The Best Mindfulness Class and 30 Day Challenge

What is mindfulness? Mindfulness is the act of consciously focusing the mind in the present moment, WITHOUT JUDGEMENT and without attachment to the moment. A person who is mindful is aware in and of the present moment.

Mindfulness is the opposite of being on auto pilot, or being lost in a habit. It has to do with the quality of awareness a person brings to everyday living. It’s a way of living awake with eyes wide open.

Mindfulness practice is the intentional process of observing, describing, and participating in reality, non-judgmentally, in the moment, and with effectiveness.

Mindfulness is not holding on so tightly to the present moment that we don’t want it to stop or end. When we are mindful, we are open to the fluidity of each moment as it rises and falls away.

It’s been said that depression comes from worrying about the past and anxiety comes from worry about the future. We can see now how important it is for our mental health to stay focused on the present moment.

handout 1a in class materials

Mindfulness can be used to treat a variety of disorders or situations. Here are some examples.

Depression- there is a strong and convincing evidence base for mindfulness treating affective disorders. People struggling with depression often avoid dealing with their feelings and this can help maintain depression in the long run. Mindfulness forces us to deal with our thoughts, which could be its mechanism of action.

Anxiety- anxiety is the most common form of mental health problem and mindfulness has a strong evidence base to support its use. Practicing mindfulness could help people desensitize themselves to the unpleasant feelings caused by worry.

Pain management- mindfulness seems to help both acute pain, such as post-surgery or cancer, and chronic pain, such as lower back pain. Exposing ourselves to our feelings could help desensitize ourselves, or it could be that mindfulness deals with anxiety and depression caused by pain.

Weight management- mindfulness could help people lose weight by increasing awareness of how we feel both in terms of hunger sensations and other influences that caused us to over eat. It could also help improve self-management.

Drug addiction- mindfulness could help such substance-abuse including alcohol, by increasing awareness, improving self-understanding, improving self-management and building up a tolerance to uncomfortable feelings.

Sleep- mindfulness can help reduce insomnia and sleep problems by improving self-awareness, allowing people to change their unhealthy habits towards sleep, and reducing anxiety and depression that can contribute to insomnia.

Focus- our attention is trainable and therefore mindfulness could help in areas of our lives where we need to concentrate such as education and business.

Sport- mindfulness could allow athletes to increase their play-by-play concentration and allow endurance athletes to sit with the uncomfortable sensations of working hard for longer periods.

What is mindfulness practice and goals- handout 1 and 1a

Mindfulness skills can be practiced anywhere, while doing anything! Intentionally paying attention to the moment, without judging it or holding onto it, is all that is needed.

Meditation- is practicing mindfulness skills while seated, standing, or lying quietly for a predetermined period of time. We will focus on our mind, body sensations, emotions, thoughts, or our breath. We can also practice opening our mind and seeing what comes into our awareness. There are many different types of meditation. We will get more into that later in the course.

Contemplative prayer- This is a spiritual mindfulness practice that can vary with different religions. (Christian centering prayer, the rosary, Jewish schema, Islamic Sufi practice, or Hindu raja yoga)

Mindful movement- also has many forms. Such as yoga, martial arts, spiritual dancing, Hiking, horseback riding, walking and even coloring!

Goals are –

To reduce suffering and increase happiness

To increase control of your mind

To experience reality as it is

*fill out your handouts and I’ll see you in the next lesson

In order to live your life mindfully and develop self-awareness, there are three core skills that you need to develop: 1) focused attention or concentration, 2) open monitoring or present moment awareness, and 3) acceptance or non-judgment.

Let’s look at what each of these means:

Focused Attention (Concentration)

Focused attention is like paying attention “on purpose” or with a wise mind. Think about it like concentrating on something, which means consciously choosing what we’re paying attention to. For example, you may know that you are eating but your mind can be thinking about a hundred other things, watching TV, talking, or playing with your phone. A very small part of your awareness is absorbed in eating. This is very different from eating mindfully, or with focused attention. When you eat mindfully you are fully aware of your eating—you deliberately notice the sensations, flavors, textures. When your mind wanders, you bring your attention back to eating.

