Mindfulness or meditation? These two "M's" often get confused with each other, and for a good reason. They are easy to conflate because they are very similar. Yet, both offer great ways to stop and break negative thinking loops.
Mindfulness is finding the present moment anyplace, anywhere and at any time. When we do this, we can regulate ourselves on the spot.
Young kids are mindful and almost always in the present moment.
They have a limited concept of the future or past.
Mindfulness is playing with a dog or just watching it play by itself.
It is watching a bird on a bird feeder or getting lost in the trees that sway gently in the summer breeze. It is watching the clouds paint a picture while the sky moves gently by.
Mindfulness is focusing on the breath, in and out, in and out. It forgets about the past, surrenders any plans for the future, and finds the present moment, which is truly a gift. A present 83
There are countless ways to be mindful, including breathing,
gratitude, compassion and meditation.
Mindfulness is becoming centred, so the flight, fight or freeze, stress response is turned off with intent. This allows us to navigate our outer world more gracefully and easily, which spreads from person to person if viewed through the correct lens.
Joe Dispenza teaches us that meditation begins in the present moment when we become nothing or no-thing, no-where in no place, no time, and in no space.
A body scan is a fast way to gain mindfulness and prepare for meditation. A body scan is exactly what it sounds like, scanning different parts of the body, allowing us to get present by becoming aware of our awareness quickly.
Start at the top of your body and work down. Focus your awareness on the head, shoulders, chest, abdomen, hips, thighs, calves, feet or any variation that works for you, including starting at the bottom and working up to the crown of the head.
Quick heart coherence is another excellent trick taught by the Heart-Math Institute. This is done by breathing while focusing on the chest area, then breathing deeply in and out of the heart.
Spending time in nature will allow trees to breathe a specific frequency onto and into us, that will similarly help our physiology as meditation and mindfulness do.
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Some people opt for a guided journey to a mountaintop and see the light filling the body. Electrical charges will course throughout the body, energizing and emanating light in every direction and across many dimensions.
I have learned all this through personal experience, yet to quote Socrates, "The only thing I know for sure is that I know nothing."
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Alphabet soup for the soul vol.1 - "N”
N is for Nature
" Let us spend one day as deliberately as nature"