mindfulness

2 Ways to Improve Depression & Anxiety

Many people suffer from depression or anxiety. Sometimes both.

Two ways to address these issues are physical exercise & mental practices.

By physical exercise I mean good old fashioned walking, running, swimming, tennis, volleyball, etc. Whatever you like to do is best.

By mental practices I mean things that focus your mind on creative, enjoyable or positive things. This could be anything from art to cooking if you love them. To be really sure that you’re focusing on positive things, it can be doubly helpful to engage in things that are designed to be theraputic, because they will have this bias built in. Art therapy, dance therapy, psychotherapy (depending on the therapist), etc.

Interestingly, meditation also helps for the mental focus aspect, because it has the natural outcome of letting your mind rest.

Why are these 2 things important? Because they change the chemical habits that you’ve gotten into. They offer natural a natural way for your mind & body to reset to happy versus sad.

Struggling During Meditation? Try No Expectations.

Are you struggling during meditation? Trying to calm your mind and it just isn’t working? Feel like the harder you try the less it works?

This is super frustrating! And pretty normal… I’ve been experiencing this with this in my own practice lately.

The trick with this one is to start with your intention firmly in place, “I intend to quiet my mind.” and then once you start meditating to drop your expectation and just to notice what is happening… notice what ever you mind is doing as you meditate.

Remember that if you’re busy thinking that you want to stop thinking… that you’re actually creating more thought! And what ever your intention is, the magic happens when you take the time to notice whatever is happening and just accept it with out trying to change it. If you let it, it will change on it’s own.

Try it and see how it goes. Feel free to comment below with your experiences or questions.

Is there a proper position for meditation?

eviljohniusSufiDancersattheCitadelinCairoThis is one of my favorite questions. In part because meditators really CARE about this.

Short answer: Yes, there are a lot of them!
Long answer: There are many compelling ideas on every side of this conversation… here are a three different view points to get you started.

I. Sitting Practices: Why you might want to choose a sitting practice…

  • Aligning the spine is good for physical health & the functioning of body systems,
  • The body exerts minimal energy to stay erect in this postion meaning that you can focus on other things (like being present)
  • Chronic & accute pain (sometimes from the practice of sitting itself!) can be ameliorated by practicing acknowledging & accepting the pain. Jon Kabat-Zinn, the father of the modern mindfulness movement in the West, is famous for using it this way for thousands of hospital patients. Wonderful for pain sufferers.
  • The position itself becomes a signal to the mind-body that meditation is happeningYoung Woman Meditating on the Floor
  • It looks cool. Heh. Seriously, everyone knows that you’re meditating in this position, which is handy when people walk into the room. And it makes great posters, especially if you’re sitting on a rock next to the sea.

Sitting practices are more masculine & still. They are great for people who:

  • Thrive with structure or who want to introduce some into their lives
  • Are visual or auditory and want to “park” their body so that they can focus on other things like sights or sounds
  • Are kinesthetic (body oriented) and find movement to be really distracting
  • Are kinesthetic and want to focus on subtle sensations

II. Moving Practices: Why you might want to dancing or moving practice (i.e. the practice “position” is dance or movement)…

  • Movement is the body’s natural state
  • Movement promotes healthy functioning of systems, including passive systems like lymphatic that require movement in order to function.
  • Natural functioning of the body can be restored (spines straighten, eyes improve, muscles relax and tone, etc).
  • Can be used for chronic and acute pain relief
  • Being in the studio, room, space and/or turning on the music becomes a mind-body signal that meditation is happening
  • Interestingly, it is difficult to tell by looking at you that you are meditating, which is why there are so few “movement” images that are popularly associated with meditation.

BenjaminChun_EcstaticDanceMoving practices are more fluid, feminine and active. They’re great for people who:

  • Prefer to move & express
  • Have super active minds and want a fun, active, interesting way to meditate
  • Like fluidity in their lives or want to introduce some
  • Are kinesthetic (body oriented) or who want to develop that focus
  • Want to explore the mind-body connection

III. Portable Practices: Why you might want to choose a practice that allows you to meditate in any position you find yourself in (i.e. every position, including no position is appropriate):

  • Presence can be practiced in every moment regardless of what position you are in ors where you are.
  • You can take your practice off your mat/cushion/chair, out of your dance/movement room and out into your daily life.
  • Promotes mindfulness in every day activities.StaffanScherz_AngkorWat
  • These practices can incorporate one or both of the other two, especially as a base or foundation.
  • If you can practice with your eyes open, no one can tell that you are meditating, making it easy to do anywhere and everywhere

This kind of practice can be very unstructured. It’s great for people who:

  • Have practiced meditation enough that they feel confident to take it out into their lives
  • Are self-diciplined and like to make their own schedule
  • Feel comfortable and confident to practice anywhere
  • Like lots of variety in their lives

 

As you can see, there are a lot of compelling reasons to adopt any of these systems depending on what kind of person you are and what you’re looking for in your practice.

