5 Minute Mindfulness Practice

Mindfulness Strengthening Exercise

Your mind is like any other muscle in your body. It can be weaker or stronger depending on your exercise routine. Exercising your mind a little bit everyday can strengthen your mental ability to learn to tune out or tune into your thoughts based on your preference and free will so you can more clearly concentrate during your hardest times. With daily strenthening using mindfulness exercises your daily stress levels will be reduced and your ability to perform under pressure improved. ** Sit in a comfortable place and begin relaxing your shoulders and ribs a little and exhale completely. Pay attention to the thoughts in your mind right now. Without judgment think about the topics in your life that interest or trouble you the most right now. Let your thoughts continue and just notice them for the next few minutes. Without judging yourself or your difficulties think about individual topics that are puzzling or upsetting you. Relax your shoulders, solar plexus and ribs a little more as you exhale completely. Imagine your thoughts are passing through your mind effortlessly just like the clouds pass across the sky. Quietly watch your mental flow of thought on this topic or difficulty become more effortless & passing to you. Just sit with each thought and emotion you are experiencing like they are with you on a park bench in a beautiful park. Be aware and nonjudgmental of your thoughts and emotions right now. And relax a little more anyway, even though you may be uncomfortable. Just relax your muscle tension a little more anyway as you exhale completely. ** Next, pick a label for your thought content about this difficulty. Relax your muscles a little more as you exhale fully. And just give your thought content a neutral label like Monday or breakfast or something neutral like that. Continue just noticing your thoughts effortlessly passing & moving on across your mind and relaxing your muscles for another minute or two as you continue to exhale fully. Now, name a main emotion your thought content on this topic has evoked or triggered inside you. For example, choose a main emotion to name your thought content on this problem like fear, sadness, anger, grief, guilt, shame, anxiety, concern, exhaustion, peace, gratitude or something else. Continue the exercise without judgment as you relax your shoulders, ribs and solar plexus muscles a little more as you exhale fully. ** At this point a few minutes has elapsed during which you have resisted the tendency to judge, blame or doom yourself or your thoughts and resisted the tendency to respond to your thoughts with urgency or tense muscles. Instead, you have quietly and peacefully noticed what is happening in your mind as you mindfully & deliberately relax your muscle tension and refuse to judge or doom yourself or your thoughts. Continue the exercise now by collecting & recovering your mental awareness of your personal preferences on the topics you have been thinking about. Persist in letting go of judgment, blame, doom, muscle tension & breath by exhaling fully. Just become aware of what you want to see happen on your topic or problem. We are only as upset as we are far away from what we are really wanting for ourselves. So, what is it you want to see happen on this important matter? Remember, knowing what you want is more important & empowering than getting what you want & hardship proves you are a normal human experiencing your life normally, nothing more & nothing less. Use this technique 2-3 times daily for the best outcome on your topic or problem. You have completed the Mindfulness Strengthening Exercise. ©Pamela Whitworth, Ph.D. All rights reserved.