what's being done for pelvic floor... general muscle tightness from the years of inactivity, especially in my hips and back, that seems to be one of the bigger culprits behind two very different problems.

Basically the tl;dr here is that my pain issues, and my perception of them, have changed a fair amount since i signed up for this, being able to manage what pain I do have is still a major goal here, but with what feels like a "major breakthrough" in physical therapy very recently, talk of anxiety and obsessive thoughts and being able to just reign in a brain that just won't stop going sometimes seems like its going to be taking over as the dominant focus here, assuming things continue in the same direction for me.

I'm taking part in a research study as part of this course. I got a "pre-class questionnaire" today. I don't know if the study stuff will be worthwhile to discuss as we go along, but since the class still hasn't started yet, and since I'm just starting to really get the picture of what "mindfulness" is supposed to be beyond an abstract term, I figure I'll comment on a few things.


The first section are questions about current behaviors. Things regarding "feelings in the moment", judgement and critical thinking, and the ability to express feelings. Things that give me slightly stronger reactions:

I perceive my feelings and emotions without having to react to them - Never. I analyze everything.
I tell myself I shouldn't be feeling the way I'm feeling - Often. The result of analyzing everything :)


When I'm walking, I deliberately notice the sensations of my body moving - Never. This is interesting. The physical therapist working on my foot issues does a lot of range of motion type work, trigger point dry needling, massage or other manipulation to try to loosen up my hips, or back, or some specific thing. She will ask me after working on me for an hour to walk around and ask "how do you feel". I stop and think to try to determine what's different. She says "No, don't analyze, what do you feel?" I am incapable of answering this question. I don't feel anything. I am looking for metrics. When I'm hurting I feel "symptoms". But I don't have a sense of much past that. I frequently mention to both physical therapists on many topics such as proper posture, or things with sleep habits, or bathroom habits... "This is hard for me to answer. I'm not sure what 'normal' feels like." partly due to my years of inactivity and allowing my health to go to shit, partly because I just don't have this kind of awareness, and never have as far back as I can remember.

This kind of awareness is something I'm curious about, and something I analyze from a "WTF is wrong with me" perspective, but since I've never had this kind of awareness, even as a kid, I don't know what it means, or what could change if I gain it. Shurg.


When I have distressing thoughts or images I am able to just notice them without reacting - There are a number of questions similar to this. There is a clear aim of being able to observe, going back to that phrase "non judgemental". I answer in the extreme negative to all of these types of questions. I am measured. I don't have anger issues. But I do stop, and analyze the distressing thought, and actively decide what to do about it. I am the person who remains calm in an emergency when everyone else is freaking out. But that's because I put so much trust in my logical ability to analyze any situation and find the right response. Not because I am capable of "just observing" my feelings.


I think some of my emotions are bad or inappropriate and I shouldn't feel them. - There are a lot of questions like this. I answer slightly in the negative. I definitely have times where I say "I wish I didn't have that thought run through my head." I fuss at myself when I get "stuck" on a topic. Again, /shurg.


There is a section asking "how often" have you ___ in the last week. Like how often have you felt nervous and stressed, with multiple choice answers. To pound home the "analyzing" vs "feeling" idea, the instructions state:


LOL, right. I do "try" to do this, and it leads to me muddily answering "sometimes" for almost every question.


Lots of questions about being kind to yourself when you are suffering or being kind to yourself when you fail. In all cases I answer in the the extreme negative. I'm hard on myself. I expect myself to be good at things, and to succeed at anything I try. I frequently do not even consider this a flaw, if I'm honest. But I do recognize that I take it too far, my personality is too "all or nothing", etc.



And that's that. The last two posts fall under the "learn more about Radii" and not much else. Perhaps this will be useful to understand what things I can improve through this course, and useful for me to re-read a few months down the road to compare.

Orientation Week Homework

We got a handout on The Seven Pillars of Mindfulness Practice. I've read it already before writing this (the idea of commenting in real time while reading it seems counterproductive to everything written on this sheet :D)

Very, very brief list here:


1. Non-Judging - A goal to able to step back from judging every thought/emotion we have while still being able to observe it.

2. Patience - Specifically regarding times when "the mind is agitated". An ability to acknowledge what's happening in one's head without having to get caught up in it.

3. Beginner's Mind - A willingness to see everything as if seeing it for the first time, "to be present to experiences as if they were novel". Being receptive to new possibilities and to avoid getting stuck in the rut of our own experience.

4. Trust - Trusting ourselves and our feelings and intuition even though we make mistakes along the way.

5. Non-Striving - mindfulnesss is not about "doing" anything. Thre is no goal other than for us to be present.

6. Acceptance - Acceptance means acknowledging things as they are in the present moment, regardless of whether pleasant or unpleasant.

7. Letting Go - "we intentionally pause from elevating some aspects of our experience and rejecting others. We don't have to grasp for or cling to or push away anything; instead, we just let our experience be what it is"



We were asked to note our thoughts on these things as we read them as part of our homework:

To copy the term from SirBlurton above, a lot of the specific phrasing here feels like "hocus pocus." If not for the recommendations of people I trust so much right now, I would have a very, very hard time reading through this without being dismissive. I use the word "abstract" a lot in my posts. I can use that word to describe most of these pillars. I understand what I'm reading, in theory. Seeing how this applies to me, how someone who sees the world the way I do can even be capable of some of these things, and seeing how vast self improvement comes from this foundation... well, right now that's all blind trust. In a conscious act of being non-judgemental (I'M DOING IT GUYS), I will say that I'm cool with all of this, I'm not doubting what I'm doing, but this is the honest reaction.


Specifically, I will say that some concepts listed above, like the "beginner's mind", feel unbelievably foreign, and like a very huge leap for me. Other concepts, "Patience", "Trust", and "Acceptance", at least as written here, I currently practice but in a very different way, and perhaps an unhealthy way. A lot of what's written here seems geared towards avoiding a brash/inappropriate response to your feelings and emotions. I succeed in that but through a process of being overly analytical and logical before acting, or frequently even speaking. That's really not what they're getting at :D But it is a thing I noticed.


I've posted more than I expected in this orientation week. But I believe at this point its unlikely there will be more here until the Week 1 class next Monday.

It's so interesting to be reading your first impressions on all of this.
Wanted to say this really does remind me of some of the feelings I had about it when I started.

The group I'm part of does a chant before we start...that's something I definitely thought was hocus pocus the first few times! Now it's almost comforting and helps prepare me to meditate.

One thing our group talks about constantly is the fact that you point out...that mindfulness IS a practice. There's no end goal (unless you're striving for Buddha-esque enlightenment!). It's just a daily cultivation of awareness of where your mind is leading you.

For me, the most benefit I get from the practice is when I have a moment where I can clearly "see" the reaction I'm having. I used to have a problem at work where people would goad me into having reactions, be it sarcasm, anger, whatever. These reactions often made me look like I was "the problem" and my concerns weren't seen as valid.

Since I've been practicing, I find that I can notice when my buttons are being pushed, almost like a third party observer....and that moment of awareness gives me a chance to decide how I want to react. This ability has improved my life greatly and it's the biggest benefit I get from the practice.

Also, less stress and less thinking coupled with more enjoyment of moments!

Again, great to be reading about your experiences with it!

This is good to hear, thanks :)


Yeah that's really put out there front and center in all material that I've seen.



Thanks for sharing that, its definitely interesting and helpful to me to see some specifics on how others have benefited from this.

Due to the winter weather predicted to come through the triangle area this evening, class tonight is cancelled. There's nothing being done in its place during the week or anything (at least nothing announced as of yet), so this'll be on hold until next Monday.

Holy crap there is an unbelievable amount of stuff to write about here I think this might get split into four posts. Perhaps in future classes some of these things will become routine, or such common themes that I won't feel the need to mention things, or can mention them in passing. For now though, this is gonna be loooooooooong.


Emotional Frame of Mind

I got stuck on this section, its why I didn't have something written up last night. I had a really long writeup here but it just got too long and messy. I've learned very quickly that practicing mindfulness is going to land me in some uncomfortable places at times. Frequently, at least at first. So I feel like I have to say something. I am usually an extremely steady and even person. I'm always doing "pretty good". Sure I'm happier, or upset, or angry in a moment. I have jokingly said to my psychologist a number of times, "well you see I don't have feelings".

This seems to be changing, at least I've felt "more" over the last couple months. Some holiday doldrums, whatever. I tried prozac to see if it would help my anxiety and thus some of my physical issues in January. It went... poorly. Things can get worse before they get better but this was extreme in a way I was not prepared for. Anxiety hit levels i didn't know existed, I had severe depressive thoughts when I have never seriously described myself as "depressed", a totally new thing to me. I continuously had thoughts I recognized were "not mine" and had to fight them. I felt very very self destructive, I almost quit my job, I almost quit physical therapy, I almost gave up on my diet, self destructive things that just aren't me. This was only over a short period of time, 10 days or so, but I believe the experience may prove to be life changing for me.

On the other side of things, realizing that I am actually successfully getting off one of my meds from my urologist led to complete elation, a much bigger high than I usually experience. This makes total sense to me, its not "just" getting off of a medicine. Its one of the first tangible, measurable things I can point to that says "yes, all this self improvement work really can pay off, its not too late for you". I've had my doubts about this at times, so this was pretty cathartic.

And lastly, I have to get a little vague here. I'm having some feelings lately that can be really comforting and pleasing, or pretty god damn painful depending on how I'm seeing things in a moment. Sorry about that, hopefully this is the only place where I veer away from 100% open book.


So the reason this is worth mentioning at all... basically I am, with some frequency recently, experiencing both good and bad feelings that are stronger than I'm used to. Combine that with a purpose of mindfulness being to experience the current moment, as it is, and observe and accept your thoughts/feelings/reactions, I had a feeling going into Monday night's class that things might just be getting really weird, and really intense for me over the next couple months. My intention, again, is full open book, so that means it might get really weird for you, the reader, as well :) Get yer popcorn, and/or seatbelt.

Monday, February 23rd, Week 1 Class

Arriving Early

I get there about 15 minutes early and go in 5 minutes before the class is scheduled to start. The fact that this is a mindfulness course has me actively paying more attention to what's going on around me and how I am feeling than I normally would. I mainly notice how hard I work to avoid eye contact with anyone as I look around the room. I am not comfortable here yet, with this group of strangers around me, and I suddenly, somewhat strongly, wish I was not here at all for reasons I cannot articulate. That only lasts a brief moment, but I want things to hurry up and start. A number of people are clearly missing when the doors auto lock at 6pm. The instructor waits and everyone trickles in over the next 5-10 minutes.


Poetry Reading

The instructor tells us that he likes to start each session by reading a poem, he likes poetry. The poem will be something he feels is relevant. We're encouraged to see if we have any response to the poem. If not, that's ok. Today's poem is The Life of a Day by Tom Hennen. I close my eyes and listen, though my mind is distracted - thinking about what will happen over the next couple hours - and I am struggling to pay attention at first. I do hear something that resonates though (copied from the link above):


A lot of things I do on most days revolve around future appointments, engagements, work deadlines, sometimes to the point that I feel like I'm really just "skipping" a few days here and there to get to the next checkpoint.

Auto-Pilot

We have a general discussion on the topic of auto-pilot. Two examples given involve driving a car, first the actual function of driving. Paying attention to the road, mirrors, surroundings, all done fairly automatically, and this isn't a bad thing. Auto-pilot is natural and serves us well. The other driving example is something that has happened to all of us most likely, when you're driving along and zone out completely and snap back and notice you've driven past 5 exits on the highway without even realizing it.

The instructor asks us for examples where we notice ourselves on auto pilot. One person talks about zoning out while her young kid tries to tell her a story and not really paying attention because there are 100 other things going on. Auto-pilot to get through the work day is a common theme. A number of other people have thoughts that they share, I don't remember them.


Discussion of 7 Pillars of Mindfulness

We briefly discuss an overall definition of mindfulness. A non-judgemental, passionate way to pay attention to the present moment. There is a bit of a philosophical mention of this. We have goals for the future and we work for them. We can learn from our past, but the only moment we have is this moment right now that is happening. The only thing we can actually experience is what's happening in the present.

The 7 pillars of mindfulness was a handout that was our "homework" for the orientation week, I wrote about it above. We went over each one a little. Non-judgemental remains at the top of the discussion. Beginner's Mind remains a pretty abstract and foreign concept to me. There was more specific discussion here but I don't remember a ton of it.

Mindful Eating

This is our first practice of the day. There is a container of raisins and a container of almonds. We pass them around and take two of whatever we want. 100g of raisins has 75g net carbs. 100g of Almonds has 10g net carbs. No, I don't care that I'm only going to be eating two of them (1g or 2g at most), thank you very much :P I take two almonds.

The "Beginner's Mind" pillar is referenced, we're asked to pretend that we've never seen these objects before. We don't know if they're even edible. The instructor walks us through all 5 senses, one at a time. What does this look like? What does it feel like? What does it smell like? Does it make a sound (remember, beginner's mind)? Finally, put one almond in your mouth. Don't chew yet. Just observe, texture, any taste at this point, any other reactions? Now take one single bite. New observations? Now slowly chew completely until the food is nothing but mush, and swallow. Observations?


This quick example of "beginners mind" does not help open up the concept any to me. I'm unable to see this object as anything but what I already know it is. That's ok.

My observations - feels solid, doesn't give. the skin on the almonds move a bit when touched. No smell - I have an extremely weak sense of smell, always have. My almond doesn't talk to me. Whew. I notice when I put the almond in my mouth that it softens very slightly as my saliva soaks into it. Its not salted. There is not a taste I can really articulate. The room is very quiet during this, when I take a bite it sounds very loud to me. I notice a lot of the almond mashes into my back teeth and I have to use my tongue to free it to be able to swallow. I notice these sensations, but I also notice that I have a very difficult time describing the taste itself in any other way but "it tastes like an almond".

We repeat the process for the second almond.

I also reflect on the fact that I am not hungry. There is a huge positive judgement associated with this. Its probably 6:45pm now. I haven't eaten since before noon, b/c I know I'm going to get wings on the way home after this class. In the past when I had poor control of diabetes I could not go this long without eating, I would get physically ill. I revel in the fact that I have this element of control over food now, even after a full year of success on my keto diet it still makes me happy every single time I notice it.

We discuss our observations of our food and talk a little more about mindful eating. One lady points out that she used to eat all her meals at her computer so she could multi-task and might not even remember eating her lunch on some days. I eat every meal at my computer, anyone that knows me is in shock at this revelation, I know.


Re-Visiting Autopilot

We re-visit the concept of autopilot in our lives. The instructor tells us that we now have a concrete way to turn off auto pilot for a bite, or for a meal, should we choose to do so, with what we've just learned about mindful eating. This leads to a bigger point about this class itself, and a way to view the things that we do. We're not going to be mindful all the time. We want auto pilot in many things (like the example of driving), but that many people don't know any other way to exist other than to have the auto pilot on all the time. Throughout the duration of this course, we're going to learn lots of ways that we can temporarily turn off that autopilot, if we choose to do so, to notice and experience moments in our lives. We go back to a topic from orientation - not everything we do will appeal to everyone. For now, just have an open mind and be willing to try things. Some will resonate, some may not. But hopefully this is the beginning of understanding that we can choose to slow things down and observe a moment.

Body Scan

I forget if there was an introduction to this by the instructor or not. I already knew what this was, this is the limit/extent of my research into the class prior to it starting, so I knew what the body scan was going in and that it was a key part of week 1 and the week 1 homework.

This is our second mindfulness practice of the day. We all have yoga mats. We spread out a bit and everyone is asked to lie down. I lie flat on my back. I think everyone does. The instructor tells us he is going to guide us through this process, and that it will take about 20 minutes. We first focus on our breathing. Not necessarily breathing in any specific way, just noticing how we are breathing. We are told that if we find ourselves distracted or lose focus during this, that its ok, and that we can aim to guide ourselves back to our breathing for a moment, and then back to wherever the instructor is guiding us. We are instructed to focus on the toes of our left foot. Just notice them, is there any feeling associated with them? Without typing out pages here, we essentially move through every body part, stop for a moment, talk about noticing any sensations or reactions you may have when focusing on an area. It goes like this: Left toes, bottom of left foot, top of left foot, entire foot, ankle, lower leg/calf, knee, upper leg/thigh, across hips/pelvis to right side. Right toes, bottom of right foot... presumably the same pattern here but I didn't hear it (more on that in a moment). Right thigh/upper leg. A brief stop at the "groin area", where I tune back in and want to giggle like a 10 year old. Buttocks (no giggling there, more on that later, srs bsns guyz). Lower back, stomach/belly button area, chest, upper back, neck, head in some breakdown that I don't quite remember, down each arm, shoulders/upper arm/lower arm/hand/fingers.


After moving through each body part with the intention of observing each body part and any reaction we may have, we turn over on a side briefly, I forget why, I think just to make it a slow process of getting up, some people are very relaxed and fall asleep during this. Then up to a seated position, then up and pick up mats and go sit back down to discuss.


My experiences/reactions

This section is why I decided to write the "emotional frame of mind" thing above. I didn't experience anything I haven't experienced before, but holy shit guys. This is more of a "buckle up" section than a "get yer popcorn" section.

-- Breathing - I notice am practicing diaphragmatic breathing. This is a thing I learned in physical therapy. Its something I couldn't do before. I was taught to do it to help calm things, both physically and psychologically (I think at least). I can now do it easily laying on my back, I find it comforting, so I default to it when lying down frequently.

-- Left toes - I feel nothing that I can describe.

-- Bottom of left foot - I feel nothing that I can describe. My mind wanders to the bottom of my right foot.

-- Top of left foot - I feel nothing that I can describe. At this point I feel a mini-crisis. I have an overall sense of being very uncomfortable in my own skin, physically, and in general just never being completely comfortable, ever, in any position - again physically. This sense goes back as far as I can remember. I was the tallest kid in my grade from kindergarten through 8th grade or so. I was awkward. I was 6'4" in the 8th grade (my current height). I have tried to approach this vague feeling of mine with doctors, with my psychologist, with physical therapy. I don't think its a feeling that has an "answer". I have lost over 100 pounds since my highest weight. I have begun to improve lifelong problems caused by poor posture and sitting all the time and being inactive. I cannot describe even the smallest level of progress in this vague sense of "I notice that I am uncomfortable at all times. I am awkward as fuck.". I have a long way to go still. WHERE THE HELL DID THIS COME FROM. (** let me point out that I am, to the best of my ability, recalling what I was thinking at the time, not inserting any 'analysis' or missing pieces. This is, I believe, my inner monologue in this moment that was happening. I am actively going through my memory bank, and pondering if this is something that will just never get better).

I notice that I am not crying, but my eyes have welled up a good bit. What the fuck?

-- Left knee - I guess I missed a bit. Of course I am jolted back to the instructor at the mention of the left knee. My left knee HURTS. Today it happens to hurt a lot more than usual. This has been on my mind throughout the day. I have positioned myself in a way that my left knee doesn't hurt right now. I know that when its time to get up, its going to be very bad.

-- Right Toes - I missed a bit. I'm back again. Of course I'm back again. I know what's next.

-- Bottom of Right Foot - I feel a noticible pressure from the ball of my foot against the bottom of my shoe. My heel is on the ground. My foot is sticking straight up. I should not feel this pressure. The ball of my foot is *barely* making contact with my shoe. I check my left foot. I do not feel the same sensation. My left foot feels normal. This does not hurt, in this moment, but the feeling is a LOUD one. It overwhelms my ability to look for sensations for awhile. My mind doesn't wander, but when we get to the right calf, I am still thinking "I don't know, but the ball of my foot is a problem". (** Mentioned in earlier posts, but I hurt myself trying to run too much too soon as a 300 pound guy a couple years ago. This has never fully healed. This specific problem is the catalyst for the second physical therapist I am working with. If I lay off it, its this kind of minor "awareness". I'll notice a mild irritation when I drive... from pressing my right foot into the accelerator. If I try to use it daily there will be a consistently escalating amount of pain that I will feel at all times.)

-- Groin - teehee. Ok, ok, I'm back again. I feel nothing that I can describe. I judge this, and it relaxes me to realize this. Urinary urgency problems remember? Feeling nothing here is really nice, even in a small moment like this.

-- Butt - The instructor specifically mentions noticing if there is tension. Oh buddy you have no idea. I have awareness here like you wouldn't believe. I fully relax, to the best of my capabilities, and I am pleased with myself. (** Google "Pelvic Floor Resting Tone" and "Pelvic Floor Downtraining" if you so desire. This is a big part of pelvic floor physical therapy for me, and is another area where I have been able to find real, measurable progress. I like being able to measure things. I don't mind talking about it, ask if you want, but the pelvic floor stuff gets way TMI pretty quick, and that isn't the purpose of this dynasty, so I don't want to bother the people that don't want to know)

-- Lower Back - minor pain from the position I'm laying in. I have no pillows for support.

-- Stomach - Similar to groin, I go to urinary questions here. Do I feel like I need to pee? Do I feel any irritation? I do not.

-- For the rest of the body scan, my focus wanders. I am mostly listening to the instructor, but I have decided that I am not going to feel anything anywhere. I do go back to focusing on breathing, then back to the specific body part, a few times. But I don't really stay there. My thoughts land on the painful parts of the "vague feelings" I described on the 'emotional mindset' section. I expect this to happen a lot.

-- At the end, we roll over on our side for a moment before sitting up. The pain in my left knee while rolling over is IMMENSE. I knew that was coming.



Body Scan Discussion

After we are all seated again, the instructor asks how many people fell asleep during the body scan. 6 or 7 people raised their hands. Almost 1/3 of the people. They CLEARLY had a different experience. We were invited to share our thoughts on the experience. Someone said that it was extremely relaxing. Someone said that they found that their mind was wandering a lot, but it was still calming. The instructor said that was ok, and goes to the core of mindfulness to talk about how the point isn't to control your thoughts, but to notice them and accept them, but that during this process you can gently guide yourself back to your breathing and to the scan to continue. People pointed out the same thing I noticed, having the realization that you missed the instructor talking about areas of the body entirely.

One person said that she didn't really "have any sort of feeling" about much of it. The instructor said that was ok, and said that he frequently feels no reaction to some areas as well. "What does my left calf feel like? Its just there."

So here's another pointer on social anxiety for me. I am hearing some bits of comments that resemble certain parts of my experience, but my overall feeling is that no one else here had a very clear, strong NEGATIVE experience. If they did, they aren't speaking up either. Similar to orientation and the "why are you here?" question, there has been no mention of pain. I don't want to talk. I don't want these people to look at me, or notice that I am here. But this experience was too strong, and too different to let it go. The NEED for me to say something about this finally overwhelms my desire to remain invisible. I raise my hand and say "I felt that areas of my body that hurt, or are uncomfortable felt very strong, and overwhelmed everything else"

The instructor says that if something causes too much discomfort, to skip it. That there is no need to say "I can handle the pain!" Just move on to the next area. Over time, with practice, some people - not everyone necessarily - will find that they can go back to these trouble areas and be okay with it.


There is a lot of talk about the body scan being an exploration. It doesn't have to be the same every time. One girl mentioned that she doesn't usually lay down like this and she had to resist curling up. The response was to play around with that during the week, see if you observe different things, not to rush to that curled up position every time, but to see what happens if you do something a little differently.


We discuss some tips for the future here (these are included in a handout so I'm copying some word for word):

-- Regardless of what happens (falling asleep, mind wandering, not feeling anything), the important thing is to just do it. Just be aware of your experience as you do, whatever it is.

-- If your mind wanders a lot, note the thoughts and bring your mind gently back. Key points here are not to judge yourself (Why can't i focus?), and to be gentle with yourself.

-- Let go of ideas of success, failure, doing it well/right. This isn't a skill for which you need to strive. The only thing that matters is regular practice, just do it with an attitude of openness and curiosity.

-- Let go of expectations of what the body scan will do for you. Imagine it as a seed you have planted. The more your poke around and interfere, the less it will develop. With the body scan, just give it the right conditions - peace and quiet, regular practice. The more you try to influence what it will do, the less it will do.

-- Try approaching your experience in each moment with the attitude: "Ok, that's just the way things are right now." If you try to fight off unpleasant thoughts, feelings or sensations, the upsetting feelings will only distract you from anything else. Be aware, be non-striving. Be in the moment, accept things as they are.




-- I feel much better after this discussion.

Homework

We are given a sheet to record our practice throughout the week. We are also given a CD to take home. One of the tracks on the CD is a guided body scan of about 25 minutes, similar to what the instructor talked us through today. We have three tasks. We are asked to complete each task "at least 6 out of the next 7 days." For each task and each day, we are asked to write briefly about our experience. If we skipped a task, perhaps write about why, that's important too.


Two of the tasks are to repeat what we've learned today:

Mindful Eating - Notice one bite of one meal, at least once this week and preferably once a day, in the same way that you brought your attention to the almond (the sheet says raisin, the sheet is wrong).

Body Scan - Practice the body scan, following the recording or on your own at least six times before the next class. Don't expect to feel anything in particular or to receive a benefit. You may give up all expectations about it. Let your experience be whatever it is, without evaluation, if possible. Simply keep doing it, and we'll talk about it in class.

The third task:

Routine Activity - Choose one routine activity in your daily life and make an intentional effort to bring moment to moment awareness to it each time you do it, just as we did in class when eating the raisin. Possible activities include getting out of bed, brushing your teeth, bathing, dressing, picking up the phone, giving affection to a significant other or pet, etc.


Before the third task we broke off into pairs to discuss possibilities for what we might want to choose. I got paired with the guy to my left. He isn't a talker either. Or at least, not in the face of someone like me! Ok, I'm mostly kidding there, this was a normal guy chat. We both knew what we wanted to do, said a couple words about it to fulfill the requirements, and were mostly done. Other people talked for awhile and just talked in general.



