A Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Workbook

Christy Matta, MA is a fellow Psychcentral blogger, has worked in mental health for almost 20 years and has a confession, “I am an anxious traveler.”

Millions of people struggle with anxiety around traveling in one form or another and right now we’re in the peak period of the year in regards to air travel. I have a tip to help find freedom from anxiety that comes out of the new short enhanced eBook (fancy term that refers to an eBook including video instruction within the book available on IPad, Nook, and Kindle) Mindful Meditations for the Anxious Traveler. I created this $.99 enhanced eBook to be a mindful companion along the journey to more peaceful and restful travel:

Here’s the tip:

We’ve all heard the adage that “It is what it is,” but I like to add another piece saying, “It is what it is, while it is.” This speaks to a larger reality that whatever exists is impermanent, including our fear. When automatic worried thoughts of panic and worry begin creeping into your mind, saying “it is what it is, while it is” pops you out of autopilot, into the present moment, and reminds you that this feeling is impermanent. This reminder helps you to not get so wrapped up in it and can give you the choice to do a short mindfulness practice to calm your body and be kinder to yourself.

That’s what this is all about. We know that in between a stimulus and response there’s a space where the brain is rapidly making snap judgments and decisions about how to react. If there is a fear around travel, it’s going to be inserting judgments in that space through a worried lens. (more…)

With the moments of life seemingly becoming more fleeting, there’s never been a more important time to cultivate or become more aware of the meaning in our lives. Therese Borchard, author of Beyond Blue: Surviving Depression & Anxiety and Making the Most of Bad Genes, wrote a past post 7 Ways to Prevent Burnout. In this blog she summed up a book by one of her favorite authors, Robert Wicks, who laid out a path toward integrating spirituality into daily life in an effort to prevent stress and live the lives we want.  Definitely worth the read and if you have any aversion to the word “God” or “spirituality,” just replace that term with “higher self” and see how that works.

In 2005, I conducted a national study in an effort to see if people could in fact cultivate what I called “sacred moments” and see what effect that had on their stress and well-being. Lo and behold, in practicing 5 minutes a day for 5 days a week, for 3 weeks, there was a significant positive effect in stress reduction and well-being. What was so fascinating to me was that for many it allowed them to touch a sense of spirituality when they felt they had never been able to do this before.

A quote from one participant:

“[I experienced sacred moments] through this process. I never noticed any Spiritual moments before this. [The words] unique holy and worthy of reverence was not within the scope of my intellectual reaction of things. To be able to pray was something that I was not willing to [do]. What I like about [the sacred moment practice] is it allowed me to explore spirituality in a nonthreatening manner and for me that was special and unique.”

If you want to give it a spin, here were the same instructions the participants were given:

1. Choose an object - This object should represent something special, precious, or sacred to them. Almost anything can be sanctified and considered a sacred thing. According to Emile Durkheim (1915), known as one of the originators of modern sociology, “By sacred things one must not understand simply those personal beings which are called gods or spirits; a rock, a tree, a pebble, a piece of wood, a house, in a word anything can be sacred” (p. 52).
2. Mindful Check-In - Begin each practice by taking a few moment to be conscious of the breath and then slowly bring attention to the physical body, thoughts and feelings, hearing, seeing, tasting, and smelling. Just be aware of whatever you notice.
3. The Sacred Object - After the mindful check-in, gently shift attention to the sacred object and being open to what was sacred in the moment. There was no maximum time specified for this exercise. Instructions to participants permitted them to go longer than the suggested 5 minutes and asked them to simply make a log of the time.

Cultivating this practice is a very personal experience and at the same time sacred moments are shared by millions around the world.

As always, don’t take my word for it; go into this practice with a beginner’s mind, letting your judgments reside at bay, and just noticing whatever arises for you in the moment.

Please share your thoughts, emotions, and stories below. You interactions provide a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know I like to draw on the wisdom of others at times to get a point across.

In moving into 2012 we can allow these to be seeds to water throughout the year.  Enjoy!

1. “Be kind whenever possible. It is always possible.” ~ Dalai Lama
2. “If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” ~ Dalai Lama
3. “There is no way to happiness, happiness is the way.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
4. “It is what it is, while it is.” ~ Elisha Goldstein
5. “If we learn to open our hearts, anyone, including the people who drive us crazy, can be our teacher.” – Pema Chodron
6. “As soon as we wish to be happier, we are no longer happy.” ~ Walter Landor
7. “The fact is, we are not islands and we are far more connected than we know” ~ Elisha Goldstein
8. “There is no enlightenment outside of daily life.” ~ Thich Nhat Hanh
9. “Realize that this very body, with its aches and it pleasures… is exactly what we need to be fully human, fully awake, fully alive.” ~Pema Chodron
10. “After the ecstasy, the laundry.” ~ Jack Kornfield

May this be a year for you filled with ease, happiness, safety and getting in touch with the clarity and wisdom that resides within, realizing The Now Effect.

