For the month of February, the My Mindful Way of Life community is invited to follow along with Sharon Salzberg’s annual online meditation group. We will be blogging and learning from each other. We will commit to sit for 28 days. No matter how long, or short, or exactly what format, we will all practice together. We will grow together.
We want to hear about your practice, your challenges, your setbacks, your profound insights, and small amusements. In short, we want to hear from you as we invite you to participate.
The challenge officially starts on February 1st, but don’t worry if you are just learning about it. Have a seat with us! But before you do, please visit Sharon Salzberg’s website http://www.sharonsalzberg.com/realhappiness/pledge and add your name to the list of those participating in the challenge. That is just another way to help you be accountable by proclaiming your intent. Then, come on back here and let us know that you are in and how you plan to start.
Many of you have My Mindful Way of Life meditation CD’s (http://www.cdbaby.com/Artist/DrUrszulaKlich) and we are happy to guide your use of them. For those who are able, we encourage following along with Sharon’s meditations and books “Real Happiness” and “Real Happiness” in the workplace. In fact, a free chapter and 3 short meditations can be found at http://www.sharonsalzberg.com/books-audio/7947
So, you commit and we do the rest by supporting you. Deal?
Check back often for continued updates and tips…
In this together,
Dr. K
I used the “Drinking Tea Meditation” sample track. My hands were cooler than my face before the meditation began. I would have to say this was a very unusual meditation. The tea did soothe me and calm me down after I repeated the steps each time. It was something about the the warm tea thought bought calmness to the body and mind for me.
I love it – I see a lot more mindful tea in the February future!
I am planning to take the February challenge! I am excited to make this commitment because I have enjoyed meditation in the past. I started today, and I am hoping that I will get better with the technique. I find it calming, but it is really hard to keep focus!
Lauren, isn’t that the truth! Amazing how quickly our mind starts chattering. That’s ok. In sitting we learn more about what the mind is really doing…eventually we learn how to focus. Welcome!
My hands were cooler than my face before the meditation. I choose to use the sample track “Sound Meditation”. I have to say that for the first time this one didn’t really work for me. I think I prefer quiet meditation. With the sound it was hard for me to focus. I would like to try this track a couple more times to see if I achieve different results. My hands were still cooler after the meditation.
Alexia, great that you noticed your hand temperature! While I am sure you are eager to assess the effect of meditation on the relaxation of your body, know that there can be some level of stress the mind and body can feel with trying something new. It takes “effort” or “stress.” It will take some time to learn what actually relaxes you. So stay at it!
I used the touch point meditation. My fingers were about the same temperature as my face. I felt quite relaxed before i started. This time, once i began, i was able to focus quicker. I think it is because i layed down instead of sitting. I liked how we were asked to interact with touching points in our body. The position and instructions made my body feel super relaxed! I wish it would have been a little longer though.
As i start back up meditations for my second semester of my freshman year of college, it is really helping me go through some things. The deep breaths that reach into my abdomen help me relax my entire body.My fingers are warmer now when i touch my face. I also see a change in my mood. Meditations really do have a positive effect on my life.
Before:
My fingers are warmer than my face. Internal and external stresses for me today have been a reoccuring acid reflux, internal stress over calculus work that I procrastinated on, and external stress of not being able to climb because I was too busy with said work and classes. The room temperature is 72°F.
After:
My fingers are now the same temperature as my face. Either my fingers cooled when relaxing because the pose I was in might have left less blood flow to my fingers, or my face warmed up. I listened to the intro for guided imagery. During the meditation, I started somewhat relaxed and tried to follow the directions and become as relaxed as possible. During the 3 minutes of silence, I didn’t know where my special place was so I had to create one.
The experience wasn’t entirely comfortable. I chose to sit in my chair at my desk, but there is almost no solidity to the chair, and it leans back. So when I started relaxing, I lost any support for my neck and so I leaned my head back and used my dresser as a pillow. Since I had already begun, I decided not to interupt myself and move. throughout and after the meditation, my neck was relaxed but in a position where it wasn’t really comfortable. However, when creating my special place, I managed to create a few mental images of it. This is surprising for me, as growing up I have never had a mind’s eye capable of viewing mental images. I’m curious as to what I will be able to accomplish tomorrow.
I have the first CD and use track 3.
Before the meditation, my fingers were slightly cool against my face. I’m very tense because I feel pretty nauseous, and it is my absolute least favorite feeling ever. The air around me feels normal. At the beginning of the meditation, I was told to find a comfortable position and focus on keeping good body alignment through posture. I chose to lay on my back, but propped up a bit. Then the focus shifted to breathing, simply noticing any distractions and bringing the focus back to breathing. The focus then shifted to the warmth of touch on your face from your hands after rubbing them together, and finally transitioning out of the meditation by taking my hands from my face and becoming aware of my surroundings.
