Mindfulness

What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness involves becoming aware of what is happening in the present moment without judgement.  Usually, then you have an experience, your mind jumps to judging the experience, e.g., good or bad, pleasant or unpleasant, expected or unexpected.  Mindful awareness is simply noticing what is here without elaborating on it or going into a big story about it.

What are the Benefits of Mindfulness?

The payoff for developing these mindfulness tools is significant.  Primarily, you will develop a greater sense of acceptance of yourself and your life.  You will cultivate the mindset that there is a lot more right with you than there is wrong with you.  You will acquire a set of tools that apply to all aspects of your life.  More specifically, scientific studies have demonstrated that mindfulness programs can help:

  • Reduce anxiety and psychological stress
  • Decrease mood disturbances like depression, anger and confusion
  • Reduce the experience of pain
  • Reduce headache activity
  • Regulate blood pressure
  • Regulate sleep
  • Support weight management
  • Improve your immune system
  • Improve memory and attention
  • Improve health-related quality of life and well-being
  • Mostly, these skills support you in living a happier and healthier life.

Upcoming Course: Tuesdays starting October 4th
Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction (MBSR)

Dealing with a global pandemic is stressful. Contending with social unrest and racism is stressful. Facing an uncertain future is stressful. Being sheltered in place and isolated from your social connections is stressful. Given that stress is additive, we are living in one of the most stressful periods in our lifetimes. MBSR was designed to reduce stress.

Mindfulness involves paying attention to your present experience, including your thoughts, emotions and sensory experiences. Mindfulness helps you to be more accepting of what’s happening so you struggle less with your experience. This approach is particularly helpful with stressors that are out of your control.

A growing body of scientific research on mindfulness has demonstrated other benefits including:

Psychological: reduces anxiety and depression.

Mental: increases mental focus and memory.

Physical: helps you eat and sleep better, boosts your immune system, and helps you deal with physical pain.

Social: enhances relationships and your feeling of social connectedness, helps you communicate better and feel more accepting of yourself and others.

In this 8-week series, Domonick will share the neuroscience behind how mindfulness can change your brain to be more peaceful and less reactive. (Research has found that this training increases the density of gray matter in brain regions linked to learning, memory, emotion regulation, and empathy). Further, you will receive support in developing a home meditation practice to continue to develop mindfulness after the course is finished.

You will leave the course with new tools to help d

WHEN: Livestream, Tuesdays October 4 – November 22, 6:30pm – 8:30pm

COST: $425

Click HERE for Registration Details at 8 Limbs Yoga

 

 


[wp_cart_display_product name=”Private Mindfulness Session – 60 minutes” price=”85″ thumbnail=”http://theopener.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Domonick_0129.jpg”]

[wp_cart_display_product name=”Private Minfulness Session – 90 minutes” price=”125″ thumbnail=”http://theopener.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Domonick_0129.jpg”]


Self-Compassion Meditation

Please feel welcome to listen to this guided meditation.  It is intended to help you cultivate kindness towards yourself and others.  We all face challenges in life, and we often are hard on ourselves when we experience challenges.  Self-compassion allows us to meet our difficulties with greater kindness and less elf-criticism so we can decrease our suffering in the midst of life’s ups and downs.

You can also download the mp3 here (right-click and “save as”)

How do you learn to be mindful?

Practice!

Mindfulness training can take a number of forms, including sitting meditation, mindful movement, walking meditation, breathing exercises, etc.  These are considered formal practices.

Domonick provides mp3s of guided meditations to help you practice these techniques at home.

You also can become more mindful through informal practices.  This involves bringing mindful awareness to everyday activities.  For example, usually when you brush your teeth, your mind is not on tooth brushing, but it runs off into the past and future to review and plan things.  You can, however, redirect your attention to what is happening in the moment, and simply focus on the act of brushing teeth.  Noticing that you can choose to place your attention where you want it at anytime is a central tenet of mindfulness.  The more you practice choosing your attentional focus, the better you get at controlling your attention.