Mindfulness Meditation

I’ve been working on developing a strong meditation practice, mindfully and with intention for over a month now.  When I go off for 3 weeks to yoga teacher training, I’ll have to meditate every day and keep a journal of each day’s practice.  Me being the ever-nerdy student that I am, decided to begin as soon as I reserved my space at training.  Besides, I know myself well enough to know that something like this takes practice, and I was out of the habit of meditating…very much so.

Every morning I wake up and no matter where I am, I create a space for myself to sit still.  Usually I sit on a pillow to ensure proper alignment and I am always facing a window.  

{I realized…
It’s all inside…
All the powers to be aligned…
Cultivated by meditation…
My brain smiles..
Feeding it one day at a time..
Fueling the dreams in my mind
No crowds
No obstacles
Where peace, dreams, and happiness collide…}

 

Here’s where the idea of mindfulness comes in… I don’t necessarily try to clear my mind while sitting there with my eyes closed.  Instead I let my thoughts float in and out, and I acknowledge them all and the emotions they may bring.  I take in the sounds around me like, Lola’s purrs as she sits and watches me, running water, cars driving by, the sound of my breath, the underlying hum of the universe…  I take it all in, and I am grateful for everything in my present.  

It’s about mastery of self by filtering through all the bullshit to appreciate your present state and the presence of every thing and person around you in the moment.  By practicing mindfulness we gain better insight into ourselves and situations to make decisions that are truly for our well-being.  Because we’ve got to remember that it is our daily choices that make the biggest impact on our lives. We begin making choices as soon as we wake up, that determine how our entire day will be.

And it’s not just about sitting still and meditating, you know.  It’s really just about being able to center yourself wherever you are and in whatever you’re doing.  We have to be able to breathe and take in whatever life brings into our space, without being driven crazy.  It’s also about enjoying the present and reveling in the magic there.  

There is life in mindfulness.  Being mindful keeps us from becoming zombies on so many levels.

Anywho, that’s life right now for us in Jun E Land! Mindfulness and mastery are key components.  Maybe we’ll speak on mastery a bit in a later post.  Thanks for listening/reading!

Peace, love and Jun E soul to you all!

~T. Caniel~

What about you, Jun E ones?  How do you practice mindfulness?