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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.
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