Open Monitoring (Present Moment Awareness/ noticing)

Unlike focused attention when you direct your awareness at just one thing, open monitoring is observing whatever is happening at the moment. Focused attention is like having tunnel vision, while open monitoring is like looking through a wide angle lense. This is the “what skill”

When we practice mindfulness, our thoughts are focused on what we’re sensing in the present moment rather than rehearsing the past or imagining the future. It’s about paying attention to NOW, which is the one moment we actually can. This is perhaps the most important reason to practice mindfulness because when you stay stuck in a state of mindlessness, lost in thought about the past or future, you are letting your life pass you by. Mindfulness means living in the moment and truly experiencing life. Like I said, mindfulness is concerned with focusing on what’s going on right now. That doesn’t mean we can no longer think about the past or future, but when we do so we do so mindfully, meaning that we’re aware in the moment that we’re thinking about the past or future. And were not letting it dictate the current situation or our feelings about it.

Acceptance (Non-Judgment/ detachment)

Mindfulness involves acceptance, meaning that we observe our thoughts and feelings without judging them. We stop believing that there’s a “right” or “wrong” way to think or feel in a given moment. It means we don’t beat ourselves up when we catch ourselves thinking about things we didn’t want to think about. It also involves acceptance of the conditions of life, as well as other people. Mindfulness means learning how to accept what IS, see the truth clearly, and stop living in resistance. By seeing things as they are, without judging them, you will be able to make peace with them and choose healthy ways of responding.

We will cover 7 skills in 3 sets- The wise mind, the what skills of observing, describing, and participating, Also the how skill of practicing non judgmentally, one mindfully, and effectively.

Worksheets 2, 2a, 2b, and 2c offer 4 variations for recording practice of all 7 mindfulness skills. They can be useful for recording practice after you have learned the skills.

Wise mind is the inner wisdom that each one of us has. When we access inner wisdom, we say we are in wise mind. When we enter the state of wise mind, we integrate opposites, including our reasonable and emotional states of mind, and we are open to experience reality as it is.

You can record your practice on this handout, wise mind practice, it offers practice ideas. It asks you to rate how effective your practice was in accessing your wise mind, not weather it helped calm you… were getting there

Take hold of your mind: How skills. HANDOUTS 5, 5A, 5B, 5C

Handout 6- Overview, other perspectives on mindfulness. Briefly summarizes the 3 supplemental practices. With a place to practice loving kindness.

A spiritual perspective (7)- Mindfulness can be practiced for psychological reasons or for spiritual reasons. A spiritual perspective on mindfulness is included for those whom spirituality is an important part of their life. Mindfulness practice is very old, arising initially from spiritual practices across many cultures. It also has a modern-day presence in many contemplative prayer and meditation practices.

(7a)- Wise mind from a spiritual perspective- This outline different types of spiritual practices and includes some of the many terms used to reference the transcendent. Many spiritual and religious practices, including silence, quieting the mind, attentiveness, inwardness, and receptivity. These are characteristics of deep spiritual experiences.

(8) Practicing love and kindness to increase love and compassion- Anger, hate, hostility, and ill will toward ourselves and toward others can be very painful. The practice of loving kindness is a form of meditation in which specific positive words and phrases are repeated recited, it cultivates compassion and loving feelings as an antidote to negativity. Loving kindness is an ancient spiritual meditation practice. In some ways its similar to praying for the welfare of ourselves and others. To record practices of loving kindness use handout 6

*Talk about the free meditation on audible

(9) Skillful means: Balancing the doing mind and the being mind- skillful means is a term in Zen that refers to any effective method that aids you to experience reality as it is, or to enter fully into the wise mind. Doing mind and being mind are states of mind that, in their extreme forms, can get in the way of skillful means and the wise mind.

Doing mind focuses on achieving goals. Being mind focuses on experiencing. The polarity between them is similar to that between a reasonable mind and emotional mind. In everyday life, wise living requires us to balance working to achieve goals (on the one hand), and at the very same time to let go of attachment to achieving those goals (on the other hand).