After meditation, my fingers felt still slightly cold. I felt less tense or nauseous during the meditation, especially during the breathing exercise. However, upon coming out of the meditation, my nausea came back quite a bit. When putting my hands to my face, they felt clammy, but maybe that is just because I’m feeling sick. Now I just want to do the meditation again to make the nausea subside once more.
Prior to starting this meditation, my fingers were slightly colder than my face. It was done inside of the classroom using track 3 of the CD. This was the first meditation that was done in a group since last semester. Comparing it to a self meditation, this is definitely my preference. Keeping the lights off and staying in a very quite room seem to make meditation very effective.
Again, just like yesterday and as I posted earlier this morning, I used track 3 on the first CD.
Before the meditation, my fingers are very cool when I touch them to my face. I feel very overwhelmed with classwork, so I’m pretty tense. The temperature in the room I am in feels normal. After the meditation, my fingers don’t feel as cool, and almost all tense parts of my body have relaxed. I don’t feel as overwhelmed about managing my time in the next week, and the air in the room still feels normal.
As I chose a comfortable position, which was leaning back in a recliner, I closed my eyes and focused only on my spinal alignment. My stress about classwork and things due during the week began to fade from my mind as I mostly only noticed how my posture was in the present moment. When the breathing exercise began, I noticed my responsibilities for the week, one or two at a time, acknowledged them, and realized that I don’t have quite as much work as it seemed, and I can definitely manage all of my work. When I put my hands to my face, I immediately noticed the rise in my finger temperature. When I finally took my hands away from my face and returned to the “real world,” I felt much more calm about all of my work that had been stressing me out during the day.
2/4/14 Track 3
I finished with my hands slightly warmerthan my face. I had trouble adjusting to this meditation, and kept shifting. It took me a while to get comfortable, and I kept moving myself out of alignment while fidgeting. I think it was difficult for me because while I try to limit my focus, I still remain aware of the other people in the room, and I’m one of those people who always finds themselves observing those around themselves. I think I need to try this again while by myself and to work on my posture. If I can bring myself to the to the proper aligning posture, then I may end up being able to better focus.
Track 3 An Audio Companion Reflection – As a class, we forgot to note hand temperature before the meditation. I was not too stressed about anything at the beginning of class, and my thoughts were honestly preoccupied with what I was going to eat for lunch. Before meditation I thought that I would be preoccupied with what what I would write afterwards because I am a planner, but surprisingly I was able to focus. Maybe this is because I felt myself dozing off, so I wasn’t really thinking, although I was still paying attention to what Dr. Klich was saying. I did notice that I started to adjust my breathing before she said to notice it because I knew what was coming. Before I was breathing through my chest, but after I adjusted I began to breathe with my diaphragm, and I think that helped me relaxed. I also noticed that throughout the meditation I did not notice any tension; maybe it was because I was not too stressed, or maybe it was again because I was dozing off. My hand temperature after the meditation is the same temperature as my face, and I am a bit more relaxed (and tired) than before the meditation.
Track 4 in An Audio Companion. Initially my hands are the same temperature as my face. My thoughts are occupied with my first test of the semester that I will be taking tomorrow, but I have studied well so I am actually not worried. I feel pretty relaxed and comfortable. This track, track number four in An Audio Companion deals with thoughts. Dr. Klich tells the listeners to notice the thoughts that enter your head. She then encourages us to name the thoughts based on what they are about which can add humor and keep us from becoming discouraged. At the end of the meditation, I feel pretty much just as relaxed as I did before the meditation. My hands are still the same temperature as my face. One thing I noticed during meditations is that I often find myself dozing off, which is a sign that I need to get more sleep, or stop doing the meditations late in the day. This track in particular I believe applies to me because I have a habit of dwelling on thoughts too long, especially negative thoughts. Because of this tendency, I definitely plan to start naming thoughts as they come, which may help me to stop dwelling on negative thoughts.
Today, again I chose track three from the first meditation CD.
Before the meditation, my fingers are slightly cool when I touch them to my face. I feel very relieved because I just got lots of work done, and I’m pretty tired. The temperature in the room feels normal. After the meditation, my fingers don’t feel the same as before, and I feel even more relaxed and sleepy.
As I chose a comfortable position, which was laying down on my back, I focused mostly on releasing any other tension, visually dispersing it above my body. I noticed that some parts of my body were still a bit tense, but most of that tension subsided. When the breathing exercise began, I acknowledged some small problems, but they were not important enough to really worry about. When I put my hands to my face, I kind of just wanted to fall asleep entirely; I already almost had. When I took my hands away from my face, I felt more refreshed health-wise even with the sleepiness.
Wednesday 2/5/14 Meditation
Before: My fingers are the same temperature as my face. I would guess that the temperature in the room is about 70°F. I’m starting to stress because while trying to work, my roommates are continually talking to each other and me, so I’m a bit distracted. I might also be distracted because I’ve been thinking about a girl who I recently met…..
