5 elementos essenciais para spirituality

Recognize that your thoughts and emotions are fleeting and do not define you, an insight that can free you from negative thought patterns.

JM:You can start by learning how to practice mindfulness yourself, perhaps by taking a class, checking out a mindfulness app, or reading a book with instructions. If you’re happy with the benefits, you can build a community at work by telling your co-workers.

No, you don’t need anything to meditate, although it can be helpful to use an app, especially when you’re starting out. Some apps also have timers or other prompts reminding you to meditate, which can help you make it a daily routine.

Some people cultivate mindfulness in order to hone their attention and focus, while others see it as a tool for a kinder attitude and more intentional behavior. While seemingly simple, practicing mindfulness actually involves a variety of skills.

Pair meditation with another daily activity, such as a 1-minute meditation as you wait for your morning coffee or tea to cool, or as you sit in the carpool lane.

An essential component of mindfulness is acceptance. Whatever you’re thinking and feeling at that moment is neither right nor wrong. You notice it, and accept it, and move onto the next moment without getting caught up in judging what you’re thinking or feeling.

So what do I do? Don’t try to push emotions away — they’ll only spring back more intensely. Give them the space they need, then let them go.

That said, some types of meditation, including guided meditation and yoga nidra, are often done lying down. You’re less likely to drift into sleep when following someone’s voice.

During body scan, for example, participants saw the biggest increases in how aware they were of their bodies (unsurprisingly) and the sharpest decline in the number of thoughts they were having, particularly negative thoughts and thoughts related to the past and future. Loving-kindness meditation led to the greatest boost in their feelings of warmth and positive thoughts about spirituality others. Meanwhile, observing-thought meditation seemed to increase participants’ awareness of their thoughts the most. Previous research also suggests that observing-thought meditation has an advantage in reducing our judgmental attitude toward others. Taken together, these and other studies suggest that if you’re tackling a specific issue—say, feeling disconnected from your body—then you can choose a practice aimed at helping that issue, like the body scan. Loving-kindness might help in conflict with others, while observing-thought meditation can help break rumination. Body-Scan Meditation

Like Loving-Kindness Meditation, this technique involves invoking feelings of compassion and kindness toward yourself, and specifically for difficult situations or feelings.

JM: Here in the San Francisco Bay area, we’re seeing growing interest. Initially, that was among tech and social media companies. Google has been a pioneer in providing mindfulness practice training for its employees. In fact, an engineer at Google first instituted a mindfulness training program there, which has now become the Search Inside Yourself Leadership Institute, offering mindfulness training for companies around the world.

It might also be easier for beginners to make meditation a habit if we can remember there’s pelo pressure to “get it right.” As long as we show up to take time for ourselves, we’re doing great.

It does this through various points of support based on experience level, how much time you may have, and with practices designed to meet you exactly where you are that day, in your particular life stage, and wherever you are along your meditation journey.

It can also be helpful to notice how emotions feel in the body. Is anxiety making us clench our fists? Is worry making us sweat? Is boredom causing us to zone out? Then we can use the breath to try and ease some of that tension.