My routine activity

I am going for a position of comfort here. Every night when I first get into bed, my cat jumps into bed and curls up in the crook of my left arm and purrs and wants all kinds of attention. I have a pretty detailed "process" for falling asleep, this is another physical therapy thing, so usually at this time I'm working through some nighttime process and analyzing how I feel. I've probably got my laptop out and am browsing reddit, or catching up on the League of Legends Korean league.

For this week, I'm not going to pull out the laptop, not going to begin that nighttime routine, until I've spent 5-10 minutes giving Dean (cat's name) my undivided attention.


WHEW. Ok, I'll write a brief bit on homework each day.

A couple specific points I thought about while writing this:

-- I continue to really like the instructor. I feel comfortable listening to him. I like the things he says. He is realistic. He is not preaching mindfulness as a way to fix everything in your life. He is not talking about major transformations. Today he said something about how he will almost never tell anyone that something they are doing is wrong, or tell someone not to do something. He has a firm sense of "every thought is ok". That comes up a lot when he asks people what they want to share. Its a little weird to me, normally when I hear someone say "there are no wrong answers", I am reminded of Animal Farm: "All animals [answers] are equal, but some are more equal than others". But here, I believe him.


-- I'm trying to apply a specific perspective on everything I write here, at least starting with this first class on. I'm trying very hard to only write about what I thought, or felt, at the time things were happening. If I can help it, I don't want to apply any sort of "post event analysis".

-- Similar to that, you may notice that there is no analysis at all outside of what I felt at the time in class, of anything that happened. Or at least, there shouldn't be. It is very, very weird to me to look at this homework and not have a list of "goals" for it. Or to look at my experiences in the class without immediately documenting how I want them to change or improve in the future. Perhaps its a credit to the instructor, but at the moment, I am honestly not thinking about any of that, or how all this ties together in the end, but instead am going all in on just doing the things and seeing where it takes me.



-- Lastly, this was LONG. This took forever to write up, but I honestly don't see anything to cut. The instructor mentioned that the first class was a bit different, that it would be way more of just him talking. After this first class, there will be a lot more sharing from the group. So I think as things go along the writeup will naturally get a bit shorter.

Anyway, point being, let me know if this is readable, or if this is just too much to digest. Suggestions, questions, comments all welcome. If there were things I glossed over that interest you, feel free to ask. Nothing is off limits here, I just have the feeling that some shit most people probably don't want to hear about. But I have no trouble going into full gory detail about almost any of this, including anything from physical therapy or even most of the "work in progress" stuff with my psychologist that, along with physical therapy, has led me here. Ask away, worst case you hit a rare spot I'm not comfortable answering.

Homework - Week 1 Tuesday

Mindful Eating - I make my standard bacon and eggs for breakfast. I am still eating at my computer desk for this, but I leave my monitors off and do not engage with any sort of technology until I complete this task. I will practice mindfulness while eating my first strip of bacon. I aim to go through the senses the same way we practiced in class. The bacon is still a little slick from grease. It is not completely firm/crumbly. No smell, I will likely re-iterate my almost non-existant sense of smell repeatedly here. It looks... like bacon. My bacon also does not talk to me, though I can hear Homer Simpson drooling, "mmmmmm, bacon". I notice the salty taste. I notice that some parts are crunchy, some less so. I note that is pretty much how I like my bacon, I enjoy this. I note that I am chewing much faster than when in class last night.


Body Scan - I lay on my back, in bed, with pillows under my knees and a small pillow under my head. I am infinitely more comfortable with this support. I listen to the CD we were given. The body scan track is 25 minutes long. My feelings when I am focused on the body parts being discussed are similar to last night, I do not have any feelings I can describe at any point that are not "symptoms" or feelings of discomfort. I note a difference with my knee, both from the pillows and from the fact that my knee simply doesn't hurt as bad today as it did last night. I skip over my right foot. Later on, I feel myself being drawn repetedly to my foot. I am aware of the ball of my right foot over any other body part. It is impossible to focus on the voice of the instructor and on the area she is guiding me to for more than a few seconds without being drawn away to the sensations in my foot. After about the halfway point my mind wanders constantly, to what I'm going to do after this task it complete, to wondering whether any of the snow from today will freeze overnight. At some point I am thinking about my level of focus when last hitting with Nasus during the first 4 levels in League of Legends games. I am not surprised to think about League, I do note with amusement how very detailed and specific that thought was. I do try to calmly pull my focus back to the audio a few times, but at this point it does not stay for more than a few seconds.



Routine Activity - (last night bedtime) - Dean jumps on my bed immediately when I lay down. I leave the laptop and the physical therapy nightly routine alone, as I had planned. He purrs immediately. His purr is very loud, and I notice this. I notice how "active" he is in being petted, anytime my hand is near his head he bumps his head into me repeatedly until I scracth him. I notice how relaxing and comforting it is to do this. After a few minutes, my mind does wander to things I need to do for work the next day. I bring myself back to this a couple times before calling it a day and pulling up reddit on the laptop and beginning the nightly PT routine.


And that's that, day 1's homework complete!

Keep at it bud... sounds like you are learning in the class... that in and of itself is worth it, right?!

Yep! I have no expectation that any of this becomes natural or helpful overnight. Eventually :)

Something I noticed after the body scan last night. I went straight from that into gaming mode, I joined voice comms with my gaming buddies and started talking to one of my good friends. I was... oddly mellow, I felt like I was talking a bit slower, I dunno, its hard to explain, but something was distinctly different, and relaxed, even though for the entire second half of the body scan last night my mind was wandering completely and I had very little focus. This wasn't a "waking up from a nap" type sensation or anything I am accustomed to. Just an observation. It lasted a few minutes.


Homework - Week 1 Wednesday

Mindful Eating - Made my nomal bacon and eggs. Was mindful of my first bite of the egg. No smell (sense of smell again). Chose not to touch :P In my mouth I note the smooth texture of the egg. Without chewing, I can detect the taste of the coconut oil I fry my eggs in. I can also distinctly detect the taste of cheddar cheese. There is no yolk in this bite. The egg is very soft, I could break it apart with my tongue without chewing if I wanted. I do this for a moment and then chew and swallow.


Body Scan - I experiment with laying on my side instead of my back. For the first half, the lower body part, I find that my mind is racing along at a pretty good pace, but at the same time I maintain partial focus on the audio and body parts being examined. Instead of coming and going and outright missing some areas, I find that I am in a constant state of being "halfway present". My thoughts roam from work to dinner to the incoming snowstorm. I settle on my left knee, and my right foot, without any problems. When we reach the pelvic region, I notice a moderately strong urinary urgency that is absolutely inappropriate (as in, I am certain I do not need to go, but I feel like I do). Its only moderate, but its very clearly there (**External Note: This isn't uncommon when I first lay down, but it did not happen the first two times I did this body scan. Laying on side perhaps?**). Even though I'm used to this sensation and not particularly distressed by it, I do focus on it for much of the rest of the scan. When the instruction moves up to areas of the back/chest, I take my focus there, but it bounces back and forth between that and this bladder sensation.

The audio here is a bit different than what our instructor in class did. There is talk about muscles, tendons, internal organs, and I find it actively takes me out of the moment. "Be aware of your stomach" vs talking about the fact that you've got a liver and kidneys and intestines in there working for you.. I dunno, I have noticed both days doing this at home that section has proven very distracting.


So anyway, this was a little different. Not good, not bad, just different. The persistent "half focus" feeling was different for me, compared to the feeling the other times of being pulled into and out of focus by my thoughts.


Routine Activity - I stayed up much later last night than normal. I had an early appointment this morning. I was unwilling to add extra time to my nighttime routine for this, so I skipped it. Noted, and the instructor has mentioned many times, if you don't do something, noting that and noting why is just as important as observing everything else.


Day 2 complete.

After last night's body scan I again went to the computer, I was immediately invited into a league of legends game with a couple buddies. We didn't talk much, or at least I didn't, but I noticed I *really* played like shit for the first few minutes. Timing and general awareness/focus were not what I'm used to at all.


Homework - Week 1 Thursday

Mindful Eating Grilled Pork Chop for dinner w/ some worcestershire sauce and grated parmesean on top. No sense of smell blah blah blah. I cut the pieces up fairly small but the one I choose to eat mindfully is still a little too thick to let it sit comfortably in my mouth for too long, so I notice that immediately. I notice the tangy taste of the worcestershire sauce, and the texture of the cheese (moreso than the taste). I chose the piece that had the most fat on it, I greatly enjoy that taste. The taste does not change noticibly when I chew my food. I notice some stringy bits hanging around my teeth when I'm done. I make a note to floss right after I finish the rest of my dinner.


Routine Activity - Dean jumps on the bed soon after I lie down. His tail is wet. He is 14 or 15 and doesn't always use the litterbox anymore, despite not having any health problems that the vet can identify that might cause this. I break to clean him up and go find the spot to clean. That takes awhile, remember that sense of smell that I don't have? Yeah.... I'm pretty sure sometimes I don't even know he's done it, its a source of embarrassment, at least the carpet is very old and needs replacing before this. ANYWAY. Once that is done, I go back to bed, Dean comes back pretty quickly, I give him my undivided attention for awhie. I am reflecting on this issue though, and thinking about the things I've tried to sovle the problem, so my mind is wandering away from the present. I pull myself back to the present when I notice his purr, I enjoy giving him attention but my mind is going all over for the duration of this.


Body Scan - I am very distracted during work. I don't have a big task to do, but lots of small ones. I find it hard to move from one task to the next without major sidetrack. I've got some shit on my mind, and I work from home so there is really nothing to keep me on track. I decide to do the body scan in the middle of this, curious to see what happens when I'm in a state like this. The thoughts that are distracting me from work aren't horrible, but they aren't good either and I do actively wish I wasn't having them.

Almost immediately I find myself "jumping ahead". I focus on my left toes as instructed, then I wonder how my knee is going to feel and jump there. I wonder how my foot will feel, I jump there. I pull myself back to my breathing, then back to the audio. I make it through the rest of the lower body portion of the scan without becoming distracted. I notice that my knee does not hurt much at all today when I focus on it. I do not really find anything else to note as far as feelings/sensations.

At some point when moving to the upper body I zone out completely. I may have fallen asleep, or something close to it. If I did, I was out lightly enough to hear some keywords in the audio that pulled me back to it. I had no recollection of what I was thinking about while zoned out (***its very strange. I wouldn't have thought i fell asleep at all, the only reason I think/assume I did is that the second I came to I had already lost/forgotten whatever was in my mind***)

What pulls me back in is the part that I've mentioned disliking, where the lady in the audio starts talking about the internal organs. I notice today that the audio mentions the pancreas when it talks about stomach/liver etc. Instead of tuning out, I use this time to tell my diabetic pancreas that it can go fuck itself. I have defeated it with my diet over the last year and I don't need it anymore. My hyper-analytical mind, my mind that "must note correctness" at all times, breaks in and concedes that the pancreas does other things besides deal with insulin and blood sugar, and I probably do need those things, but that's not the point is it? The audio has moved on by now, I catch up and go back to it.

I am able to follow along for the rest of the audio, without noting significant thoughts or distractions. I also find nothing to note in any other area of the body that is observed and discussed at the end.




Its an interesting place, my head sometimes. Note the lack of "WTF?" thoughts along the way. I'm not surprised or distressed by any of this.


Day 3 down!

Homework - Week 1 Friday

Mindful Eating - Lunch at Chipotle (hooray). Steak salad with cheese/salsa/sour cream/guac. Salads at Chipotle are low carb heaven to many. Anyway... I try to get a mix of ingredients in my bite for mindful eating. I put the fork in my mouth and pay attention without chewing. I can separate the different flavors easily. Many of the flavors are strong ones. The guacamole stands out the most. Tangy? A little spice? The flavors mix together when I chew, and that's that. Mindful eating feels repetitive to me at this point. I'm not frustrated, but I am not sure I'm interested in this. It may be because it highlights the issue I have with the "Beginners mind" pillar. If I can bring myself to speak up in class on Monday this is what I'll talk about. An almond tastes like an almond. My bacon tastes like glorious bacon. If you've never eaten bacon before, do not ask me what it tastes like :) It tastes like bacon dammit!


Routine Activity - No pee on the cat's tail last night, yay! I notice how Dean settles into the same place every night. I notice how his paws wrap around my upper arm, and how he kneads into my arm with them when he's happy. When his purr really gets going, he starts to drool. This has never bothered me, and it doesn't now even being so aware of the moment. My mind wanders, thinking about how disgusting my ex wife used to think Dean drooling on me was, and how hilarious I thought it was that it bothered her so. I come back to the present and feel very relaxed and go into my nightly routine.


Body Scan - I am not doing the body scan tonight. I've had a long day and some of that "emotional state of mind" crap from before has been weighing on me a little more than normal today. I am absolutely fine, but dedicating a half hour to paying full attention to the current moment and accepting whatever thoughts and feelings come is not something I want to do.



I got the survey for week 1 for the research today. I haven't looked at it yet. I'll do it tomorrow and write something if I think its interesting.

Similar to the last research survey that I did, I'll note questions that elicit a reaction from me of some sort.

Week 1 Survey

We are asked to spend 10-15 minutes doing a mindful body scan or mindful breathing before taking the survey. Lucky for me I just did that.


The first page is about how you feel about the experience:


I experienced myself as separate from my changing thoughts and feelings - Not at all (1/5). Not today at least. I have felt something similar to this, sometimes, like I'm "watching" what's happening, sort of? But only when I was really relaxed/calm. I was not today.

I was more concerned with being open to my experiences than controlling or changing them - Quite a bit (4/5). I feel that, even when I'm agitated by what is rattling around in my head, during this practice I can fairly easily adopt a mindset to just see what happens, and not try to force something specific to happen.

I was curious to see what my mind was up to from moment to moment - Moderately (3/5). This is a bit more abstract than the idea of just "watching my thoughts". At least for today, I had expectations of where my mind was going to be going, so there wasn't much "curiosity" about it.

I was receptive to observing unpleasant thoughts and feelings without interfering with them - A Little (2/5) - I am "capable" of observing unpleasant thoughts during this process without interfering. I'm not "receptive". I don't want it to be happening. I don't like it.

I remained curious about the nature of each experience as it arose - Not at all (0/5) - I am not entirely sure what this is even asking.

I was curious about my reaction to things - Moderately (3/5) - I am rarely surprised by my reactions to things. My mind races in normal situations so I feel like I'm unlikely to run across something surprising, so I'm observing, but I maybe lack some "curiosity?" I am more curious about what thoughts may pop up at a given moment.


The next section is on my general views of how I handle things, being hard on myself, how i view things i'm bad at/fail at, etc. Similar questions to the pre-class survey so no need to go into detail.


There is a section on learning from negative experiences. I answer in the extreme positive on thinking I can learn something from "recent negative events/experiences", and that I can find the positive sides of a negative experience. I can, usually looking for what I can do better the next time.


There is a final section on how I've felt during the last week that i go through, and that's that.

Week 1 Saturday Homework

Mindful Eating "Chia Pudding", a low carb dessert-y thing i make daily to get some fiber. 8 oz almond milk, 2 tbsp heavy cream, 1/4 cup chia seeds (this is a LOT of fiber if you're already eating whole grains or whatever, but I eat no grains and get almost no fiber from other sources). Small bit of cocoa powder, sugar free torani caramel syrup, vanilla extract, and 2 stevia packets. mix up, put in fridge for 2 hours. The chia seeds absorb a lot of the almond milk and it gets a little thicker. If I have some extra calories available I will melt a spoonful of peanut butter in the microwave and stir it in as well.

Enough with the recipes. Tonight I add peanut butter. The pudding looks... not good? It looks like a seedy mush. I am able to smell the peanut butter. I HAD A SMELL GUYZ (peanut butter has always been a surprisingly strong smell to me even as I am able to detect so few other things). The texture of the pudding in my mouth is pretty unique. The peanut butter doesn't mix in well and stands out and is a little sticky. The chia seeds feel strange just sitting there being observed by me. Chia seeds are tiny and this isn't really a thing you chew, so I just swallow. When I eat this with peanut butter the peanut butter flavor overwhelms everything else in it, as is the case tonight. It tastes like a peanut butter pudding. I cannot detect the cocoa or caramel flavors in this moment.

Routine Activity - This was last night, the night that I skipped the body scan because I had a lot of negative things on my mind. That stuff hasn't gone anywhere by the time I go to bed, so avoiding the laptop and the rest of the routine to focus here does lead my thoughts to some places I am not thrilled to be. I do focus on Dean, and find his purr and presence very comforting. I find myself reflecting again to when I was married, to a period where the marriage was clearly over but no one had said anything yet, both of us very unhappy (and I guess just waiting for the other to finally bring it up and call it). There were countless days during that time where Dean reliably coming to find me as soon as I went to bed was the best part of the day. So I finding myself doing a mix of looking at the present and reflecting on some past nostalgia at the same time.


Body Scan - So I skipped this yesterday and did it very early today, before I really started my day. I'm feeling ok and looking forward to my weekend, but this process is just a bit different. The act of turning everything off and focusing on myself reminds me that yesterday's anxiety isn't exactly gone yet. Throughout this process I found that my breathing was not steady, not a point of comfort. I have a nervous tic where I kind of click my throat audibly (and sometimes I do it even when I'm not "nervous"). I find myself doing it constantly during this process today. My knee hurts pretty bad this morning, and I find that I am constantly shifting trying to find a position where my knee doesn't feel any strain. I never find one, even with a couple pillows for proper support. I do move my thoughts around to various body parts along the way, but the distractions are there the entire time, from start to finish.

Now, the body scan isn't about relaxation, specifically stated in the handouts we were given. It is about observing whatever comes, and all of the other pillars, including accepting whatever comes whether good or bad. For most of this 25 minute period, I do maintain this mindset. Ok, this doesn't feel great, but I'm just seeing what happens, I'm not going to try to force unpleasant thoughts away right now if those are the thoughts that are going to continue to the forefront during this. I'm trying to make my knee comfortable, but if that's not possible, I'm not getting mad about it, its just the way it is this morning. Towards the end, the last 5 minutes or so, that does degrade a little and I actively want this process to be over with, but I don't stop short, or turn off the CD early, I allow it to finish. I know that it may not necessarily be ideal to judge these experiences too much, that there's no right or wrong with them, but I do feel a sense of accomplishment here for allowing this experience to happen, and for not trying to drown out thoughts I may not really like all that much. I dunno.

Week 1 Sunday Homework

Mindful Eating - Leftover Pork Chop. I used a lot of worcestershire sauce, the taste of it is very strong when I begin to taste. It is a little tougher than it was fresh off the grill.


Routine Activity - As always, I notice Dean's very loud purr first and over everything else. Some of these things feel like I am just repeating myself, but that is my experience I suppose :) I continue to notice some "less than ideal" feelings whenever I turn off the distractions as part of my mind racing around, and I notice how comforting Dean's presence is when those thoughts come up.

Body Scan - I am starting this very late. I basically took today off. Skipped anything at the gym (I'd been something like 13 days in a row tho, much of it just for moderate cardio, but still). I feel rushed, its 11pm and I still need to do body scan, stretching routine, e-stim and would like to watch walking dead so i don't have to worry about spoilers tomorrow. I am curious how I'll react to body scan when I feel rushed like this. I find that I settle in pretty quickly, and that I calm down easily once I start listening to the CD. My mind was racing way faster than usual a few minutes ago, and now, I find I can bring my mind to each body part, I may think about other things, but they are casually coming and going, not racing around quite so much. Its a noteworthy change in a very short time. My knee hurts, but its loosened up pretty well and I am able to make it comfortable. Skipping the gym maybe gave my foot a day off, these distractions of pain don't exist tonight, which makes it very easy to stay with the audio and not veer off too much. I am still not "feeling" anything when I hit each body part necessarily, but I am moving through the process and looking.

Hitting the upper body during the scan again seems like a different process than the lower. My mind wanders away and I zone out for 3 or 4 body parts before I come back. I find myself looking ahead to an upcoming appointment I have on Wednesday, one which, given some of the things racing around my head the last two days, seems very important to me right now. I realize that I am wishing away days. Its Sunday, I wish it was Wednesday right now. I think that I should look for things I can accomplish on Monday and Tuesday instead. I then realize that I have missed at least 3 body parts in the scan, maybe more, and do the thing the instructor mentioned where you go back to your breathing, then back to the focus of the audio. I get through the rest of it with what feels like a "normal" in and out focus, thoughts creeping in regularly while I work on focusing on my body, and just moving through the process.

When I'm done I do note that I feel less rushed. I will probably be up later than I may ideally want tonight. But I work from home, and not really on anyone's timetable most days, I don't have anything pressing to do in the morning. I feel more patient with myself. I can finish my tasks for tonight, and perhaps try to plan a little better tomorrow. All good!

End of Week 1

So this homework sheet lists 6 days. Then we'll have the week 2 class tomorrow night. Some thoughts on things this week:


Mindful Eating - I feel like I should want to be much more interested in this practice. I'm someone who was more than 100 pounds overweight for most of my adult life. The concepts of slowing down, appreciating my food, etc, sound beneficial for someone like me. This is an area where analytics have served me well. Keto diets are filling, its very hard to overeat on them if you do it right. I'm aware it can still happen, and I am good about weighing my food and only putting an amount that I want to eat on my plate. Weight loss/healthier eating isn't the only reason to consider this, though. But finding an "enjoyment" with food via mindful eating is something I see as more of a shared experience. Something I'd love to do with a partner, but something that fades if I'm just cooking for myself.

The reality is that I found this process boring at best, disheartening at worst. This one more than anything highlights my early struggles with some concepts, specifically the "beginners mind". Its not as pronounced, but I do believe a weaker sense of taste goes hand in hand with a weak sense of smell frequently. So I find myself a bit frustrated when I try to distinguish and describe tastes. I find myself anticipating and expecting the things i will notice with a specific food before I actually do the thing.

I wonder if my initial view of this would have been different if it came later in the course. I also wonder if this is something I may have more interest in re-visiting after more practice in other areas.


Routine Activity - I found writing about this to be a bit repetitive, but actually doing it to be enjoyable. Of course, I picked an activity that would be an "easy" starter one for me. Taking time to notice and appreciate a pet that has been with me for 14+ years is certainly a rewarding and enjoyable experience. I can again point to the beginner's mind struggle here. Did I notice or learn anything new? No. And that's ok. I tended to approach this from the perspective of "I know everything about this animal, but this practice allows me time to remind myself of all the positive things that Dean has brought to my life". I noted multiple times how comforting it is to have him around, something that's easy to forget when rushing through every day.

I am not 100% sure, but I believe the idea here is to pick a different "routine activity" each week. I will likely pick something mundane like brushing my teeth next week. A lot of people picked things like that for week 1.


Body Scan - This was certainly the most interesting thing to write about. This is an intriguing thing to me, and I think it remains a focus of the class for a little while longer (but I'm not 100% sure on that). With this activity I found it easier to think about and practice most of the mindfulness pillars that we've talked about, specifically the act of accepting thoughts and feelings as they come, judging them less, being gentle with yourself instead of being quick to decide you should or should not be having a specific feeling/reaction. I find those things appealing. I found it interesting how varied my experiences were doing the same thing each day. I found it extremely interesting to note what felt like some "lasting effects" of this process on a few occasions. Despite having multiple days where I described parts of this process as allowing my mind to go to dark or sad places if I have some non ideal stuff noodling around, or to focus heavily on pain if I was hurting that day, I actually really like this process.

How Mindful Eating Can Help You Lose Weight + 5 Tips to Get Started ‹ Hello Healthy

Interesting timing there. I haven't mentioned mindfulness on facebook at all but I do follow myfitnesspal, and this article showed up today.

As far as weight loss goals go, I disagree very strongly with points 1 and 2 (though at least the article suggests fiber, fat, protein and not starch, fat, protein). I have played with point 2 for digestive reasons, but for weight loss reasons I 100% call bullshit on this "eat every 4 hours" advice (not that this doesn't work for many people. But it is pitched as *the* solution when for many it is not). Points 3-5 in there are more about the mindfulness stuff anyway.

Anyway, not to rant about dieting too much, I mainly found the timing of this showing up on my feed interesting :)

Monday, March 2nd - Week 2 Class

Sitting Body Scan

The instructor talks how you don't have to be lying down to do the body scan. You aren't always in a place where you can lie down, but you can do this sitting, or standing, or in the car (though presumably not when driving). We are guided through a shorter version of a seated body scan. Instead of being guided through 4 different parts of the foot, it is covered all in one go. I didn't time it but I think it took ~10 minutes instead of 25. I do notice when sitting up more of my body is engaged, less physically relaxed than when lying down fully supported. This makes it easier to "notice" many body parts, feeling my feet pressing on the floor, things like that. There is the addition of the concept of noticing sounds around you during this as well. Just as your thoughts may often take focus briefly during the scan, sounds around you can also do the same thing. This is at the very beginning of the class so some folks arrive after we've started. Some other people are leaving the facility still. At some point during this there is a fire truck or ambulance. Hopefully its one of the Carolina Blue fire trucks in Chapel Hill, those things are awesome. So the instructor walks us through acknowledging all of these things happening around us, but suggests we go back to the scan after making note of them.

Poem

The instructor reads Wild Geese by Mary Oliver. I have no thoughts or reaction to this poem.


Discussion of Last Week's Practice

The instructor asks us to share our experiences with the various practices from the previous week, starting with the body scan. The most common theme is finding the time to do it. Not many people talked about skipping it, though some did. A few people described their experiences and described the feeling that they were "doing it wrong." One person talked about a habit she has when a new thought/idea comes to her to help her remember it, but that it seemed wrong to do it during the body scan. She asked "would it be allowed?". The instructor asked her what it would be like to just notice the thought happening instead of reacting to it. Another person talked about procrastinating and needing things to be just right to start it. "I'll be ready to do this once I do the dishes and vacuum, doesn't feel right to do it before then". Oh man, THESE ARE MY PEOPLE AFTER ALL.

