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Mindfulness-Based
Stress Reduction for Educators
MINDFULNESS is a state of
mind which is :
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Friendly, welcoming,
nonjudgmental
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Focuses on
present-moment awareness
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Fosters an acceptance
of WHAT IS, with the intent of observing and not permitting
anything from the past or the future to stick to us (also called
“teflon mind”).
Mindfulness meditation
asks that we INTENTIONALLY STOP the flow of our habitual
unconsciousness, inattention, multitasking, and the 24/7 flow of our
thoughts. It is the shift from the auto-pilot mode of our
minds to the BEING mode of mind. It is experiential, not cognitive.
If we can learn to be
mindful of our moments, and use our breath as an anchor to keep us
in the present, we are ALL capable of learning how to change our
relationship to our physical and emotional pain. We learn how to
accept and work with difficult mind states instead of desperately
trying to control them, change them, force them to be other than
they are, or running to avoid or escape them.
Informal and formal
meditation practice does not require you to purchase anything, nor
does it ask that you adopt any particular religious or spiritual
beliefs. It posts no deadlines for mastery, has no white-robed guru
waiting to put us in a trance, nor does it profess that there is
only one way to “do it right”.
Mindfulness opens your
mind by opening your heart. Its fundamental principle is that we
are asleep during most of our waking lives, and extends an
invitation for us to all awake. Practiced for 2,500 years in
India and China, it has found its way into mainstream American
medicine and psychology in the last thirty years, and promises to
change the way we live and engage our students in the classroom.
© 2009 by Anthony Pantaleno,
Ph.D.
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