After: My fingers are slightly warmer than my face. I’m not sure if this is because of internalizing my body temperature and increasing blood flow, or simply because my posture included lacing my fingers together, causing them to exchange heat and warm the other up. During the meditation, I listened to track 4, visualization for healing. I had some slight difficulty focusing, as one of my roommates would throw in a mocking comment here or there until I told him to be quiet. This meditation helped me realize some pain that is occurring in one of my ribs, but I had a lot of difficulty with the visualization of parts of my body as colors. I’m not sure if this is because not many parts of my body really stood out as crying for attention, or because I have had little practice in visualizing my thoughts. I believe I will likely have better luck in fulfilling this meditation after having more practice with the track 3 intro to guided imagery meditation. I had another observation I thought to include, but forgot it as I continued to finish the meditation.
Track 4 – An Audio Companion. My hands are slightly colder than my face. I am not too stressed because I just got finished taking a test, so I feel relieved. I am in the classroom with my classmates and I am comfortable. After the meditation, my hands were a bit warmer, just about the temperature of my face. I am still in a relaxed mode, maybe a bit more relaxed than I was coming in to class, but not by much. During the meditation, and meditations in general, I do not really have any thoughts because I am simply relaxing and listening to what Dr. Klich is saying. But this track I think would be more applicable to my experiences outside of meditation where I let my thoughts come freely. What Dr. Klich said about often coming up with to-do lists when you are alone really applies to me, and I often think of the future when I let my thoughts wander, so I think that I may have some sort of anxiety when it comes to the present, as she mentioned in this track. This means that I may need to start practicing controlling my thoughts.
We used the thought track on the audio companion CD in class today. Before the meditation, my hands felt very cool to my face (maybe because I just arrived to class from outside in the cold weather), the room temperature feels slightly chilly, and I am very stressed and tense for personal reasons. As I sat back in my chair, I started to become a tiny bit more relaxed. As I closed my eyes and focused on my thoughts, I noticed that my major focus right now is on relationship problems. As I focused on breathing, most of my tension subsided and I became less aware of my outer world surroundings. Categorizing these thoughts helped me to create a more objective perspective on what the thought is at the present moment rather than a subjective perspective on why the problem is what it is, or how I can solve it, or if it can be solved at all. I only subconsciously stated that the problem is in fact a problem presently. After the meditation, the room temperature feels normal and comfortable, and my hands feel just about the same temperature as my face. This process helped me to calm down about my current stressful situation.
Track four was one of my favorite meditation tracks. Mainly because of the jokes brought up by Dr. Klich. It brought a smirk upon my face as i was in my meditative state. Once again, i applied the realization of the temperature of my fingers before meditations into my meditative state. My main objective was to relax, relieve the stress and make my fingers up. Today was definitely a positive meditation day.
Prior to beginning this meditaiton, my fingers were the same temperature of my face. This meditation was done inside of the classroom using track 4 of the audio companion cd. The classroom environment is still the ideal environment for me because of the temperature and dark atmosphere. This track helped in developing methods in order to bring focus back whenever you may drift off. After completing the meditation, my hands were much warmer than they were before starting.
I chose to practice this mediation before beginning my homework. Normally, I would dive straight into my readings and writings. From the meditation, I noticed that I was much more relaxed and found myself being able to remain focused on my work. It’s as if there was less tension while I was working. Although the change wasn’t major, my mind was definitely a lot clearer making my ability to complete my work in a timely manner a lot easier.
I’ve found that it’s gotten a lot easier to stay focused through the entire meditaion. Before, my mind would drift off to events that may have happened recently but now I feel much more calm through the process and able to drift off ino somewhere less frequently. With constantly being remided to pull myself back, I’ve found it easier to actually do this. It safe for me to say that doing this meditation more frequently has helped me reduce the stress that comes from my mind racing before an event.
My internet was out on the 7th and 8th, but I used track 4 on the companion cd those days and today because I felt I had the most success with it on the 6th. Each day goes as follows:
2/7 – Before the meditation, my fingers are pretty cold against my face. Even though I don’t feel stressed, I feel tense. The air temperature feels normal. I chose to lay on my back on a couch. As I closed my eyes, I noticed that most of my thoughts are about the past week’s happenings and what could be in store for the future. As I focused on breathing, I felt the tense parts of my body start to relax. When I categorized my thoughts into “past” and “future,” I began to subside these thoughts and focus on the simplicity of what is happening now. After the meditation, my hand temperature is very close to that of my face, and the room temperature still feels normal. I do not feel nearly as tense.