Next we're asked to discuss our routine activities. Teeth brushing was a common choice, which makes sense as it was one of the first suggestions offered by the instructor. People talked about how easily their other thoughts would take over something mundane. Makes sense to me. One person mentioned her routine task would be driving her child to school, but school was cancelled last week so she didn't do anything. She mentioned she did good with mindful eating though, so the instructor asked her about that. HEY WE WERE STILL ON THE OTHER THING NO SKIPPING AHEAD. After this gross breach of routine (kidding/pointing out my own neurotic need for structure, fyi), we are open to talking about routine activity and/or mindful eating.

With mindful eating some people said their food tasted better when they ate mindfully. Some said it tasted worse when they stopped everything to really notice it. This was the main place where I was willing to speak up, so I went ahead and pointed out that mindful eating was a frustrating experience to me, due to my perceived lack of smell and thus taste. I also mentioned my trouble with the beginners mind, that I know what bacon tastes like and trying to view it for the first time just doesn't happen. I'm happy I spoke up, my experience did appear to be unique (or at least unshared by anyone else), but I'm happy when I'm done talking too. Whew.

The Physiology of Stress

The instructor talks to us for awhile about the science behind stress. I'm trying to summarize so if any of this is just dead wrong, apologies. We begin by talking about the sympathetic nervous system which controls the fight or flight responses that we are all likely familiar with, coming with increased heart rate, blood pressure, etc. Opposite this is the parasympathetic nervous system which has the opposite effect and is activated when an adrenaline response is not required, it can calm the system, lower heart rate, blood pressure, etc. The fight or flight response is critical, and stress is a part of life. There is no goal of removing stress from one's life.

The instructor gives an example of his drive to work in an area with some woods and frequent deer sightings. A deer hops into the road, sympathetic nervous system activates. Instant reaction, dodge the deer if possible, continue on to work. The hormones secreted by the adrenal glands leave the system fairly quickly, and all is well. However, what about another example? Alarm goes off and you're still tired so you're upset to be waking up. The kids won't get ready for school easily and need a lot of prodding. The dog goes out for his morning shit and goes and digs up something in the garden where he knows he's not allowed. You drive to work and almost hit the deer. Your favorite parking place is taken and you have to park somewhere else when you get to work. You're a little late and your boss notices and points at his watch and gives you a disapproving look. You have a pile of work on your desk and you're already behind. Over time all of these things begin to trigger something of an adrenaline response. A constant state of stress over everything, with no time for these hormones to leave the system and to relax. Longer term stress like this leads to the buildup of cortisol in the system. Buildup of cortisol impacts blood sugar, immune system responses, allows for an easier storage of harmful belly fat, and tons and tons of other things.

What we are learning in this course are ways to break this cycle of ever growing long term stress, to allow the body to return to a relaxed state from time to time.

The instructor didn't mention it, but in the extra reading material is a section on diaphragmatic breathing, something I mentioned having learned in physical therapy. From our reading:

"Diaphragmatic breathing activates the relax-and-digest response by stimulating the primary mediator of the parasympathetic nervous system, the vagus nerve, which trigger a cascade of calming effects. Of all the processes regulated by the autonomic nervous system, only breathing can be controlled consciously"

Hence the focus on this practice both here and in PT, neat. I am 100% sure I learned these details in physical therapy as well. I have learned literally hundreds of things in PT, so hearing this from a second source definitely helps to reinforce it.

Also part of our science lesson is the fact that external stimuli (like the deer) are processed by the amygdala in the brain to decide if the fight or flight response needs to be activated BEFORE being passed to anything we are conscious of. This makes sense and sounds familiar from high school :D The point made here by the instructor is "when you become aware of that stress response, it has already happened in the past. It is too late to stop it from happening." The handout talks about work that can be done later on with meditation and other things to work towards changing the ways your body triggers its stress response, and perhaps being able to get your body to avoid triggering a stress response to some of the more minor stresses in life. We didn't talk about that in class yet though.

The instructor also mentions recent studies (study? unsure) talking about a suggestion to take a break from whatever you're doing every 60-90 minutes to allow your body to relax. This can be via some form of mindfulness practice, or by simply doing something different from what you were doing. If you're on the computer, get up and take a short walk. If you were working in the yard for the last hour, maybe sitting down at the computer is the relaxation.

Someone at this point said simply "Netflix?" and got a laugh from everyone. The instructor talked about the difference between distraction and mindfulness, at times distraction can be an effective break, but the awareness that can be learned and examined with mindfulness can be far more beneficial.


Personal Response

First, I am thrilled to get some science talk amidst all of the talk of "lets try this thing that seems a little strange because reasons." This all makes sense to me and resonates with me in a big way.

Second, I find a ton of parallels to this science talk and to all of the physical therapy work I've done. Some of it, like the task of diaphragmatic breathing, are very direct. When trying to improve my posture, its frequently mentioned how much I can benefit from moving around more, even in small ways. Both in the sense of frequently changing between sitting and standing at my desk (I have an adjustable desk), and sitting on my stability ball to build core strength and force movement. Also suggestions to take a quick walk around the house any time i get up for water or to use the bathroom. All things that promote this "taking a break" suggestion.

Third, both physical therapists have talked to me about "resetting" the central nervous system, doing things along with my physical work to try to reset the pain response in the areas that I have it. There have been talks about how physical pain can linger even though the reason for the pain may be long gone, and it can be difficult to get past that. I'm not sure those discussions on pain are exactly the same as the discussions on stress here, but I am able to see and draw some parallels and I really appreciate them.


Honestly, this discussion on science is given in a very clear and engaging way, and it has put me completely all in on the rest of the course. This, along with some mentions of things we'll attempt to learn later, really gives me at least a small sense of the building blocks that are happening here, there is a TON less blind trust (even though that was enough and was working for me), and a lot more sense of understanding now.

Sitting Practice

Sitting practice is also known as "Mindfulness Meditation". The instructor says he prefers the term Sitting Practice, saying that Meditation might bring a lot of preconceived notions from people who prefer specific types of meditation, or from people who have never meditated.

There is discussion on posture, the need to be able to sit up straight while using as little effort as necessary to be properly supported. Some of us will be sitting in chairs. There are some cushiony things there to allow a comfortable floor sitting posture. There aren't enough for everyone, with my knee hurting a lot I knew I could be comfortable in a chair so I didn't mess with those. I'll try one next week.

After spending a lot of time talking about posture and the various tools there (like 3 or 4 different types of cushions and stools and stuff that I'm not going to try to go into here, I don't remember a single name, all japanese/tibetan/etc), we practice for a couple minutes. We are told to breathe and to focus on our breath. To try to keep our focus on our breath, not to change anything about it, just to be aware.

After a couple minutes, we relax and talk about anything we felt. Most of that is about comfort and various aches and pains that quickly come from the posture we're trying here. My upper back starts to hurt fairly quickly trying to sit fully straight up without any support at all. I already know that's where I am in my posture work, which began back in November but took a back seat to a lot of other things. I've tried to maintain improvements I've made, but I can't say I've really continued to improve this year. I think. Its very hard for me to tell. Perfection isn't needed for my physical improvements in PT, but I'd kinda like to be able to slowly work towards perfection anyway with my posture.

We talk about thoughts that occur while we aim to focus on our breathing. The instructor makes a strong point (something he rarely does, usually he makes suggestions about things we might look for) that the goal is NOT to completely clear your mind of thoughts. The goal is to acknowledge your thoughts, to lightly say "oh hey, there's a thought", and to let it go and go back to your breathing. We get back into decent'ish posture and do this for another couple minutes.

One last time we relax and talk a bit. A specific suggestion is given to view the thoughts that come into your mind during this practice as clouds. Just like clouds, you can't control when they come and go, but you can notice them passing by before re-focusing on breathing. Another way to think about it I suppose. Another couple minutes of practice and we are done with this for the time being.

There is talk of how it isn't the simplest thing to find a posture that one can maintain to do this for a longer period of time, and its something we'll have to work on ourselves to find. A light ache is ok, and things will need to be strengthened (like back muscles, etc), but if something hurts to the point of distraction, then its time to look for another way to sit to find more comfort.

My reactions

Not much. I need to work on my posture. For the short periods of time we do this each time i am easily able to focus on my breathing. I do note that breathing while seated like this is uncomfortable. I make a note to ask my physical therapist about this next time I see her. I have talked to her about diaphragmatic breathing being far more difficult sitting up than lying down, and this is expected. But I note that just "standard" breathing feels a bit awkward trying to take anything but shallow breaths in this position. I've noticed this before, but its been low on the list of things to bring up. I ask a lot of questions. Some of them have answers, some don't.

Most thoughts I have during this are fleeting. There's one moment of "racing thoughts" where it seems like 5 things come at once. At the very end a couple deeply unhappy thoughts pass by. It happens.

Routine Activity

Like last week, we pair up to discuss what routine activity we will choose to be mindful of for the week. I get a different person this time. She did the teeth brushing activity last week, and she liked my choice from last week about giving affection to my cat. We decided to trade activities this week. I am on teeth brushing, she is focusing on giving affection to her dog.


Homework

-- We are to alternate doing the Body Scan and doing Sitting Practice. Tomorrow I'll do Sitting Practice, Wednesday Body Scan, etc. Someone asks how long to do sitting practice for. The instructor mentions that 20 minutes is probably a little long for us to try to do this now (though it would match the time commitment of the body scan). A suggestion of 5 minutes is given for the sitting practice, with a general comment that doing something every day is better than trying really really hard one day and finding yourself sore or unhappy and deciding not to do anything later in the week.

-- We are also to do the mindful routine activity each day. Mine is, again, brushing my teeth. I'm not really sure I'm going to be describing in great detail the things I observe while I brush my teeth in posts here over the next 6 days :P

-- Lastly, we are asked to take note of the times stress enters our daily life. We aren't necessarily aiming to do anything about it just yet, but to take note of it for now. Be ready for a bunch of first world problems over the next week! Hell, maybe I'll write about this section entirely using the first world problems meme. ;)



-- We close with the instructor re-reading the poem from the beginning, and we're on to week 2!

Week 2 Tuesday Homework

Routine Activity - I don't think I'm going to have a whole lot to say here. I brushed my teeth and thought about it while I did. I noticed that I was favoring one leg and not standing in a nice, balanced way. I noted that I brushed my teeth for longer when I was focusing on it and not having my mind race ahead to the 10 things I needed to do as soon as I was done.


Body Scan - So I said I was going to do the meditation/sitting practice today, but that's before today turned out like it did. I decided I wanted to do something I've done before, and that I wanted to do something that would take longer and serve as a longer "break" from the day. See below on stress :P

I was tired at the start of the body scan. Its been a day with a lot of stress. I notice my nervous tic (the throat clicking sound thing that I do, which also involves not breathing for a moment) happening frequently. I remind myself that my aim is to observe, and not to judge too harshly. When I notice this I try to focus on my breath (which forces my breathing to actually happen, which stops the tic anyway). I find that for most of this I am just sitting on my breathing, or on my wandering thoughts, and less on my body. There are many, many times where I miss out completely on 2-3 body parts in the audio. In the latter half I think I fall asleep, and the bells at the end of the audio wake me up. I'm not certain, its that weird "oh, I didn't think I was asleep" feeling, but I cannot recall what I was thinking about.

Stress Responses


The above is from my writeup last night, a direct example of lots of little stresses adding up, all of them being treated by the body as if they were life and death stresses, that over time add up to real problems with our health and well being.

Ever have one of those days where nothing goes right and everything is frustrating? I know it happens to me a couple times a year. Really, not often. Pretty ironic i think for it to happen the first day after we're supposed to think about our stress a little. Let me see if I can write about my morning in the same way as the example above, and i'll explain the details further below:

I wake up early, I haven't slept enough. I am rushed because I want to get to the 10am class at the gym. At the gym, I am unable to complete the pre-workout warmup stretches because the pain in my knee has reached new heights. A couple movements I simply cannot make this morning. The trainer sends me home. I get home and put on my aircast/boot. I hate this thing. I go to make my breakfast, where I fail to notice that someone was using the stove before me, and I put two ziploc bags on a burner that was recently used. They melt into the stove before I notice. I also realize I forgot to go to the store last night after class and I am out of bacon. When I finish making my crappy incomplete meal, I open the door to the upstairs, forgetting that I have this giant boot on. I open the door into my foot, losing my balance just enough to spill my entire 32 oz mug of water on the floor. When I finally have that cleaned up and get to my desk, I have 3 high priority e-mails from the CFO of the company I'm working for. I feel behind on my work and was planning on using the day to catch up a good bit. Instead, I will now be working on a couple stressful, reasonably urgent tasks that have very high visibility. I have only been awake for 2 1/2 hours at this point.



-- Being unable to do the stretches at the gym is a first. Being sent home instead of given "modifications" to make things easier is a first (I know this is the right call). I am EXTREMELY distressed by this.

-- I wore this boot/aircast in November for 3 weeks for the foot problems. My knee problems started after I stopped wearing it. PT suggested that I may try to wear it for a couple days to see if my knee pain lessens/goes away. I didn't really want to do that, but after the problems this morning decided to. I seriously hate this thing.

Yeah, just one of those mornings. It happens, but it happens really, really, really rarely to me, seriously.


-- I noticed my nervous tic taking over throughout the day, well into the afternoon even once things felt more settled down.

-- I noticed my mind racing more than usual.

-- Stressful thoughts from friday/saturday that were starting to settle down now seemed a much bigger problem again.


I got my work done, all is well.

-- Twice during the day I made time to go lie down for 5-7 minutes and practice diaphragmatic breathing. The benefits of working from home. I could do this sitting up at my desk if I had to, but I get better results lying down.

-- After doing this, I felt no less stressed. But I'm hopeful it counts as the "break" that we were learning about yesterday some.

-- I chose to do the body scan mainly because it takes longer, but also because I didn't want to do the new thing today. I wanted a longer break at the end of the work day in the form of the body scan.


Just in case I needed one last reminder that sometimes things are just gonna go wrong some days, this is the second time I'm typing up this post. The first time when i tried to post it my router had died, and my post got eaten.

Week 2 Wednesday Homework

Routine Activity - I brush my teeth. I notice again that by being mindful during this I take my time, brush better, and am less anxious to move on with my day. I am not really noticing sensations of brushing or anything.


Sitting Practice/Meditation - I set my alarm on my phone for 6 minutes, sit up straight in my ergonomic office chair (sitting up truly straight, not using the back of the chair for much support at all past the lumbar support). I begin breathing and focus on my breath. I do have thoughts going by constantly. I attempt to notice them, not judge them, and to go back to breathing. I have mixed results with this. Some thoughts are easier to wave at and move on than others. :) I do have some thoughts/distractions that would normally be things I would want to sit on and dwell on, they linger a little longer but they still don't hang around too long. In my chair at home I do not get sore or physically tired with good posture as easily. This makes doing this activity for 5 minutes very managable. I plan on setting my alarm for 10 minutes next time.


Stress Responses

I'm not gonna write much here, at least today. Yesterday was a very different day, seemed ok to mention. Today, it feels weird, like I'm just whining about daily life things that every one of us goes through if i do this here. I think maybe I will just write about the actual practices this week. I get the sense that this week the aim is to notice what brings us stress, and how stress manifests itself, and we'll talk about it in class, and there will be a next step that begins to focus on handling those stressful moments. For this week though, writing about this without doing anything about it feels too self indulgent even for this very, very self-indulgent dynasty. :)

Week 2 Thursday Homework

Very little to say today.

Routine Activity - Did this. Same thing as usual :)

Body Scan - I am extremey tired when I do this. It leads to a nap. That's probably good!


And since it seems like a lot of this stuff leads to me finding negatives or mentioning negative thoughts passing through, I want to point out that I had a very good physical therapy visit today following my escalating knee issue lately. Looking forward to seeing what the next couple weeks brings and have some specific things to work on to try to generate some progress.

Week 2 Friday Homework

Info to better understand today's stuff: I hate the dentist. I didn't go for years, that caused problems. I have found a local "gentle dentist" that I really like and have fixed lots of problems over the past 2-3 years. Nitrous for ALL THE THINGS.


Routine Activity - Going to the dentist b/c of a sudden problem right after this task (brushing my teeth is the routine activity this week remember). Mind racing/feeling lots of anxiety, but again, the main thing I notice is that attempting to do this mundane task mindfully allows me to actually take my time and do it right and not be tempted to rush my anxiety ridden ass out the door.


Sitting Practice - I decide to give this a try in the waiting room at the dentist. Their chairs are actually pretty nice, finding a decent posture is not hard. I look to focus on my breathing. I'm aware of the talking around me, receptionists answering phones, I notice it all but I am not listening to every conversation around me or focusing on those things, I go back to my breathing. My mind is racing a good bit here, I do this until I'm called back, ~8 minutes (checked my phone before i started and when I got called).

I've been more comfortable with this dentist office as I've worked more with them, BUT, this is an emergency visit, normally for something like this I would be feeling absolute dread every second. Here i really, honestly notice a difference. Yes, my mind is racing, but while doing this I am not hyperfocused on all the things that might be wrong or on how much its going to hurt or how expensive it might be... the things that would usually consume me at this time for an unknown problem in a place where I have a long history of being very, very uncomfortable and have had some very, very bad experiences (with other dentists, not this one). My mind is just... going along. Its not settling anywhere, I'm not having to push myself hard to stop worrying. I'm just thinking about my breathing and allowing myself to notice the things around me and allow them to pass by. I am not supremely calm, or in some pleasant zen like state, but I do find I am remarkably less stressed than I would have expected to be, and that those 8 minutes in the waiting room feel like 5 or less, instead of hours.


Stress Response - I fractured a tooth in what is described as a "freak event". IE, none of my past lack of care caused this, this appears to be just shitty luck. I need a crown, might need a root canal, which we won't know until they get in there and start working next week. Will cost close to 4 figures. Since I already had a filling done earlier in the year, this is going to basically use up the rest of my dental insurance allowance for 2015. My response to this stress is anger. I don't take it out on anyone at the dentist office or anything. Hell I can't even be mad at myself. If they told me that my past shitty habits caused it, I wouldn't get mad. I'd be very hard on myself, but there would at least be a reason, so it would be ok'ish.


So yea, interesting morning. The response to trying something different in the waiting room is fascinating to me. The response to finding out that the problem is basically as bad and as expensive as it could have possibly been is pretty much what I'd expect, and worth noting.

Shout out to you for sharing your homework with the group. Cool that you're doing all of this.

Thanks, YD, appreciate it!

Week 2 Saturday Homework

Routine Activity - Not much to say here. Did this thing.


Body Scan - I'm very focused early on in the body scan and following along. Something interesting happens though. When we hit my left knee I decide its hurting badly enough tonight that I want to "skip it". The problem is that I am actually finding that my focus is so good at this point that skipping this section isn't easy. I end up hitting on a thought and sticking to it, and that focus on the audio and my body/moment/experience disappears completely. I end up thinking about a couple decisions, one of which just popped into my head for the first time during this process. Not exactly non-judgemental thought or just observing thoughts :) But that's ok.

For the rest of the audio I am listening to the words but I'm really not with it. I'm definitely thinking a lot here, but I feel like I have a fairly clear head about it, and I trust my intuition/instinct extremely heavily in spots like this (the way the idea came out kind of out of nowhere but in a really focused way).

I'm actually done with decisionmaking fairly quickly here, there's still probably 10 minutes left on the audio, but I really never do fully go back to it, my mind is wandering, I'm not really physically still anymore.


So, with that, I've decided to stop taking my final med from my urologist. This is interesting in that my physical therapist made some specific recommendations about how I might want to go about that, and this decision is going against all of them, pretty sure its the first time I've directly ignored a suggestion from either physical therapist. But it feels like a low/no risk thing and I have a couple reasons that make sense to me for doing it now. So we'll see how that goes. If it doesn't work I still have the med, and can get right back on it and follow the recommendations after all.

Week 2 Sunday Homework

Routine Activity - A full week of mindful teeth brushing in the books.

Mindfulness Meditation/Sitting Practice - I set my alarm for 10 minutes this time. I last 9. I've been sitting most of the day (have not been switching to standing desk as frequently as I should, or doing other stuff), and have been working a lot harder on my posture lately as it was a major focus of my last PT visit on Thursday. I have a lot more trouble today finding a comfortable position that feels decent than the last time. I do begin breathing well, and I do keep most of my focus on my breathing. When it strays it does stray to either posture (is my head too far forward? Is this ok?) or to discomfort related to posture (back sore, feeling a strain in my neck). I do consistently go back to my breathing and never get upset about feeling this soreness or anything.

Stopping at the 9 minute mark is not saying "screw this" but "anything past this is too much for now". Its all good. There are no other distractions or wandering thoughts during this time.

End of Week 2

Like last week I'll review the things I did this week a bit.


Routine Activity - Teeth Brushing - Meh? I did notice that attempting to be mindful here did keep me from rushing through the boring daily task, and it did keep me from wanting to just race on to the next thing. I never really got into any sort of "awareness" here, sort of like mindful eating... being super aware of the sensations of the bristles of my toothbrush, blah blah blah. But hey, maybe if you "slow down" a few routine things here and there throughout the day you are all of a sudden not on "autopilot" as often.


Mindfulness Meditation (aka Sitting Practice) - So this is something that will clearly benefit me if i continue to do it, posture and diaphragmatic breathing are two huge things I've learned to work on in physical thearpy, and they are the basics of this. Depending on my current posture (and whether i'm sore/tired/wahtever), this is "easier" than the body scan, in the sense that "focus on your breath" is a nice, simple instruction. I can do that reliably, where the results of "think about your toes, now think about your foot, now your knee" is a much more complicated process by comparison.

I tried to do this briefly a few different times. After finding it directly beneficial to do in the waiting room at the dentist office, I tried to do it last night at an urgent care clinic that I took my mom to last night (she's fine), mainly in an effort to pass the time. I found it impossible. Loud TV+Music at the same time in that office, mainly the TV, it was so loud I could hardly hear the music being played in the office. I found it impossible to pull my mind away and to my breath at all. I still tried to do it off and on the whole time I was there, and as always, there are benefits from the breathing even if I deemed the practice "unsuccessful" since I couldn't focus.


Body Scan - I continue to mostly like this, even as I continue to find myself massively distracted throughout most of it with frequency. I remain fascinated that my reactions/thoughts are so different every time. I mean, that seems like common sense, but always thinking "huh, wonder what is gonna happen this time" makes it feel like less of a chore.


One thing I noticed with the meditation and the body scan this week is a "curiosity" that I am finding myself having. "Hey, what happens if I try this at the dentist office?" ... "I just got really frustrated at my teammates in this stupid online game, wonder how I would react to a body scan right now?" ... "Well that was a shitty stressful morning, maybe I should take a break and do this thing". I'm very happy to notice this.

Its not exactly the "Beginner's mind" pillar, not the way I am thinking of it. In this, I AM a beginner. I do still find myself 100% unable to approach something mundane as if I had never done it before, etc.

But I do consider it a good sign that I'm actually embracing this stuff, and not treating it like "ah shit, I have to do that thing today" That beginners mind pillar remains the only one I'm really uncomfortable with. All of the others, in the context of these practices, make sense.

Yesterday the body scan turned into a weird "oh I just had a new and pretty strong thought and decided to think about it and act immediately". Last night trying to do the meditation practice in a louder area just didn't feel possible. In both cases, my response was 'oh, ok, that's just what this is going to be this time." I'm feeling good about that.



We have a different instructor tomorrow. She teaches one of the other classes (there are multiple running at the same time). So that will be interesting, hopefully in a good way.

In the same e-mail that we learn about the new instructor its mentioned that "She will be co-leading the Day of Mindfulness on March 28."

March 28 sure doesn't seem like a long ways away. I mentioned that at some point in the orientation week... a 6 hour "retreat" with multiple classes all together at the same place where most of the time will be spent in silence practicing everything we've learned. REALLY doesn't seem like far away, thinking about that is still a little unnerving.

This week involves lots of smaller events/discussions/practice compared to the last couple weeks.

Monday, March 9th - Week 3 Class

There is a different instructor. She seems to have a bit of a different attitude than the guy I'm used to but its quickly obvious that she just has a weird/different sense of humor, she's fine, no more than a few minutes of worry about whether its going to be an issue having someone I'm uncomfortable with leading the group.


Opening Discussion

The instructor asks us to briefly take a meditative posture. We breathe for a few moments, and we're asked to look over ourselves briefly, and to determine "am I at ease right now, in this room?". What comes to mind when asked that question? Could something be done to make you feel at ease in this moment? This only lasts a minute or so.

We discuss the reasons that we might not be at ease. One guy mentions physical discomfort. Another mentions that he was unsure if he would make it on time, so he was rushed on the way here and stressed about being late, and he is still a little amped up from that. One person mentions that he didn't look for physical cues, but emotional ones, "is everything in order", or are there things he didn't get done today that have him stressed.

During this I note that I am not at ease. I am in a group of approximately 20 strangers. I am automatically not at ease. I do not know how I could be made to feel at ease when actively thinking about this fact. I am also not at ease yet with the new instructor. As mentioned above that feeling didn't last long.


This leads to a discussion of using meditation (the "sitting practice") to help set oneself at ease in more places besides alone at home. Those with physical tension, could you focus on your breathing, note places you are tense, and relax? Those who feel stress because you didn't get something done at work today, you aren't going to be doing it right now, in this moment. This is an opportunity to make a choice to be in the present moment, to do something to remove/reduce a little of that stress, since you can't do anything about it right now anyway. This is given as a real world example on how to use the things we're learning in class to help us in our daily lives.

A specific example is given of being in a waiting room and choosing to meditate there. Which is pretty neat since I did that just a couple days ago!


Mindfulness Meditation

As always, we spend time at the start of the class doing the thing that was the main focus of our previous week's homework. I'm not sure how long we did this for, but it felt like a long time. The chair I was sitting in was uncomfortable, and my back was hurting pretty quickly trying to maintain a decent posture. I found my posture slipping consistently throughout as a position would get too uncomfortable to maintain, so I'd relax it a bit. My focus would alternate from my breathing to thinking about my posture.

