MfH Week 7

Step 6 (days 1-3). Being Whole - body like a mountain, heart like the ocean, mind like the sky

Introduction

• This week build on the previous two steps.
• In step four: learned to soften towards experience of pain.
• In step five: learned to seek out the pleasant.
• This step: cultivate broad awareness that is stable, kind and confident.
• Previous stages close-up lens of awareness.
• Now pulling back to wide-angle perspective - a 'bigger container' of awareness.
• Rest within flow - pleasant and unpleasant experiences like waves on ocean.
• Be like a yacht, rather than a dinghy!
• Let go of automatically resisting the unpleasant and grasping on to pleasant, which leads to secondary suffering.
• Instead enjoy the depth and breadth of experience, just as it is.
• Bathe all experience in a kind and warm breath of well-wishing towards ourselves.

Step 6 (days 4-6). Being Whole - body like a mountain, heart like the ocean, mind like the sky

Going deeper

• How are you getting on with cultivating self-compassion?
• Can overcome the 'billiard ball' approach to life, bouncing reactively off experience.
• Even-mindedness is more stable and life-affirming.
• Acknowledge things before we react and choose helpful response.
• Acceptance is beautiful but not the same as passive resignation or indifference.
• It's active - wholeheartedly engaging with experience.
• As you accept you will change. Gradually your life will change for the better!
• Can guide flow of change towards how we most want to live.
• Can live in harmony with things - turn life from struggle and unease, to …
• … A life flavoured by calm, initiative and confidence!

Mindfulness in Daily Life exercise

Step 6 Days 1-3

Spend 5 minutes a day listening to sounds. If have impaired hearing do same exercise with another sense: taste, touch, sight or smell. Continue to experiment with timer and baseline diaries.

Mindfulness in Daily Life exercise

Step 6 Days 4-6

Spend 5 minutes a day looking at things around you. If have impaired sight do same exercise with another sense: taste, touch, hearing or smell. Continue to experiment with timer and baseline diaries.