Uma análise de harmony
We don’t need perfect quiet to meditate. Completa silence might be too overwhelming in meditation for beginners. We become extra sensitive to every little sound when things are completely quiet.
JM: We had the idea a few years ago to institute five minutes of silent meditation before staff meetings. People were enthusiastic about the idea, and we’ve been doing it ever since.
Mindfulness fosters compassion and altruism: Research suggests mindfulness training makes us more likely to help someone in need and increases activity in neural networks involved in understanding the suffering of others and regulating emotions. Evidence suggests it might boost self-compassion as well.
A Q&A with Jack Kornfield about giving feedback at work, using social media wisely, and the poetry in his teachings.
Continue like this for two minutes. Noticing the breath moving into your body on the inhale, and leaving your body on the exhale.
To develop these skills in everyday life, you can try these exercises used in Kabat-Zinn’s MBSR program and elsewhere:
Meditating after a large meal—and certainly after drinking alcohol—can make you feel sleepy, which isn’t ideal. The goal is to stay alert during your practice.
Find “micro-moments” of mindfulness throughout the day to reset your focus and sense of purpose.
During body scan, for example, participants saw the biggest increases in how aware they were of their bodies (unsurprisingly) and the sharpest decline in the number of thoughts they were having, particularly negative thoughts and thoughts related to the past and future. Loving-kindness meditation led to the greatest boost in their feelings of warmth and positive thoughts about others. Meanwhile, observing-thought meditation seemed to increase participants’ awareness of their thoughts the most. Previous research also suggests that observing-thought meditation has an advantage in reducing our judgmental attitude toward others. Taken together, these and other studies suggest that if you’re tackling a specific issue—say, feeling disconnected from your body—then you can choose a practice aimed at helping that issue, like the body scan. Loving-kindness might help in conflict with others, while observing-thought meditation can help break rumination. Body-Scan Meditation
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(It’s hard, we know.) In the past, research has sometimes led to conflicting findings on whether mindfulness benefits our positive and negative emotions. This study sheds some light on a possible reason why, by illustrating how specific
Loving-kindness meditation, which the GGSC’s Christine Carter explains in this post, involves extending feelings of compassion toward people, starting with yourself then branching out to someone close to you, deep healing music then to an acquaintance, then to someone giving you a hard time, then finally to all beings everywhere.
that cultivates mindfulness. It’s sometimes described as a workout that strengthens your mindfulness muscle.
And for what? Meditation is about befriending yourself. Treat thoughts and other distractions with a friendly curiosity, as you might a passerby in the neighborhood. Maybe give ‘em a wave as they walk by, and then get back to your practice.