Discuss Obstacles/Last Week Results

Two separate things here, but I'll combine them into one. First, we're asked to share thoughts/experiences with the Sitting Practice/Mindfulness Meditation (to make it even more confusing, this instructor refers to it as "Breath Awareness Meditation"). The main mention here is about the posture being distracting. That for those without good posture already, there is a lot of worrying if you're in the right position, or hurting a bit and/or having discomfort escalate throughout the process. There was also a comparison of the Sitting Practice to the Body Scan, comments on how people prefer the Sitting Practice and find it easier to do. I've made both of those statements myself, and it seems like there's a lot of agreement on both of these things.

-- On the posture issue, the instructor mentions that its a bit tough at the start, but that really poor posture discourages good breathing, and over longer periods of time is damaging anyway. So in theory it would be just fine for now to do the best you can with posture and improve it, but that could easily lead to just permanently shitty posture, so they choose to teach everything completely properly with the hope that with practice your back will strengthen and this will get easier. But there's a tradeoff in the short term.

-- On the "I like this thing better than that thing" there is a comment to continue to practice everything, that everyone will have some things that they like more than other things, but for many people that changes over time. What you like at the start may not be the same thing you like at the end of the course, etc. Main point being not to give up on the things you don't like as much.


Separately, we discuss obstacles that keep us from practicing regularly. This is all about time management for most people. I have a lot of free time, this isn't really an issue for me.


Poem

Journey, by Mary Oliver

This is the second poem by this poet. Meh?

Review Science

I wrote a lot about this last week, but we talk about much of the same things this week, and I'm glad. There is a clear focus of "building blocks" here that starts with learning a few simple practices, learning how the stress response in the body works, and finally learning how you can put your practice in place to help in your daily life.

-- We remember our negative experiences more strongly than positive ones. There is a bit of a paleo/caveman vibe here. If you have a near death encounter with a bear, you need to remember that and learn from it for next time. If you encounter a bear again, your brain can instantly refer to that encounter and what you've learned and you can better react, increasing your survival chance.

-- With few actual life or death stresses in the modern world, the brain does similar things with emotional experiences. All of the times we are hurt or under stress are stored in our memories just like they were bear attacks to a caveman. When faced with new emotional/work/whatever stress that is absolutely not life or death, we instinctually pull from our negative memories as "learning experiences", leading to a never ending cycle of ever growing stress responses.

-- We talk about the body scan as a way to get in touch with your physical responses to stress. That by doing the body scan over and over (practicing), many people will eventually learn to recognize even very subtle ways that their bodies react to stress. By doing this repeatedly in silent, focused practice, we give ourselves at least some kind of chance to recognize the same signals when they actually happen at work, or in a relationship, or any other real world situation.

-- Starting with Mindfulness Meditation, and moving on to other things we're learning, and by practicing these things in a silent, focused environment, we'll eventually be able to implement them in real world stressful situations, or at least, will be capable of doing so, and can make choices about when to do so to try to better handle a stressful situation or to better respond to stress.


This all feels like really good stuff. The discussion of anatomy is the same as last time, its consistent, it makes a lot of sense. Even though right now this all feels like light years off, the line from all of these practices that we're learning in a very abstract sense to some sort of actual implementation options to actually make and see positive changes in one's life start to become more clear.




-- A separate discussion that is a little less focused on anatomy is had here. We talk about different layers to our minds. I don't really like the terms used here but I can't think of better.

Top layer: Chit Chat Mind - This is the mind racing, constant distractions, lots of superficial things, frequently set up intentionally so that we don't have to deal with the next layer.

Middle Layer: Emotional Mind - Raw emotions can be hard to deal with. Remove distractions and you may not always like what comes up. I've mentioned this in varying ways many times throughout the last few weeks in this thread.

Bottom Layer: Wise Mind - Behind all the distractions and emotions is a lot of wisdom, but we have to learn how to deal with the first two layers to get to this one.


This section is presented with less science and more of "yeah this is how things are." I don't buy into that as easily, but we spent some significant time talking about it, so I can't ignore it or anything :)

Perception Exercise, Thoughts vs Facts

The instructor asks us to focus for a very quick scenario: You see someone you know walking down street, you wave and smile at them. They do not wave or smile back, they just walk by. How do you feel about this? What is your reaction to this?

We talk about reactions to this hypothetical event:

"he probably didn't see me"
"I'm hurt."
"My chest feels a little tight. I'm sad"
"I'm embarrassed"
"I play it off and pretend I was just scratching my ear"

The first and last responses came from men, the middle three from women. The instructor points this out, though I don't think we're looking for stereotypes between the sexes or anything. The instructor is a woman :P Anyway.


The point of this exercise is to note that we actually have no facts about what happened. We have no idea why this person we know didn't acknowledge us. But boy do we have a ton of thoughts about what might have happened. This is a concept that I've heard mentioned in body scans before when done by our main instructor. He'll mention the idea that "to many of us our thoughts are the same as facts." and I really didn't know what he was talking about. This makes sense at least.

We didn't necessarily talk about actions we might take in situations like this, but rather to try to acknowledge how many of our thoughts are completely made up based on one side of a scenario with literally zero knowledge.


Breathing Space

We don't practice this, its something we already know. We just talk about it. Breathing Space is kind of like mindfulness meditation, just shorter/smaller. Breathing Space is a structured way to step away from automatic pilot in every day situations and reconnect with the present moment (copying from handout, I'm buying into this stuff pretty heavily by now, but the phrase "Reconnect with the present moment" is still not one that would ever originate in my head ;))

This is basically described as something to take a break from the day, the automatic pilot as its often talked about here, and to have a brief moment of mindfulness. The whole "giving yourself a break" concept is one that resonates with me heavily since it has been a focus of both physical therapy and mindfulness for me.

Breathing Space is described in 3 steps:

1. Pause - stop what you are doing and be aware of what is here. Take a good posture, close your eyes or keep them gently open. Step out of auto pilot, ask yourself "what is my experience right now? What is going on?" Become keenly aware of thoughts, emotions, sensations. Acknowledge this, even if unpleasant.

2. Breathe - Redirect your attention to the sensation of breathing. Bring your attention to the sensation of several complete breaths, just as in meditation practice.

3. Expand - Increase your field of awareness. Expand your attention to include your breath and body as a whole. Note your posture, expression, what you are about to say. Note discomfort, tension, resistance. Continue to expand your field of awareness to include your immediate surroundings and other people until you can engage with the outside world mindfully.


The instructions say "This structure initially takes about 3 minutes but with practice can be done in seconds." So this sounds like "the thing" when we hear the instructor talk about being able to make a choice to be mindful in any given moment. This ties back into the science lessons above. We've talked about how we are learning to notice our bodies, and will eventually learn to detect stress quickly, even small stresses from subtle cues. How we want to be able to make a choice when we see a stress response occurring about how to handle it. This "Breathing Space" practice sounds like the next step in the puzzle. The actual method by which one might take a stressful situation at work and slow themselves down and become aware of what's happening instead of responding quickly and harshly.

I've mentioned before that the specific scenarios that get talked about with this... off the cuff reactions to people, aren't really a problem for me, because I analyze things so much(and often so quickly) that I stop myself from having off the cuff reactions anyway. Learning a mindful approach as an option sounds fine.

The places where I can see myself learning this are much more internal. I don't have anger issues with other people. I'm too hard on MYSELF. Too quick to judge myself for not being perfect. Maybe I get to use all these strategies to learn to generate less stress on myself?


Anyway, the idea that this process may initially be used as a break, from work, from whatever, for a few minutes, but can eventually be implemented in seconds with practice to deal with stress in life is intriguing to me.

Walking Meditation

The instructor describes Walking Meditation as "a bridge between silent, seated (or lying down) practices, and applying mindfulness in real life stress situations" because when you're walking your focus is required to at least partially be elsewhere. The things we've learned so far all involve 100% focus in a quiet space.

Walking Meditation is exactly what it sounds like. Being mindful of yourself while standing and walking. The focus is on the feet, on mechanics a bit, instead of on the breath. The instructor shows us a pose with hands clasped together in front of us, but if that isn't comfortable, it doesn't really matter. She takes a few steps, very slowly, talking about focusing on the feeling of her feet on the ground, of her weight shifting from one side to the other, on the movement of her hips as she walks.

We spread out and take up about 10 feet of space each, and practice this for 10-15 minutes. Yup, whole class walking around the waiting room of this rehab center, taking slow motion steps in some kind of deep thought. There's a janitor there during class frequently doing his job. I would love to see the expression on his face if he walked into this area of the building during this process. We are some goofy looking motherfuckers. Its the only way I can describe this.


Things I notice during this process:

-- Walking this slowly feels weird. Very, very unnatural.

-- As with many other things that we've done for the first time here, what initially stands out to me is pain and/or discomfort. Put the focus on my feet while walking, intentionally, and I become HIGHLY aware of how much more pressure I feel on the ball of my right foot where I have my nagging thing (dunno if injury is even the right word anymore) compared to the rest of my feet.

-- As we do this I become more and more aware of discomfort in my left knee. My knee problem continues to escalate, its almost orthopedist time (its probably LONG PAST orthopedist time, but I have chosen to be patient here until there is no reason to remain patient. My reason to remain patient is now essentially gone in my mind).

-- I look around a lot, because I feel very goofy doing this. Yup, everyone else looks just as silly as I feel.

-- Turning around hurts my knee. I start to plan my route so that I can take a couple steps to the right and back around to make a loop instead of a hard (or soft and slow) turn.

-- Walking slowly like this I find myself tensing all my muscles more than I normally would. I find myself locking out my legs some in this exaggerated slow motion. That adds pain to my knee. I note that and speed up just a little so I stop doing that.

At the end of this practice we don't talk about it. That's too bad, I would love to hear what others had to say. I'm still not past "this is incredibly silly" yet.


Pleasant Events

We talked earlier about how our minds store negative events as learning experiences for survival. Here we talk about how easy it is to go through a bad day and to be able to say "nothing good happened to me today. Every single thing about this day was bad." That's virtually impossible for almost all people to not have a single positive event, no matter how small.

The instructor talks about finding one pleasant event every day and giving it a focus for at least 10 seconds, to help to balance against the natural instinct to remember the negative over the positive.

I remember this concept from poker, and apply it to much of my competitive gaming too. In poker, discussion of mindset and not tilting is huge. The idea that your natural inclination is to remember every single time you lose with pocket aces, but the fact that your King-Jack offsuit cracked someone else's pocket aces fades away pretty quickly. In my current favorite hobby, the video game League of Legends, its very easy to remember every negative experience, every loss, every time one of your asshole teammates ragequit, or flamed everyone, or trolled and caused your team to lose. A 10 game losing streak feels horrible. Its equally easy to forget the times you won because someone on the other team never connected, or to forget the 10 game winning streak that absolutely did happen to balance out the 10 game losing streak.



Homework

We have lots of smaller tasks this week:

1) Practice Walking Meditation and Sitting Meditation for at least 15 minutes a day. Whether this means walking one day/sitting the next, or to alternate 5 minutes of each every day is up to our interpretation.

2) Practice Breathing Space three times a day, once in the morning, once in the afternoon, once in the evening. Pause, Breathe, Expand Awareness.

3) As often as possible, bring awareness to your thoughts as thoughts, not as truth or facts.

4) Complete the "Awareness of Pleasant Events" log for each day this week. Once a day, be aware of a pleasant event. There are 5 questions to answer each day:


- What was the experience?
- What emotions were you aware of during the event?
- What did your body feel during the experience?
- What moods and thoughts were present?
- What thoughts do you have now as you write this? (since you're supposed to write about it later on, after the actual event).

I haven't proofread this yet, this takes a long time to organize and write (especially tonight with lots of little topics), I still like doing it, but I'll have to come back and edit/fix all my typos tomorrow.

Also, I use Notepad++ to write this, and somehow I have the British version(or Canadian). I'm gonna have to figure that out. The spell check wants to replace "practicing" with "practising", and thinks I should add superfluous U's to many words like color. This leads to me doing no proofreading in Notepad++, at least until I can teach it to speak 'Murican.

I didn't do anything at all on Tuesday. First day I've just totally skipped. Whoops!

Week 3 Wednesday Homework

Walking/Sitting Meditation - This walking thing continues to feel really weird. Walking slowly/deliberately also feels mechanically strange. I mostly notice that when I do it today. I split my 15 minutes of time between them here. I also notice, not surprsingly, that its harder to guide myself back to my focus when I notice distractions/thoughts popping around.

Breathing Space - I do this twice today, I note that a lot of the "expanding" process (start to expand your focus away from your breath to notice your posture/any discomfort/expressions, etc) lead me directly to the most common thoughts I have coming and going during most of these practices already (noticing posture/physical discomfort).

Thoughts as Thoughts - I look for this kind of thing, very easy to spot.

Awareness of Pleasant Events - Weather was super nice today and it looks like winter is finally over here (fingers crossed), so I pulled out some shorts that I was wearing last summer. I was pleased to see that they barely fit me, a nice reminder of the progress I've made and some nice motivation to finish off my weight loss efforts, as I still have a little bit to go. One of the questions on this part that we're supposed to answer is "What did your body feel during the experience". I don't have an answer for that. Its not the type of thing I would usually notice. I will see if I can manage to pay special attention to that tomorrow.

Week 3 Thursday Homework

Walking Meditation - I went for a walk after I was done working for the day and decided to spend the first 15 minutes of it moving more slowly and seeing what it would feel like to try to be more aware outside. Not the painfully slow deliberation that we initially learned, but a more measured pace than what I would normally do. I found I was less distracted by my own discomfort (maybe because its less awkward to be moving a little faster, or maybe just because outside there's so much more stimuli so I'm less focused, unsure).

Normally, if I take a long walk without bringing my music along, I definitely get caught up with my own thoughts, only noticing enough around me to make sure I don't run over anyone or trip over the old and uneven sidewalks around here(and I'm still prone to do that on occasion anyway). Here I did find myself less caught up in my own head and a bit more aware of other stuff around me, even after I was done with the meditation part and picked up the pace to get my heart rating moving at least a little.

Breathing Space - I did this 3 times today like I'm supposed to. This task has 3 steps. 1 - take a good posture. 2 - focus on breathing. 3 - Expand awareness past breathing to the rest of your body and then the stuff around you. I find that I don't really "know" when to move from step 2 to 3. I'm just doing it, so its fine, but I wonder if I'm looking for a sense of calmness or whatever with the breathing before I move on. Maybe the fact that I'm thinking about this means its awkward. Dunno. Maybe something to mention in class.

Awareness of Pleasant Events - Yesterday my "pleasant event" was kind of a big one, but a lot of the examples of this kind of thing that we talked about in class were very small, the idea to be that its easy to remember tiny negative things but finding and remembering enough positive things to cancel out the negatives takes active effort. Today I focus on the weather while I'm taking my walk. There's a nice cool breeze and it feels really good after all these days over the past month where it was so cold (relatively for the south at least).

Body Scan - Optional this week, I did it tonight. I have to be at the dentist at 8am for my crown and maybe root canal. I figured doing this before bed might give me something else to focus on and maybe make it a little easier to fall asleep since I'm really not looking forward to the morning.

The "thoughts as thoughts" thing isn't really something that seems easy to write about, but I'm doing it.

The other thing I'm doing is revisiting mindful eating a little. The instructor on Monday talking about how frequently people's perceptions of what activities from class they like/dislike change over the course of the class got me curious. I'm not going all out with it, but I'm trying to pick spots to eat a little slower, to enjoy the things I like more, to not put myself in spots where I feel like I need to scarf down my meal so fast to get back to work. I eat bacon every day, I fucking love bacon, but a lot of times I just down it as quick as I can while I read my work e-mails and figure out what I'm going to be doing for the day. For now, I'm making an effort to enjoy it a little more.

Week 3 Friday Homework

Sitting Meditation - Did a full 15 minutes sitting today. That's the longest that I've done this at one time. About halfway in my back got a little sore and I relaxed my posture just a little, but still kept it pretty good. This felt pretty good today, I noticed the thoughts as always, but nothing came up that was hard to deal with or hard to "acknowledge and watch it go by". I got a song stuck in my head, that was odd in this kind of setting. I did come completely out of this process twice during the 15 minutes, once to check my clock when I noted that my posture needed adjusting, and once to look to see if I had fed my cat when he made some noise. Both times I got back to the breathing immediately.

Breathing Space - I did this three times today, including once at the dentist office this morning in the waiting room. I had a temporary crown put in today. I will say that I was very nervous while driving over but that doing this in the waiting room definitely calmed the anxiety about the appointment (or distracted me, whatever it was it helped).

Awareness of Pleasant Events - Today's pleasant event was a huge comeback victory in a League of Legends ranked game. I'm competitive as hell and this is my main hobby right now. 100% expected to lose this game for the first 30 minutes or so, a couple good teamfights turned it around, we won, everyone was shocked. I felt energized and excited, like most of us would experiencing a comeback win in any sort of competitive thing, sport/game/whatever. Whee.


I actually went to the dentist twice today. The temporary crown popped off the first time I tried to eat, even though I was trying to mainly eat on the other side of my mouth. It was 5:30, they were closing up shop for the weekend but I called them just in time, and live close enough to the office, that they were willing to wait for me to run up there. Whew. If I had called 5 minutes later and they'd been closed and I was trying to figure out what to do w/ my exposed tooth, imagine how differently I would have viewed everything that I did today.

Week 3 Saturday Homework

Walking Meditation - did this for the full 15 minutes today, inside. Easy to do for the full duration this time, though I continue to find myself more easily distracted during this than the sitting thing. Not being able to do it with your eyes closed makes it harder in that regard. A couple thoughts kept coming around and I was having a lot of trouble letting them go. That's not so unusual, but my reaction was. I noted that I was shaking my head at myself and getting actively frustrated that I was "doing it right" or whatever. That is the first time I've felt that kind of issue with the "acceptance" of thoughts pillar and the "patience" one in that manner.

Breathing Space - Did this three times today, I like it, even though it doesn't feel like a completely natural process. But the idea that I can do this a few times during the day and say "oh yeah, lets just slow everything down for a few minutes, then get back to it", feels pretty nice.

Awareness of Pleasant Events - I didn't actually do this today. That doesn't mean I can't remember anything pleasant during my day. I can remember many things. It was a fine day, really. But there was no time during the day where I noted a positive thing and chose to spend a little extra time focusing on it/experiencing it. That's an autopilot thing. Its harder to do in a moment than it sounds.

Week 3 Sunday Homework

Mindfulness Meditation - Did this for 15 minutes tonight. This is one of those nights where I have had one specific thing on my mind most of the day when I haven't been on autopilot or distracted, so its no suprise when my thoughts land on the same thing when I try to calm down and focus on my breathing for 15 minutes. I would say my ability to let my thoughts pass by is "mixed" tonight. Actually, maybe not, maybe its better than that. Its a set of thoughts that, if they occur outside of this meditation process, I'm going to sit on them hard and dwell a bit, or reach for a distraction. So of course in this practice I'm not going to be able to just easily let them go. But I did, each time they came up, let them go after a moment or two. So fuck it, maybe I should be proud of that instead of saying "well that's not ideal".

Breathing Space - Did this 4 or 5 times today, I spent a lot of the day gaming and chatting with friends over voice chat, and frequently between games I would get up and walk around for a couple minutes, then do this when I sat back down.

Awareness of Pleasant Events - Much like my week 1 "routine event", I took some extra time to notice my enjoyment of giving my cat attention.

Week 3 Review

-- We got another survey to do this week, much of it is the same as it was after week 1, do a body scan or breathing practice of some sort for at least 15 minutes, then take the survey. The questions were mostly about my judgement of how I viewed my experiences during the practice. Could I separate myself from my thoughts, was I curious about what my experience would be, was I curious about what I would learn about myself doing the activity, was I able to let thoughts go by without judging positive or negatively, etc. Following that were questions about how I treat myself and view failure. Am I hard on myself when I fail, etc. I think my answers about the practice/experience itself were stronger/more affirming as I've gotten more used to doing things. My answers about how I view my failures felt unchanged. I'm damn hard on myself if I view the results of what I'm doing as not perfect, nothing from this class has changed that.


Walking Meditation - So I did this a number of times during the week, and it always felt like a strange thing to do. Much more "difficult" than the other things we've done, distractions when you're moving and your eyes are open are much easier to latch on to.

Breathing Space - I like this process, I like the idea of, a few times a day, just taking a short break to reset things. The "steps" to this still feel very mechanical, but overall I like it.

Awareness of Pleasant Events - This has been a good lesson on autopilot, and how very easy it is to lock in on even tiny negative feelings and forget positive feelings. I haven't had any "bad days" this week, even the day I had that big dental work was ok enough, but man over the course of the week its so much easier to remember little nagging things than to remember all the little moments that were just fine, or where something enjoyable was happening.

Thoughts as Thoughts - I stopped writing about this, to recap its the act or recognizing that many of our thoughts and judgements are not actual facts, that we frequently think about things where we're filling in holes, wondering what someone else thinks, for example. We still haven't really been told what to do with this knowledge, but its really obvious when its there.


Looking back on things from past weeks, I continued to implement mindful eating at least in small ways during the week. For foods that I really like, my bacon and eggs, the trips to Chipotle when I'm out in Raleigh (the stuff we made at home this week was pretty boring so examples are limited for the week), I am making an active effort to enjoy those foods more instead of just wolfing everything down so I can get on with my day.

I also did the body scan a few times this week even though it was optional. Hooray.


One thing I will point out, and hope we talk about in class even if I have to be the one to bring it up, is that the new things from this week, the walking meditation and the breathing space exercise, felt much more like very mechanical processes where I might wonder if I'm "doing it right" or if I'm just vaguely going through a motion that sort of looks like what the instructors are suggesting we do. With the practices from earlier weeks its much more clear.

On to week 4 tomorrow night after work!

Late night tonight, and the class writeups take awhile, I will work on it tomorrow when I'm looking for distractions :)

Monday, March 16 - Week 4 Class

Walking Meditation

So there was an old dude in a wheelchair there when we got there. Our class is basically in the waiting room of a physical therapy/rehab center that closes a little before we start. The instructor is chatting with him before class starts. Dude is 73 and in a wheelchair, his kid coming to pick him up is stuck in traffic. So class starts and instructor tells us that we're going to begin by practicing our walking meditation that we learned from last week. So we all get up and find spots around where we can spread out.

So let me see if I can adequately describe this scene. There are about 20 of us, spread out throughout the giant waiting area of this place. The goal of walking meditation is to walk extremely slowly, "as slow as possible while still able to maintain balance", to allow ourselves to become aware (be mindful) of everything that happens while we are walking, the shifting of weight, the way it feels as we take each step, the feeling of our balance, anything we may notice about the basic process of walking. So we all start doing this, and all of a sudden there are 20 seemingly regular people creeping across the room back and forth while an unbelievably confused 70 year old wheelchair bound dude watches. I have NO IDEA what he must have been thinking.

I'm kind of embarrassed during this. Also, a lot embarrassed. Walking meditation feels silly when I do it by myself in my house. It feels silly to describe to whoever is here reading this. I'm barely comfortable doing this with a group of people who have paid for this and have bought into everything we're doing. Once I start doing it along w/ everyone else the embarrassment mostly goes away, but I find the situation entirely hilarious. I really want to see what he's watching/doing during this, but I also really don't' want to make eye contact with him because the feeling of embarrassment will come back.

So we do this for awhile. I remain almost entirely distracted, but do "accomplish" some things during this. The new tips given by the instructor help. I'm not sure if he explained it differently than the lady last week, but I feel like I have a little better understanding of it here. I am more aware of my pace and my balance. I'm more aware of what steps hurt my knee and what steps don't... not in a "focusing on pain" way, but in a "paying attention to my mechanics" way.

Eventually we all go sit back down. The discussion after didn't happen until a bit later but I'll include it here:

-- The instructor better explains the point of what we're doing. Unlike the chick last week, he actually shows us an example of how to do this. He walks across the room at a normal pace and explains that the body is naturally making a good number of movements and adjustments and its impossible to be aware of it all. So we learn at a snail's pace, trying to notice everything that's happening while going as slowly as possible. He takes a couple steps at a very slow pace, saying out loud everything he notices, "I take my first step with my right food, I notice my balance shifting, I notice which part of my foot hits the ground, I notice the length of my stride, I'm a tall guy, is it a short stride or a long one?" etc.

Like other things we're learning (Breathing Space) its mentioned that we're beginners, and must go slowly, but with practice, we could become capable of being truly mindful of the process of walking at a more normal (aka less silly to me) pace.

Lastly, back to the sciency stuff that I do like, the instructor mentions that the act of simply slowing down in this manner is one way to engage the parasympathetic nervous system to help lessen the impact of all of the little stress responses that most everyone experiences all the time.


Now, I still don't really "get it" entirely. There is a mind-body connection being made, and a general focus on body awareness, which is something I struggle with (more on this later), which may be why I don't like this. But I still think I mainly don't like it because I feel silly. But anyway, the point being that this description from this instructor helps give me a focus on what I maybe could be looking for when I do this in the future.

-- Also, while I will happily say that I don't like this practice, and find it silly, I also recognize that - like with mindful eating - the fact that I don't like this one very probably means I could benefit more from sticking with it. I don't like it in part because I don't take well to it, because the focus is on body awareness, which is something that frustrates me, which means I could practice this more to see if this is a skill I can develop.

Poem

Today's poem is Enough by David Whyte.


Discussion of last week's class/Questions

The instructor asks us what we did last week, everyone got shy all of a sudden and he had to prod a little to get answers. We talked about everything from last week and he expanded on some topics in interesting ways:

Thoughts as Thoughts - We talk about the initial example of this topic... we are walking down the street and see someone we know. We smile and wave at them, they do not acknowledge us and walk by. What is your response to this? Many people had emotional responses to this, deciding what we thought the other person was thinking or what they felt about us to allow them to ignore us in this way.