What are some other quotes that you resonate with? Please share your thoughts, quotes, and questions below. Your interaction here provides a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

So you spent your life working hard in elementary school, maybe pushing through to university and thought, well once I land this job then I’ll be happy, or once I get married, then I’ll be happy, or once I get a divorce, then I’ll be happy. The reality is, the conditions for happiness are all right here, right now, but it’s not enough to say, “Just dip into the now and happiness will arise.”

There are too many conditioned forces at play from past experiences that compromise the ability for “the now” to be a source of happiness. But we can train our minds to relate to “the now” in a particular way and train our minds toward happiness.

The moment you step into the now and recognize that you have a choice in how you want to relate to your life, you have entered into a new state of clarity where opportunity, possibility and a greater sense of freedom open up. This is The Now Effect at play.

You have stepped aside from all the preconceptions and snap judgments that usually automatically influence your next move and reconnect with the intention to live as if it mattered.

The only time we have is now and so we choose to take each moment as an opportunity to train ourselves toward happiness and greater freedom. We can start to recognize the spaces of awareness that all around us. It’s amazing how as we intentionally practice and repeat this these spaces begin to drop in on us like moments of grace throughout the day.  This is when it gets fun.

There begins to become a familiarity with the fact that we don’t have to believe everything we think and we’re not the movies in our minds. We have the power and choice to prime our minds for good, toward greater kindness, compassion and forgiveness, rewiring the bias our brain has toward automatically fixating on the negative. In the difficult moments we recognize the snap judgments that exacerbate the pain and see that we can choose a different and healthier response. Perhaps most importantly we experience the delusion of disconnection and a greater connection with ourselves and others. This is the basis for happiness.

As we begin training in the Now Effect, a deeper layer begins to emerge where these states of mind that we actively cultivate or that pop in on us spontaneously begin to become more pervasive traits of our personalities.

If you’ve been a regular reader of my blogs, you know that groundbreaking science is pointing us to the fact that we have the ability to use our intentional attention to change the architecture of our brains in very adaptive ways. That may be the neuroscience behind this deeper, more pervasive layer of the Now Effect.

The Now Effect: How this Moment Can Change the Rest of Your Life with embedded videos for practice is available for pre-order now. May this be a time to understand that there is no better time than now to get started with priming your mind to what really matters.

Enjoy!

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction creates a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Woman reading photo available from Shutterstock.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com

So you spent your life working hard in elementary school, maybe pushing through to university and thought, well once I land this job then I’ll be happy, or once I get married, then I’ll be happy, or once I get a divorce, then I’ll be happy. The reality is, the conditions for happiness are all right here, right now, but it’s not enough to say, “Just dip into the now and happiness will arise.”

There are too many conditioned forces at play from past experiences that compromise the ability for “the now” to be a source of happiness. But we can train our minds to relate to “the now” in a particular way and train our minds toward happiness.

The moment you step into the now and recognize that you have a choice in how you want to relate to your life, you have entered into a new state of clarity where opportunity, possibility and a greater sense of freedom open up. This is The Now Effect at play.

You have stepped aside from all the preconceptions and snap judgments that usually automatically influence your next move and reconnect with the intention to live as if it mattered.

The only time we have is now and so we choose to take each moment as an opportunity to train ourselves toward happiness and greater freedom. We can start to recognize the spaces of awareness that all around us. It’s amazing how as we intentionally practice and repeat this these spaces begin to drop in on us like moments of grace throughout the day.  This is when it gets fun.

There begins to become a familiarity with the fact that we don’t have to believe everything we think and we’re not the movies in our minds. We have the power and choice to prime our minds for good, toward greater kindness, compassion and forgiveness, rewiring the bias our brain has toward automatically fixating on the negative. In the difficult moments we recognize the snap judgments that exacerbate the pain and see that we can choose a different and healthier response. Perhaps most importantly we experience the delusion of disconnection and a greater connection with ourselves and others. This is the basis for happiness.

As we begin training in the Now Effect, a deeper layer begins to emerge where these states of mind that we actively cultivate or that pop in on us spontaneously begin to become more pervasive traits of our personalities.

If you’ve been a regular reader of my blogs, you know that groundbreaking science is pointing us to the fact that we have the ability to use our intentional attention to change the architecture of our brains in very adaptive ways. That may be the neuroscience behind this deeper, more pervasive layer of the Now Effect.

The Now Effect: How this Moment Can Change the Rest of Your Life with embedded videos for practice is available for pre-order now. May this be a time to understand that there is no better time than now to get started with priming your mind to what really matters.

Enjoy!

As always, please share your thoughts, stories and questions below. Your interaction creates a living wisdom for us all to benefit from.

Reposted from Elisha Goldstein’s Mindfulness Blog on Psychcentral.com