Handout 9a lists practice exercises.

7a, 8, and 9 are in calendar format to practice each day and record. Practice your mindfulness during frazzled moments, pleasant events, and unpleasant events.

finding the synthesis between opposites-

Wise mind is the middle path between extremes. In wise mind we replace “either-or” with “both-and” thinking in an effort to find a synthesis between oppositions. Ordinarily when we are at extreme on any continuum, we are in danger of distorting reality.

Wise mind is hearing out your emotions but not letting them take control, listening to your logic without obscuring your compassion, and remembering your top priorities in moments of confusion. Wise mind is seeking understanding and balance and choosing your behaviors thoughtfully, in service of your goals. Wise mind is acting with humility, guided by your best angels.

This handout lists several polarities that could be out of balance and provides space for recording your practice aimed at balancing them – (10)

(10a) analyze yourself on the middle path. Use this worksheet to think through weather you are out of balance. This means a living style that knocks you off your center, out of wise mind. Into the self-sabotage zone.

(10b) walking the middle path calendar- can be used with 10a for daily practice in a different format.

Here are some journal prompts to get you started. Bullet journaling is a fantastic approach to getting organized and it helps us to keep track of what we are doing or feeling or when we wish to reflect back on our experiences and to determine what is affecting us. If you are unfamiliar with bullet journaling a quick google search will give you everything you need to know.

-What is it you hope to get out of this course and learning mindfulness?

How will you tackle it?

-What is the greatest form of injustice you see in the world today? What change is needed?

-What would you do if you had a whole day to yourself with no responsibilities? 24 hours of me time

-Recall your favorite time spent in nature. What was your favorite part about it? What do you remember most about it? How did you feel when you went home?

-Make a list of your 10 favorite memories of times you have spent with friends or family.

-What do you think is the nicest thing anyone has done for you?

-What do you think is the nicest thing you have done for someone else?

-What are your guilty pleasures and how often do you engage?

-What’s your favorite thing about the summer, winter, autumn, and spring? Why?

-Is there something you keep putting off or never seem to get around to? Writing about procrastination can help inspire you to get started. What’s holding you back? Break down your project into baby steps and write down one small thing you can do each day to get it started.

-Name 5 things, 10 if you can, that you are grateful for in your life and why.

Body scan -a full body scan session

Welcome to the body scan practice. Here, we're going to direct our attention to each part of the body in turn, starting at the top and working our way down. And we're practicing a number of things here. So, one is taking control of our attention and focusing it where we want it to go. But we're also going to explore all the different parts of our body because our attention is like a spotlight that can only shine on one thing at once. And so, a lot of the time there's loads of competing sensations. Only one of them gets our attention. And so, there's often a lot of weird and wonderful things happening in our bodies that we never pay attention to them. We don't realize that the body feels that way. And so, when we isolate each one, we can explore the sensations there. We can connect to our body, but better. We understand far more about the little aches and pains are that we maybe don't notice that they're there every day, but we just don't pay attention to, and don't realize that that's just a natural, normal part of being a human.

So, let's start by just finding somewhere comfortable to sit. You could sit on a chair; you could sit on the floor. You could lie down. If you have a solid firm floor, I wouldn't recommend something too relaxing and too drowsy, like a comfortable chair or a bed. We want to be alert and awake for this. And when you're ready, bring your attention to your breath to start, and you can gently close your eyes. We'll just spend a minute here with the breath, allowing it to fall back into its natural normal rhythm. We don't want to do any kind of special breathing. And a lot of the time when we focus on something, we modify it. So, let's just give the breath a minute to return to normal.

Let's begin our scan at the very top. So top of our head, scalp, brain, that kind of region. What sensations have we got there? We're not inventing any sensations. We are observing what is already there. Let's move it down slightly to the brow.

And our ears. What can we feel there? What sensations are associated with the inside and the outside of our ears.

What's going on there. Are they tired? Are they lively? Are they heavy?
Again. We're not inventing any sensations; we're just observing what's already there.