The instructor explains that this is a natural function of the brain. We can't stop it from happening. We have incomplete information all the time, in all kinds of situations, and we fill in things as best we can. He describes it as the brain "telling a story, often unconsciously" and that a point of discussing it and thinking about it as a part of mindfulness is that, by simply being aware that this is something that happens, we give ourselves the option to recognize that the unconscious story that we tell to fill in incomplete information doesn't necessarily have to be what's actually happening, and that we can be open to other options.


Breathing Space - We go over this again as well, and there are some questions, so the instructor explains this. This is a concept I feel like I got pretty well, but I'm always happy to have a second explanation of a topic since its possible for other details/suggestions to come up. The instructor walks through the process verbally, and I find it useful:

Step 1: Pause - What's happening around me? What am I feeling right now? Lets pause, recognize what's going on, and take a good posture (example in class as the sun was setting: "the sun is really in my eyes right now, that's pretty annoying. I look to my right and I can't see any of you, only shadows")

Step 2: Breathing - Draw your attention to your breath. We all know how to do this by now. One mention that's slightly new and maybe interesting: "Wherever you feel your breath. Are you breathing into your diaphragm and feeling it there? Your chest? Do you notice your nostrils instead? Whatever you notice most when breathing" That 3rd one never occurred to me. Doesn't really matter, but I like hearing these kinds of things for some reason.

Step 3: Expand - This is where many of the questions came from. Instructor: "I start from wherever I notice my breath, and move outward. I notice my chest, now I feel my shoulders, I notice my face is relaxed and comfortable, I notice that my knee is hurting a little, I notice the people sitting closest to me, now I notice those a little further away, now I'm back, and interacting with the world again"

Its discussed that, like many other things we're learning in recent weeks, this begins as a slow process (he said 30s to 2 minutes), but with a great deal of practice becomes one that takes seconds.

A question is asked about using this to "fix" problems, I can't remember the exact question or phrasing, something about the idea of using it to remove a moment of frustration. Like with many things here, the instructor mentions that there isn't necessarily a specific goal in that manner, but that with practice that kind of thing may happen. He offers a suggestion to "note what you're feeling when you pause (step 1). After relaxing, breathing, then opening back up to things, you may begin to notice that your view of your problem/situation/frustration has changed." There's an abstract quality to these kinds of answers, no guarantee of anything, but the overreaching idea that, with practice, you'll start to find that there's all kinds of things you can do with these practices.

I might have been uncomfortable with that kind of answer a month ago. Here I find myself nodding. Very possibly because this Breathing Space practice is one I took to quickly. I like doing it. It feels like a momentary break, and that feels good. It also feels like a direct extension/comparison to concepts I've learned in physical therapy, so it feels like its reinforcing other good habits. Maybe if I didn't feel that way I'd think differently about these abstract types of answers.


Awareness of Pleasant Events - We review this as well. Lots of comments about how this was harder to do than expected. One comment that resonated the most with me was the idea that it was easy to reflect on a pleasant moment soon after it was over, but harder to recognize "in the moment" and to think about it that way. One of the guys who seems really experienced with this stuff already talks about noticing birds/trees, very simple pleasant things, when stuck in traffic on I-40.

-- We talk a little more vague science. The idea that evolution has led to a heavier focus on negative events. A negative event might harm you, or kill you. A positive event isn't going to bring you nirvana, it doesn't require the focus of the unconscious brain, its not a threat. A study is mentioned (not by name or any sort of lookup reference) that to have the best mental health possible, your positive experiences should outweigh your negative ones. So your brain points out, finds, and focuses on unpleasant things whether you want it to or not, doesn't really care about pleasant things, so you're really at a deficit if you're trying to find and notice more good things than bad in your life. Interesting'ish.

-- Another concept here is the concept of being able to notice two things at once. Your knee hurts, but only a little, is it going to be a nagging pain that you allow to drag you down completely? Or can you acknowledge that you've got some pain, but also at the same time find something good that's going on. You aren't shoving the pain away or ignoring it. You're just trying to balance it out with a positive to stay neutral. He specifically talks about knee pain here, usually its back, where I don't really have an issue (which, as a side note, I find it interesting to even type that. My upper back is sore all the time. But I know why, its from my posture work, so its not even a problem to me. My knee does hurt more than my upper back, but what matters is that I don't know why, and don't know what to do to fix it. So I notice it WAY MORE.)

Yoga/Stretching

Just like calling mindfulness meditation "Sitting Practice", the instructor introduces us to yoga with the phrase "Gentle Stretching". He asks how many of us have done yoga before. I believe only 2 of the ~20 of us didn't raise a hand. I have literally no experience with yoga other than a curiosity about it, so I'm not quite sure how to describe what we did or compare it to anything.

We went through some stretches and a few poses over what was probably a 25-30 minute process. A few key things were mentioned at the start:

1) Always be aware of your breathing, specifically, that you aren't holding your breath.
2) GENTLE stretching. Some of these things will over time improve strength and flexibility if you do it regularly, but the goal is not to push yourself.
3) Try to keep a constant awareness on how your body feels. What areas are tense?
4) Move slowly. Maintain an awareness of all your movement.

It wasn't discussed until later, but there is also a point that seems incredibly critical to me that is raised at some point during this:


PROGRESS

So lets take this time during the Yoga explanation to talk about one of the things that I think I'm starting to see a change in.

Why integrate some yoga into mindfulness practice?

1) There are some people who have nearly completely disconnected from their bodies, who have no awareness of what their bodies are feeling at any given time. This is one of the best ways to begin to try to develop this awareness. It can sort of act as biofeedback for body awareness.


So this is a huge deal for me. I've mentioned before the idea that I feel at least somewhat physically uncomfortable at nearly all times. I've also mentioned having a very hard time describing how I feel physically outside of "noticing symptoms". The example that is easiest to explain comes from physical therapy, I've stated this before but I write a lot, its worth saying again. My therapist has me do a couple tests for stability/flexibility. She then works on me in some fashion for most of an hour. She then has me re-do the tests for stability/flexibility. She will ask me "how do you feel? Do you feel any different?" I can't answer. Later on in PT we worked on this, and she helped me a lot.

So anyway, these mentions both with walking meditation, and with Yoga (and with the initial body scan) of body awareness seem important to me.

And it DOES seem like something that is improving, in some small ways. Its taken Physical Therapy, Massage Therapy, and Mindfulness, all three, but I am seeing a change. PT helped me identify all kinds of problems that I had, and has gotten me on the road to fixing them. Regular Deep Tissue Massages (also "prescribed" by PT) have helped loosen things up, but I've also found that I can use the massages to help me recognize things. When I go in for a massage on my back, the guy can tell me what areas are tighter than others. I cannot yet feel this, but no surprise, its always the same muscles. So even though I can't tell what's tight, and what's not, I can use that feedback to start to try to look for times to relax those areas. I've been able to notice times when my shoulders naturally tighten up that I've never noticed before. Not enough to learn how to carry a more naturally relaxed posture, but, its a start. This Yoga practice feels like another step to that process, with an active focus to look for tension, to find times to relax, to steady breathing.


Back to Yoga

We start with some stretches, if they are "poses" I don't know what they're called:

-- lie on back, press small of back into the ground, relax, repeat a few times.
-- pull one knee up to the chest, hold it, then the other, then both. If able to, raise the head while holding the knees up.
-- pull one knee up, this time extend the leg straight up into the air. Then do the other leg, then both.
-- lie on side comfortably (using hands to prop up head/balance). Pull leg up to chest, then push it back down so that its straight. Stretch foot out while doing this. Lie on other side/do same with other leg.

-- Now some actual poses that have names. Table (on all fours), alternate cat/cow poses.
-- Sit up on heels, into child's pose.
-- Lie on stomach, cobra pose (tense legs/glutes, lift head/upper body up)
-- Work towards boat pose (start lying on back, raise legs, raise upper body, balancing on hips). This one is a killer for my core.


Most things felt easy/"gentle". The final movement is great for my core and not gentle at all even in a very basic attempt. Also when I pull my left knee up to my chest and then try to stretch my leg straight up, I can't do it, my knee feels an immense amount of pressure at about the halfway point of that extension. If I use my other leg to help push just a little though its fine.

So that's my introduction to yoga. I have other stretching routines I've worked on at times, and a specific stretching routine from physical therapy that I asked them to help me with. I'm clearly interested in (and have been, slowly) improving my flexibility. Point being, this will clearly be something I like doing as well.

Homework

-- Alternate Mindful Walking and Mindfulness Meditation for at least 15 minutes a day, body scan optional.

-- Breathing Space - Do this 3 times a day.

-- Mindful Yoga - Include into your routine, either by doing the full routine from class or doing some stretches before/after other meditation practices. Some open endedness here depending on time constraints.

-- Unpleasant Events - Hooray. Last week we attempted to take time out of our day to notice pleasant events. Today we will do the same with unpleasant events.


Day of Mindfulness

This comes up again. Its happening on March 28th, that's only two weekends away. Thank god its not happening this weekend. 6 hours w/ this class and the one that meets Tuesday night, where we will practice all of the different things we've learned here, and a few things we haven't learned yet. My response to this coming up is mostly abject terror.



-- There is a lot of additional reading for this week in the binder/PDF that we received. I haven't read it all yet, I may comment more/clarify things once I do. Most week's I find that the extra reading does help clarify ideas in some way.

Week 4 Tuesday Homework

Mindfulness Meditation - I've got a stressful thing stuck in my head, and I know its not going anywhere during this. But I'm able to sit for 15 minutes, allowing the thoughts about my stress to come, and for the most part am ok with it. The physical response to the stress stays (this is a serious, legit stress, not some worry about a task at work or some shit, but a heart rate up/chest feeling tight stress), but I find that allowing myself to go for just a little while without allowing my thoughts to race from one thing to another with tons of judgement is calming. I'm not stress free after 15 minutes, but I found that I got 15 minutes of calm where I otherwise wouldn't have. This feels like progress.


Breathing Space - Did this 3 times today.


Mindful Yoga - I did the full routine as we learned in class, in place of where I would have normally done my stretches that PT is having me do, I clocked it and took 17 minutes. I think it could probably take a bit longer if I'm really taking my time with some of the movements, but after the fact I'm pleased to see that I didn't rush through everything as quick as possible.

Unpleasant Event - Yeah this is gonna be way easier than finding pleasant events. Damn you brain.

Week 4 Wednesday

Ending Physical Therapy

I've mentioned physical therapy so much in this thread, and in other threads on FOFC (Weight loss/strava mostly) that it seems worth a mention.

As of yesterday I am done with my pelvic floor physical therapy. I went for about 5 months. It was the best experience I've had with anything involving medicine in my life. The improvements I've made in the last 5 months feel like they are just as important to my quality of life as the 110 pounds I've lost from my heighest weight. And there is still more improvement to come, we've just reached a point where I no longer need regular check-ins at PT to continue to make them.

Before PT, i was taking 3 meds from urologist, now I'm off of two of them and on a half dose of the 3rd, with an eye to get fully off it very soon, with zero increase in symptoms. I honestly thought I had IBS, or some kind of serious digestive issue. I did not. Without getting too TMI, my "bathroom trips" are now 100% normal almost all of the time. I was having a pain during... "sexual activity" ... that is the worst pain i've ever felt in my life, an absolute 10 on a scale of 1-10, it happened every tme without fail. Its now a 4, sometimes a 1 or a 2. Outside of recognizing pain I had almost no awareness of anything happening in my body. With the help of the therapist that was working with my foot problem and some general flexibility (because everything is connected), I'm starting to develop that for the first time in my life. I can maintain near perfect posture for these meditation exercises for 15 minutes comfortably. I didn't even know I cared about that, now I find it amazing.

Most importantly, before PT I saw myself going to my urologist for slowly escalating problems every few months, without a diagnosis, with no hope at all of "curing" anything, just praying that there is a medicine to make this suck less. I would think to myself "will this ever stop? What happens if 10 years from now this is still escalting regularly like this? Will I want to continue to live at that point?"

Now, all of those fears are gone, I have the full belief that all of my issues are fixable, or at least realistically managable. I feel like a completely different person than I did 5 months ago, and these kinds of sweeping changes were not my goal when i started this, but that's what it became.


Full disclosure: I shared this link with both of my physical therapists and both are reading. At my visit yesterday I only said good bye to one of them, and I did share with her this appreciation for everything they've done for me. But I didn't say good bye to the other face to face, and I'm hoping she is paying close attention to this section when she gets here ;)



Homework

Mindfulness Meditation - I need to do the walking thing some, but decided to make it two days in a row of the sitting meditation. I only did this for 10 minutes. The above section on ending PT should make it clear that i was definitely having some strong feelings yesterday. There were some other things I chose not to write about that added to it quite a bit. So this practice today brought about a lot of extremely strong emotional responses as I let go of my distractions. I let them come, but 10 minutes of it was enough for today.

Breathing Space - Did this 3 times, including once in the waiting room before my appointment. I am, to this point, not noticing my experience with this "changing" in a way worth noting. So I'll point out that I still enjoy this more than any other practice we've done, it gives me something productive to do when I'm killing time in a waiting room, it gives me something to do to "take a break" if I've been at the computer working or gaming too long, its a really nice brief reset almost every time.

Mindful Yoga - Did this again in full, about an hour before going to the gym.



So I still have this knee thing. I'm seeing an orthopedist today. Its very possible that I'll be out of one physical therapy process and into another nearly immediately. But the problems and work invovled in the pelvic floor physical therapy were very deep, intense, long term problems in my life. This knee thing hasn't been around that long and I'm 100% convinced its going to be something we're going to fix. Don't expect this kind of crazed emotional response to whatever is next :D

And by nearly immediately I mean absoultely immediately. Ortho says mild arthritis in my left knee but that all the weight I've lost will do wonders for keeping it "mild". The other diagnosis is quad tendonitis. I got a couple names of recommended Ortho PT specialists from my pelvic floor therapist yesterday, called one of them, and I start PT for my knee tomorrow. So off we go.


Week 4 Thursday Homework

Sitting Meditation - Did this, basically, in the ortho waiting room. My wait was over a half hour, and I spent most of my time sitting in my fully upright posture focusing on my breathing no matter what was going on around me. Distractions pulled me completely out of it a couple times, but I would reset myself and get back to it. In these situations in a public place, I find that conversations around me mostly just come and go the same way thoughts do. This is actually nice. I'm the guy that locks on to conversations around me whether I want to or not at times, especially when bored. So its actually cool to notice the difference when I'm doing this. The times in public areas where I've found this impossible has been with loud TV's or loud music. The people, I can ignore them just fine for a little while.


Breathing Space - Did this 3 times today.

Awareness of pleasant thoughts - That's right, fuck the police. Homework says unpleasant, but today we're doing pleasant! I went to see Sarah McLachlan in concert tonight. She does a thing where she brings some people on stage for a couple songs. A 7 year old kid and her mom end up talking to her on stage, its the 7 year old's first concert (Sarah: "Well thank you so much for picking me and not Taylor Swift" A+). A minute later, the kid asks "Will you play Blackbird?" She says she's not sure she knows it, guitarist and her literally fumble over it for a minute finding the right key, pretty sure she got some of the words wrong, but how can you say no in that situation I guess :) So ya, watching that all unfold is pretty much pure, unadulterated sweetness. A very easy moment to "savor" and bring mindful awareness too.

Week 4 Friday Homework

Walking Meditation - I need to be doing this one more often, but earlier in the week simply didn't feel like I'd accomplish anything. I was *extremely* distracted by some things and felt that I'd get more out of the thing I'm "good" at. Decided to do this weird walking thing today. I attempted to focus mainly on my feet, on walking mechanics, with a bit more of an "aim" towards body awareness than I might have had before. I noticed that when walking slowly and going for good posture I have a tendency to just tense up my entire upper body (tighten all the things to hold that good posture). That's not good, relax more. Was I doing that before, do I do that normally? Hm. Maybe something to look for.

I continue to note that it is *extremely* hard to not become massively distracted during this practice. I'm trying to focus on mechanical things throughout my body, and that brings more things into my awareness, which makes it easier for all kinds of things to creep in, as opposed to the singularity of "focus on your breath", etc. Still feels weird, and feels weird to write about, but eh.

Breathing Space - Only did this twice today.


Mindful Stretching - I did the yoga/stretching stuff in full again today, though I must say there was nothing "mindful" about it. I went through the process and motions for all of the stretches, but my mind was off in daydream land thinking about something, and at the time I really had no desire to stop that from happening at the time.

Awareness of unpleasant thoughts - Back on task after yesterday's switch to the other side of things. I'm not writing about these things because I tend to notice "bigger" things that I just do not want to share.

One thing I have noticed that is worth mentioning is that even noticing "unpleasant" things is harder than I thought it would be. I mean, its easy to stop after the fact and say "oh, that thing sucked a little." But there is an intent of (to quote the instructor) "bringing intentional and focused awareness" to an event, even a very small one, and to note your experience with it. Doing that, in real time, instead of "cheating" and writing down something after the fact, is actually difficult. A lesson in auto-pilot I guess.

Additionally, and I don't know if this goes back to the topic of body awareness that I have been writing about an awful lot lately, but I notice with both happy and unhappy events, it is very, very difficult for me to take note of how the thing effects me physically, which is one of the things we are tasked with doing for this thing. Unless I am elated, or deeply sad so that there is a strong physical response, I find this quite difficult.


Not complaining, mind you, at this point I am completely bought in to even the super weird tasks and things going on here. When I describe something as difficult I am thinking that there is probably something I can learn there, and that maybe I can try to look at a thing, event, feeling, whatever, in a different way.

Another "step back a bit and notice a thing" comment here: I haven't gone back to re-read a lot of this in a couple weeks, but I notice myself describing tasks, practices, thoughts a little differently. Maybe I'd even say its that darn "beginners mind" pillar that I have been so stuck with. I'm not all-in on that thing yet, but I find myself being open and curious about what I might get out of different practices.

There's a subtle difference in day to day things here and there too. Definitely not "implementing" mindfulness in the exact ways that the instructor describes things happening for very experienced people, but maybe using some of the things we've talked about to find a different viewpoint on what's going on in my head, to be a little less hard on myself.

Hard to describe exactly, and I will look to pull some examples here and there to write about. For now I can say I can see something happening slowly here, and it is definitely interesting and seems positive.

Week 4 Saturday Homework

Mindfulness Meditation - I only did this for 5 minutes today. I put off everything til the end of the day instead of making breaks for myselt throughout the day to do things. i was rushed and was struggling with some of the thoughts that seemed to want to settle in today. Decided I'm not really up for this. I am going to try to do the body scan w/ the CD in an effort to slow my mind down before bed.

Breathing Space - 3x. No new comments really.

Mindful Yoga/Stretching - I did a little of this, but not the full routine.

Awareness of Unpleasant Event - Yup. I continue to mostly not want to discuss these.


The fact that there is not much to write about today is the takeaway really. Some poor time management pushed these things off into the background. We shall try again tomorrow :)

Week 4 Sunday Homework

A little better time management today, I actually did the things.

Mindfulness Meditation - I did save this until the very end of the day, but I did so intentionally, wanting to do it, take the survey, write this up, and prepare for bed. 15 minutes was no problem today, I'll note that again I chose the "sitting" meditation instead of the walking thing. I need to work on that more frequently but I feel like this isn't a good time to do so. My mind was moving pretty quickly tonight, there was really no "slowing down" during this process, but I did find I was able to just allow things to come without being too judgemental or without reacting too much, it just happened that thoughts were rolling through non stop :) I got a song stuck in my head at one point, that's a lot harder to "observe" and allow it through and to bring my focus back to my breathing than most things I find.

Breathing Space - Only 2x today.

Mindful Yoga - I did this in the morning, but again today I did it really just as a stretching process, I wanted to loosen up just a little before I did the stuff my new orthopedic PT gave me on Friday.

Awareness of Unpleasant Event - Repeat of past days. Doing this, noting it, not writing about it here.

I took the research survey after meditating tonight, but the questions appear to be the exact same every week. I don't think there's a lot to talk about here. It may be more relevant to wait until the very end and compare the final stuff to answers I gave at the very beginning, instead of trying to look for tiny changes from week to week.

Week 4 Review

Mindful Yoga - I like this. As I mentioned when I talked about the class, I am interested in improving my flexibility, and have messed around with lots of different stretching routines (though I've never really stuck with anything) over the last year. I'm also curious about yoga. Early in the week I was doing this more "completely", with an actual mindful focus, trying to pay attention to how I was feeling during each movement, etc. Later in the week I found myself using it just to stretch.

Awareness of Unpleasant Events - This was the only other "new" thing this week I will say that bringing active focus and awareness to something unpleasant is easier than it is for pleasant things, but not by as much as I would have expected. By this, I'm talking about "in the moment" awareness... as something is happening that feels unpleasant (or pleasant going back to last week), trying to allow myself to focus on the experience a bit more at the time the thing is happening. Its very easy to think about something after its happened and to reflect and decide "what was I feeling when that thing happened" and to write it down, but stopping/slowing down to observe while something happens is a lot different.

I'll also say that I found it easier to do with very unpleasant things. I hesitate to say that there's a "goal" of any practice, most of the time we are told to just try to do the thing and see where it leads, but I feel like a goal here is to, over time at least, train yourself to be able to be mindful of smaller things throughout the day. I found that very difficult to do, but larger events are easier to focus on and write about. But I'm not sure that's really the point. I dunno, I assume this will come up in class tomorrow.


Looking at other practices that aren't new:

Mindfulness Meditation - aka sitting practice or whatever. This varies heavily from time to time, which makes me like it. I find I can't predict what's going to happen either. If I'm feeling kind of crappy/stuck on some negative things when I do this, sometimes I find this practice to be very relaxing and calming. Other times I feel like all I'm doing is removing all distractions to bring an INTENSE focus to whatever negative thing I have going on. When I'm feeling neutral or in a good mood, sometimes this practice is very nice and I find the typical "mind racing" feeling I am used to slows down noticibly and its very cool to have a different experience. Other times, I find that I'm impatient, because hey, I'm in a good mood right now, who wants to waste time doing this thing, lets get back to whatever thing it is that has me in a good mood ASAP!


Walking Meditation - My honest intention is to do this more. I have a strong curiousity about the concept of "body awareness" and feel like I'm learning some things about myself here. Its not something that will come quick and something that will require actual practice. But I am slowly seeing some things change. Because this isn't easy though, if I'm in a crappy mood, I want to fall back on the easier thing. That was the case many days this week.

Breathing Space - This chugged along this week, it remains a neat thing to do for a "break" during the day, a small reset. But I cannot say I noticed any change or anything really worth noting whenever I did it this week.

Mindful Eating - I didn't do any of this this week. I think I need a root canal on that tooth that currently has the temporary crown, I will probably find out tomorrow. I don't want to bring extra awareness to things that may remind me of this right now :P

Body Scan - I didn't do this at all this week. I mentioned Saturday that I wanted to, but it didn't happen. Most days this is simply a factor of time. I like the yoga, so I was doing the full thing each day which takes about 20 minutes. I was spending 15 minutes in some sort of meditation. The breathing space takes a few minutes each time. So I would frequently decide "I've done enough today, not gonna worry about that." That is unlikely to change, so what I should probably do instead is try to mix it up more often and not stick so much to the things that I like the most. I think I've noted it before, but the things I like the most are in many cases the "easier" things for me, while the things I don't like may very well benefit me more if I would just do them, I probably don't like them because they are a challenge for me and they hit on some area where I could use improvement.



There was a fair bit of reading this week that I should probably write about at some point, but not tonight. Maybe when I do the reading for next week's class I'll try to write about the things from Week 4 and Week 5 both.

I thought I was going to finish writing up tonight's class before bed, nope, too tired :) Tomorrow!

Monday, March 23 - Week 5 Class

Mindfulness Meditation - Added Breathing Exercises

We start the class with "sitting practice". The instructor leads it and walks us through a number of techniques we can use to stay more alert and more focused that we may want to experiment with. Titled "Following Your Breath", we also get a handout listing each one:

Simple Breathing - This is what we already know how to do. Just rest on your breathing, not necessarily doing anything special with it, just focus on your breathing, and when you find yourself distracted, acknowledge your thoughts and center back on your breath.

Noticing Each Breath - Make a small mental note of each breath, by gently noting "in...out...in...out" on each inhale/exhale.

Counting Breaths to Ten - Count each breath from 1 to 10 (inhale/exhale is one, not two). When you find your mind wandering, start over at one. Notice if you judge yourself for not counting to 10 every time. The point is not counting but maintaining focus on your breathing.

Counting Breaths Backwards - Count backwards from 50 to 1. **Super Detail-Oriented Anal-Retentive me notices that the instructor in class said to count each in/out breath as one, the handout says to count in as 50, out as 49, etc, etc. WHICH IS IT, HUH?!** Obviously, it doesn't matter at all. :D

Breathing With a Mantra - We didn't try this one in class, for obvious reasons. Select a simple one or two syllable sound which means nothing to you. Begin by softly saying this sound with every exhale, over a period of time soften your voice until you're saying it internally only.

Controlled Relaxation Breathing - Breathe in long and slow through your nose, exhale through slightly pursed lips as if you were gently blowing out a candle. This may be done at any time and especially when you feel stress.


My thoughts: Mantras are a bit beyond what I'm comfortable with at this point, even with all of the unusual things I've done here so far. The counting is interesting, but knowing me I do really make that into a game to see how many times I can get to 10 without having to start over and start to debate with myself "oh was that a thought, do I have to restart, shit". I'll try those anyway. The simple noting of "in/out" along with the breath sounds real appealing, adding a slight extra focus to breathing seems like it would make it easier to stay there and to come back there when the mind wanders.

