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How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
How to Meditate: Meditation 101 for Beginners
10 Science-Backed Benefits of Meditation
What is Meditation?
Benefits of Mindfulness: Mindful Living Can Change Your Life
Mindfulness 101: A Beginner's Guide
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Duration
In this session, we’ll discuss why so many of us are completely wound up and the key practice to begin to unwind. Choose meditation duration:
Hey there.
Welcome to the Mindfulness.com
2022 Un-challenge.
My name is Cory Muscara, and I'll
be guiding you through this series.
The theme of this series is
going to be permission to be
human, permission to be you.
And each day for seven days, you'll get a
short video like this and a corresponding
meditation, all with the intention to
help you reconnect, slow down, develop
more self-acceptance and really get
back into alignment with yourself.
We can get so out of alignment when
we're caught up in the buzzing of
our day-to-day, constantly trying
to improve ourselves, better
ourselves, get someplace else.
And while that's all well and good, and
well-intentioned, it can often wind us up.
And that's going to be the
focus of our first day today.
What does it really take to start
unwinding some of this deep seated
tension that can accumulate over days,
months, years, and sometimes even decades?
Well, I'll start by saying
to unwind our deepest tension
requires the deepest stillness.
To unwind our deepest tension
requires the deepest stillness, and
I'm not just talking about stillness
of body, although that can help.
I'm referring more to stillness of
being, that place within you that is
able to observe what is happening without
making it right or wrong, having to do
something about it, improve it, fix it.
That's the usual way
we go about our lives.
We experience something and we
immediately put it in a category
of, oh, this is, this is a good
feeling and this is a bad feeling.
And based on that, we either cling to the
experience or push away the experience.
That cycle of pushing-pulling,
pushing-pulling,
pushing-pulling is exhausting.
I do that when I go to the gym, but
I don't go to the gym for 24 hours
a day, the body would break down.
And yet, if you look at how the mind
is relating to our moment to moment
experience, it's often this cycle
of push-pull, push-pull, push-pull.
And even when we go about our
personal development, you'll often
see that there's this intention
of pushing against our experience.
Even our relaxation strategies, it's
like, all right, had a long day.
Now I need to force myself to relax.
What do I do?
Sit down.
Good posture.
Deep inhale.
Inhale, exhale, inhale, exhale.
Inhale, exhale..
And can you just see how that might
actually reinforce the very mechanisms
of mind that are causing you to want
to relax or unwind in the first place?
That part of you that constantly
needs to be better or get
somewhere else or do something.
It's what Bob Sharples calls the
subtle aggression of self-improvement,
where we're constantly trying to be
someplace else than where we are or
be someone else other than who we are
that, while well-intentioned again,
can actually leave us feeling burnt
out and worse than we were before.
And the claim we're going to make
here is that often you need to
get out of alignment with the
rest of the world in order to get
back into alignment with yourself.
And that involves connecting to that
place within you that actually is
spacious enough to hold all aspects
of who you are without needing to
fix, change, or do something about it.
We're going to dive into that today
in our meditation practice so that you
really have an opportunity to connect
to what that's pointing to, because
it's one thing to think about it.
It's another thing to actually be in it.
So we'll go into that more in a moment,
but as you do go about your day, I
just want you to notice all of the
ways that you find yourself pushing
against experience, your internal
experience, or grasping at experiences.
And what would it be like
to just take a breath?
And just say, "Can I just be in this
moment as it is without immediately
needing to make it different?"
It might be a radical shift, but
that's kind of what we're doing here.
The whole idea of an un-challenge
is a bit against the status quo.
And let's see how it
goes for the seven days.
You might be surprised what
happens on the other side.
So it's great to be here with you.
Let's settle in together for
today's first meditation.
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