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3×3 Mindfulness Challenge: Body

July 15, 2016 - kristina mendez Share goes here

It all starts with something small.

This week’s 3 x3 Mindfulness Challenge is a Flower Petals Body Scan. Practice your Flower Petals Body Scan for 3 Minutes a day, 3 days in a row! It is the same idea as the Glitter Globe Body Scan we practiced earlier in the year, just imagining Flower Petals instead of Glitter.

If you’d like, set a 3 minute timer on your phone with a calming alarm sound. You can also practice without a timer.
Begin in a comfortable seat with a tall spine and eyes closed.
Imagine you’re sitting under a beautiful tree full of flowers. A gentle breeze comes along and the Flower Petals blow off of the tree and begin to drift to the ground.
Start by noticing the Flower Petals as the reach the top of your head. Then follow them as they travels down your face, maybe scrunching up your face muscles and releasing here so they don’t tickle your nose.
Feel the Flower Petals moving over your shoulders and down your back. See if you can roll your shoulders back and down, softening to help the Flower Petals move more easily on their path.
Follow the Flower Petals as they roll over your heart space, and down across your belly. Take a big breath in to the belly here, and a deep breath out.
Imagine the Flower Petals brushing down the fronts and backs of your legs, touching your knees, and floating all the way down to your toes. Soften through your legs and feet to so the Flower Petals can move more easily to the ground.
Take a big big breath in through your nose and fill up your belly. Then blow all the air out through your mouth to clear off any Flower Petals that are still on you.
Keep your eyes closed and notice how you feel.
When your alarm rings, gently come back to the space you are in by blinking open your eyes, and taking gentle movement.

If you’re keeping track of your practice on a calendar or chart, go ahead and mark off one day of practice. Great job! Remember to keep practicing until you reach 3 days in a row!

Stay tuned for next week’s practice.

3 x 3 Mindfulness Challenge

July 8, 2016 - kristina mendez Share goes here

It all starts with something small.

As we learned before, you have the power to create a Mindful Inner and Outer Landscape through your Mindfulness practices. The 3 x 3 Mindfulness Challenge helps us Maintain our Mindful Inner and Outer Landscape by practicing 3 minutes a day for 3 days in a row!

Some day we want to be able to practice every single day. Just like a garden needs sunshine to grow, your Mindful Inner and Outer Landscape needs practice to keep growing beautifully too! Since most things don’t grow all at once, we’re going to start small then work our way up.

There will be one 3 minute, 3 day challenge each week for 3 weeks: Body, Breath, Mind. They are meant to be practiced in order, and one per week so you become a Mindful expert with each one.

How can you prepare? It might be helpful to find a calendar, or make your own to note each time you complete a day of the 3 x 3 Mindfulness Challenge. You can use stickers, colors, draw a star, or anything else that makes you happy to show that you practiced. If possible, hang it up somewhere you see all the time so it can be a reminder to practice!

Stay tuned for next week’s challenge!

Mindful Pause for Gratitude: Independence

July 1, 2016 - kristina mendez Share goes here

With Independence Day approaching, it’s nice to take a Mindful Pause to reflect of all we have to be grateful for! You might already know that the 4th of July is a holiday to celebrate our country’s independence- but what does independence really mean anyhow? Independence means that we are in charge of ourselves as a country and as a people. That’s why we do things like vote when we’re grown ups- so that we can help choose what happens around us.

Mindfulness is a lot like independence because it helps us choose how we want to act in the world around us too. As we’ve learned in past lessons, when we are Mindful, we are able to Pause and reflect on our options. This ability gives us the freedom to act in a way that best serves us and others, instead of choosing something out of anger or impatience for example. So good job Mindful ones, you are cultivating (or growing) your own independence every time that you practice!

Today we’re going to practice taking a Mindful Pause for Gratitude. The topic of our Gratitude today is Independence. You may choose to focus on Independence relating to the 4th of July, since that is coming up (or already happened depending on when you read this), or maybe Independence relating to something else completely. Notice what naturally comes up in your practice.