The "Controlled relaxation breathing", if done via diaphragmatic breathing, is one of the very first things I was taught to do in physical therapy back in November. Relaxes the central nervous system, engages the parasympathetic nervous system. Because I have been doing that since November, I tend towards it naturally by now anyway. If my back is sore, my posture doesn't feel as good, and I find myself taking shallower breaths into my diaphragm and that's awkward and I do something different. But by default, that's what I already do during these focused practices.

Anyway, we practiced all of these things in class, and I will try them all multiple times, with the possible exception of the mantra. Honestly, I know it says to pick a sound that means nothing, but who here wouldn't be tempted to pick "Ho-Dor" or "You-Guys" in cartman's voice or something like that.

Poem

Today's poem is Autobiography in Five Short Chapters, by Portia Nelson. I haven't commented on a poem in a long time, its extremely rare that its a form of art/expression that I relate to in any way at all, but I like this one.

Small Group Discussion

The instructor notes that we are now over halfway through Mindfulness class. He asks us to break down into groups of 4 or 5 with whoever is close by and talk about what we've learned so far, how we've found practicing, anything really. I'm uncomfortable in big groups. I'm capable of being more comfortable in a smaller group. One of the guys in this group is the guy I probably would relate to the most in the class, another of the younger guys here, in IT, when he talks about the stuff he's done it sounds like it comes from a similar mindset as mine, so I'm definitely comfortable here.

This gets into the idea of anonymity though, and exactly how far I want to take that. I'm pretty sure I could talk about anything that was said here just fine, none of it felt deeply personal or anything, but that rule of "it would allow that person to identify themselves if they stumbled upon this blog somehow" is one I should probably stick with very carefully. I'd feel weird if I happened upon someone else doing the same thing and they quoted me in a way that made it clear it was me.

So instead, I'll say that I enjoyed talking in this small group. People had similar thoughts about what's been going on. Some people had taken this class before, and the idea that you *really* do have to practice these things is key. It seems like it would be easy to just leave all this behind me as an interesting 8 week experiment when its done. I don't want to do that though. Finding the time to do things was common. We talked about when we liked to do various practices, which ones were comfortable and which ones weren't. I spoke up a good bit in this smaller setting, though everything I said really just mirrors things I've mentioned in "review" type posts here. I mentioned that I usually do the sitting meditation at night, with mixed results (sometimes its relaxing, sometimes not), that I like it way better than walking or body scan. That body awareness is a problem for me. I asked a couple questions to the people who has taken the class before about long term changes they saw.

Everyone mentioned noticing small ways in which we are beginning to consider things differently as a result of this class. For myself, I think I've mentioned it elsewhere, but I forget. I mentioned that I notice myself thinking about things slightly differently... still with an overly-analytical view, but that part of my analysis is frequently shaped by concepts we learn here. I'm less harsh on myself when things aren't perfect, if I'm not happy with something I'm doing I find myself attempting to gently shift myself away from it (like catching myself doing a nervous tic type behavior), instead of an internal monologue of "What the fuck, just STOP DOING THAT".

Mostly, I notice myself being more okay with whatever is happening that I'm analyzing. I'm not really "experiencing my life in the present moment" in a different way. But I will analyze something and say "that's just what my experience was today, its ok", or I'll at least give myself the option to think that instead of to overthink everything into the ground. Its a small difference, and everyone else in the group talked about similar small differences in their own lives, that seem like they could build into something more meaningful if we stick with this stuff.


Discussion of Last Week's Practice

Unpleasant Events

So I didn't write a ton about this last week because it was uncomfortable. We get homework sheets essentially to write a sentence or two about our experiences, and we turn them in and our instructor makes a couple notes on them and gives them back the next week. I noted that it was easier to bring awareness to "bigger" unpleasant thoughts. I decided not to turn in the stuff I wrote about this, just as I chose not to write about any of it in detail here.

Why mention that? Because when we started talking about this as a group the first 3 or 4 people who spoke up said "I really couldn't find anything unpleasant to focus on most days." Huh. Really? I had a pretty strong reaction to this, internally. Fuck that. Fuck them and their lives without a single unpleasant thing over a 7 day period. They're probably just repressing all their shit anyway.

One person mentions noticing physical reactions to unpleasant things, noticing a specific place where she feels tense and feels stress. She asks if she can use this awareness to stop the negative thing. The instructor mentions that is a much more difficult thing to do. That in the beginning (and this is a "beginner" class, there are other things taught that you can take after this one), we are taught to just become more aware of these things, that awareness and working towards accepting things when possible... not liking, but acknowledging, is frequently enough to lower the stress responses we've learned about, and to prevent stress from getting worse by fighting against things out of our control, or going in circles over things in your head, etc. Additionally, if you are striving to "stop" an unpleasant thought, that just adds an extra layer of stress on top when you "fail".

Neutral Events

The instructor mentions that for most people most things that happen are simply neutral, neither positive nor negative, and that's fine. We're not going to be asked to observe a ton of neutral things as a specific homework assignment. He does mention a tendency for neutral things to occasionally feel like boring things, turning them into negatives, just something to be aware of.

Resistance & The Pain Cycle

We talk about the concept of resistance in a general sense, applying it both to emotional and physical discomfort/pain. When we are hurt, it is natural for our bodies to tense up around the pain (literally around physical pain like back pain causing the muscles in the back to tighten up and stay that way, to try to protect the back, or in areas of your body... jaw, chest, stomach, tensing up when feeling an emotional hurt). We want to fight the pain, to make it go away at any cost, to say "why is this happening to me. This isn't fair."

-- We are asked to close our eyes and go along with some suggestions from the instructor. Choose a pain you currently have, emotional of physical, doesn't matter. A moderate pain would be best here, not something devastating or excruciating. I choose the physical pain in my left knee. We are asked to focus on the area of pain, in a non-judgemental way. Its there, just acknowledge that its there. We can't (presumably) just make it go away. Notice any specific physical tension around the area of pain (in my case, a tendency to just put my leg in a position where the knee doesn't feel any pressure and just leave it there, unmoving, which tightens things up a bit). Observe and describe to yourself the type of pain you're feeling, all while calmly maintaining your breathing. Now, is there an area of your body that feels good right now, or at least an area that doesn't hurt? I move my attention over to my right knee. That one is fine. Focus on the fact that your pain isn't (presumably for all of us at least) all consuming.


So the point here is that by acknowledging that your pain exists -- and no one lives life completely pain free at all times -- and by trying to lower your need/desire to resist and fight against that pain, you can actually notably reduce the level of pain sensation that you feel. When mindfulness was first being researched, when this mindfulness based stress reduction course was developed decades ago, this is one of the first things to be scientifically proven. After taking this course, people with chronic back pain very frequently will report a noteworthy drop in the intensity of their pain. A drop from a 9 to a 6 on a scale of 1 to 10, for example. You can't make your pain go away, but very real changes can be made in this way.


**I feel like there are details I'm missing here that I've forgotten as I'm trying to write this up. But we're told this is something we're going to be returning to next week, so its ok.


-- I am, of course, very interested in this, as my pain was one of the primary reasons this course was recommended to me. And I do still have my foot and my knee things. In a different universe, one where maybe I did have some physical pelvic floor dysfunction (chronic prostatitis or interstitial cystitis being the *big* ones when I webmd'd myself into some kind of hell looking up all of my symptoms that just got worse and worse over the last few years before I found physical therapy), using mindfulness to manage that pain could have been vital to me. It will still be useful for me for sure, but I'm happy its something I can just explore and learn about instead of feeling like I *have* to be able to get this, or else. I may have felt that way back in December.


We specifically get a handout on "The Pain Cycle", if you google that phrase there are tons of different images available, some simple, some complex, some physical only, some leaning *heavily* on the psychological. This one is simple and is half and half. Pain can start from stress, which causes physical tension, or from injury, which causes pain. That tension (over time I assume), can lead to a sensation of pain as well, which leads to negative thoughts about the pain, worry about how much damage has been done, about getting back to normal, etc, which leads to negative emotions like fear and frustration, which leads to more stress, hence a cycle.


-- I've lost count of how many times in the last few weeks something I've learned in this mindfulness class has either reinforced something I learned in physical therapy, or has helped to explain something that was happening there. At times during my pelvic floor PT there was a focus on stress and mental health that I often found offputting, but eventually came around on, at least enough to sign up for this class and to take it seriously :) Also the physical elements of this cycle really make sense too, looking back on how my problems started. I did have underlying physical issues (serious obesity, serious muscle shortness/tightness, completely 100% sedentary for years and years), and once bladder type problems started showing up, it was stressful as hell and I handled it poorly. This cycle makes a freaking ton of sense, put together with other things I've learned and my own experience.


Finally, there's a note in the handout that breaking the cycle of pain can begin anywhere in the cycle - hence, I assume, the idea that using mindfulness to reduce the emotional components that come with pain can reduce the physical stress and physical sensations of pain as the cycle moves around. To fully be successful, though, all areas in this cycle must be dealt with. Another concept from PT that came up in a few different ways, the idea that I am working hard on my physical issues, but that to really accomplish the maximum possible, I also need to work on anxiety issues and how I view pain in general. So this is all around fascinating stuff.

Mindful Yoga Part 2

This simply expands on what we learned last week, and I'm not going to go through it in great detail. Last week we learned a few simple things for lower body stretching. The stuff we did this week was almost entirely done standing, and for upper body.


Homework

Mindfulness Meditation/Mindful Yoga - Spend 20-30 minutes doing these two things, either alternate days, or do both each day, meditate for awhile, and stretch some before or after.

Walking Meditation - Do this 5 minutes a day.

Breathing Space - Same as the past few weeks, do this 3 times a day.

Reaction Awareness - We didn't really talk about this, at least in the same way its listed on the handout. "Note any strong emotional or physical experiences. Bring awareness to moments of reacting in an emotionally charged way. What can you distinguish between mental and physical experiences. Explore options for responding with greater mindfulness and clarity." The way this was discussed in class was "bring awareness to physical or emotional pain once a day. Don't pick something too painful, pick something moderate. Notice how you experience this pain, and we'll talk about it next week."



Logistics - Make Up Class and Day of Mindfulness

We missed a class due to snow awhile back. Officially, the instructor is modifying things to cover everything in 7 weeks instead of 8. But there is a "bonus session" being offered on one extra Monday night. Content TBD.

I bought a yoga mat for the day of mindfulness (and just to have at home, it'll be nicer than stretching on this shitty 25 year old carpet at home). I am slightly less terrified of this event now, we talked about it a little more in class, everything will be guided, there is no "ok go do whatever you want and wander around and find yourself" shit (which I suppose I should have known but it was an unknown exactly how this would be structured. It sounds highly structured which puts me at ease a bit). Its still 6 hours of doing these things that I'm used to doing for 15 min here and there when the mood strikes me. That's going to be... interesting.



There is a lot of reading from Week 4 that I haven't talked about yet, and Week 5's reading to do, I've skimmed it. I don't want to fall too far behind on that, so hopefully soon.

Week 5 Tuesday Homework

Sitting Meditation - I did this in a waiting room when I had a good bit of time to kill. There was no one else in the room most of the time, and they play classical music there, no TV, no other huge public distractions. I'd say I spent 15-20 minutes doing this, my distractions and thoughts all came in the form of thinking through the things I wanted to happen at my appointment. Sometimes easy to move back away from those thoughts, sometimes not. Overall, a calming thing to do, those thoughts would have been racing like crazy without this meditation process.

I did not do any yoga today.


Walking Meditation - I did this for 5 minutes. I haven't done it in awhile, it was awkward and my mind, and vision, was everywhere noting the crap around me.

Breathing Space - Did this twice today. I am sticking on the idea that this feels mechanical and that it is the same every time. There's not necessarily anything wrong with something being the same every time, but I have this sense that I decide what its going to be before I do it. Its a bit hard to describe I think? I guess the best example is that during the 3rd step of this, "expanding", where you open your eyes and allow your focus to move slowly away from your breathing, I remember what's around me, so before I look, I already know what I'm looking for to "experience", instead of doing it without an expectation to just see what might happen. I dunno. This feels strange to write about :) It makes sense in my head.

Reaction Awareness - This is the thing where you're supposed to notice an emotional or physical pain and just make note of your reaction to it. I forgot this was part of the homework until I finished writing things up, so I didn't do this today either.

Tomorrow!

Lost internet access last night during the neighborhood commotion mentioned in the sitting meditation section, that's the only reason this is being posted late.

Week 5 Wednesday Homework

Well today was certainly an interesting day.

Mindful Yoga - I did this for about 25-30 minutes I think, I didn't time it. But I did the full thing, the new upper body stretching that we learned in class this week and the seated/lower body stuff we learned two weeks ago. My main goal for this was to see if it would help loosen up my knee a bit about an hour before going to the gym to see if I could do a bit more there. But I did try to do the vast majority of it mindfully, paying attention to how my body felt during the entire thing. Nothing special to report on that, at least that I can remember.

Sitting Meditation - I intended to do this for 15 minutes. I'm playing around with the "in/out" breathing thing (think "in" to yourself when you breath in, think "out" when you breathe out). Hm, a few sirens. Back to my breathing. HOLY SHIT EXPLOSION. Uh. Ok, there's an electrical station a mile or so from here and every so often there will be a transformer explosion. This seemed MUCH louder. Am I in some zen like state where I'm like hyper aware of this? ... Oh, no. That's way too many sirens now for that. Ok, mindfulness isn't supposed to block actual life/death stress responses, lets go make sure this isn't one, just to be safe. I did the meditation for 7 minutes, apparently. A house about 5 houses down from ours that was not occupied (thank god) and being renovated appears to have burned down completely. There was a neighborhood gettogether around 11:30pm to watch.

Walking Meditation - Did this for 5 minutes. Do not remember anything significant to note.

Breathing Space - Not as interesting as an explosion perhaps, but I had a new experience with this today. Went to Chipotle, the line is out the door. I notice that my mind is racing more than usual, its all over the place. Gonna be in line awhile, lets try this breathing space thing. Inner monologue: Ok, I'm in line at chipotle. My mind is going a mile a minute. I am not here at all right now. Breathe, focus, breathe, focus, move up in line, but keep breathing, focus. Ok, "expand", back to the real world. Notice the rest of myself outside of just breathing, notice the people in front of me, etc. BAM. I've got something, at least this time. My mind isn't racing anymore. I am really focused on a thing going on with work. Its not life or death, its something I can solve, but its something that I'm going to have some anxiety about until I solve it. Huh, this wasn't on my mind at all this morning. I'm completely calm about it. I've got this.

Did I just "unlock" some unconscious thing that was making my mind race on me more than usual? Or was this just what was left once I did something, with success, to bring myself away from all these thoughts and back to the present? My mind races all the time. It doesn't bother me in the slightest, unless it starts happening when I *want* to focus. I wasn't distressed or trying to fix anything. I just happened to notice it and decided to do this thing instead of racing around with my thoughts while bored in a line. So I don't know what happened, but something absolutely happened. Mind isn't racing anymore, and now I'm thinking about something that would usually cause me some kind of low-level anxiety, but I'm perfectly, 100% calm about it and its just there and I'll deal with it when I get home. Neat. Completely fascinating.


Reaction Awareness - Poor night of sleep for me. My knee has hurt a lot in the mornings the last 3 days in a row. It usually loosens up during the day and bothers me less later on, but not always. This was a particularly poor night, woke up 5 times before giving up and just getting up. The last time I woke up I decided to go through that little exercise we did in class with pain. Try to focus on my knee. I'm in a position that's usually comfortable but I feel a fairly large amount of pressure in my knee. I know when I roll over to get up there's going to be a strong surge of pain. Its ok. Lets just focus on my knee, focus on what I'm feeling and just let it be there for a little while. Ok, now move the focus over to an area where I'm feeling no pain. Ok, now back to that knee. Its ok. Time to get up. I try to accept a mindset of "well, whatever is going to happen is going to happen, i can't control it", instead of bracing myself, wondering what that first step will feel like, because it can be drastically different from day to day. It hurts, about the same as yesterday. Oh well, time to go about my day.

Now, that's not really different than most mornings. My mindset about this problem is very good right now. Hurts some days, doesn't hurt others, I'm doing all the right things though, so it'll be ok. I don't think anything changed instantly, just starting with the active idea/practice of lessening my "resistance" to whatever pain is going to be there today.


That was a lot of writing for a homework day, damn. But like I said, it was a very intersting day to me.

Week 5 Thursday Homework

I was saving stretching and the meditating stuff for later in the evening last night, and ended up just not doing it. Oops!

Breathing Space - Did this 3x like normal, nothing new and interesting to report today though.

Reaction Awareness - Went to the gym last night, we modified everything around my knee to find easier things that I can do (no squats/lunges, etc). Late last night though my knee was *REALLY* hurting. Iced it, then laid down to do this focus thing to "sit with it" for a little while. I'm still not sure I'm "doing it right", they have mentioned that Saturday at this 6 hour thing coming up we will be practicing everything we've learned, so I assume we'll be doing this and I'll get a better feel for it then.

I will say that doing something aimed towards "lowering resistance" to the pain, at least in that moment, helped slow me down and kept me from spending any time worrying about whether this was going to mean I wouldn't be sleeping (slept fine last night) or if I need to change something I'm doing (pain levels was back to normal this morning, I no longer feel an immediate need to spend any time worrying about this).

Week 5 Friday Homework

Sitting Meditation/Mindful Yoga - I got too restless during the meditation and just stopped doing it, about 10 minutes in. The first few minutes I was quite calm and just doing one of the counting breathing things, I'm not quite sure why it went the way it did, my mind kept getting more and more active throughout. Perhaps nervousness about this stuff tomorrow, I'm not sure. Usually if my mind starts moving faster I'm ok with it, and can go back to my breathing well enough, or just let it happen and say to myself "well that's what this experience is this time". Tonight I just really didn't want to do it anymore once that started. I did stretch for a few minutes after to get that in.

Walking Meditation - Did this for 5-7 minutes earlier in the evening. I was moving way slower and more deliberately than I ever have doing this. I'm not sure if that was a sign of being calm and peaceful about doing it and just being real methodical, or if its a sign of improved balance from some of these PT exercises (an idea being to move as slow as you can without losing your balance). Other than a general "slowing down" process though this still just feels strange, and still feels strange to describe :)

Breathing Space - 3x.

Reaction Awareness - I hope this doesn't turn into me bitching about my knee non stop. That isn't my goal here, but it where we're headed again today. Knee hurt real bad today again, I didn't really do any big focused task today, but I did try to note times where I was a little more frustrated about it than others, carrying in groceries which requires a few stairs each way that was stinging quite badly each time, etc.



The location for the Day of Mindfulness is about an hour away, scheduled to go from 9:30-3:30pm. I'll obviously write something about it, though I wouldn't expect much more than highlights or a general flow of the day, I won't be taking my phone in with me or anything to take notes to remind myself of anything. I'm not dreading it, but I'd be lying if I said I was looking forward to it. We shall see.

Saturday, March 28 - Day of Mindfulness

Lets get the most important thing out of the way up front here. If you are in a room with 30 other people, and 28 of you are going to be 100% silent for 6 hours straight, the other two (the instructors) are speaking occasionally and speaking softly/gently when they do, there are simply NO opportunities to sneak out a fart without others noticing. Everyone is going to notice, every time. Most of these activities took about 20 minutes, with a short break in between. If you can hold it in until break time and get into the bathroom, kudos. If you can't, well, return focus to your breathing and hope everyone thinks its the person sitting next to you that did it. ;)


A quick note on the formatting here. I'm going though everything here chronologically. Things that I've done before are all underlined. For many of those things I may not have more than a sentence or two to say. We did many sitting meditations, though some of them were presented in a slightly different way, I'll talk about those.

There are two sections that were totally new to me. Those sections are bolded. One of them I titled "Random Activities". You'll see why when I get there. There were a couple "key" parts of that section, I'll probably put that thing in its own post, since it was all over the place.

Expectations

-- I intend to go into this like I did the class, without any pre-conceived notions or expectations. I am curious about some things though. I don't know exactly what's about to happen, but I know there are about 6 hours of guided practice coming up, and I've never done this for more than 30 minutes at a time, and there are times even that is very uncomfortable. When you remove all distractions via meditation or silence or whatever, sometimes you don't really like where your mind lands, if you truly aren't sending it somewhere specific. That thought is uncomfortable thinking about being here with a big crowd.

-- I wonder how doing this for 6 hours will effect me. Will I become more peaceful and patient throughout the day? Will I just want it to end, and will I get more agitated and impatient as the day goes on? I don't want to actively do anything to change my experience, but I am genuinely curious about this.

-- We're at a campgrounds, in a building that's called a lodge. There is one very large room, with a very small hallway. There are two bathrooms down the hallway, and a small kitchen. Refrigerator, microwave, sink.

Introduction

I arrive a few minutes before 9:30, its cold, but should warm up some. I wear a short sleeve t-shirt, sweatpants (stretching in jeans sucks), and bring a light jacket and heavy jacket both. Going outside is a possibility for some things, and the temperature of the lodge we're in isn't guaranteed. I bring my yoga mat that I bought last week. Others have brought cushions and other meditation/eastern type things to sit on. I still haven't messed with any of those things because of my knee, and because I like sitting. Many people bring blankets. Apparently some people find they get very cold doing things like meditation or body scans. I have never had this happen and tend to be very warm natured.

The instructors explain what's going to happen today. We will be practicing everything we've learned so far. It will all be guided. Most activities will last about 20 minutes. There are two bathrooms, they are labelled men and women, but there are a lot more women than men here, just make them both unisex for today. There are mugs out if anyone wants to make tea at lunchtime. If you brought a cushion there is room up front to sit down on it. There are enough chairs for everyone. Feel free to make a space for yourself with a cushion and a chair and switch back and forth as you find comfortable. I'm sitting in the back row of chairs that are set up, yoga mat behind me.

-- With the day starting, everyone is asked to be respectful, and to remain silent until the end of the day. There will be short breaks between activities. Feel free to use the bathrooms then if you need to. Don't interrupt any practice time unless its an emergency. We are asked to turn off all electronic devices. I always leave my phone in the car for class, I did the same here. The instructors mention that part of the day of mindfulness is that we have a day today with no expectations, no distractions. No projects to work on, no lists of things to accomplish. We can spend this entire time focused entirely on the present. Calls, texts, and all other normal distractions that pull us away from present awareness can wait.

-- We open with a quick "Breathing space" like exercise to get ready for other things. Sit up straight, breathe for a few moments, expand awareness out to the rest of the group.

-- A poem is read. I've long forgotten which one.

Sitting Meditation

We begin with sitting meditation. The instructor says a little at the start about finding posture, focusing on breath, and then becomes silent himself. At some point he speaks up again to say "if you've become distracted, I invite you to return to your breathing at this time". I don't remember anything remarkable happening here. I play around with counting while breathing. My distractions are minor ones. It is early, I typically wake up at 10am many days (working from home + night owl). Even though I've been up for about 3 hours now, its still not 10am yet, I've done nothing to "warm up" today. I was kind of hoping we would start the day with stretching. I find it difficult to hold my posture, I stretch my neck from side to side, adjust my legs, adjust my overall posture a few times. These are my main distractions during this task.


Walking Meditation

With little to no break at all, the other instructor takes over (they take turns it appears) and tells us we will be doing walking meditation next for 20 minutes. We can go outside if we'd like, but its very cold (by North Carolina standards) still. Also I've noticed other people around, this is a big campground type area, there are lots of other buildings, and something seems to be going on at the dining hall right next to this building. I still feel very strange about this practice, I'll stay inside where no one will see me but the other people doing the same thing. The instructor reminds us about focuses me may want here. To be aware of your mechanics while walking, what it feels like when your feet hit the ground, how your steps feel, how your body moves to stay in alignment, how it feels to turn around. Even if outside, the idea is to walk in a small space, about 10 feet.

With that, we start, no more guiding is done by the instructors, and we do this for a time (I assume 20 minutes b/c they said so, I have no idea). Full silence for this from everyone as well. I spend more time than I care to admit focused on my knee during this task. I think I pushed myself too hard at the gym Thursday. Today it hurts to walk, its not usually like that. I am limping noticeably on every step. This bothers me, in part because its abnormal for me even given my current issues, but also because I am embarrassed to have this problem around all of these people 20-30 years older than me. I should be able to handle this, etc.

Sitting Meditation

It takes a few minutes for the folks who were outside to return. A couple people are talking as they come in. This is the last time I hear anyone at all but the instructors speak for the rest of the day until we're told to.

I think this was another "standard" sitting meditation (later ones have slightly different points of focus, I'll get to that). I do not remember anything remarkable about this practice. There is some guiding from the instructor, but not a lot.

Mindful Yoga/Stretching

We move things around a bit so everyone can lay out their yoga mats. We are guided through the exact same stretching routine that we did in class, the full thing. We begin standing and do all of the upper body stretches for the neck/shoulders/back, then lay down and do the lower body stretches and the cat/cow thing. About half the time when I do this at home I'm doing it "only" to stretch and have the TV on or something. Here I obviously aim for the full mindful approach, looking to see how I feel doing all of this as much as I'm looking to loosen up. I don't remember noting much here that felt important, I don't remember feeling hugely distracted either.


Body Scan

We stay where we are for a body scan next. The instructor walks us through this entire thing as well. Despite my knee still hurting badly (I swear I dont want to keep focusing on this shit, so I'll just say it never got any better, never loosened up any, but it isn't relevant to anything past this so I'm not going to bring it up again), I don't avoid the call to focus on my knee. I am able to just fine. This is a noteworthy change. I'm not bothered by this focus like i was when we did this in the first week. My focus remains strong throughout the look over the lower body. Something changes when we get to the upper body. I wonder about this, it doesn't *seem* to be an attention span thing, look at my attention span in other activities. But that damn upper body, my mind just goes off on its own and I'm gone. It happens every time I do this via CD, and it happens here exactly the same, except there is no annoying parts that will have me lurch back into the audio.

