Front Office Football Central - View Single Post - Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course

Radii · 04-20-2015, 11:12 PM

What I'm doing

So I've had about two weeks with no homework. Homework always makes it easy, right? There's a check-in process, a specific expectation of what we should be working on, even if it did get more and more open ended throughout the course. But now, we can do whatever we want. So we have this giant list of things from the previous post.

Remember, from the discussion in the bonus week, our instructor discussed his daily practice. He only mentioned 3 things. Mindful Yoga (stretching), Sitting Meditation, Insight Dialogue.

So anyway, since we stopped having specific homework:

-- I have been doing some stretching every day, though not always in a fashion that would be described as mindful. I'm trying to work towards copying the ideas from my instructor on stretching here and there for a couple minutes a number of times throughout the day.
-- Over the last two weeks there have only been two days that I haven't done at least 15 minutes of sitting meditation. This morning I did it for 25 minutes, working up to the 30 minute standard for most days.
-- I want to implement in my day is the use of breathing space to take breaks during the day, and to find moments to slow things down throughout the day. This is the most difficult thing for me to remember to do on a regular basis, because its not necessarily timed or planned.

If I try to do things on a schedule in the morning, its probably not going to happen. I hate mornings, and mindfulness is doing nothing to make me a morning person. I'm just likely to skip it. Instead, I'm looking to create space between work and play. I work from home as a software developer. I tend to spend much of my free time also on the computer. My current aim is to meditate after I'm done working for the day, before I start getting into any sort of hobby/gym/game/whatever.

-- When I read other people talk about mindfulness, I frequently read about people who are trying to just go all-in here. They want to completely overhaul their lives and to live every moment of every day mindfully. To *always* be in the present moment. I dunno. To me, that seems unreasonable. Its not a goal of mine. I'm not trying to put down other people's ideas or anything, and I have bought into tons of ideas from this class, but maybe not quite to that level.

One of the things I read for class that I never got around to summarizing here was a long list of ways to implement mindfulness into your daily life. Being mindful during mundane tasks, bringing yourself into the present instead of being off daydreaming while brushing your teeth, washing dishes, things like that. I honestly don't really have an aim to do that either. My "aim" instead is to be open minded, be open to the idea that my feelings about all this could grow over time, but right now I'm just looking for small easy ways to use this stuff in my days and see where it goes.

Other Potential Activities

-- I am going to be attending the first meeting with some of my classmates. We don't have a set long term plan for that. We're going to meet next Monday (4/27) and see what happens and figure out what we want to do. I think all of us are hoping to figure out something to do every couple weeks. I imagine us meditating together using a guided meditation off the CD we all got, and talking about our experiences, just a simple thing to encourage everyone to stick with it and have some people to talk with about things. But we don't have a specific plan so we shall see.

-- I haven't looked into meditation centers around the area, I'm curious about it, I may, unsure. We have a list of local centers that we were given along with our reading material. There are meditation groups on meetup.com too. I'm a little scared of that though. The fact that I'm willing to go meet with the people from class who I am now mostly comfortable with is a pretty big thing for me. I'm not quite ready to go hang out with strangers outside of a classroom setting

-- The next Day of Mindfulness for the UNC programs is in June. The first one was such a positive experience that I feel like I will at least seriously consider this.

-- There are "advanced" courses taught at both UNC and Duke. I'm not interested in that yet, but I'm keeping that on the radar as well.

04-20-2015, 11:12 PM	#112
Radii Head Coach Join Date: Jul 2001	What I'm doing So I've had about two weeks with no homework. Homework always makes it easy, right? There's a check-in process, a specific expectation of what we should be working on, even if it did get more and more open ended throughout the course. But now, we can do whatever we want. So we have this giant list of things from the previous post. Remember, from the discussion in the bonus week, our instructor discussed his daily practice. He only mentioned 3 things. Mindful Yoga (stretching), Sitting Meditation, Insight Dialogue. So anyway, since we stopped having specific homework: -- I have been doing some stretching every day, though not always in a fashion that would be described as mindful. I'm trying to work towards copying the ideas from my instructor on stretching here and there for a couple minutes a number of times throughout the day. -- Over the last two weeks there have only been two days that I haven't done at least 15 minutes of sitting meditation. This morning I did it for 25 minutes, working up to the 30 minute standard for most days. -- I want to implement in my day is the use of breathing space to take breaks during the day, and to find moments to slow things down throughout the day. This is the most difficult thing for me to remember to do on a regular basis, because its not necessarily timed or planned. If I try to do things on a schedule in the morning, its probably not going to happen. I hate mornings, and mindfulness is doing nothing to make me a morning person. I'm just likely to skip it. Instead, I'm looking to create space between work and play. I work from home as a software developer. I tend to spend much of my free time also on the computer. My current aim is to meditate after I'm done working for the day, before I start getting into any sort of hobby/gym/game/whatever. -- When I read other people talk about mindfulness, I frequently read about people who are trying to just go all-in here. They want to completely overhaul their lives and to live every moment of every day mindfully. To always be in the present moment. I dunno. To me, that seems unreasonable. Its not a goal of mine. I'm not trying to put down other people's ideas or anything, and I have bought into tons of ideas from this class, but maybe not quite to that level. One of the things I read for class that I never got around to summarizing here was a long list of ways to implement mindfulness into your daily life. Being mindful during mundane tasks, bringing yourself into the present instead of being off daydreaming while brushing your teeth, washing dishes, things like that. I honestly don't really have an aim to do that either. My "aim" instead is to be open minded, be open to the idea that my feelings about all this could grow over time, but right now I'm just looking for small easy ways to use this stuff in my days and see where it goes. Other Potential Activities -- I am going to be attending the first meeting with some of my classmates. We don't have a set long term plan for that. We're going to meet next Monday (4/27) and see what happens and figure out what we want to do. I think all of us are hoping to figure out something to do every couple weeks. I imagine us meditating together using a guided meditation off the CD we all got, and talking about our experiences, just a simple thing to encourage everyone to stick with it and have some people to talk with about things. But we don't have a specific plan so we shall see. -- I haven't looked into meditation centers around the area, I'm curious about it, I may, unsure. We have a list of local centers that we were given along with our reading material. There are meditation groups on meetup.com too. I'm a little scared of that though. The fact that I'm willing to go meet with the people from class who I am now mostly comfortable with is a pretty big thing for me. I'm not quite ready to go hang out with strangers outside of a classroom setting -- The next Day of Mindfulness for the UNC programs is in June. The first one was such a positive experience that I feel like I will at least seriously consider this. -- There are "advanced" courses taught at both UNC and Duke. I'm not interested in that yet, but I'm keeping that on the radar as well.