.png){kind=small}
8 Week
Introduction to Mindfulness Course
Week One Resources
Week One: Opening Meditation
Week 1
Audio Files
for Your
Support
Week One: Mindfulness of the Breath
Week One: Mindfulness of Breath and Body
Journal Prompt
How might I invite Mindfulness into my daily routine?
Breathing in, my mind calms
Breathing out, my body relaxes
Breathing in, my mind calms
Breathing out, my body relaxes
Breathing in, calm
Breathing out, relax
Breathing in, calm
Breathing out, relax
In, calm
Out, relax
In, calm
Out, relax
The Great Zen Master Thich Nhat Hanh taught:
DONNA MARTIN 🔹 Breath is Life's Teacher
Observe me, says the Breath, and learn to live effortlessly in the Present Moment.
Feel me, says the Breath, and feel the Ebb and Flow of Life.
Allow me, says the Breath, and I’ll sustain and nourish you,
filling you with energy and cleansing you of tension and fatigue.
Move with me, says the Breath, and I’ll invite your soul to dance.
Make sounds with me and I shall teach your soul to sing.
Follow me, says the Breath, and I’ll lead you out to the farthest reaches of the Universe…
and inward to the deepest parts of your inner world.
Notice, says the Breath, that I am as valuable to you coming or going
that every part of my cycle is as necessary as another
that after I’m released, I return again and again…
that even after a long pause – moments when nothing seems to happen -eventually I am there.
Each time I come, says the Breath, I am a gift from Life.
And yet I am released without regret, without suffering, without fear.
Notice how you take me in, says the Breath, … is it with joy with gratitude…
do you take me in fully… invite me into all the inner spaces of your home…
or carefully into just the “front foyer”? What places in you am I not allowed to nourish?
And notice, says the Breath, how you release me.
Do you hold me prisoner in closed up places in the body?
Is my release resisted or do you let me go reluctantly, not easily.
And are my waves of Breath, of Life, as gentle as a quiet sea, softly smoothing sandy stretches of yourself;
or anxious, urgent, choppy waves; or the crashing tumult of a stormy sea?
And can you feel me as the link between your inner and outer worlds, suggests the Breath,
feel me as Life’s exchange between the universe and you?
The universe breathes me into you – you send me back to the universe…
I am the flow of Life between every single part and the whole.
Your attitude to me, says the Breath, is your attitude to Life.
Welcome me… embrace me fully. Let me nourish you completely, then set me free.
Move with me, dance with me, sing with me, sigh with me…
love me, trust me, don’t try to control me.
I am the Breath. Life is the Musician. You are the Flute.
And Music – Creativity – depends on all of us.
You are not the Creator… nor the Creation.
We are all a part of the process of Creativity… you, Life, and me: the Breath.
Let us play together and rejoice, for creativity is magic.
And magic is change – appearance … disappearance – it is all a wonderful illusion.
Since everything is but an apparition,
perfect in being what it is,
having nothing to do with good or bad,
acceptance or rejection,
one may well burst out in laughter.
John Roedel 🔹
my brain and heart divorced a decade ago
over who was to blame about
how big of a mess I have become
eventually,
they couldn't be in the same room with each other
now my head and heart share custody of me
I stay with my brain during the week
and my heart gets me on weekends
they never speak to one another
- instead,
they give me the same note to pass to each other every week
and their notes they send to one another always
says the same thing: "This is all your fault"
on Sundays my heart complains
about how my head has let me down in the past
and on Wednesday my head lists all of the times my
heart has screwed things up for me in the future
they blame each other for the state of my life
there's been a lot of yelling - and crying
so,
lately, I've been spending a lot of time with my gut
who serves as my unofficial therapist
most nights, I sneak out of the window in my ribcage
and slide down my spine
and collapse on my gut's plush leather chair
that's always open for me
~ and I just sit sit sit sit until the sun comes up
last evening, my gut asked me if I was having a hard
time being caught between my heart and my head
I nodded
I said I didn't know if I could live with either of them anymore
"my heart is always sad about something that happened yesterday
while my head is always worried about something that may happen tomorrow,"
I lamented
my gut squeezed my hand
"I just can't live with my mistakes of the past or my anxiety about the future,"
I sighed
my gut smiled and said:
"in that case, you should go stay with your lungs for a while,"
I was confused
- the look on my face gave it away
"if you are exhausted about your heart's obsession with the fixed past
and your mind's focus on the uncertain future
your lungs are the perfect place for you
there is no yesterday in your lungs
there is no tomorrow there either
there is only now
there is only inhale
there is only exhale
there is only this moment
there is only breath
and in that breath you can rest
while your heart and head work their relationship out."
this morning,
while my brain was busy reading tea leaves
and while my heart was staring at old photographs
I packed a little bag and walked to the door of my lungs
before I could even knock she opened the door
with a smile and as a gust of air embraced me
she said
"what took you so long?"