2/8 – Before the meditation, my fingers are very cold, probably because I just came in from being outside in the cold. I feel very happy, but very energetic and jittery. The air feels rather warm, again probably because I was just outside. I am laying on my back on my bed. When I closed my eyes, all of my thoughts were about all of the good things that happened today. When the focus shifted to breathing, I began to notice my breathing in the present more than the things that happened in the past today, and my jitters began to subside. I categorized my thoughts and tried to “let them go,” but I found it hard and kind of impossible to let them go because I wanted to hold onto that happiness. After the meditation, my hand temperature is only slightly cooler than my face, the room temperature seems normal, and I do not feel overwhelmed with energy.
2/9- Before the meditation, my fingers feel a bit cooler than my face. I feel very anxious to do something, like I have cabin fever. The air temperature feels normal. I chose to lay on my side on a futon. Pretty much all of the thoughts I noticed when I closed my eyes were lyrics of songs I have been listening to all morning; sometimes I thought about how pretty it is out today and what I want to get done so I can enjoy it. I immediately started to categorize them, and I let the song lyrics go quite easily. I didn’t want to let the other thoughts go because they’re my goals for the day. When I focused on my breathing, my cabin fever partly went away and I felt more relaxed. After the meditation, my hands still feel slightly cooler than my face, and the room temperature still feels normal.
Practicing meditation feels extremley natural at this point. The whole process no longer feels “weird”. I’ve chose to make meditation a part of my morning routine. Now, on days I have moring classes, you’ll probably see me with my eyes shut and my back straight up for 9-10 mintues on the train ride to the school. My mind isn’t racing and stressing as much as it normally is on my way to class.
Sunday 2/9/14
Before: My fingers are the same temperature as my face, and the room I’ve been in is somewhere around 74°F. I’ve been kinda stressed because of work I had to do, and because I’ve been misplacing some stuff, so I had to go hunting for my missing items.
After: My fingers are warmer than my face. This change is likely because I stopped working, and started relaxing with my hands in my lap. I listened to track 3, Intro to Guided Imagery again. I found the initial section where it leads you through the relaxation of your body to be difficult to do, for I was already mostly relaxed. When asked to bring my attention to an area in order to let the muscles go, I found I sometimes had to momentarily tense those muscles in order to relax them. I maintained fairly decent focus during this part. However, In the later part of the meditation, I had trouble actually focusing on the meditation and my mind kept sliding around from one thought to the next. I had a couple moments where I could bring myself back to the meditation, but I got lost in a lot of the visualizations. They started to evolve into scenes of people that I know just doing random things that they have a tendency towards from their habits, or behaving how I apparently would like them to instead of being worked up all the time. Overall, this meditation was slightly stress inducing, as I couldn’t focus nearly as much as I normally can. Or maybe I saw more of the inner workings of my mind than normal, and it wasn’t what I expected.
I chose track 3 from the first CD.
Before the meditation, my fingers are pretty cold compared to that of my face. I feel tense, but not stressed. The temperature in the room feels a little chilly. I chose to sit back in a chair. As I got more comfortable, the tense parts of my body started to relax a bit. When I focused on my breathing, I almost fell asleep and only noticed thoughts about what will be happening today. When I put my hands to my face, I felt a little less comfortable because I was actually using my arm muscles again. After the meditation, my fingers don’t feel quite as cold, and I feel less tense and rather sleepy. My mind has been kind of spacy lately, and I kind of feel like I’m getting sick, so maybe that is why not really anything mental occurred today while meditating.
Monday 2/10/14 Meditation
Before: When feeling my face with my fingers, one of them is really hot, but right now I can’t really tell if it’s my face or fingers. I think it may be my fingers. External stress is coming from my back. I don’t know why, but it hurts. I have quite a bit of internal stress, because I’m still working on my essay, and working on building a relationship…. The room is about 70°F.
After: I listened to track 4, Visualisation for Healing, because my back hurt and I listened to track 3 yesterday. It was easy to listen and to draw attention to areas that are crying out for attention, as my back was crying out for a lot of attention. Once again, I had trouble visualizing this area as a color and observing the qualities of the color. Despite this, I feel like it still helped. During the meditation, the pain intensified as I brought my attention to the area, but as I continued, it gradually started to subside. It is still painful, but not quite as much so as previously. I’m still not quite sure how to visualize the mist around me though, and so I don’t think that that particular part did much for me, other than bringing my attention to my breath once again. Overall, the experience was positive, and has helped me narrow my focus.
Before starting this meditation, I noted that my fingers were already a lot warmer than the temeperature of my face. I used track 2 of the Mindfulness-Based Biofeedback Advanced Visualizations cd. This specific track is becoming my favorite because it seems as though it helps with exercise. I practiced this meditaiton after a late night jog this time and the meditaiton helped extremely with cooling down. After the meditation was over, my hand cooled down and were slightly warmer than my face.
Today I used track 4 on the first CD.