Whatever you choose, enjoy your practice!

Image License & Credits: Thanks, Spirit-Fire, eviljohnius, Benjamin Chun and Staffan Scherz for the use of your beautiful Creative Commons photos.

Portable Practice 3: Field of Vision (Guided Meditation)

MME Album Art

Welcome to the Mindfulness Made Easy Portable Practices. In the Mindfulness Made Easy course I teach simple and quick practices that you can do anywhere and anytime.

This is the third portable practice that I teach in the course, Field of Vision. This practice is great for those of you who prefer visual focuses.

It’s your’s to listen to, download and share as many times as you like for personal, non-commercial use. There are written instructions below as well.

Enjoy!,

Elena

 

To Listen: Click play to listen on this page.

 

To Download: Click on the Download button below. If it does not download automatically:

  1. A new window will open with an audio player (like the player above).
  2. Right click on the player and choose “Download File” or “Download Video”
  3. iPhone users will want to first copy the meditation into iTunes (on your computer) and then sync with your iPhone.

 

Written Instructions: Field of Vision

  1. Start by gazing down a comfortable distance in front of you and becoming present. Become present by simply noticing yourself where ever you are, noticing that you are sitting or standing or lying where ever you are right now.
  2. Notice that you are breathing. Notice your breath moving in and out of your body.
  3. Shift your attention to your gaze and notice what you can see.
  4. Without moving your head or eyes, notice your whole field of vision, including your peripheral vision, for a few breaths.
  5. End where you began, by simply shifting your attention back to your breath, noticing that you’re breathing.
  6. Raise your eyes to end.

Note that the first 2 and the last 2 steps are practically the same. We start by becoming present and noticing our breath and end by noticing our breath again. This helps us ground into the present mentally (by simply noticing that I am here, where ever I am, right now) and ground in the present physically, through our bodies (which are by nature in the present).

Portable Practice 2: Simple Body Scan (Guided Meditation)

MME Album Art

Welcome to the Mindfulness Made Easy Portable Practices. In the Mindfulness Made Easy course I teach simple and quick practices that you can do anywhere and anytime.

This is the second portable practice that I teach in the course, a Simple Body Scan. There are many, many body scans out there, so you may have done something like this before. This is a quick one that you can do anywhere, anytime.

It’s your’s to listen to, download and share as many times as you like for personal, non-commercial use.

Enjoy!,

Elena

 

To Listen: Click play to listen on this page.

 

To Download:

Click on the Download button below

If it does not download automatically:

  1. A new window will open with an audio player (like the player above).
  2. Right click on the player and choose “Download File” or “Download Video”
  3. iPhone users will want to first copy the meditation into iTunes (on your computer) and then sync with your iPhone.

 

Portable Practice 1: Three Breaths Meditation

MME Album Art

Welcome to the Mindfulness Made Easy Portable Practices.

In the Mindfulness Made Easy course I teach quick and easy practices that you can do anywhere and anytime.

This is the first portable practice that I teach in the course. It’s called Three Breaths.

It’s your’s to listen to, download and share as many times as you like for personal, non-commercial use only.

Enjoy!,

Elena

 

To Listen: Click play to listen on this page.

 

To Download:

Click on the Download button below

If it does not download automatically:

  1. A new window will open with an audio player (like the player above).
  2. Right click on the player and choose “Download File” or “Download Video”
  3. iPhone users will want to first copy the meditation into iTunes (on your computer) and then sync with your iPhone.

 

Spice Up Your Meditation Practice!

Spice Up Your Practice!-3Want to spice up your meditation practice?
Add one of these simple focuses to your practice to spices things up a bit. They help keep your mind interested (focused and willing)… and ultimately keep us motivated to practice!

1. Counting vs not counting breath: Exploring the advantages and challenges of both. Noticing what happens when you count vs when you don’t. (The bigger picture: This isn’t about one option being better, it’s more about noticing the differences between the two and playing with the effects.)

