I would like to start this introduction to mindfulness class with letting you know why I believe parents,
Grandparents and care of children should practice mindfulness meditation.
I'll then tell you a bit more about what it is and the foundations of it and how you can practice and how it's going to really feel when you practice and then give you an example of how it's changing me as a parent.
So mindfulness meditation has shown a steady increase in scientific study from around the 80s and it coincides with a methodology that was introduced by an MIT molecular biologist who trained in the same practice I'm going to introduce in this class.
He's called John Kabat-Zinn.
The method is well famous around the globe.
It's called MBSR Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Program and it consists in an eight weeks training on the different type of mindfulness meditation practice that we are going to look into.
And to date there are more than 2,
000 scientific studies based only on that method which have shown improvement in physiological health,
Slowing down of brain aging,
Improvement of mental health,
Improvement of cognitive function like focus,
Emotional balance,
Increased creativity and even differentiation of the gene expressions that are responsible for our body anti-inflammatory response.
Many of this study have been done in partnership with a well-renowned University like Harvard and UCLA.
And one of the latest one I looked up at was done as a meta-analysis of research done during the pandemic on level of anxiety and the effect of mindfulness programs on this level of anxiety.
And in addition to finding that anxiety and depression was significantly reduced in children and adults training these practices,
It showed something that I thought was a game changer.
It showed that there was a huge correlation between children level of anxiety and depression and their family abilities to regulate their own emotions.
If that's not a reason to start practicing mindfulness meditation,
What is?
But also in a more wholesome and maybe more poetic way,
Mindfulness meditation allows us to just be present to all of our life.
Jack Kornfield puts it that way.
I want to discover the power of the heart to hold all things,
Sorrow,
Loneliness,
Shame,
Desire,
Regret,
Frustration,
Happiness and peace and to find a deep trust that whenever we are and whatever we face we can be free in their midst.
So after my two very convincing arguments,
Why isn't there more people practicing?
And I believe there are many misconceptions about meditation.
The first one is that people see meditation as one kind of meditation.
However if you've seen this app that you're listening on,
The Insight Timer,
You will know that there are many kind of meditation.
That the stereotypical picture that you might have in your mind about how you should be,
How much time you should have,
What you should wear,
Doesn't apply for meditation.
You can do it anywhere,
Wearing anything you want and you can adapt it to your circumstance.
It's also not a religious practice.
It can be and it can be spiritual too,
But it doesn't have to.
And I'm teaching in a secular circle really.
And finally there are many aspects of mindfulness meditation that are easy.
So it was brought from Asia initially and a lot of my teacher have actually studied in Thailand,
Burma and in Japan in Zen temples.
But mindfulness meditation practices have percolated in every world religion.
And so now,
Like me,
It's taught a lot in secular circles.
And if I had to give you one definition of mindfulness meditation,
It would be this one.
It is bringing a kind,
Non-judgmental attention to the present moment.
This is it.
As simple as that.
It relies on four foundations.
The body,
The feelings,
The mind and what I would say is life or relationship.
The body,
You bring attention to the senses of your body.
You might be familiar with body scan,
For example,
Closing your eyes and feeling your body from your toe to your head or your head to your toe.
You might have heard of sound meditation,
Just focusing on what you can hear.
You can do the same with the other senses.
The second foundation being the feelings or the emotion,
Bringing attention to what you are feeling.
Anger,
Sadness,
Excitement,
Joy,
Frustration and whether they are pleasant or unpleasant.
The third foundation being the mind,
Like I said,
Observing your thought appearing and disappearing and being able to get insight into the belief that you hold true.
And finally,
The one that I called life but is also really mentioned in terms of relationship.
And it is your relationship to all the situations that you encounter with people,
With life,
How you cling or you reject those experiences.
So if I had to do three steps for how you can practice mindfulness meditation,
I would say you start with one,
Stabilizing your attention.
You will do that practicing mindfulness of the breath or mindfulness of the body or some equivalent.
Then you will open to your present experience and it might be that emotions are arising,
It might be that you have a lot of thoughts present in your mind and you will observe and acknowledge that.
The key there being this kind and non-judgmental attention when you're observing and maybe also not being led by your story.
And finally,
The last step is finding the right action because another one of the misconception is that mindfulness meditation is passive but it is not.
Mindfulness meditation is slowing down to look inwardly and then resourcing yourself enough that you can find the wisest response you're capable of in that moment.
How does it really feel when you start?
So if you start meditating and you might want to do my meditation after that,
You will find you having an internal chat,
You'll find yourself restless,
You won't be able to wait for it to be finished,
You will be wondering if you're doing it in a circle with other people how the others are doing and if you have your eyes closed you might want to take a peek.
Or you might want to start doing your to-do list and starting solving some of the problem that you said you would solve after that session.
And that's all normal.
From the beginner to the more advanced meditation practitioner,
Everybody has some of those days where they find everything peaceful and some of those day where they feel like they are in the eye of the storm of thoughts and emotions and stories being run through their head.
But really why I believe that is an amazing practice and it can help us to meet the challenge that we have in our life is because as a parent I find a lot of little situation challenging.
Like the one where I'm driving my boys back from the child minder and they keep arguing in the backseat to the point that they start hitting each other.
And after repeating myself ten times,
Please stop,
Stop,
Don't hit your brother,
Don't talk to your brother,
Please be kind to each other,
I often lose it.
And when we get home I will shout at them that I have enough,
They are not only disrespectful but very mean to each other and I don't understand how that is.
But if I am grounded I'm able to be aware of all of my feeling of frustration and sadness behind that frustration and disappointment.
When we get home I can say to them more calmly what I'm expecting,
What I would like them to do even if they don't do it.
And I can open my heart to their strong emotions and often he will end up with me comforting a meltdown of one of them and then finding them activity to calm down and get into the routine.
And this shift is only because I pay attention to my frustration,
Anger,
Sadness and responded to me before turning to them,
Being able to meet them where they are.
Often the moment when we must need to pause is exactly when it feels most intolerable to do so.
This is from Tara Brach and I find that so often true in everyday life as a parent.
So the idea is to pause and mindfulness meditation strengthen our ability to pause.
I like how Viktor Frankl puts it,
Between the stimulus and the response there is a space.
In that space is our power to choose our response.
In our response lies our growth and our freedom.
So really the point of mindfulness meditation is to make this space wider and then access the wisest response we are able to.
So we can engage with our life and the people around us,
Like our friend,
Partners and our children in a wholesome way.