Before the meditation, my hands felt slightly cool against my face, the room temperature feels normal, and I feel very tired and sick. When I laid on my side on a couch, I kind of just wanted to fall asleep. When I closed my eyes and focused on my thoughts, most of the thoughts I noticed were again about my relationship. When focusing on breathing, some of my sick feelings went away, but I don’t feel completely well. I categorized my thoughts, but found it hard to let go of them. After the meditation, my hands still feel slightly cooler than my face, and the room temperature still feels normal. This time the process only helped me to relax a bit. Maybe I didn’t have much success because I feel sick. It could also be because my relationship is very high on my priority list, and my focuses on it are about the present anyway, so I didn’t want to lose grasp on those thoughts.
Prior to strating this meditation, I noted that my fingers were slightly colder than my face. I chose to use track 2 of the Mindfulness-Based Biofeedback: Advanced Visualizations cd for the second day in a row.
Instead of using this track to meditate before a workout, I practiced this meditation prior to going for a jog. I chose to meditate first, stretch afterwards and then go for my run. Ultimately the run was great. My fingers were much warmer after doing the meditation which made warming up for my workout a lot easier.
Tuesday, 2/11/14
Before: My fingers are warmer than my face. I was stressed out because I didn’t finish my paper on time, but better late than never. The room is pretty warm, but I don’t know exactly what the temperature is.
After: My fingers are still warmer than my face. I think they failed to change temperature simply because I’m in a warm place and keeping them together wouldn’t really let them cool down too much. I listened to track 4, Visualization for Healing again, because my back still hurts. It was easy to listen and to draw attention to my back because it’s still crying out for attention. Once again, I had trouble visualizing this area as a color and observing the qualities of the color. Despite this, like yesterday, I feel like it helped to some degree. During the meditation, the pain didn’t so much intensify as just become more prevalent in my thoughts as I brought my attention to the area, but it gradually subsided as I continued. It is still troubling me a bit, but not nearly as much as earlier. I think I may just be bad at visualizations, because I still have trouble imagining the air around me as a mist. I would say this meditation had a pretty nuetral quality, with positive tendencies as it did help my back.
Before the meditation, my fingers felt cold against my face, and the air temperature feels normal. I’m tense due to the inconvenience of the power outage at my house. I chose to sit in a criss-cross position on my couch, and I paid attention to my posture more than I have been lately. As I focused on breathing, all of my focuses on the past and all of my responsibilities that could be hindered by the possibility of another power outage subsided a bit and I became more relaxed. When I put my hands to my face, they were still cold, and I didn’t feel as comfortable, but I don’t feel as tense as before.
After the meditation, my fingers don’t feel as cold, but they still feel cool. Today this meditation helped me to relax and feel better somewhat, but I didn’t have as much success today as I have previously. I can’t stop thinking about what will happen if I don’t get my work done before the power goes out again. Usually I can let go of my thoughts of overwhelming responsibilities, but today they are too important. Perhaps tomorrow there won’t be as much of a threat and my subconscious can calm down more when I do my meditation.
Today i used touch point meditation. I liked the finger temperature tests. Before the meditation, my temperature was in the low 70s. I closed my eyes and meditated to the guided track 5 from Doctor Klich. As in the process of meditations, I rubbed my fingers together and realized the warming temperature. Afterwards i noted the temperature and placed my hands over my eyes before coming back to the light of the room. My temperature was now near 80 degrees. I had a positive meditation experience.
I suffered from a power outage on Tuesday so the house I was in was very cold. I continued to practice the meditation using track 3 of the Mindfulness-Based Biofeedback Advanced Visualization cd. Before the beginning the meditation, I noted that my fingers were much colder than my face mainly because of the low temperature in the room.
This track seemed to do a good job with taking my mind off of the temperature. After finishing, my fingers were still cold and although I was extremely calm and relaxed for minutes after the meditation, I returned to a cold state shortly after.
Thursday 2/13 MBB Reflection
Before: My fingers are slightly cooler than my face. I’m kinda annoyed because my brother got into town and said he wanted to have lunch, but he apparently forgot and just had lunch with his girlfriend… The room is ~70°F.
After: My fingers are now slightly warmer than my face. I don’t know if this is from the meditation, or because I was holding my hands together. I listened to track 5, Creating Balance. I started to focus on visualizing a single ball, but it took me a while. After this, when instructed to create more balls in my visualization to focus on, I had some trouble. Throughout the process, I managed to maintain my focus on my breath, but the visualizations were hard for me. It made me slightly anxious, because She instructed the addition of balls faster than I could create them. I then lost track of how many balls we were supposed to have created, and simply focused on my breathing. Once I started doing this, possibly because of the background sound in the track, I started to visualize waves crossing my vision, which started slowing down as we were supposed to release the balls. I also got momentarily distracted because my phone started ringing. I think I may have more success with this meditation when I next try it, but this time I had quite a bit of trouble.
