Pause and intentionally bring attention to the next 3 breaths
image by M. Lee Freedman
THE GUEST HOUSE
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they are a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice.
meet them at the door laughing and invite them in.
Be grateful for whatever comes.
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
-- Jelaluddin Rumi,
translation from The Essential Rumi by Coleman Barks
Welcome to new recipients of Mindfulness Practice Daily Reminders
As many of us have experienced, mindfulness is pretty simple, but not so easy and remembering to practice mindful awareness can be quite challenging.
These daily reminders are intended to help us remember our intention to practice present moment awareness through formal and informal mindfulness practice.
Opening a reminder email represents a decision to pause, step out of automatic pilot mode and into the here and now by intentionally bringing attention to the sensations of three breaths. Then proceed with your day.
You may choose to treat this as an experiment by noticing if and how this brief pause impacts on the next moments of your day.
The second part of the reminder email consists of a quote, poem, image, link to article and/or link to short video relevant to the practice of mindfulness. The images included in the emails have all been created from my mindfulness practice with a camera.
I suggest consciously choosing whether you have the time and/or the interest in reading/watching anything further, rather than automatically clicking on the link. In this way you are practicing bringing mindful awareness practice into conscious decision making and action.
The mindfulness practice daily reminders that have been sent out since July 2014 are now archived on a blog called MPDR Archives. Here is a link to the first entry that describes the history of and intention for the reminders.http://mpdrarchives.blogspot.ca/2015/01/welcome-to-archives-of-mindfulness.html.
Please feel free to share these reminders with others who may be interested. If you know anyone who would like to be included in the list of recipients of the reminders, please ask them to email my assistant at drmlfreedman@hotmail.com.
Please let me know if you would like to remove your name from the email list at any time.
Lee
M. Lee Freedman, MD,CM, FRCP(C)
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