Sometimes takes a minute just to get that focus, allow anything we're creating to fade away and understand how it really feels.

Move our attention down to our nose. When we might be familiar with, from doing the breath, work the air, moving in and out cheeks. How do our cheeks feel?

And then our mouth.

You can go around each part of the mouth. How does the tongue feel?

How does the inside of the mouth feel as the air moves in and out?

How do our teeth feel? And how do our lips feel?

And now moving down to the jaw, quite a commonplace to carry tension. If you've done much yoga, you'll have probably been told to relax your jaw

At some point, but maybe yours isn't again. Again, we're not inventing any sensations. We're just noticing what's already there. You might find,

And that as you bring attention to your jaw, it does naturally relax and that's okay. You don't need to re-clench it to re-tighten it.

Let's move our attention down to your neck. How does your neck feel?

You could start at the front. Gradually work your way around to the back. Or you could take it all in as one. And then your shoulders. How did they feel?

Are they clenched? Are they hunched? Are they back? Are They upright? Do they feel like they're in need of a little stretch?

What can you feel? What sensations are already there?
Move to our left arm. So, starting with the upper arm, and the elbow, and the forearm.

There's no sensation in these places and that's okay. You can just notice that the lack of feeling, the lack of sensation, hopefully there's some kind of sensation,

But if not, no problem. Let's get to the wrist and our left hand. What's in the palm? How does the back of it feel?

And then we'll do the fingers. Let's start with the thumb and gradually work your way around each.

Finding out what sensations are already there. Just noticing without judgment.

We'll switch over to the right arm, starting with the upper arm and then moving down to the elbow and the forearm and the wrist. And then the right hand, the palm, the back of the hand, and then we'll work our way round the fingers, starting with the thumb on working around the little finger.

Move our attention back up to the middle of our torso. So, let's start with the spine and the back muscles. How are they feeling?

And down into the chest, into the lungs, how do they feel as they expand and contract as we breath in and out.

Moving on attention, down to the stomach.
What sensations can we notice there?
And then down to the hips and the buttocks,
Let's take the left leg. We'll start with the upper leg Going on in our quads and glutes and our hamstrings. Is there anything going on in our left knee?

And then moving down to the shin and the calf. Into the ankle.
Staying relaxed, not inventing any sensations. And into the left foot.

Top of the foot and the sole of the foot.

And then we'll start off with the big toe on our left foot. I want you to work our way around each of the toes, and then let's move up to the top of our right leg. So again, quads, hamstrings, glutes, what's going on the right side.

And then down into the knee.
And into the shin and the calf on our right side. Followed by our ankle.

And then into the right foot, what's going on the top of the foot, what's going on the sole. And then we'll start at the big toe and we'll work our way outwards on the right foot. So, let's go into the toe and just work our way around.

And as we move towards the end of this practice, just bring your attention back to the breath for a couple of breaths. And when you're ready, you can gently open your eyes.

Welcome to the sensory practice. A lot of the time when, particularly if we're highly stressed, we spend a lot of time in our own heads and it can be really beneficial to move outwards, to move our locus of attention beyond our thoughts and out into what we can experience. So, in this practice, we're going to focus on the senses and what they can tell us. Now, if your mind wanders during the exercise, that's totally okay. We're not training our minds not to wonder because that's just what human minds do. What we are practicing is noticing when we get distracted and guiding our mind back to the exercise. So, let's start by finding somewhere comfortable to sit. You want to be alert and awake. So probably not lying down on a comfy bed, but sat on the floor, sat on a hard- backed chair coming away from the back, something like that, something that really allows you to be present and focus on the exercise and not get too relaxed because mindfulness is an active practice. So, let's just begin by bringing some attention to our breath. And when you feel ready to do so gently close the eyes,

We'll just spend a minute here to allow our breath to return to normal. We don't want to be doing any kind of special breathing with mindfulness, we're just observing what is already there. So, we'll just give it a minute as our breath. Once we get that focus on it, we just want our breath to fall back into its natural rhythm.