Using track 4 of the Mindfullness-Based Biofeedback: An Audio Companion cd, I was able to achieve menal clarity. With a clear head, controlling my thoughts felt like I was controlling a dream I was in. When my attention was directed towards something away from my body, I was able to bring it right back.
My power was out on 2/13 and 2/14, but I saved my meditations:
2/13 – I chose track 4 from the first CD. Before the meditation, my hands feel pretty cold against my face, and the air temperature feels chilly because the power is out. I am stressed that the power is out because I have multiple online assignments due. When I laid on my back on my bed, I found it hard to relax because the air temperature is much lower than normal and I was shivering sometimes. When I closed my eyes and shifted focus to my thoughts, I noticed that pretty much all of them were about the homework. When I focused on breathing, I began to think that things will work themselves out and it won’t be the end of the world if they don’t work out exactly how I want them to. I categorized my thoughts as “homework” and pretty easily let go of them. After the meditation, my hands don’t feel as cold, and the air still feels chilly, but I am not nearly as tense. This meditation was pretty successful. I think I’m starting to realize more that I don’t need to dwell on things and focus on the present more.
2/14 – I chose track 3 from the first CD. Before the meditation, my hands feel cool against my face, the air temperature feels chilly, and I am tense because I feel cold. I’m very tired and didn’t get much sleep last night, so I’m not stressed over any particular thought. I chose to lay on my side on my bed. When I began to focus on breathing, I noticed that most of my thoughts were about how I had plans for Valentine’s Day, but now they’re going to have to wait until tomorrow, and how I’m going to make everything work. I don’t really feel bothered or stressed about it, though; I’m actually pretty excited. When I put my hands to my face, it brought me back to the outside world more, and I lost focus on those thoughts. After the meditation, my fingers are still cool against my face, the air is still chilly, and my tension has not really subsided. This meditation didn’t really do anything helpful. I think maybe this is due to the fact that during the meditation I started to think about my exciting plans, so now I am jittery and anxious for tomorrow to happen. Maybe in the future I can learn to control my positive tension as well as my negative tension.
2/15 – I chose track 4 from the first CD because I have a lot on my mind. Before the meditation, my hands feel the same temperature as my face, probably because I just took a hot shower. The air feels normal, but I am very anxious and tense about my plans for today. As I sat comfortably on my futon, I tried to still keep my back straight, which actually helped to ease tension in my back. When I closed my eyes and focused on breathing, I immediately noticed all of my thoughts about today’s plans, and if they will or won’t work out, etc. As I focused on breathing, these thoughts faded a bit, but the focus was still fairly prominent in my mind. I categorized these thoughts, but found it hard to let go of them because they are important. I did begin to resolve them just as I had a couple of days ago, thinking that whatever is going to happen will happen, and for a reason. After the meditation, my hands still feel the same temperature as my face, the air feels normal, and I do not feel quite as tense. This session only helped slightly, but I guess that’s better than not helping at all. My plans for today are important and special, so I couldn’t let go of the outline of events that are scheduled. However, the session helped to ease some of my anxious tension.
Today I used track 3 from the first CD. Before the meditation, my hands are barely cooler than my face, the air temperature feels normal, and I am not stressed, but naturally a little tense. I chose to lay on my back, but propped up a bit on a couch. When I began to focus on breathing, I didn’t really notice too many thoughts; I don’t have too much on my mind. More than anything I only noticed the rhythm of my breathing and began to sort of fall asleep. When I put my hands to my face, they felt warmer than I expected. After the meditation, my hands are the same temperature as my face, the air still feels normal, and most of my tensions has subsided. This meditation wasn’t really beneficial, but not unsuccessful either. It helped to ease my tension, but I didn’t really have too many thoughts to notice or relieve stress from. Perhaps I am getting better at not worrying and focusing on the present.
Today I decided to use track 3 from the first CD. Before the meditation, my fingers are a little cooler than my face, the air temperature feels chilly, and I feel very sore and exhausted, but not stressed. I chose to lay on my back on a couch; I don’t want to focus on my posture today because I’m so sore. When I focused on breathing, I didn’t notice any thoughts; my breathing actually lulled me halfway into sleep. I didn’t even notice when the part about putting your hands to your face happened. I only gained consciousness again from the final ding. After the meditation, my hands are the same temperature as my face, the air feels normal, and I still feel sore and not stressed. I suppose this meditation helped to relieve some tension I wasn’t aware of because my hand temperature increased, but overall this meditation wasn’t very helpful today. I’m so tired that I kind of just can’t think at all, so I had no mental success. I’ve never fallen asleep while doing a meditation before; I felt very strange when I woke up.
I was went without power for a couple of days so posting daily was a challenge but the meditations were still done.
4/15
The meditations have been pretty consistent recently. I haven’t seen much of a difference in effects. The repetition in the meditation seems to have become a bit boring. A change from the guided meditation may be more effective.
