Category Archives: Mindfulness of Body

Mindfulness Resources for Working with Pain

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The “Felt Sense” Prayer, as shared by Tara Brach

Intro to Bringing Mindfulness to Pain 15:06

Guided Meditation: Bringing Mindfulness to Pain 17:40

Jon Kabat-Zinn has been a pioneer in bringing mindfulness techniques into the mainstream of medical practice to work with stress, pain and illness. You can read an overview of this work here. He is the author or editor of dozens of books; a good place to start is Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of the Body and the Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness.
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Still Do I Keep My Look

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A poem for the body

Still Do I Keep My Look, My Identity
BY GWENDOLYN BROOKS

Each body has its art, its precious prescribed
Pose, that even in passion’s droll contortions, waltzes,
Or push of pain – or when a grief has stabbed
Or hatred hacked – is its and nothing else’s.
Each body has its pose. No other stock
That is irrevocable, perpetual,
And its to keep. In castle or in
With rags or robes. Through good, nothing, or ill.
And even in death a body, like no other
On any hill or plain or crawling cot
Or gentle for the lily-less hasty pall
(Having twisted, gagged, and then sweet-ceased to bother),
Shows the old personal art, the look. Shows what
It showed at baseball. What it showed in school.

Published in Poetry: A Magazine of Verse, November 1944, pp 76-77

Finding Refuge in the Body: Some Resources

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Dissatisfaction with the body causes endless suffering and fuels the multibillion-dollar diet, cosmetic and plastic surgery industries — which of course are fueling dissatisfaction with the body. As the Irish Poet John Donahue has written, “We need to come home to the temple of our senses. Our bodies know that they belong… it is our minds that make us homeless.”

A few years ago, a pharmacy in the UK designed a project called “Perceptions of Perfection” that gave a photograph of the same woman to designers in eighteen countries around the world and asked them to photoshop her to look like the ideal woman in their particular cultures. The project has glaring limitations as it focuses primarily on the Americas and Europe with only one Asian country, China, represented and almost nothing from Africa. That said, it shows that beauty really is in the mind of the beholder. You can see the results here.

When we dissociate from our bodies, we dissociate from life itself. As beloved mindfulness teacher Tara Brach has noted, “The most profound and full presence can only be experienced if we’re awake right here in this body – with a quality of sacred presence that comes when, without any resistance or grasping, we really plant ourselves in the universe, in this body, in this being right here.”

Listen to Tara Brach speak on Mindfulness of the Body and Embodied Spirit here.

 

The Tender Heart and Finding Refuge in the Body

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This Week’s Mid-week Pause: Studies tell us that an ever-increasing percentage of people all over the world feel at odds with their bodies. The numbers are greater for women than for men, and for girls than for boys, but they are growing across all categories of gender, ethnicity, age and class as Big Beauty, Big Pharma, and the ubiquitous presence of social media conspire to tell us that we don’t measure up.

What might it feel like to experience tenderness, acceptance and gratitude for our bodies as they are, right here, right now?

What: 30 minute opening remarks and guided meditation, followed by an optional 15-minute exercise to help integrate this mindfulness practice into your day.

When: Wednesday, February 24, 1:00 – 1:45 pm Mountain Time.

Where: Zoom. To join the announcement list and receive the Zoom link, please send your name, phone number (so we know you are not a bot), and email address to MindfulnessTree@icloud.com      Be sure to add this email to your address book so the announcements don’t go to spam.

Mindfulness of the Body and Working with Pain

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The body scan is a wonderful way to ground yourself in your body and in the present moment. Here is a 20-minute body scan from Tara Brach, and a 30-minute meditation from Jon Kabat Zinn. These guided meditations are wonderful, but know that you can do your own body scan, anywhere and anytime. Just start at the top of your head or at the bottom of your toes and work your way through your body, bringing a loving awareness to everything you encounter on the way.

 

Zinn is one the leading voices in mindfulness based stress reduction and ways to use mindfulness to deal with illness and pain. A good introduction to his work is the book Full Catastrophe Living. You can read about the book here and order it through your local bookshop or Amazon.com and other online book services.

Tara Brach has compiled a wonderful list of resources for working with pain, including a summary of mindfulness strategies and links to talks and guided meditations. You can access it here.

From Danna Faulds, this lovely poem about trusting prana — which is the breath or life force.

Trusting Prana
by Danna Faulds

Trust the energy that
Courses through you Trust,
Then take surrender even deeper. Be the energy.
Don’t push anything away. Follow each
Sensation back to its source
In vastness and pure presence.

Emerge so new, so fresh that
You don’t know who you are.

Welcome in the season of
Monsoons. Be the bridge
Across the flooded river
And the surging torrent
Underneath. Be unafraid of consummate wonder.

Be the energy and blaze a
Trail across the clear night
Sky like lightning. Dare to
Be your own illumination.

Neurology and 10-Breaths Practice

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To Practice 10 Breaths…

  • Choose a focus of appreciation. This might be a beloved object or photograph; the thought of a beloved person; or a moment during a hike or other experience where you pause to fully take in the beauty of the moment
  • Take a couple of deep breaths to calm and center yourself
  • Turn your attention fully to what you have chosen to appreciate. If it is an object, hold it in your hand or in your gaze and feel it with all your body. If is a person, evoke them fully in your mind, and feel their presence with your whole body. If it is a moment in nature, invite all five senses into appreciation of your experience: what you are seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, smelling.
  • Allow yourself to drop down and more fully inhabit this experience with each breath. You may want to keep track of each breath with a minimal counting on your fingers, touching a finger to your thigh or your thumb with each count.
  • At the end of ten breaths, gently name to yourself what was pleasurable about the experience.
  • Continue with your mindful day!

Why Practice 10-Breaths — a bit of neurology

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Invitations: Mindfulness of the Body

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Mindfulness of the Body

  • Begin your meditation with a body scan. If you are meditating for only a short period, the scan may be your complete meditation. Spend a few breaths at the end of your meditation to savor the aliveness you have become aware of in your body.
  • Bless your body: The Atlanta-based hospice chaplain Janet Lutz took time at least once each year to bless the hands of everyone who worked in the hospital and most especially those who often went unacknowledged – those who prepared the food, cleaned the bathrooms, and provided the innumerable services that made the hospital a healing place. As you do a body scan, consider blessing each part of your own body in turn. You can hear a StoryCorps segment with Janet Lutz in which she notes how other hospital workers worked mindfully to heal here.
  • If it feels right, try out 10-breaths practice at least once or twice this week. You can find an overview of the practice here.

Some Resources for Working Mindfully with Pain and Illness

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Jon Kabat-Zinn has been a pioneer in bringing mindfulness techniques into the mainstream of medical practice to work with stress, pain and illness. You can read an overview of this work here. He is the author or editor of dozens of books; a good place to start is Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of the Body and the Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness. Continue reading →