2. Noticing the variety of sensations in your body at any given time: Noticing different qualities of sensations in your foot like hot, cold, itching, tingling, etc. Next time you can notice all the different sensations in your foot again and notice how things have changed – to compare and contrast, or switch to noticing your leg or face or arm, etc. (The bigger picture: Focusing attention on noticing the different sensations increases your ability to sense them… This gets quite interesting as there are a wide array of ‘subtle’ sensations that most of us are not even aware of at first.)

3. Relaxing: Can you relax your face when you meditate? (Or your foot, or leg…). This is to play with consciously relaxing a part of the body and noticing what happens. (The bigger picture: This also helps you notice how tense you are – or aren’t – and to let go of unnecessary muscular tension that drains your energy! Often we discover that there are areas that we habitually hold unnecessary tension and we can begin to change that habit by relaxing those areas every day.)4. How big or small of an area can you pay attention to? Can you notice your whole foot for 3 breaths? Only 1 toe? (The bigger picture: This helps you break out of any patterns you’ve developed during your life or your practice that are restricting your ability to focus on larger or smaller areas/things.)

5. Length of focus: Can you stay present for one entire breath (inhale+exhale) with out losing focus and getting lost in thought? Two? Two and a half? Three? Can you build up to three and a half? Four? Four and a half? Ten?
(The bigger picture: This is to consciously lengthen the amount of time you’re able to stay present continuously. This isn’t about increasing to a specific number of breaths or certain length of time, it’s about exercising the muscle of focus and thereby learning and remembering how to grow and change and evolve… as we play with lengthening our focus we teach ourselves how, how to get better. This is not about numbers, it’s about getting to know ourselves and learning how to learn.)

 

Do You Have to Meditate to Be Present?

TheThreeMonksMy dear friend Christie and I met a monk in Thailand who said to us, “You can meditate anywhere. You don’t need to be in the meditation hall.” It was quite profound at the time because we were looking for a place to meditate. It hadn’t occurred to us to meditate on the sidewalk. I figured that if he said that it was ok, it would work.

I haven’t looked back since.

Recently, I’ve been thinking about meditation versus presence… If the point of meditation is to practice being present, to practice noticing what is happening right now, do I have to meditate to be present?

In other words, if meditation helps us focus on the present moment, if it helps us focus on something that is happening right now, do I have to meditate in order to do it?

Or really simply: Can I be present with out meditating?

YES, YES and YES!

In any given moment of my life I can take a moment to notice where I am and what I am doing. In fact I do this throughout my day. So do you. You do this when you pause for a brief moment and check to see if you have your keys when you leave. You do this when you pause to check if there is enough petrol in your car or money on your metro card. You do this when you look around at who is at work today. You do this when you glance at yourself in the mirror to check your hair or make sure that you’ve gotten your hands clean.

You do this multiple times a day.

You just don’t think about it this way.

And you can if you like.

As you go through your day, you can start to notice those moments when you’re naturally present.

You can also choose to be present for moments at random if you like. You can pause on the street corner and take a look at where you are. Even if you’ve been there a thousand times, it will be unique in this moment. It will never be the same way again. Something will have changed by the time you get there next. Can you see the differences? Are the sounds different? Do you feel different standing there? Things will change.

Of course, now I’ve created a practice out of it.

You don’t need to be this formal about it. You don’t have to turn it into a game or a practice. You can just pause and notice the street corner… And then go on your way.

Another friend of mine, Esther, introduced me to Kitchen Yoga. She said you could practice yoga in your kitchen while bending over to get a pan from under the counter, stretching up to get a plate, or twisting around to open the fridge.

I’m suggesting a similar kind of “non-practice” practice.

I’m going to start calling it Sidewalk Presence.

Yep, I can be present anywhere and anytime. I just notice where I am in this moment and voila, I’m present. And so can you. No practice needed.

Enjoy.

Creative Commons Photo License

How Is Mindfulness Made Easy?

symbol-Woman-MeditatingImagine hearing all of the wonderful things that you’ve heard about meditation and innocently sitting down to give it a try. You cross your legs, set a timer for 10 minutes and start counting your breath and calming your mind.

…And it doesn’t work.

You can’t sit still, your back hurts, your legs fall asleep, your nose itches, you keep checking your watch (“Is this over yet?!”) … As if that wasn’t bad enough, you’re mind races and you can’t even count 3 breaths in a row!

Maybe you’ve even had this experience yourself.

I certainly did. After about two weeks of this craziness, I quit.

And then started again… in a whole new way. Successfully this time. And much happier.

What saved my practice?

Well, I discovered that there are other ways to meditate. It turns out, in fact, that there are many, many other ways to meditate. On that day, 10 years ago, I did some research and found a way that I liked, that suited me, and along with a good does of determination I became a happy meditator with a regular practice that changed my life.

