Tag Archives: Mindfulness

Feb19

Contemplating learning styles, mindful meditation, compassion and happiness

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I’ve just been on one of those fascinating trails of discovery one is able to undertake through the incredible rabbit-hole that is YouTube. For those of you who enjoy watching/listening to some of the great minds of our time, you might like to have a look/listen while you play on your laptop or phone.

My curiosity was activated through an online discussion (in LinkedIn) about the validity/currency of theories of learning preferences and styles. I followed a link into YouTube to look at work being done around learning, personality and brain activity: Authors@Google: Dario Nardi – Neuroscience of Personality.  Dario Nardi has discovered that people of different personality types don’t merely rely on different brain regions — they use their brains in fundamentally different ways http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MGfhQTbcqmA

This led me to another on the brain and emotion The Neuroscience of Emotions by Dr. Phillippe Goldin. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tShDYA3NFVs&feature=related, from a  Google series Search inside yourself (SIY), Google’s Mindfulness-based emotional intelligence course. It begins with a background on emotions, and then examines the neural bases of emotion, emotion regulation, emotional reactivity and emotional intelligence. His talk includes the increasing interest neuroscience has with emotional intelligence, cognitive behavioural therapy and practitioners of mindfulness meditation as they study the impact each has on emotional reactivity and behaviour in individuals. The questions and answers at the end of his presentation contain fabulous reflections on the value of compassion and stillness in life – work, personal and family. Living consciously as we engage with life. For more information about Dr Goldin’s work on meditation, see Cognitive Neuroscience of Mindfulness Meditation at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sf6Q0G1iHBI

Transform Your Mind, Change Your Brain. Richard J. Davidson explores recent scientific research on the neuroscience of positive human qualities and how they can be cultivated through contemplative practice. The evolving field of contemplative neuroscience http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tRdDqXgsJ0&feature=relmfu

My final treasure was from a biologist turned Buddhist monk, author and photographer Matthieu Ricard (interestingly, referred to in the previous YouTube), who speaks about the inner state of happiness – Change your Mind Change your Brain: The Inner Conditions… http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peA6vy0D5Bg&feature=relmfu

 My hope is that one of these contains a treasure for you

Nov22

Taking a moment for me …

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I’ve been taking time lately to embed some daily practices into my life. Time for meditation, time for simple yoga postures, time for maintaining my beautiful home … my physical body and my physical abode. I’m building these practices so that I can claim back my health and vitality to support my continued growth in this life. For the last years, I have been focussing on building my higher energetic, mental and spiritual bodies, and have forgotten about my physical body. There is so much waiting to be explored and discovered, and I intend to dive into it all, so I need to bring my physical body back into the picture to allow this to unfold.

During my recent stay at the Ashram, one wise soul helped me to remember that we only have to take a few moments to devote to these things on a regular basis. She suggested I start each day with:

  • five minutes of yoga postures (asanas)
  • five minutes of breath practices (pranayama)
  • five minutes of meditation (dhyana)
  • five minutes of sound vibration (mantra yoga)
  • five minutes of mindful chores (karma yoga)

If I take a few moments each day to incorporate these vital, health promoting practices … regularly … I am reaffirming to myself how important I am in the larger scheme of things. If I forget to honour and nurture myself, what does it say about my ability to honour and nurture others? To the extent that I devote to these practices is the extent to which I am able to live an authentic, empowered and empowering life. I have to come back to me.

I don’t know about you, but I can really struggle to remember these simple truths. In his book Conversations with God, Neal Donald Walsch talks about us re-membering who we are, and I think that for me, these few minutes I devote each day to me are about  re-membering my often forgotten higher self.

I fell across two You Tubes today that support this mindfulness and re-membering beautifully …


http://www.stillnessexperiment.com/stillness-experiment/8

Take a few moments for you …