Mindfulness Meditation
I went to a terrific lecture on
Mindfulness Meditation, a powerful tool for changing thoughts and feelings,
de-stressing, and becoming emotionally and physically healthy. For those of you
who want a research-driven, evidence-based approach to stress reduction,
reducing disregulated eating, and achieving greater happiness, this is it.
Mindfulness meditation is no
“woo-woo” method of improving your life. It has a proven track record which you can check out at Massachusetts General Hospital: Mindfulness
meditation training changes brain structure. Quoting from a handout on the
subject, mindfulness is the “dispassionate observation of and discerning the
difference between sense faculty activity and thinking-fabrication.” It is a
type of meta-cognition (rising above
thoughts) by not getting involved in
them. In this approach you know you have thoughts and recognize them as simply
that. Just as, while waiting for a train, you don’t hop on every one that stops
at the station, you don’t engage with every thought that arises. Some you
choose (yes, choose) to let go by.
Mindfulness
teaches that you are not your thoughts or your feelings, but that these are
“fabrications” which are experienced as reality, interpretations of data
received from our senses which “ultimately lack any inherent or true reality.”
Mindfulness tells us that thoughts are our perceptions based on a whole host of
factors, including our experience, but that they are ...
Source: Normal Eating - Category: Eating Disorders Authors: eatnormalnow Source Type: blogs