How did I do it? How can meditation be made easy?LOGO_3 resized 2

With two key steps: first, do your practice for a short amount of time, and second, chose a practice that you like, that suits you and your personality.

Step 1: As a beginner, practice for a short amount of time.

Just like fitness, as you exercise, your meditation ‘muscles’ will get stronger and you will be able to practice for longer and longer periods with ease. Start with 30 seconds or a minute, 3 breaths or 5; get good at that, and then add more. With daily practice you will find that very quickly you are able to build to a longer time.

If you start with something that you can do and build on that, you will feel successful from the beginning, you will feel encouraged to continue, and you will get the benefits of meditation by going from strength to strength.

It may help to realize that the benefits of meditation come when you practice every day. It isn’t so important that you practice for a long period of time, especially in the beginning, it is more important that you establish a regular habit. Start small, see if meditation helps you. If it does then you will be encouraged to keep building your practice. A good daily goal to aim for is 15 minutes a day.

Step 2: Chose a practice you like, that suits you and your personality.

Meditation is about learning to focus on something that is happening right now, in the present moment. Simply put, meditation has you pay attention to something in the here and now. Focusing on breath is the classic example: you pay attention to how you are breathing right now. Luckily, as well as breath, there are a lot of other things that you can focus on such as images, sounds, sensations, etc. If breath isn’t interesting for you you can choose something else!

If you are a visual person, someone who likes visual arts, design, esthetics, etc you can choose a practice that focuses on an image, like a painting, or what you can see in your environment right now.

If you are more auditory, someone who likes music, singing, soundscapes, etc, you can choose a practice that focuses on sound, like a song, or what you can hear in your environment right now.

If you are more physical, someone who likes athletics, dance, sensations, etc, you can choose a practice that focuses on physical sensations, like a movement, or what you can feel in your body right now.

As you can imagine from these suggestions, it is not necessary to practice meditation with your eyes closed or while seated. You can look, you can listen, you can move. In fact, you can choose any one of your five senses and do practices that utilize that sense. Even a combination of senses, like the practice of Mindful Eating in which you focus on how your food looks, feels and tastes as you are eating it, moment to moment.

Mindfulness Made Easy ClassesLOGO_3 resized 2

You can find lots of different kinds of meditation practices online, in books, at retreats and in meditation classes in your area. In my class, Mindfulness Made Easy, I teach 4 different practices, each one focusing on a different sense, so that you will have one to suit your personality. We practice these for very short periods of time so that you can get used to meditation and build your meditation muscles with ease.

You’re welcome to join Mindfulness Made Easy, as a great way to build a new practice or turn your existing one into a regular habit that’s easy to maintain.

One to one classes are also available upon request by emailing me at Elena at ElenaMariaFoucher.com.

And to receive free meditation tips and tools subscribe to my blog at ElenaMariaFoucher.com.

Image compliments of Pixabay.com

Mindfulness Made Easy Practice Group

Marathon Finish LineDear Fellow Meditators,
It ​is a ​true ​joy to share mindfulness and I hope that you are gaining a lot from your practice.
To support you in continuing your practice, I’m offering periodic one hour group practice sessions over Skype.
What are these group practice ​sessions?
In these sessions we will all meet, do a practice together (that you already know) and you can share what’s happening in your practice. This is a perfect time for sharing insights and asking any questions that have come up.This group is to support you to practice what you’ve learned, so I will not teach anything new.
Cost?

They will be $200 HKD/session, payable at the beginning of the month for 1, 3 or 6 month packages. Discounts given for 3 and 6 month packages – to encourage you to practice!

How does this help you?
I ran the Standard Chartered Marathon two years ago with the help of a friend in Australia. Every Friday we exchanged emails about how far we’d run that week, any insights we’d had and any issues we’d run into. In these emails we gave and received companionship, advice, accountability and the encouragement to keep going! It was incredibly helpful as I train​ed​ a lot in order to run that race… and when I crossed the finish line, I thanked her for helping make that victory happen.

Why are practice groups important? The science says…
​S​tudies have shown that practicing habits with a group greatly increases our tendency to do them.
Why? Because groups provide support and accountability.
​They support us to grow and learn and encourage us to keep going. ​

They are wonderful ways to help ourselves instill and maintain habits.

Joining this group will help you practice regularly, giving you the most out of your investment.
Consider joining this group if you would like to have this support to continue your mindfulness practice.
Finally, there are other meditation groups that meet in person every week if you prefer to meet in person.
Happy Practicing!,
Elena