We're going to start by focusing on sounds. So, what can you hear? Maybe there's a lot of sounds. Maybe there's no sounds and you can't hear anything. And if that's the case, then that's totally fine. Just notice the lack of any sounds the sounds loud, or are they quiet or were they far away?

What direction are the sounds coming from? Sounds constant. Or do they change?

Next, we're going to move on to what we can see. So, you can gently blink your eyes open if you have them closed and just take in what you can see around you.

The colors, the tones, the shadows.
Are there big things, or are there small things? Look at each one individually. What is their texture like, are they shiny? Are they matte?
Move away from seeing now. So, you can gently close your eyes again

Let's briefly move over to smell. What can you smell a lot of the time? Maybe it's nothing and that's okay. You just notice an absence of smells or if you smell something, what are the sensations like? What's it reminds you of what does it make you feel? Smells can be quite emotive a lot of the time.

If you get distracted at any point, that's totally fine. Notice that you've been distracted and gently guide your mind back to the exercise

We'll move on to touch now. How does the chair feel beneath Whatever sensations can you fail? Don't need to invent any, just notice what's already there.

Yeah. And again, if you get distracted, just congratulate yourself for noticing and move your focus back to the exercise. Now let's bring our attention back to the breath, just for a couple of breaths as we move towards the end of this practice.

And when you readily gently open the eyes.

Welcome to the breath practice. The breath is a common tool used in mindfulness because it gives us something we can focus on, a lot of sensation to explore. And it's always there for us. We can always go back to the breath when we need it. Begin by finding somewhere comfortable to sit with these practices we want to be alert and awake. So, we don't really want to be sitting down on a comfy chair or lying down in a bed where we'll get drowsy and go to sleep. A hard-backed chair works really well. I'd encourage you to come away from the back, or you could also sit on the floor or if you got from floor, you could lie on that as well. All of that are good options. And when you're ready, just bring your attention to your breath. You can gently close your eyes, or if you don't want to do that, maybe drop your gaze or soften your gaze. But eyes closed is really best. And just start by observing the breath and being nice and relaxed.

We're going to spend a bit of time just getting into this because a lot of the time, when we bring our area of focus onto something like the breath, we change it. We can take control of the breath. And so, we might deepen the breath, slow it down, speed it up, take it away from its natural rhythm a bit. And we mindfulness we don't want to create sensations. We just want to observe what is already going on. So, we're just going to start by taking a minute and letting the breath come back to its normal rhythm. Just getting back so we can observe. We're not changing anything here. We're just seeing what's going on there. So, we're letting that breath settle back.

Now let's add a bit of attentional control here. Let's direct our attention to our mouths and see what sensations we can feel there as the air moves in and out of our mouth. How does it feel on our tongue and our lips anywhere in the mouth?

If you predominantly breath through your nose, maybe there are no sensations there or very few. And if so, that's fine. We don't need to invent anything. Just observing what we can or cannot detect.

If you get distracted at any point during the practice. That's totally fine. Just gently guide your mind back to the exercise, back to the breath in this case and begin again.

Now let's move our attention on to the nose. So same kind of thing. Can you feel the air moving in and out? What sensations are There? Not inventing anything, just casually observing what's already there.

And now moving our area, focus again, a bit further back. Let's go into the throat, the back of the mouth back of the nose. What can you feel there? What sensations are apparent once we bring our area of focus there.

Again, if you get distracted, that's totally fine. Just congratulate yourself for noticing that you've been distracted and then gently guide your mind back and begin again with that focus on the breath specifically on the throat at the moment.

Now moving our attention down to the chest. As we breathe in our chest expands as our lungs fill with air and as we breathe out, it contracts as our lungs shrink a little pushing that air out. What do you notice? Not inventing any sensations, just noticing what's already there. What does it feel like? What sensations are present?

Moving our attention again. Let's go down into the belly.

When we breathe. Normally our bellies should be involved as well as our chest. Expanding and contracting as the air moves in around. What sensations can you notice down here?

