The Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction course has been a remarkable learning experience. It was not at all what I expected. As a psychotherapist, I had some experience with meditation and had read many of the books in your suggested reading list. However, this immersion into the actual practice on a very personal level was altogether different, exciting and life changing. Meditation for me had been about quieting the mind and shutting down the monkeys dancing in my head for the purpose of moving on more clearly. It's been about a moment's respite on the journey of a busy and productive life ... like a rest stop on a highway to someplace else.
Within this course, I got off the highway and learned to expand the entire landscape. I got off the highway to savor the moment-by-moment inward and outward location. Expanding my awareness exactly where it is, as it is, now, without an agenda seemed wildly different. Turns out, it became a ticket to freedom. A ticket, if you will, to expand the space of awareness between stimulus and response so I could truly be alive now. I experimented with awareness while eating, kayaking, hiking, walking the dog, cutting roses, fixing breakfast, even paying the bills. I altered how I paid attention in conversations, broadening my capacity to really "be with" another without losing myself. I got in touch affectionately with my body in the yoga practices without pushing to be "a better practitioner." I enjoyed all of the practices, even when I resisted doing them. I had been familiar with RAIN from Rick Hanson's work and use it now much more often for myself nearly daily.
Now it is difficult to settle on a formal sense of how I will incorporate these many practices into my daily life. I suspect this will change over time, as I do not want to lose any of them. This week was a good beginning. I continued with a walking meditation in the mornings and every other day with the body scan and yoga practice together. I spent one day catching up on Tara Brach's website listening to some of her talks. It seems I am hooked. Most importantly, too, I have learned to be more kind and non-judgmental toward myself. Treating my body, my behavior or my mind with affection was a foreign experiment. This will be a long time coming, but I relish the exercise. I have now really learned to "inhabit my life" differently. What a gift! Thank you.
- Gail G.
"Letter of Learning"
from Gail G. in California