I've mentioned a few times that sometimes in these kinds of things, the mind lands on something uncomfortable, or emotional. That happens here. I land on something I need to do but have been putting off. Can't say more than that, sorry. I find myself saying that more than I intended to at the start of this little project, I hope its ok :) I'll say I've got some stuff I need to do to get past a roadblock, but I'm putting it off. I start thinking about this and its uncomfortable, but I let that thought process go on (instead of pulling myself back to the body scan, or pushing away stuff I just don't want to come up). That's more uncomfortable. A big part of mindfulness for me seems to be about learning the ability to have uncomfortable feelings and thoughts and allowing them to exist instead of ignoring them.

At some point I do decide I've had enough thinking on things, and try to go back to listening to the body scan.


Mindful Eating/Lunch/Break

At this point I have no concept of time. We got here at 9:30. Its lunchtime. We're given some time to get our lunches ready and to find a space to eat, but don't start eating yet. We are going to begin our meals with mindful eating, but we don't have to eat everything that way, just the first few bites. We will take an hour for lunch. Lunch will end at 1:10. So apparently its about noon.

The hallways and the kitchen are very small. Many people need to use the bathroom. Many people need to use the microwave. It feels like it takes a very, very long time for everyone to get ready for lunch. I brought 2 baked chicken thighs and a serving of BBQ flavored pork rinds. I want to microwave the chicken. The person in front of me wants to heat up some water. She has trouble figuring out how to use the microwave. She shrugs, I lean over, press the right button to get it started. She gives me a thumbs up. I nod back at her.

So finally we are all ready to eat. We are walked through the same mindful eating process we went through back in the first week. This still just simply doesn't interest me. After the day is over others spoke of mindful eating, both in positive and negative ways. One person said she only ate half her lunch and realized she was satisfied. Hell, I wasn't hungry at all, I just decided to eat what I brought. I had afternoon appointments literally every day last week. I tend to like to skip breakfast on those days and just eat a larger meal later. Yesterday I didn't eat anything until 7pm. Almost 24 hours fasting (8 sleeping of course). Neat. I still like fasting/intermittent fasting on low carb. So yeah, my relationship with food is right where I want it right now. I'm in control. But I'm in control with numbers, not mindfulness. This is not something I want to fuck with. I go through the motions with mindful eating. Baked chicken is pretty bland. Its even more bland when eaten mindfully. :) BBQ Pork Rinds are fun to eat mindfully though. Crunch crunch.

After Lunch Break

I have no idea what time I finish eating. But we appear to take the full hour, even though everyone finished eating. Now, I'm sure some (many?) people went to their cars and checked their phones or made a call or whatever, but inside the lodge, everyone remained quiet. Some people wandered a bit, read stuff on the walls. But a lot of people folded up coats or used cushions as pillows and laid down on their yoga mats. I folded up my coat and laid on it. We basically had naptime, like we were in kindergarten. It was funny to notice, but it felt really calm and peaceful. At one point while I was eating I thought about doing my physical therapy exercises in the free time. I decided against it, even if it feels a bit silly, I keep buying into things here. In this case the idea presented in the introduction that there is nothing to accomplish today other than to be present. We can worry about getting back to all the real world distractions after we leave here. So I don't do my exercises. I decide that I can just lay there and relax, or wander, or whatever. It probably doesn't matter, but it feels like staying within the spirit of the whole thing.

It does seem noteworthy though. This pattern of "well, this seems weird, but ok, sure, I'll just go along with it, and maybe I'll learn something." That single thing probably says a lot about what I'm getting out of this class, though I can't really pinpoint what it means exactly.

They ring the bell to signal the end of lunchtime. The lady next to me seems like she's asleep. I don't really want to have to go poke her to wake her up. Ok, whew, she was just moving real slow. She's up.

Sitting Meditation w/ Body Awareness Focus

We do another sitting meditation, this time with a specific focus on body awareness. But its body awareness specifically around the breath, so the constant focus on the breath remains. How this works is that we start like normal, posture, focus on breathing, etc. Now, turn your attention to your face. Notice how it feels to breathe through your nose. Notice how it feels to breathe out through your nose. Feel the air coming in, feel the air hitting your upper lip as you breathe out. That sort of thing. Repeat moving to the throat, notice how it feels as the air enters your body. Down to the chest. Notice any other changes in your body as you breathe. I notice when I take a deep breath in my upper back tightens/contracts very slightly.

There is some silence during this, but for the most part the instructor is guiding us here. Maybe for the first 1/2 to 2/3 of the time we are guided, with some silence at the end.

Random? Activities

Where I found points at least sort of new or interesting I'll try to "title" them in an underlined topic. Instructor's words in quotes throughout.

We re-arrange the room to clear out floor space in the back half of the room. All ~30 of us move back there. The instructor has us all standing clumped fairly close together. He says, "ok, you guys don't know what we're doing, but that's ok. I'll guide you. You may begin to walk randomly"

No more instruction than that. So we start walking around this rather small area, dodging each other. The instructor is describing walking meditation sensations, and asking us to notice what we're doing. More than noticing walking I notice maneuvering through tight spaces. Some people are practically walking in place, some in one direction, some another. I specifically remember a comment about "note how it feels to walk without going anywhere at all" /shrug.

"Now stop." We all stand in place again, more body awareness type stuff, how do you feel differently standing still than walking,etc.

"You may walk again." -- Now that we know what's up, patterns emerge, which fascinates me way more than the mindfulness part of this. We're not all walking the same way, but everyone is now walking in a circle, either counterclockwise or clockwise, its easier to avoid people, everyone conforms. I'm not sure that's at all the point, but I absolutely notice the pattern above all else. I like noticing things like this in crowds, at the mall, etc.

"Walk faster" -- Now people begin to bump into each other, or have to stutter step to avoid doing so. There really isn't that much room. I forget anything the instructor said here.

"Now stop."

"Take one step forward." - We all do.

Thinking about the past, I guess?

"Can you undo that step? No, that step is in the past. You could take a step backwards and be where you were, but that doesn't undo the past. You cannot change that step you took, just as you cannot change any actions you took a year ago, or 5 years ago. Think about how you perceive time, especially in the past", there is some more said here, and I may not have this precisely correct, despite putting it in quotes. Its a simple thing, you can't change the past. Its a topic in mindfulness with some frequency. Mindfulness is about the present moment. There is a time to think about the past and to learn from it, but its easy to get caught up living in the past and wanting to change outcomes, wishing things were a way other than the way they are. Those thoughts get us nowhere.

Simple concept, something we've talked about in a more straightforward manner, but in the mix of these random instructions it provides a "huh, neat" reaction from many people (not obviously at the time since we are still asked to be silent, but it came up a couple times in the discussion at the end of the day and it seemed many people had a similar reaction).

... "You may walk"

Contact

"Now stop. Pair up with someone, anyone" - people quickly pair up with whomever is closest to them. I'm paired up with another guy, a little shorter than me. Not in my class, I've never seen him before (not that it matters).

"Decide who goes first" - That's kind of interesting when you don't have any idea what you're about to do, and when none of you have spoken for upwards of 5 hours now. We both shrug, and I raise my hand and mouth "I will." Other guy nods. Neither of us spoke.

"Whoever goes first, put your hand on your partner's shoulder." - So I do. Its slightly odd to be touching a stranger standing in complete silence like this, looking at each other wondering what's next seems even weirder, so I just close my eyes and listen. We stay in that position/posture for a minute or two (I have no idea actually how long), the instructor says to the person being touched to be aware of what it feels like to be touched. "Do you feel anything in your neck when someone touches your shoulder like this? Do you feel a difference in your arm, or your chest, or even your legs maybe? Its ok if you don't, but just notice" Similar instructions to the person doing the touching. I don't remember what he said or what I felt. This is awkward. Lets stop doing this now. Those are my thoughts.

We switch places, so I remove my hand from dude's shoulder, he puts his hand on my shoulder. Instructor does the same kind of walk through. I notice my shoulder moving slightly. I notice an instinct to pull away. I don't want to be touched. I am not comfortable. At all. I do feel a difference in my neck, not in my chest, but in my legs. I think from my very strong instinct to pull away from this contact.

We're done. Whew.


-- I didn't think this would come up here, and I'm not sure if there was supposed to be any more to this than body awareness stuff. But I have a strong aversion to casual contact. I have a strong general preference not to be touched. If I have voluntarily touched you in any way beyond a handshake, or allowed you to do the same to me, that certainly has far more meaning behind it than it would for most people.


"You may walk" ... so we do.

Trust Exercise, and more Contact

"Now stop, pair up with someone again" - Same as last time, whoever you are generally facing. I pair up with a woman, probably 10-12 inches shorter than me.

"Face the same direction, with one standing behind the other." We both start to turn around, she ends up behind me.

"The person in the back, take a small step to your right. Now, put your left hand on your partner's right shoulder" -- She does this. I still don't want to be touched, but there it is.

"The person in the back, close your eyes, keep them closed. The person in front, you may walk, and lead"

I start walking. I feel her hand pull at my shoulder immediately. Right, I'm basically a foot taller than this person. I need to drastically adjust how I walk. I take very small steps for me. I crouch slightly, probably just a couple inches, but hopefully it helps. I quickly develop the obvious goal, "well I'm not going to run her into anyone". I start strategically planning my pace and my route and turning radius to try to get into the most open spaces with no one around. When I turn I try to turn my shoulder in a slightly more exaggerated way so she will know what's coming up. She turns too far, ok, I need to turn more naturally. I try to walk around the outside edge of the circle that develops to avoid running her into anyone.

While this is happening, the instructor is talking to the people doing the following. What does it feel like to trust this person in front of you, to let go of control, and some other things. The instructor then addresses the people leading. "How does it feel to lead, to have this person's trust given to you" ... I'm not letting this person bump into anyone, and listening to the instructor just makes that harder, so I stop doing that.

"now stop, and switch places" - I think I did a good job? I don't think she bumped into anyone, but I don't know for sure. Its a tight space with a lot of people.

We switch places. I close my eyes and follow, feeling where her shoulder is pulling and trying to follow. Within 3 steps, I have bumped into someone. Oh. I wonder how many times I ran her into someone after all. It really is a very small space. The instructor walks through the same things he did when the roles were reversed. Again the height difference matters. If I take normal steps when I feel her move ahead I step too far ahead and step on her heels. I have to try to figure out her pace and stride by feel and match it.

What I'm sure is the most important note here is that I absolutely cannot resist opening my eyes for a split second numerous times. I've completely lost my bearings, I guess this means I don't trust this person? This came up at the end of the day as well, others mentioned that they would look, or how hard it was not to, even though the only consequence is the potential to bump into someone else.


When this activity is over, we take our seats.

Loving Kindness Meditation

Up front, lets just add this to the list of things that sounds strange to explain, but that I do the way they suggest, and am surprised about how I feel about it.

This is something we've never done in class, nor even talked about yet. The title sounds wonky to me, ick. But I don't get to choose that. I don't remember a lot of the introduction but my good friend Google is here to help me out. This is a Buddhist practice, perhaps contemporarily called "compassion meditation". Ok, I remember the instructor talking about compassion for other human beings, that mindfulness helps remove barriers and makes us more compassionate by default, but that this practice can help move the process along with intentional compassion.

So basically you just repeat affirmative and kind statements internally about various types of people, we've never done this so we're walked through it easily and slowly. There are apparently a number of different statements you can use. Here's what we did

Yourself

Start by being kind to yourself. The instructor introduces us to the phrase and has us say it to ourselves, she repeats it a few times. I guess that the act of saying something kind to yourself is supposed to help you actually do these things.


"May I hold my struggles with compassion" (or something like that)

The first one seems important, and is something mindfulness has actually helped me with. I'm hard on myself. Its a thing for me, always comparing my actions to perfect. In many ways I like this about myself. If I get a 95 on a test, hey, that's great, but could I do something better to get a 100? I think I learned, or at least, perfected this mindset playing poker. Results are irrelevant. Make the right decision as often as possible and results will come. I apply this everywhere. To work problems, to my gaming, poker translates to league of legends so well. Hell I did this in physical therapy and frustrated the hell out of my therapist a couple times. I'd be generally very happy with how I was doing, but I would put my focus on how to do things even better, when all I really needed to do to succeed was to keep chugging along. I still think that's ok much of the time, but it leaves me not celebrating doing *very well*, but not quite perfect. And if I fail at something badly, there's a ton of questioning how I could have done better. I do have to say this is one of the things I have noticed honestly changing with this course. Spots where I might beat myself up before I tend to accept what happened instead. Not always, but at times, and it feels noticeable different. That doesn't mean I've changed completely. I still want perfect. I still want to always look at everything and find what I can improve upon. There's just not quite as negative a tone to it.

So yeah, this statement actually elicits all of this out of me and its quite the response.


"May I be well"
"May I be happy"
"May I be safe"

No response to any of these.


"May I be content"

I... dunno. Do I want to be content? I'm working extremely hard on improving myself. I have a long way to go. I spent 15 years taking awful care of myself. I've lost a ton of weight, but I'm not quite done. I've addressed lots of major health problems, but I'm not quite done. I've introduced some new health problems that need focus. I have other things "on the list" to work on. I'm sure there is a difference between contentment and complacency, but this is my response to hearing this statement and to saying it to myself.


Someone you care about

This was not stated all that clearly, someone that you care about was what I got from it. You're supposed to pick an individual and think of them. Then, the instructor walks us through the same statements above (except for the struggles, that's for yourself only):

"May they be well"
"May they be happy"
"May they be safe"
"May they be content"

Well, of course I would want someone I care about to have all these things. But I don't actively think about it like this. It elicits a really strong reaction out of me to actively focus on someone I care about and wish these things for them. I'm not comfortable writing about it here in any sort of detail.

I will say that I can tell this elicits an extremely strong reaction from many people. There are 25-28 of us there. I'd say from this point to the end of the exercise I could pick out a number of different people (by sound, eyes closed), who were crying, sniffling, etc. I wonder who they chose, and under what circumstances they were moved to that emotion.


Someone neutral that you only vaguely know

Same statements, this time a neutral party who is only peripherally in your life, that you wouldn't normally think about at all. I chose our mailman.

No reaction from this.


The collective "everyone"

Same statements, be compassionate and think about wishing everyone happiness, safety, and contentment.



-- There is an added step here, to choose someone who you actively dislike, and to express the exact same compassion for that person. The instructor says that since this is the first time any of us have heard of this, we'll stick to the easy stuff. I need to think about someone I hate to have some compassion for before class on Monday :D


-- Since this was just introduced quickly and we just went through it, slowly, as with everything in mindfulness, but still, we basically breezed through this without a ton of talk about why, I don't have a whole lot else to say here. But that second one was a doozy for a lot of people.

Walking Meditation

We have another round of Walking Meditation, this time with a twist from the previous activity. While walking, whenever the mood strikes you, notice someone near you and silently wish them well. You can have compassion for any living thing, the trees outside, animals, anything.

I stayed inside for this again. Lets just say that there is a plant on the mantle in my little 10 foot walking spot that has to be the most appreciated plant in the universe by now. :D

Sitting Meditation w/ Auditory Focus

"This will be a quicker practice, I'm sure many of you are quite tired and holding a good posture is getting tough." Yeah, I've noticed this. So this meditation has the added focus of bringing awareness to sounds around you. The instructor makes a clear distinction, "Now, I don't want you to actively go seeking out sounds. Just notice them when they come to you" In practice I must say that's a hard distinction to get, I get it in theory though.

The heater is running. Its pretty hard not to fixate on that. There is someone behind me who cannot sit still. Non stop shuffling noises.

Mindful Speaking/Listening

We are, one last time, asked to pair up. There is a lady sitting on the same row as me, I move over to sit next to her. We are going to break our silence after ~5 1/2 hours here. The phrase "mindful speaking" is given, but there's another phrase along with it, I have forgotten it.

The practice here is to talk about your experience from the day for 2-3 minutes each. One person will go first. The person talking should be mindful of their speaking, of their pace. To be deliberate. To take a breath before beginning a new thought, and to see if something new comes up when being mindful. The person listening is to listen. Do not respond. The little agreements and "yes" and "no"'s that happen during conversations should not be there. The person listening should listen in mindful silence, and *really* listen, without the distraction of needing to "participate" in what the other is saying.

I go first. I talk about the trust exercise, how much of a goal it was for me to not run my person into someone, how I felt like I did that very well, but then when following, I bumped into someone immediately. Its not that easy, and I now assume I did run my person into someone at least once, and just couldn't tell. There's still time left apparently after I complete my thoughts on that. I mention something about noticing others crying during the loving kindness activities. Time's up. It is WEIRD to just talk at/to someone without any response from them.

Now the other person is given a short period of time to respond.

Now we switch. She gets to talk about her experience for a few minutes, with me just listening. Even though I think of myself as someone who is straightforward, who wants to cut through the bullshit of small talk, who gets to the point, I find it very weird and difficult to avoid participating in this standard practice of interjecting into someone else's story/thoughts to show that I'm listening. I find myself nodding in an exaggerated way or smiling bigger than I normally would at something funny to give some kind of signal.

Like at other times, I don't think anything this person said to me was deeply personal, but I guess i can't know that for sure, and that identifying factor thing still matters, so I won't talk about anything she said.

Sharing as a group, finish

That was our last activity. We all crowd up close to the front together to talk about our experiences. Mostly it was very affirming. Other people were struck by the same things. The trust exercise was a big topic of conversation. The brief comment about "taking your step back" and the fact that one step is in the past in the same way as shit that happened a year ago struck some people as pretty profound. Some differing opinions on the silence. Easy for some, impossible and offputting for others.

With that, we are done with the Day of Mindfulness.


I will probably write a small followup post tomorrow with any thoughts i have about the experience as a whole. Too late tonight for that :)

Day of Mindfulness Review/Thoughts

So I think I talked about every individual experience enough in yesterday's writeup. For a lot of them I didn't say much, there really wasn't anything to say. With the sitting meditations, I will point out that I don't use the CD that we have at home. I just sit there quietly. When we first learned that practice in class, they didn't specifically tell us "there's a CD track for this if you want to use it", and I didn't think to look, so I just learned how to do it without. Once I realized there was a guided audio for it, I was already happy with what I was doing. So having the instructors guide us through this did feel a little different. Not "easier" necessarily, but there's an external focal point whenever they speak, which makes it difficult for my mind to race off very far on its own.


On the newer things that we did, I assume we'll learn more about them in class, and I'll write more about them at that time.


On the structure of everything, and on my curiosities/expectations going in:

-- I really do wish we had done yoga first, a little light physical movement for a "warmup" would have helped me a lot for sure. I think I get why we didn't. Yoga required rearranging the room compared to nearly every other activity. The way we did it allowed for us to easily move through the first 60-90 minutes without having to rearrange a bunch of chairs and make room for yoga mats, etc. For that first hour people were still settling in seemingly, some people were still wanting to speak between practices, for example.

-- I noted before things started that I was curious how I would react to 6 hours straight of doing stuff, wondering if there would be a trend of becoming more calm/peaceful as it went on, or if I'd be agitated and more easily distracted. In reality, none of that stuff happened. There was no trend. Each practice/activity was its own unique thing with its own beginning and end. I never took thoughts or feelings from one into the next. Even a couple spots where I had stronger, unexpected responses (the loving kindness meditation, the second half of the body scan, the random thing where there was some contact I'd prefer not to have), as soon as they were over, I was ready to see what the next thing would be.

-- I also had some curiosity about how my attention would be held here. Would I start thinking about what I was going to do after this? Would I start wondering "when will we be done?". Nope. Neither happened a single time. The only concept of time I had there would be mentions that most practices would last about 20 minutes, and a mention of when we'd resume after lunch. But they could have told me after the fact that lunch was only 30 minutes, or that it was two hours, and I would have believed it. Sometimes in these practices time flies, sometimes it slows to a crawl, and sometimes I can't tell which is happening. There was a patience about the whole atmosphere, so even when shifting between practices it didn't really dawn on me to wonder what time it was, how long was left, etc. The best example was before we ate lunch. 30 people, one very, very small kitchen, maybe 3 people could be in there at a time. One microwave with lots of people wanting to heat up stuff. I have no idea how long it took everyone to get their food ready. It definitely took at least 10 minutes (just based on me noting microwave usage while I was in the kitchen myself). It might have taken 25 minutes. It didn't seem like anyone felt rushed or worried about it for a second. Of course I can't say for sure what others were feeling, but I definitely was not worried about it at all, even though I noted that there was a really long delay for this. The whole day was just very calm and un-rushed in this manner, very serene.


Favorite Experiences

Honestly, the whole after lunch scene was my favorite part of the day. No one had anything to do, no idea how long we had before things started back up, and a bunch of people just laid down like it was kindergarten naptime. I cannot imagine this, on any scale, in other settings. Not the naptime part, mind you, I'm not lamenting that construction workers don't lay out blankets at their job sites and nap after they eat. :P But the general relaxed atmosphere, despite incomplete information. I know that if I finish a task before the allotted time is up, my normal thought process goes something like this: "I'm bored. Why isn't everyone else done yet? Oh hey everyone else is done, come on, come on, lets move on to the next thing. I'm bored. I don't have anything to do. How much longer do I have to sit here? Maybe if I go ask how much longer they'll figure out that we are ready to move on." There's none of that here. I'll just relax, close my eyes, or look around, or whatever, when its time for the next thing they'll let us know. Its cool. Its such a striking difference.


As far as actual guided things that we did, the whole "Random Activity" section was my favorite... even though my least favorite experience was a small part of it. The whole structure behind what we were doing there, we're all bunched up close together, we have no idea what we're about to be asked to do, we may repeat something over and over or we may do a bunch of seemingly random things, and it doesn't really matter, its cool. Again I can compare this to places where I don't know what's about to happen. I don't like not knowing, its stressful. What if they ask me to do something I don't like? And hell, here they did ask me to do something I don't like. And I didn't like it while I was doing it. But the second that part was over, it was over, and it was all ok again, back to just being curious about what we'll be asked to try next, without any anxiety behind it.


Least Favorite Experiences

-- Really just the touching thing. And only the first touching thing, because the task was just to touch someone, or be touched, and to focus on it mindfully. The second touching thing which involved one person leading and another following, that was fine since there was a task to focus on.


Quick Instructor Note

So there were two instructors here, the one for our class and the one that was our substitute a few weeks ago, she teaches the same thing in a different session. I like my instructor, he's always felt down to earth, he explains things extremely well. I'm sure its natural to want to favor my guy over the other lady, but that's not going to be my complaint here.

So, I've seen the other instructor twice now. Once when she taught us for a week, and once here at the Day of Mindfulness. And she was fine for the whole day, no issues with any activities she led or anything. But I've seen her twice now, and twice I've been referred to her personal website, to a separate class she teaches on her own, and to the opportunity to purchase a book that she has written. Huge turnoff. She doesn't do that every week in class, does she? Surely not. I'm certainly ok with a little self promotion, but its just felt very offputting.


Would I do this again?

Actually a relevant question because apparently its accepted that once you've taken this class you can typically attend any Day of Mindfulness anywhere. If you're not a current student (who paid for the class), they will ask for a donation to help the program. That was mentioned at the start here but there was no pushing about it or anything, and there was at least one person who was there just to do it again. They made it sound like this is a standard at any of these programs across the country, since they are all supposed to be pretty much the same. So if I moved back to Atlanta and wanted to see what this was like at Emory (assuming they had a program too, I haven't actually checked), I could get in touch with them and see when one was happening.

So would I do it again? Maybe, yeah. It was an interesting experience, an overall positive I think. Will this day have an impact on my life? I dunno about that. But look at how many times in this post I've mentioned how calm/peaceful/serene everything felt. I like that. So yeah, if I keep practicing these things, and find myself further implementing mindfulness into my daily life, and I get an e-mail about the next day of mindfulness at UNC, I could see myself doing it again. Why not?

Week 5 Sunday Homework

Sitting Meditation - Did this for 15 minutes. I did it relatively soon after watching the Walking Dead finale, which I guess is some kind of challenge mode since that got me pretty amped up. I found minor-moderate distractions doing this tonight, lots of small stuff like thinking about things I need to do for work tomorrow, etc. I notice myself somewhat randomly switching between the different techniques we learned in class, the counting, etc. Like I'll start counting to 10, "fail" a couple times and have to start over, and just abandon that idea and switch to something else. I think the idea is to pick one way and play with it for a little while, to practice it.

I did not do any mindful yoga today.

Walking Meditation - I did this for 5 minutes. I noticed myself having some balance issues at a slow pace today, I havent had an issue with that in awhile.

Breathing Space - 3x.

I did nothing with this "reaction awareness" task today. Its one of those things where you have to think about it when something is happening. So if I forget to do so during the day then that's that, I can't put it off til the last minute and do something right before I go to bed. I'm hoping we talk a lot more about the pain stuff and reaction awareness in class tomorrow.

That's it for this week, Week 6 class tomorrow night! Only 2 more "official" classes left, plus the "bonus class" to make up for the snow day.

Writeup of class tomorrow, i didn't really feel like working on it tonight. I feel like this will be a short writeup compared to most classes, but I keep saying that for things and writing 4 posts worth of stuff anyway. I am really ambivalent at best about the info from this class, very blah. I'll try to work on it tomorrow though!

Week 6 Class - March 30th, 2015

There is once again a ton of reading this week, and not much of it is related to the class tonight, I was hoping to use it to fill in some stuff here. This class felt extremely light to me. Maybe its because the content just didn't resonate with me in any real way.

Office Stretching

We learn a series of stretches we can do at our desks in the office. Some odd facial things (rubbing the rim of the eye sockets? Is that a thing?), but mostly neck/shoulder/wrists, a couple bend to the side type things to stretch out, a little twist thing for the back, etc. Basic things, some of which I already do a couple times a day since I am at a desk most of the day, even though I am standing some.

Poem

The Guest House by Rumi

Meh?