4/16
I chose to practice this meditation on my way to the mall. With my earphones in my ear, I eliminated the background noise on the train that took me to Lenox Square. My stress level was definitely much lower like the last time I chose to practice the meditation on the train. With a clear head, I headed to my favorite store to get a new pair of jeans 🙂
4/17
Before starting the meditation, I noted that my finger tips were much colder than my face. I used track 5 of the Mindfulness-Based Biofeedback: Advanced Visualizations CD. This was my first time using this track from the cd. I felt like this track was a great blend of mind control and body relaxation. By the end of the meditation, was very much relaxed and the temperature of my fingers were similar to the temperature of my face.
In class, we did track 6 from the advanced CD.
Before the meditation, my fingers were a bit cooler than my face, the air temperature feels normal, and I feel a bit stressed about time commitments. When the meditation began, I was sitting comfortably back in my chair, but found myself slouching more and more. As the meditation went on and spoke of accepting and releasing, I immediately began to think that things will work themselves out and I gained more confidence in my abilities to get everything done in a timely manner. I also started thinking about my paper since this was in English class, and about the comments I got. It made me not as nervous about my future comments (since I felt like my past draft was not up to par). This time as I draft and peer review, I will try to put more effort into being open-minded about global work. After the meditation, my fingers are the same temperature as my face, the air still feels normal, and I am not nearly as stressed. This meditation was pretty successful in controlling my stress.
I had just woke up from a nap when I decided to do this meditaiton. My fingers were very warm; they were the same temperature of my face. I decided to use track 3 of the Mindfulness-Based Biofeedback: Advanced Practice Visualizations CD. I find this track to help most with controlling thoughts. As the track gets to the 3 minutes break near the end, remember how much I’ve missed doing the unguided meditation. Last semester, I would always choose to do the unguided mediation when given the option. Ultimately after this meditation was over, I was very calm and my fingers were still just as warm as they were before I started the meditation.
That’s great Kirubel, Its good to periodically challenge ones meditation to prevent getting too complacent. Unguided or extending it longer can be a good way to do that.
I used track 4 from the first CD today. Before the meditation, my fingers feel cold against my face, the air temperature feels normal, and I feel a bit stressed because I have more to do today than I thought, and I didn’t get much sleep last night. As I sat in a recliner, I tried to pay more attention to my posture today, which helped to ease some pain from slouching so much earlier. When I closed my eyes and started to focus on breathing, I immediately started to notice all of my thoughts about today’s commitments. I began to plan them out more calmly and in a timely manner, so it was easy to categorize them and let them go (at least the stressful thoughts about them) at that point of the meditation. After the meditation, my fingers feel only a bit cooler than my face, the air temperature still feels normal, and I do not feel nearly as stressed. This meditation was very successful today. I think I’m getting better at calmly resolving my stressful issues. Hopefully in the future I will immediately be able to approach overwhelming commitments like I did during the meditation, but without having to first meditate.
Today I used track 4 from the first CD. Before the meditation, my fingers are the same temperature as my face, the air temperature feels normal, and I do not feel stressed; in fact, I feel very happy about some news I received. I chose to sit back in a chair and pay more attention to my posture than I have been recently. When I closed my eyes and began to focus on breathing, the only thoughts I noticed were happy ones about what had happened today. It was easy to categorize these thoughts and let them go simply because they are positive and have already happened. After the meditation, my fingers are still the same temperature as my face, the air still feels normal, and I am still not stressed. However, some general tension that I had not noticed before the meditation subsided as I released the thoughts about my day. This meditation was not very helpful today, but it wasn’t bad either. This is probably because I was not stressed to begin with, so there wasn’t really too much to help relieve.
This weekend I stayed at a friend’s house who had no internet connection. However, I did still record my meditations from each day. They are as follows:
2/21 – I used track 3 from the first CD. Before the meditation, my fingers are cooler than my face, the air temperature feels normal, and I feel incredibly tired, but not stressed. As I sat on a couch, I found it hard to focus on my posture because I was so tired. As I began to focus on breathing, I noticed only thoughts about the night before which neither bothered me nor made me happy. The thoughts were just kind of there. I found myself drifting off to sleep a bit because the sound of my breathing lulled me. When I put my hands to my face, I noticed they were not as cold as before, and I woke up more from being half-way asleep. After the meditation, my fingers are not as cool against my face, the air still feels normal, and I do not feel as tense, but I do still feel tired. This meditation was just neutral. I didn’t really notice my tension had eased until I put my hands to my face, and I couldn’t concentrate much because I am so tired.
