Week 3: Still Sitting

I was going to say I was “still standing,” but since I’ve not tried walking meditation yet, most of my Bold Plan involves sitting or lying down. Or doing yoga, which I very gratefully added this week. I had no idea how much my body needed to stretch until I started doing it!

Here’s what I’ve done so far:

WEEK 1:

30-45 minute Body Scan meditation in the morning

WEEK 2:

30-45 minute Body Scan meditation in the morning

10 minutes of sitting meditation in the evening

WEEK 3:

Alternate 30-45 minute Body Scan meditation with 45 minutes of gentle yoga in the morning

20 minutes of sitting meditation in the evening

Be aware of and write down one pleasant experience from the day

Today is the last day of Week 3. Week 4 will be just like Week 3, except instead of writing down one pleasant experience from the day, I’ll be aware of and write down on unpleasant experience from the day.

All of this is based on Jon Kabat-Zinn’s Full Catastrophe Living, which is the book he wrote outlining the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program he pioneered at the University of Massachusetts Medical School. If you follow that link, you can find MBSR programs around the country. While I’m doing the program on my own now, I did start out in the live classes, and I think that’s probably the best way to be introduced to MBSR (although it’s probably more effective not to move across the country halfway through like I did).

In future posts, I’ll write in more detail what each of these steps entail (body scan, sitting meditation, yoga) as far as recordings and props go, in case you’re thinking of trying a meditation practice at home. Or maybe you just like details. Or maybe you’ll just choose to skip those posts. Whatever’s fine.

For now, this is what I’ve been up to.

As I mentioned yesterday, I really am enjoying myself. It doesn’t feel “Wow! This is amazing!” It just feels comfortable.

Related articles

A surprisingly good mainstream article about mindfulness meditation and Jon Kabat-Zinn:

• Mind Reading: Jon Kabat-Zinn Talks About Bringing Mindfulness Meditation to Medicine (healthland.time.com)

Posts by me about My Bold Plan:

• My Bold Plan for 2012 (imperfecthappiness.wordpress.com)
• A Different Kind of Hedonism (imperfecthappiness.wordpress.com)
• Mindfulness and Social Media: Reflections on the First Three Days of My Bold Plan (imperfecthappiness.wordpress.com)
• Mindfulness Meditation, Week 1 of 8: Done (imperfecthappiness.wordpress.com)
• The Mindful Path to Perfection: You’re Already There (imperfecthappiness.wordpress.com)
• On Staying the Course (imperfecthappiness.wordpress.com)