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Video Summaries of Full Catastrophe Living
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1-Page Summary of Full Catastrophe Living
Overview
Sometimes people hold onto old hurts. It’s important to forgive and move on so that your life isn’t bogged down by the past. In a seated meditation, direct loving kindness towards yourself first. Then direct it towards someone you love as well as someone you feel neutral about. Finally, if possible, direct loving kindness toward the person who hurt you in order to let go of any resentment or grudges.
Facing up to life’s catastrophes can make the joys in your life more intense. This is a concept that seems straightforward, but it can be difficult to execute in real-life situations.
There’s a way to deal with stress and sadness. Mindfulness meditation helps people connect their minds and bodies, enjoy life more, and find ways of coping with pain.
In this article, you’ll learn how your breathing can help in the practice of mindfulness. It will also show why stress is a vicious cycle and give tips on how to break it. Finally, it will teach all the tools you need to live in the now.
Big Idea #1: Mindfulness helps you to be aware of the present moment.
If you knew that you only had a few moments left to live, how would you spend your time? Perhaps by appreciating the things around you or taking in all of your senses.
When you think about it, life is made up of moments. So if you want to make the most out of your life, then you need to make the most out of each moment. Mindfulness can help with that and here’s how: when we’re mindful, we focus on our present moment experience instead of thinking about what happened in the past or what will happen in the future. Although this may seem like a simple concept, many people struggle to live their lives mindfully because they get caught up in thoughts about things that have already happened or are worried about things that haven’t even occurred yet. However, research has shown that living more mindfully (focusing only on the present) helps us feel calmer and happier than those who don’t live as mindfully.
Practicing mindfulness will help us focus on the present moment, rather than our wandering thoughts. This is important because it allows us to experience the full texture of life. It also brings us closer to our bodies and helps us recognize early warning signs for depression, stress, or anger.
Here’s a simple exercise to try. Take three raisins and observe the first one closely. What does it look like? How does it smell? How does it feel between your fingers? Then put that raisin in your mouth and begin chewing on it: how does the taste change as you chew on it? Try this with all three of them, paying attention to each step along the way. With increased focus, you may find that each time is more intense than before.
The first step to living a mindful life is to slow down and pay attention.
Big Idea #2: Meditation allows people to be more mindful.
Do you find yourself busy with doing things throughout the day, but then your mind keeps going after your body is done? You may be thinking about events from earlier in the day or worrying about what’s to come.
Meditation is the act of being present in life. It’s about focusing on what you’re doing and realizing that there are other ways to approach life than just constantly “doing” things. This means that you can’t be mindful if your mind is always thinking about something else, so meditation allows for moments of mindfulness. The key message here is: Meditation quiets the mind and allows for mindful moments, which comes from trying to “be” rather than do something else. So how do you meditate? In a nutshell, try to focus on one thing at a time and realize that there may be more important things going on around you than whatever it is you’re focused on at the moment.