Perspective/Perception/Mood

The instructor asks us to reflect on a sentence... and its not written down anywhere and I cannot remember the whole thing exactly. It is something saying that more than half of our perception of an event is shaped by our own perspective (as opposed to some objective "what actually happened"). I really don't even remember the key phrases from the actual quote, but that's where the conversation headed. UNC is a liberal arts school, there is a discussion on reality and philosophy and Plato (I think) driven by the other students, not the instructor, that makes this computer science guy want to take a nap.

But there's something here, at least. Five people witness something happen and all five might have a different perspective on it, might even completely disagree on what actually happened. A charge is called in a UNC/Duke game, UNC fans and Duke fans see completely different things happen. Dear god just read the Ferguson thread on this board, etc. Our own lifetime of experiences drive the way we see things that happen in the world.

This leads into a little discussion on moods. Huge good moods or bad moods of all kinds of varieties are fairly easy to spot. But there are lots of moods that are very subtle and we really don't notice if we're in a very slightly positive or negative mood, but these moods, even if unconscious, have a pretty big impact on how we may perceive and react to an event/conversation/whatever.

There's nothing specific here, its all abstract. The point made at the end is that understanding that our perception of things that happen can frequently be driven so much by our mood and our experiences, and that others around us may perceive things totally differently, is important. Mindfulness practices can help us pull away some of the top layer bullshit and allow us to be in touch with what our mood actually is when its subtle, and that being more aware of these things can help us in interactions with others.

There's nothing wrong with any of this. It all makes sense. But its all really abstract, and some of the side conversation that happened here was just not for me, so my perception of this is that we wasted a lot of time here to make a small, seemingly obvious point. Others probably perceived this totally differently and enjoyed the discussion greatly ;)

Insight Dialogue

I mentioned in the day of mindfulness writeup that we did something around "mindful speaking" and "mindful listening", there was another phrase for it that I couldn't remember. That phrase was "insight dialogue".

So, we start by talking about the fact that we all interact with other people all the time in order to meet our needs in life, for safety, happiness, food, etc. Anything you might describe as a need in your life. Lots of interactions with other people involve two people with different needs. There are three separate ways to handle these interactions (really more than 3, but 3 main categories):

Passive - I will give up on the idea of my need being met to allow you to get yours met.

Aggressive - I am going to see my needs are met, at the expensive of yours.

Assertive - So the definitions here get a little funky. Assertive in this context is really the midpoint between passive and aggressive. Not what I would normally think when I think "assertive". But in this context, it is about that middle ground, with two main sub-categories: Compromise, where both sides can express their needs, and each side is willing to give up something to get some of their needs met. Collaboration, where both sides look to work together to see if there is a way that everyone's needs can be met.

We talk about a few different things here:

-- Often when people have different needs, the best they can do is jump straight to compromise, which leads to everyone not getting something. Don't forget about collaboration, look for unique solutions to make eveyrone happy.

-- Most people tend towards one side of things. Most people are naturally aggressive or naturally passive. Changing this can be extremely difficult.

This is the huge bulk of the conversation. But its all just the intro to the actual mindfulness stuff:


Insight Dialogue is a way of being involved in conversations with others mindfully. It follows a similar pattern as the Breathing Space activity. Pause, Relax, Open. Before engaging in a conversation, especially one that may be heated, or involve conflict, take a short pause instead of saying the first thing in your head. Relax. Bring mindfulness briefly to the body, allow yourself to relax (if you tense your shoulders in a situation where conflict is involved, look for that, etc). Open: Extend awareness back out from yourself.

All of this is spins a mindfulness perspective on "think before you speak." Ok. There's some usefulness here, again. Think before you speak is important. A small conflict can be approached with aggression or with assertiveness, and the entire interaction may change depending on how you handle it. Using concepts we've learned in this class, the idea of taking a breath, of slowing down a bit, being in the present moment, you can better handle conversations at work, in relationships, etc.

Again, all of this makes sense. But unlike some other discussions we've had (probably the ones with more research and science backing them), when we talk for a half hour about concepts like these that feel pretty simple, and that end with less concrete "here is how you implement this directly", when the discussion is more abstract, it just resonates a bit less with me.


Another issue I have with this is personal, and I think I want to bring it up in class next week. If you tend towards aggression, it feels very obvious to me how you use Insight Dialogue to slow yourself down just a bit and drop back to assertive, to listen to the other person, and to not run over them. That's not me. I'm passive. I'm the one getting out of the way. I can see, in theory, how slowing down and looking for collaboration can try to "amp me up" from passively giving up what I want to avoid conflict, to trying to work together a bit more. But its less straight forward, and there are other issues that *feel* like they are outside the scope of mindfulness in pushing from passive to assertive in many situations.

Also, we really had this whole discussion with very few concrete examples. So at this point we've been talking for an hour or more over these last two subjects and really its not just landing for me tonight.


-- The last thing I'll say here is that this strikes me as similar to my comments about mindful eating. I find nothing wrong with the practice itself, but I frequently accomplish these things via another method already. In a conflict situation, I'm very measured when I talk. In any important conversation, I'm very measured. I think about what I say. I don't rush. So I will work on applying these things and see how it feels, but I'm not someone who lets something slip out and has to backtrack or apologize very often, etc.

Sitting Practice with focus on Thoughts

The last couple weeks (including the day of mindfulness) we've been learning lots of little things we can do differently with meditation. Here we aim to keep a mild focus on our breath, but the main focus is on our thoughts. We're not supposed to grab at them, or force them. The description is really very similar to the "default" meditation that we learned where the focus is entirely on your breath. Thoughts will come, imagine them as clouds, you can observe them but can't stop them from passing by. Just allow them to pass by without judgement. Its the exact same metaphor. The difference is that with the default practice the idea is to observe the thought when it becomes distracting, let it go, and return to breath. Here, the idea is to stay with the thoughts that pass by the entire time, if it becomes too much, ok, go back to the breath to reset. Subtle difference.

Obviously, when we do this in class, I find myself more devoid of thoughts than I've ever been. My mind races all the time and sometimes meditation slows it down in a nice way. But you know what slows it down even more, stops it in its tracks? The instruction to pay calm attention to thoughts the whole time. Its like having a car that makes a noise 95% of the time you drive, but it stops right when you take it to a mechanic. Try to focus on breathing? THOUGHTS EVERYWHERE. Try to focus on thoughts, and they all go and hide. I found this pretty amusing.


Homework

Sitting Meditation, Walking Meditation, Mindful Yoga - Practice for 30 minutes each day, experiment with combinations of all three.

Breathing Space - Same instructions as always.

Informal Practices - Introduce very slight pauses in your conversations to practice insight dialogue. See how it feels. See if you notice anything more than you would have in a more free flowing, reactionary conversation.

Thoughts and Emotions - We didn't talk about this at all. Notice your thoughts in relationship to your emotions. When you sense an emotion, be with it for a moment and look for the thoughts that come before or after. Ask yourself, "Is this thought true? Is it unequivocally true? How does believing this thought make me feel? If I did not think this thought, how would I feel?"

Ok, we *very* briefly talked about this. Those questions are part of a side conversation about "Thoughts as thoughts" and perception. The idea that many of your thoughts are unconscious and may or may not represent any sort of actual truth. But we didn't go into much detail here at all, and it wasn't mentioned when the instructor talked about homework.


I have a couple goals with homework this week:

1) Actually mix up the three practices mentioned. Don't do sitting meditation every day because I like it best. Try, at least occasionally, to do this in the middle of the day, or in the morning, just to see what's different. I tend to save this stuff for the end of the day.

2) Actively look for situations to try out breathing space. Not just when I think "oh man I need a break", but look for situations where I have a couple minutes to kill and can do it. Breathing Space still feels like the thing with the most real world implications as far as practices go. There was the idea presented early on that this is something that can take a minute or two early on, but can take seconds with lots and lots of practice. I want to practice this, lots.


Next week is "officially" our last class. There is a bonus week, but we are told that everything in the regular 8 week course is going to be covered by the end of next week. I have a couple questions that I want to make sure get addressed:

1) With the Insight dialogue discussion this week, any advice for the passive people? Back to my comments above about how its easier to see this stuff as a way to slow down from aggression to something better, but harder to see practical uses to be more assertive.

2) There are two things in our reading this week on pain. I want to make sure that gets discussed in more detail. I intend to ask some questions about it to get it discussed if I have to.


That's it for this week! Nothing really wrong with this class, it just didn't land the way almost everything else has.

Week 6 Tuesday Homework

Sitting Meditation - I did this for a half hour. Its all I did today in this regard.

Breathing Space - 3x. I didn't go out of my way to look for new situations to do this in. That idea came to me while writing later in the evening :)


The other two things, insight dialgoue and thoguhts/emotions seem like they are going to be very hard to remember to do in the moment. I will work on that tomorrow.

Week 6 Wednesday Homework

Walking Meditation - Did this for 10 minutes tonight, just to mix it up.

Sitting Meditation - Back to the damn knee, I guess pain management is what got me to sign up for this course, even though it was in a different area. The knee is getting steadily worse despite the ortho physical therapy. Frustrating PT visit today, unsure if I'm having expected ups and downs or if something more is happening here, its tough to be patient and not worry about things like that. I re-read all of the handout information we've gotten from class that talked about strategies and practices to deal with pain management. I worked on one of those strategies for about 20 minutes today and intend to work on that every day for the forseeable future, and will work in 10 minutes of "other stuff" to just try to keep doing all of the other things I've learned. This goes back to class a couple weeks ago where there was a focus on "resisting" pain. Pain will happen, but your experience with it can change depending on how you react to it, but it takes practice and won't happen overnight.

Breathing Space - 3x, looking for "new situations" to do this in, once at physical therapy in between exercises as I was feeling my mindset about things turning very negative. No miracles or anything with that, but that's ok, there's never anything wrong with just taking a breath and taking a brief break.


Insight Dialogue - I tried to do this once during a conversation, I dunno, feels weird. But again, like the breathing space, the worst outcome is that nothing happens, you take a breath, slow down briefly, and keep going where you were already headed. No big deal.

Week 6 Thursday Homework

Walking Meditation - Did this for 10 minutes again today.

Sitting Meditation - I spent some time on youtube looking for some kind of "guided" mindfulness meditation aimed towards lowering resistance to pain. Tried one, relaxing, helped me wind down before bed, so that's nice.

Breathing Space - 3x, continuing to look for spots throughout the day to do this, notice myself on 1000% autopilot making breakfast, mind off in other places the entire time, a good spot to do this little practice.

I didn't do anything with the insight dialogue thing or the thoughts/emotions thing. Both seem extremely difficult for me to think about doing in the moment.

I didn't do crap Friday.

Week 6 Saturday Homework

I split things up throughout the day today. I don't really have any comments on anything I did (we've reached a point, at the end here, where there is just rarely a whole lot to say about the homework), I did 10 minutes of walking meditation, 10 minutes later in the day where I was focusing on pain in a way outlined in our handouts, and then 10 minutes at the end of the day doing a "normal" mindfulness meditation with a focus on breath.

Week 6 Sunday Homework

Similar report as yesterday, I did most of the things on the homework sheet, but I dont find much of it worth writing about in the sense that its nothing new, same stuff just being practiced more, which is a good thing, but not worth daily updates or anything :)


I did the survey for this week today as well.


Tomorrow is the "last" regular class, we got an e-mail today about it, saying that it will be a big wrapup and contain a lot of discussion on how to "carry forward your mindfulness practice" once the class is over. There will be one more class after this but its labelled a "bonus" class since it wasn't planned initially and not everyone can attend, so they didn't want it to be the "wrap-up" class.


As for the writeup, this will be the end of the daily updates. There are a few weeks worth of reading that I never wrote anything about, and I have full intent to do that at some point. I will write up each of the two remaining classes, and will have some final thoughts on everything at the end as well.

Good class tonight, writeup may not go up til Wednesday though, I have 4 appointments in the next two days (that tooth? Need a root canal! That knee? PT not working, going back to orthopedist a month early to get an MRI and re-evaluate what we're doing, both of those decisions were made today, awesome huh!?). So anyway, a good class tonight was nice and relaxing and informative after dealing with that stuff earlier today. :) But anyway, I have notes taken and some good stuff to write I think, but it may be a couple days.

Week 7 Class - April 6th, 2015


Sitting Meditation - Complete Awareness

By the time I got home I couldn't remember the exact phrase used here, I *think* complete awareness was it, maybe "total awareness". You get the idea though. This begins with our standard focus on the breath. With other meditations the focus may remain on the breath the entire time (with thoughts or anything else that comes up being a 'distraction' to notice and return to the breath). Alternatively, the focus may be on something specific, thoughts, sounds, body sensations, etc. The things I've done that have a focus on resistance to pain are essentially "sitting meditation with a focus on painful sensations".

-- So anyway, this is a guided meditation where we begin with a focus on the breath, but we allow ourselves to go to anything that comes up in any fashion and just observe it. If that becomes too much of a distraction, return to the breath. We do this for awhile, and I assume the instructor realizes that there is a lot more "activity" going on with something more open-ended like this, and he breaks in to remind us to return to the breath more frequently than normal.

This is a "tough" one for me. This seems to encourage that racing mind, running off after anything shiny in my entire field of awareness. Thoughts are always difficult, sounds less so, body sensations that are NOT pain usually pretty easy to notice and move on, but with "permission" to land on any of these things, oh man, its a little bit much.

Poem

The Summer Day by Mary Oliver

Discussion Topics - Class/Practice Experience

We have a group discussion about our experiences, either in the class, or with our practices at home. I'd say over half of the class shared something, and everyone shared something different. I didn't speak up here. I, of course, have tons of thoughts about my experiences here, on lots of small changes that I do see in myself that I attribute at least in part to this class that add up to something noteworthy. But I do have one week left since I'll be attending the bonus class next week, so I'll save that for the very end. The varying experiences are nice to hear. Some I relate to, some I don't.

-- After so many people share some experiences, the instructor smiles and says "there is an unbelievable amount of knowledge in this room. I really don't need to say anything else at all. I don't need to be here, something one of you is struggling with, someone else is finding a connection with. You could all teach each other at this point." Its a nice sentiment. Its also a nice confirmation of the idea of just rolling with it. Lots of practices we've done here really didn't resonate with me. Some things felt really weird and a little offputting. But those things may have been the most important things for others here. We all describe different benefits to being here, different things we see that we can use to improve our lives going forward.

-- This also really helps to close out, and validate in a way, many of the apprehensions that I had going into the class. I said at the very start that if I stumbled on to a website about this on my own, I'd never consider it. The list of things that are said to improve in people are HUGE. It feels like a scam advertisement. Like a promise to cure everything. But that's not it. In the class you quickly learn that the opposite is true. NOTHING is promised. Just put in the time and something will happen. Don't strive for something specific, just try lots of different things, see what resonates, see what happens. Be open minded. And this discussion really shows all of those things to be completely true. Everyone here got something out of this class within a few weeks. Everyone seems to have ideas about how they can further their practice in their own way to get a lot more out of it going forward. Its offputting to see the list of benefits on the website. Its offputting to be told that nothing can be promised once you start here. Its incredibly counter-intuitive to be told that the way to get the most out of the class is to not strive for anything, and just see what happens. But at the end, it makes complete and total sense. If I was hyperfocused on pain management, since that is why I came here, if I tuned out the things that felt weird, how much would I have missed?

Further Practice

We get a handout on something called "The six sources of influence", if you google that you will get a lot of charts talking about addiction. The same categories exist in our handout but its been modified to allow us to talk about using mindfulness going forward, so its a little lighter than the things you might find in a google search. I think the aim here is to just think about different things that you can do to build a habit out of this.


-- Personal Motivation - Think about the benefits you've seen from practice so far, and things that seem open to be accomplished with continued practice.

-- Personal Ability - We've learned all we need to to find success with this.

-- Social Motivation - Who are your allies and cheerleaders? A lot of people have involved their families in this stuff. For me its more private. Minus the part where I have discussed 90% of what I've done, thought, and felt on the internet in a public forum, of course ;)

-- Social Ability - Teamwork is a big part of this. The idea that if you sit in a group of people and meditate together, even if completely silent, not guided, that you will 100% do it for longer without noticing discomfort compared to doing it by yourself.

-- Structural/Environmental Motivation - Looking for rewards, or accountabilities to continue to practice. The instructor gives a personal example of a routine he has in the morning to shower, stretch, and meditate. The structure works well, it feels like a nice morning routine. Also a reward in a sense, no breakfast until doing those things. We talk some about creating a structure for that sort of thing to encourage further practice.

-- Structural/Environmental Ability - Again using a personal example, the instructor talks about how he has an area set up for meditation. Cushion and whatever other stuff he likes to sit on to be comfortable are set up all the time. Its easy to put things in a closet and forget they exist. If they are out and ready to use, one less barrier to building a habit.



-- We discuss a lot of things for further practice that are included in our handouts. A lot of books for further learning, different perspectives. There is a list of meditation centers in the area that practice together regularly. Some are based on specific eastern customs, so there may be specific ways of sitting that are taught and encouraged (enforced?), or some chanting, or one that was mentioned that is based on Japanese culture that has some rituals, nothing too crazy we are told, and all of these groups are open and accepting and teach these things regularly. There are some advanced/specialized classes that are taught at UNC and Duke. Some of them are one day classes with a heavy focus on one topic or one practice. Some are 2-4 weeks that go into a topic in greater detail. We all have each other's e-mails, if we've made friends in class, organize something. The Day of Mindfulness is mentioned as something we can attend in the future, or we could check out the schedule at Duke and attend one of theirs if we want.


I'll go ahead and mention for those curious that I actually do have more than a passing interest in many of these things, at least at the moment. Its extremely possible that social anxiety gets the best of me, but checking out one of these meditation centers actually seems appealing (I say, with more than a little surprise at myself :D). I looked at the current list of advanced classes and didn't see anything very appealing, but I'm interested in keeping up with what's available. At this point I feel its a near certainty that I'll attend another Day of Mindfulness down the road. That was a truly unique and calming and peaceful experience, and I would really like to do that again. I'm curious to see what different things I might get out of a day like that if I actually do continue practicing and mediate daily (or near daily) over the next few months.

Pairs - 1 on 1 Discussion

We are split up into pairs, as always by the instructor just going around the room. We're asked to work on insight dialogue, Pause - Breathe - Open, or, think before you speak (this remains the thing that resonates with me less than anything else in the entire class). We're given two questions to answer, and to talk for a couple minutes.

As always, I won't say anything about what the other person told me.

What were your expectations coming into class

I intentionally avoided placing expectations on anything at the start. I limited my research (something I almost NEVER do) on the class, I trusted the recommendations and advice of my physical therapist and psychologist both and dove into this. I took this class as a way to try to find a pain management strategy, and to deal with day to day anxiety in my life.

In the end, by the way, I'm extremely glad I approached it this way. If I knew before signing up how much sharing was encouraged (even though none was ever required outside of introductions), I may have let social anxiety win and not signed up. If I had read ahead too far and started reading about walking meditation, I might have decided this was just too weird and I'm just going to feel awkward the entire time, might as well save my money.


Why did you stay?

I never actually considered not staying. I think it took a few weeks for me to say "Ok, I'm all in here". If you go back to the earlier weeks of this, I'm pretty sure I wrote a big section entitled "The physiology of stress." THAT was the moment that I was all in. Until then I was doing the things, and it was fine, but it involved a lot of blind faith in a lot of things.



-- We talk in our pairs about these two questions for a few minutes. The instructor rings the bell to bring discussion to a close. My partner says "but wait! I wanted to ask you about the stuff you said." I share the same thought, I was really intrigued by some of the stuff she said. That seems to happen a lot in these little groups. I'm sure its intentional.


Another round of questions:

What sacrifices have you made to come here

Very little for me. Money, honestly. I work part time from home. Others here have huge time management concerns. I do not. When I signed up for this class though, money was a concern. I've spent a LOT of money on things recommended by physical therapy, plus all the appointments, all the driving, etc etc. I'm not really one who dwells on that sort of thing, and obviously in hindsight it was all worth it. But there was a point in the physical therapy process where I did stop and think "ok, the results haven't come yet, but I'm told to be patient. But dear lord this is getting EXPENSIVE". I'm glad I stayed patient, and didn't push away the idea of taking this class as a result.

What obstacles have you run into in your practice

Finding enough time again isn't a problem for me. But on occasion, making time is. Sometimes I save everything til the end of the day, play one extra game of League of Legends, or decide I really want to watch Better Call Saul before I go to bed, and just don't do this stuff. That doesn't happen too often for me, but its basically my obstacle. I am NOT a morning person. I am not someone who is going to put together a detailed, consistent morning routine involving meditation. In my current environment, I can actually dedicate time in the middle of the work day to meditate if I want. Or during the "break" between work and play.


Slightly less interesting questions, since they feel less open ended, and at least for me, teach me less about myself (and about the person I'm talking to).

Bell rings, next thing.

Write a Letter

So here's one of those things that come up in class with some regularity that sounds strange, feels strange to describe, feels strange to do, but given the setting and unusual level of open-mindedness that seems to have come with this class, I go ahead and do it without reservation, without making fun of the task or whatever.

-- Think about where you are in your life right now. Think about what you've learned in this mindfulness class. Write a letter to 3 months in the future you. Say whatever you want, but be loving and gentle with yourself. As always, a reasonably open ended task, might mean different things to different people.

For myself, I think about my desire to keep up with this, but living in the real world knowing that I might not necessarily do so without class every week. Daily meditation, trying to actively find ways to have moments of mindfulness in the real world, that all sounds great, but how easy will it be to get caught up in the normal thoughts that go through each day and to just stop doing all of these things?

So I write myself a letter congratulating myself on my weight loss, my physical therapy success, on learning so many new things in this class on mindfulness. I remind myself of my goals, my desire to continue some of these practices daily, to actively look for situations to apply the things I've learned. I write a little something about a myriad of other goals I have going forward that really have only opened up to me with weight loss and a (slow, very slow) increase in self confidence. I tell myself that if I'm still working on improving myself, if I'm still doing all these things, congrats, great job. But if I have let things slip, if I'm not meditating, if my weight loss (which has been stalled for months now) is still stalled or has reversed even in the slightest, not to worry about it, things happen, but "now" (aka 3 months from now) is a really good time to dedictate myself to getting back on track.

-- Here is an envelope. Put the letter in it, write your address on it. Give it to the instructor. In 3-4 months you'll have forgotten that you did this most likely. Wont it be interesting to actually receive this letter in the mail. Yup, he's gonna save them and mail them to us. Huh. Ok.

-- I put my PO Box on the envelope. Not really interested in someone else in the house getting this and asking why I got a letter that I clearly addressed to myself in my own handwriting. :D

Questions

Pain Resistance/Management

I asked the first question! I referenced the discussion on resistance that we had a few weeks ago, and the exercise the instructor walked us through where we would focus on a moderate (ie not too intense) pain, then after a time moving over to an area where there is less pain. I asked two questions:

1) Can you expand on day to day practice to work towards lowering resistance to pain, what things you may to do try to go about this?

-- The primary response here talked about a slow buildup during formal practice, such as sitting meditation. While meditating, allow yourself to briefly, just briefly, focus on your pain, with all of the pillars of mindfulness in play (non-striving, non-judgement, accepting, letting go). Go back to your breathing. Do this a few times. Over time, build up to being able to move your focus to your pain for a little longer. Move back to your breath as needed if the pain is ever too much.

-- Another example was given that was new to me and that I don't really quite understand, to give your pain a "shape" and to find the "borders" of the pain, when you are experiencing it. I think this has something to do with making yourself a "neutral observer" to your pain. I did a little googling on this and it looks like something I'll need to play with on my own and just try to be open minded about.

-- The instructor emphasized that this is one of the most difficult things to do in general. That it can take time, and that you absolutely must be patient with yourself while working on this skill. He said that he was lucky that he started learning these things at a younger age before he knew about "real pain", and that its always easier to work on something in advance to have it available when you need it. The idea of learning this skill and working on it in the face of existing, significant pain is daunting. Be patient and it can happen.

2) There is nothing guided on the CD that we have that talks about pain management at all, do you have anything you'd recommend (while I enjoy many meditation practices that we've learned without any sort of guided audio, this is one area where i would *really* like to have something to assist)?

-- He mentioned a name of a woman who has done a lot of work with mindfulness and pain, but wasn't 100% certain of it, and promised to look it up and send it out to everyone. I will ask about this next week if we don't hear anything during the week.



Decision Making

A question was asked about using mindfulness with decision making.

-- The first and most important thing to note here is that with a large number of big and small decisions, we naturally make the decision unconsciously in an instant and then spend the rest of what we think is the "decision making process" looking for reasons to justify what we've already decided. I can certainly recognize when i've done this before.

-- Despite the adage of "go with your gut", the instructor mentions studies (I'm trusting him here, no pointers to them or anything) that show that your gut on decisions is really only right 50% of the time. That it can be trained but that this as a learned skill caps out around making the "right" decision 65% of the time. Again, I can't cite anything here, so feel free to be skeptical about this information.

-- The use of mindfulness here is in the ability to pause, to slow things down, and to recognize that this is a thing that happens. Mindfulness in many cases simply offers a choice to view a situation in a new way. So the end advice here feels pretty straightforward. Simply recognize this idea when it comes to big decisions. DONT go with your gut necessarily, just because its the first reaction you had. Instead, recognize this as an unconscious reaction that may or may not be best, set it aside and truly weigh pros and cons without this initial judgement in the way.


Apps/Assistance

-- There's a question about various apps for smartphones that are out there to encourage mindfulness. I'm still living in the 20th century when it comes to cell phone technology, so I have no idea what's out there. The question is about whether its ok/recommended to use these things.

I do, however, search for things on youtube out of curiosity, looking on occasion to see what kind of guided meditations are out there. So I have a bit of an interest in this question anyway.

The instructor doesn't know of any specifics about what's out there either. He says that in general these shouldn't be things we need, we really should have the confidence that we have truly learned everything we need in this class to continue on our own. But, if an app, or a guided meditation helps build a habit for you, that's great. But that these aren't necessarily things that we would want to become reliant on long term.