Begin by closing your eyes. Connect to your breath by paying attention to your in-breath and your out-breath. Take five deep rounds of breath, bringing the in-breath all the way down into your belly, and drawing your belly back toward your spine on the out-breath. At the end of your fifth out-breath, keep your eyes closed and slowly bring one hand on top of the other onto your heart. Move your in-breath and your out-breath to the space of your heart now. Feel your heart grow big and full on the in-breath, and soften your heart on the out-breath. Take three more rounds like this.

Once you have connected your breath to your heart, begin to connect your mind to your hearth. Start to notice what about your independence, your freedom to choose, you are grateful for in this moment. Notice whatever comes up. It can be big or small. Maybe it is being able to go to school and learn, or maybe it is something like being able to choose what you eat for dinner once a week. Once you notice what you are grateful for, begin to breathe into that feeling. Hold that gratitude for your independence in your heart. Fill it up on your in-breath, and take it in to your heart on your out-breath. Take five more rounds like this, all the while holding that gratitude in your heart space.

When your finish your last out-breath, keep your eyes closed and just notice how your feel. How does your body feel? How does your breath feel? How does your mind feel? Maybe even turn the corners of your mouth up to the sky… and gently open your eyes when you are ready.

Mindful Welcome of the Seasons: Summer

June 24, 2016 - kristina mendez Share goes here

This week’s practice is a Mindful Welcome to the new season: summer! This practice is about using your Mindfulness skills to notice and welcome the transition from spring to summer. When seasons change, there are usually some changes that we can notice more easily than others. What do you think some of the easier changes to notice are from spring to summer?

(Give pause for answers)

You might have said something like: No school! It’s hot! Or it stays light out longer! There are also some changes in the summer that we might not notice as easily at first thought. These include some changes that happen because of the bigger differences you noticed, like the different foods we eat in the summer, the kinds of sports we play, the friends or family we get to see, and maybe even trips we go on.

Summer is normally seen as a time full of opportunity, warmth, and relaxation. Today we’re going to meditate on the new season and give it a nice warm welcome!

Begin by closing your eyes and noticing your body and your breath. See if you can feel your feet root down on the ground and your head reach up to the sky. Maybe imagine that your feet are touching warm summer sand on a beach, or warm dirt in a garden, and that your head is reaching up into the sunny summer sky. Begin to slow your breath down and imagine that with each in-breath, the sun shines a little brighter on your skin, and on the out-breath you let it’s warmth wash over you. Breathe in through your nose to take in the sunshine, breathe out through your nose to spread the sunshine all through your body.

Take another ten breaths like this. When you’re ready, gently open your eyes.

Welcome, summer!

Maintaining a Mindful Outer Landscape: Emotional Environment

June 18, 2016 - kristina mendez Share goes here

Last week we learned about Maintaining a Mindful Outer Landscape through our Physical Environment. This week we’re going to learn about how to Maintain a Mindful Outer Landscape through our Emotional Environment.

So what is an Emotional Environment anyhow? An Emotional Environment has to do with how you feel in the place that you’re in. We learned about our Physical Environment first, because that helps us set up our Emotional Environment too! But it isn’t just the physical things around us that affect our Emotional Environment, it’s the people and sounds too!

Close your eyes for a moment here and think about the people you’re around most of the time. Maybe they are friends or family. Think about how you usually feel around these people. Maybe also notice why you feel that way. If you feel happy, maybe it’s because you know you’re loved or cared for. If you feel sad, maybe you don’t feel like you’re getting very much attention directed your way. Just notice this, without judging any of it!

Gently blink your eyes open and reflect on what you just pictured. Our goal is to Maintain our Mindful Outer Landscape through our Emotional Environment. If our Emotional Environment doesn’t feel very good, what can we do to help if feel better?

Here are some tools we’ve learned in the past through our Mindfulness practices:

Mindful Communication Series:
- Mindful Listening
- Mindful Words
- Mindful Body Language
The Mindful Body Series:
- Mindful Eating Habits
- Mindful Movement Habits
- Mindful Rest Habits

The main idea is that what you take in affects what you put out. So we want to make sure our Mindful Inner and Outer Landscapes are doing the best they can so that we can help others have Mindful Inner and Outer Landscapes too. What you take in includes conversations with other people, music, TV, food, everything! You don’t have to worry too much about this all at once, just notice what your choices look like now and see if you can take some small steps, one at a time, to make your Outer Landscape a little more Mindful.

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