Back to class: Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction

Meditation (Photo credit: holisticgeek)

I am about to go to the second class of my Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) course. In the summer I wrote several posts on reading the Mindfulness Solution to Pain and practicing meditations described in the book. Mindfulness involves “paying attention on purpose, in the present moment, and nonjudgmentally, to the unfolding of experience moment to moment”, as defined by Jon Kabat-Zinn, founder of the MBSR program. I also posted on research showing how effective mindfulness practice is for chronic pain.

I have really enjoyed doing the assigned “homework” from the first class. The first part was to do a 30 minute body scan from the course CD. (A body scan meditation involves paying attention to different parts of your body for a few moments and observing the sensations you feel). This is the longest meditation I’ve ever done. The practices I have done before were breath meditations, usually only for a max time of 20 minutes. I really like the body scan because I am able to really focus and feel more in touch with what’s going on in my body. I feel like my mind wanders less then when I am doing breath meditation (focusing on your breath). It is very relaxing to have a break from your mind!

Of course, I’m not always in such a good mood when I go to meditate. Before I was meditating when I felt like it, which was usually when I already felt relaxed or calm. The idea of the MBSR program is that you commit to practice seven days a week for eight weeks – as Jon Kabat-Zinn says “you don’t have to like it, you just have to do it”. It sounds a little bit rigid but it’s really important while you are trying to establish meditation has a habit. When you go to practice and you realize you are stressed, agitated, and your mind is wandering everywhere, focusing can seem like the last thing you want to. But that’s when you realize how helpful mindfulness can be! It doesn’t necessarily produce calm every time. It does give you a chance to observe what is going on inside your head. Usually that helps me to figure out a more helpful way of dealing with things then spazzing out, or to recognize stressful patterns of thinking.

One thing I do have to keep working on is not to judge myself when I realized my mind has wandered off or I’m not feeling calmer/better after meditating. As the facilitator of my class says “if you have a mind, it’s going to wander”. You really can’t get into mindfulness with expectations about what it “should” do for you.

The other part of our homework was to try to eat mindfully at least once everyday. It’s really nice to realize how many sensations and moments are available to you if you stop to enjoy them. I love food, cooking and eating. When you realize how many times you just wolf down delicious meals… I always feel like my life is so limited now that I have fibromyalgia, so I think it’s really good for me to realize how much I do have around me to enjoy!