After practicing for 40 years and teaching mindfulness for 20 years, I can say with certainty that I found my mission鈥攖o help clients bring real transformation change into their lives through a clear understanding of mindfulness practice.
The words 鈥渕indfulness鈥 and 鈥渕indful鈥 have spread pervasively through our culture; but in themselves, they don鈥檛 necessarily lead to meaningful
change. The challenge is to
understand how fundamental mindfulness skills weave together into a cohesive mindfulness practice that directly changes the brain鈥攁nd how that can transform old habits, patterns, and reactions that undermine our happiness and well-being.
In all the programs and trainings I lead, I teach what I call the five core skills of mindfulness. They aren鈥檛 the only skills, of course, but they are fundamental to building a cohesive transformational practice. If clients are not practicing the five core skills, it is unlikely that they are building a solid foundation for growth.
For the most part, the five core skills are not intellectually challenging鈥攂ut our clients are unlikely to come across them on their own or to figure out how they fit together in supporting change in their lives.
Briefly described, the five core skills鈥攁nd how you can practice them鈥攁re outlined here:
- Clarifying, setting, and reaffirming intentions. Ask yourself, 鈥淲hat am I seeking to transform? What am I trying to cultivate?鈥 This is an important self-reflection practice you can engage in before attending an event, entering or evaluating a relationship, or working on a quality or trait about yourself.
- Cultivating a witnessing awareness. Work on developing meta-cognition: an awareness of the state of your body, emotions, and mind鈥攐r better yet鈥攁n awareness of your awareness. Avoid making auto-pilot reactions by first paying attention to your inner landscape.
- Strengthening self-regulation. Try to settle negative energies intentionally by shortening the time that difficult emotions keep you suck. Make it a priority to avoid (or recover from) emotional hijackings and bring your whole brain back online.
- Stabilizing attention. Strengthen your ability to hold focus. Regularly ask yourself, 鈥淲hat is it that I want to have as the focus of my attention right now?鈥
- Practicing loving-kindness. Calm the inner critic and self-judgement. Practice non-judgmental awareness that leads to kindness and compassion for yourself and others.
These five core skills weave together in a way that enables clients to interrupt the disruptive emotions that undermine their lives鈥攕tress, anxiety, depressive thoughts, worry, and anger, to name just a few. By interrupting these energies when they are active and instead choosing to invest in new insights, speech, and behavior, clients are literally beginning to change their brain.
With practice over time, they will become less vulnerable to all the old, disruptive energies and can experience more confidence, creativity, and well-being in their lives.
Fully describing this cohesive mindfulness practice鈥攁nd the neuroscience that supports it鈥攍ives is the heart of the programs I teach for 小蝌蚪视频. I hope that I will have an opportunity to share these mindfulness skills and practices with you.