If you get distracted, no problem.

It doesn't matter how many times you get distracted. That's totally fine. Just notice that you've been distracted and guide your mind back to the exercise and begin again. And if you get distracted a hundred times, it's totally fine. That's what we're practicing.

Now I want you to zoom out. So rather than giving any particular focus, just zoom out, taking the whole, the top of your torso. All of the sensations of breathing, of the air moving in and out, take it all in as one.

As we move towards the end of this practice, bring your attention back to the room. So, the sensation of whatever you're sitting on, whatever you can hear, whatever you can touch.

And when you're ready, you can gently open your eyes.

Welcome to the focus practice. Mindfulness is all about keeping our attention on the present. And in order to do that. We need to have some level of control over our attention. And attention is something that's very trainable. We can practice having control of our attention and get better at it. And so, in this practice, that's what we're going to do. We're going to practice taking control of our attention and putting it where we want it, rather than letting our crazy brain send it wherever it wants to go. Find somewhere comfortable to sit. We want to be alert and awake. Don't want to get too drowsy. So, sitting up either in a hard chair or on the floor are great options here. And when you're ready, start by bringing some focus to the breath and you can gently close the eyes. We'll just give our breath a minute to return to its normal rhythm before we move on.

So now I want you to move your attention to your head and taking all the sensations that you can feel there, your mouth, your nose, your eyes, your face. Anywhere, get the focus neatly into your head and we don't need to invent any sensations, but there have probably plenty there for us to explore anyway. So just move your attention to your head and start taking that all in

Now, when you to move your attention down to your stomach again, taking it all in, there's probably plenty of sensations to explore there. So, we don't need to invent any. If there are no sensations, then that's fine too. Just notice a lack of sensation. As you keep your focus on your stomach.

Now we're going to start switching between the two I'll cue you and how you do this is up to you. So, if you just want to jump from the head to the stomach and the stomach to the head, that's totally fine. If you want to have your focus travel up between the two, then that's also fine. We're going to do several of these. So maybe you want to try doing one hair and something else in the next, or just stick with one. Either is fine, but now bring your attention to your head.

And your stomach, the head, the stomach, the head, the stomach, the head, the stomach, the head, the stomach, the head, the stomach.

Now I want you to move your attention a little higher. So really go to the top of it. The head, maybe even a spot, right?
The very top. They kind of your hair. If you have hair.

Maybe even a little higher, maybe just an imaginary space, just above that. And now I want you to take your attention to the very bottom of your body. So, your feet, the soles of your feet, maybe just under that, what's going on down there again, not inventing any sensations, just noticing what's already there.

We're going to switch between the two and I'll cue you. And you can again choose whether you want to teleport directly from one location to the other, or whether you want that focus to move up and down the body

Travel between the two. So, let's move our attention up to the top and the bottom, the top, the bottom, the top, the bottom, the top, the bottom, the top, the bottom, the top, the bottom.

I want you to move your focus into the center of your body. So, kind of heart area, chest, stomach, that kind of region. And again, let's do, it's not inventing any sensations, but just seeing what's going on there.

And I want you to move your focus again, just to the external environment. You can keep your eyes closed and just see what you can hear and maybe what you can feel if that's not working for you, you could try opening the eyes, but it works fine with, with eyes closed as well. And then again, we're going to context switch. So, we're going to move our attention from the inside of our bodies to the outside to the external environment, to our sensations are telling us, and then we're going to go back into our bodies again, again, I will cue you between the two, so let's move our focus to the inside

And the outside, inside, outside, inside, outside, inside, outside, inside, outside.

Great job. Let's bring our attention back to our breath for the last minute of the practice. Nice natural rhythm of the breath, nice and steady. And when you're ready, you can gently open your eyes.

Congratulations on finishing this course! You should be very proud of yourself. You made the conscious decision to make yourself and your life happier. I know you’re seeing the results and a change in your mindset. Who ever said we can’t change our brains? You just did.

You can now get a certificate of completion. Keep up all the good work. Remember this does not stop here. This is a lifelong practice.