You will also be given an opportunity to zero in on comfort—
what you need in order to feel safe, and how you feel when you do not have what you need to feel safe.
For each of the lessons, simply read the text and the questions. It will take no more than a few minutes to read each assignment—BUT you are likely to spend at least an hour—two minutes here, five minutes there over several days—contemplating the questions, watching, playing around with ideas, and learning more about yourself.
You’ve got plenty of freedom here, but you also have a responsibility to dig in. Of course, YOU are the one with the shovel—you can choose how quickly, deeply, or widely you want to dig.
As your mindfulness trainer, I’m pointing to the right spot and
encouraging you to keep at it—but you are the one putting the mental muscle into the digging!
At any time, you can visit these four links for the four lessons:
Lesson One: Movement and Space
Lesson Two: Time
Lesson Three: Connection
Lesson Four: Integration
Read the assigned questions for the lesson. I think it’s best if you don’t read beyond your current lesson, but if you’re a read-the-last-page-first type of person, feel free to shoot ahead in order to get a sense of what’s coming up in the next few weeks. No harm done.
Here are a few tips to help you get the most out of this material:
**The first lesson begins with simple questions about the way you view and respond to movement and space--your comfort zone in terms of personal distance between you and others, your proximity to work, family, and the things you value, and other aspects of life involving movement and distance. Subsequent lessons will invite you to consider concepts in more abstract terms.
**You might want to go to the theme page and print out the entire section. You can then cut and paste—in the old-fashioned way—the questions and post them where you will see them, or keep the printed pages by your bed to read before you go to sleep at night. (Our brains work for us while we’re sleeping, you know! You might wake up with a grand epiphany….) You can choose to add the theme questions to your email calendar so that you will see them several times a day.
**You DO NOT need to come up with definitive answers for each of the questions! They are intended as prompts to get you digging in a specific area—the treasure you find is up to you.
**If you find that a particular question doesn’t resonate with you, move on. You’re really going to watch your reactions—if a question excites you OR if it creates any kind of anxiety for you, DIG THERE. If you don’t get stirred by it, go on to the next one. Learning to note what stirs you is an important part of the course!
**If you are taking this course with another person (I hope you are!) allow time for each of you to read and consider the questions for a few days. Then, get together in person to talk about the questions. If that's not possible, you can talk by phone. This is a tremendous opportunity for you to engage in mindful listening--let the other person speak without interrupting them. Allow them the time and space to finish a thought--even if it's a meandering one! We often find wisdom when we allow ourselves to wander a bit away from the theme, so don't be too concerned about sticking to any specific agenda.
**If you are taking this course by yourself, you might find it valuable to use specific questions as prompts for free-writing in a journal or as stimuli for creativity in other media. I am giving you full permission to play. ;-) That's how we learn best!
**You could spend the rest of your life considering these questions--and I hope you do! Enter into the process with an eye toward learning more about how your values, ideas and habits have evolved and whether they are limiting or liberating you.
**When you're doing this digging, you might hit a rock. That's okay. You can choose to dig it out and take a good look at it, or simply pick up your shovel and dig in a different place. It's up to you. However, I hope you will remember that the rocks make things interesting. If you find one, you'll have an opportunity to learn a lot more about yourself.
Sometimes the rocks really do turn out to be buried treasure.
