Hello from guest blogger, Lisa Robinson! This post is about week four in the program detailed in “Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World” by Mark Williams and Danny Penman.
Consider the idea that our reactions come from how we interpret what we experience. If this is accurate, that means that when I have feelings and emotions related to something that happens, it’s because of how I interpret the situation. This is one of those interesting moments when what I’m focusing on in my personal life (this mindfulness program) connects directly with work I’m doing in my professional life. The professional connection has to do with creating a learning experience about change management, where how we experience change is all about how we interpret it and the conclusions that we reach.
This can be a challenging concept to understand and apply.
It can show up for me in my dreams and in the fuzzy moments when I’m waking up from sleep. Especially when I’m stressed, I’m likely to have dreams or waking thoughts that make me panic, thinking that I’ve failed to meet expectations because I neglected to do something very important. Sometime it’s only after I’ve had my first cup of coffee and am fully awake that I realize that the issue had never existed. But until I can see that the panic is unnecessary, I can entertain some pretty unrealistic, negative thinking.
This week in the mindfulness program is designed to help you pick up on the signals your mind and body send when how you interpret your experience is becoming unrealistically negative. The key is to learn to notice these thoughts, acknowledge them, and then let them go.
The meditation resources to help with this are available at the web site for the Mindfulness book:
https://franticworld.com/free-meditations-from-mindfulness/
At the link above, select the meditations for “Sounds and Thoughts Meditation” and the one for “Three Minute Breathing Space.”
I hope that reflecting about this week’s topic and working with the two meditations will provide you with insight and be time well spent.
Enjoy a mindful week! If you have any questions or feedback, please either comment here or feel free to contact me directly in email at mindfulpath@outlook.com.