2/22 – I used track 4 from the first CD. Before the meditation, my fingers are only a bit cooler than my face, the air temperature feels normal, and I am a bit tense and stressed. I chose to lay on my back on a couch. As I closed my eyes and focused on breathing, I started to notice different kinds of thoughts about the things that were stressing me out. When I categorized them, for the first time I had to use multiple categories. However, it was fairly easy to let them go. After the meditation, my fingers are the same temperature as my face, the air still feels normal, and I do not feel nearly as stressed or tense. This meditation was very beneficial. I am finding it easier to simply notice my thoughts and let them go farther away from my mind.
2/23 – I used track 6 from the advanced CD. Before the meditation, my fingers are a little colder than my face, the air temperature feels normal, and I feel tired and a bit tense, but not stressed. I chose to lay on my side in my bed. It was easy for me to notice and release my thoughts because the only thoughts I had were about the good times I had hanging out with my friends the night before. I also noticed that much of my tension subsided as I began to release my memories of the night before. After the meditation, my fingers are still a bit cooler than my face, the air temperature still feels normal, and I do not feel as tense. This meditation was mostly neutral, but slightly beneficial because it helped my tension. It seems like I am naturally a tense person, and I don’t even realize it most of the time. These meditations help me to realize it more and relieve it.
2/24 – I used track 3 from the first CD. My fingers are colder than my face, maybe because I just washed my hands in cold water, the air temperature feels a bit warm, and I am a bit jittery and stressed about homework. I chose to sit in a chair, and once again, focusing on my posture was not easy because I am tired. When I focused on breathing, I started to plan out my homework in a timely fashion, and I became less stressed. When I put my hands to my face, it was kind of the final self-motivation moment of planning for my homework and the rest of my day. After the meditation, my fingers are only a bit cooler than my face, the air feels normal, and I am still a bit jittery, but not stressed. This meditation was pretty helpful. I think my jitters were caused by drinking more coffee than usual this morning. I am increasing my ability to calmly and rationally deal with my stress about overwhelming responsibilities.
In class today we used track 4 from the Advanced CD.
Before the meditation, my fingers are colder than my face, the air temperature feels normal, and I feel a little tense and stressed about some commitments, but some of my stress for the day has already been relieved. When I closed my eyes, most of what I noticed was the scratchy sound and skipping in the background of the CD. When I focused on parts of my body that were “calling out for attention,” I noticed that I was swinging my foot a lot. When I pictured myself made of colors, an image of my outline with blues, purples, and reds appeared. Most of my thoughts were about academic commitments (blue), but some were about my relationship, and the color red was very passionate. The two categories mesh together and overlap, so the color purple appeared. When the amount of skipping on the CD increased, I found it hard to concentrate on the color part, but I did notice that my tension had subsided even though I was thinking about stressful thoughts. After the meditation, my fingers are only slightly cooler than my face, the air temperature still feels normal, and I feel a lot less tense and stressed. This meditation was somehow helpful. I simply noticed my thoughts instead of dwelling on them by assigning them a color. I think this can relate to my paper because a lot of ideas flowing together at once make the paper seem murky in my mind overall. When I break each idea apart and think about them objectively, my tension about getting my points clearly across will also subside because noticing things about one little idea is a lot easier than trying to notice lots of things in many different ideas.
This is from 2/25; I was busy until midnight last night and went straight to sleep and didn’t post it on here yesterday.
I used track 3 from the first CD. My fingers are colder than my face, the air temperature feels normal, and I am stressed about a test. I chose to sit back on the couch, focusing on my posture some, but not too much. When I focused on breathing, I noticed thoughts about the past test in that class, and how this one will probably have the same turn out. I tried to get rid of my subjective “what if” thoughts, but found it hard to do so this time. When I put my hands to my face, they had not warmed up much. After the meditation, my fingers are still cooler to my face, the air still feels normal, and I am still pretty stressed. This meditation was not as beneficial. It’s a music hearing test and there’s no way I can study for it, and a bad grade in the class could render me from staying in my honors organizatoins. Today I just can’t stop worrying, even with meditations.
*2/26
Today in class we used track 5 from the advanced CD. Before the meditation, my fingers are the same temperature as my face, the air temperature feels a bit warm, and I feel a little tense, but not stressed. I sat back in a chair. As I focused on breathing at the beginning, I noticed many thoughts about my campus housing situation, my relationship, and a concert tomorrow. As I envisioned ball after ball in my mind, those thoughts increasingly faded away. When I paid more attention to my body, I noticed that I was sort of embracing myself and almost had a crossed position with my arms. As I let each ball go, it was easy to let go of something so objective. I began to realize that I needed to think about those previous thoughts in an objective way as well by looking at them presently, or determining that they do not exist in the present at all, to let go of stressful thoughts easily. After the meditation, my fingers are still warmer than my face, the air temperature feels normal, and I am less tense. This meditation was pretty helpful. I understand more in depth about looking at things with an objective perspective instead of a subjective “what if” perspective. This will help me to let go of worried thoughts about any tests or quizzes or future struggles in any of my classes, and possibilities that are not happening presently about my social life.