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The Power of Awareness

I purchased the course The Power of Awareness from Tara Brach and Jack Kornfield and I started the first few classes today as I cleaned house. It has been fun to experience the evolution of my thoughts concerning mindfulness meditation practice. Initially, I found myself multi-tasking during the course work and didn't bother to stop adn participate in the meditation practices. I was soaking up the stories and teachings, but I was too busy to stop working to sit and meditate.

My whole agenda was to figure out how to meditate while being productive. I'm not giving up on that quest, but about halfway into lesson two I realized that if I didn't surrender and do as Tara and Jack taught, I'd never expereince the results their practice promises to deliver. I have to follow their guidance.

So I just now completed a guided meditation. It was wonderful. Don't get me wrong, I've done guided meditations before, but today's was different. Probably because I've been resisting doing them all day and I finally knew I needed to walk the walk if I were to get all out of this course I paid for.

Whereas Lesson One was all about the power of meditation and coming to awareness of breath, lesson two was all about awareness and mindfulness of feelings. After listening to the 40 minutes of instruction and actually doing the guided meditation, I penned these notes:

Name your feelings. Acknowledge them. Bow to them for when you do you'll notice the feeling or sensation changing.

I just now tried this as I sat breathing deeply in the lotus position. Because I'm not yet flexible to do lotus comfortably for extended periods of time, I felt burning on my outer right knee. I also felt discomfort on the skin of my top outer right foot. I named the sensations "heat," "stretching," "stuck," and with each name and acknowledgment, the sensations did indeed change. I was able to breathe through them all and discovered that Jack was right! By naming and noticing my sensations and feelings, I was able to change my experience and find contentment in them. I actually enjoyed sitting still and didn't feel like I was wasting time. I felt like I was being productive in that I had something to do which was "observing" my feelings and witnessing my own power to change my experience of what I was feeling.

I just may have experienced a huge paradigm shift. Before, meditation felt like a waste of time. Naming, noticing and acknowledging what I'm feeling, spiritually, physically and emotionally, is important work. Self-awareness is key to self-advancement. I'm grateful for these insights.

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I'm excited to see if I can keep up my enthusiasm for sitting still for 20 minutes per day because that is what I've been challenged to do for the next 30 days. I'm hesitant to commit as I don't know that I want to spend 20 minutes sitting. But alas, we've already decided that I must give this course my all so I vow now to do 20 minutes of sitting meditation for the next 30 days. I will do 10 minutes in the morning and 10 minutes at night. If I miss one session, I will sit for 20 minutes in one sitting to make up for the missed session. I hope April 24th doesn't feel like an eternity away as I embark on this new adventure. I promise to write how the Power of Awareness has changed me in the next 30 days and I hope that I will have much to write about.

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