Mindfulness without the Bells and Beads Course Meditations
MWOBB Basic Awareness of Breath Meditation
Duration : 6 minutesThis is the basic Awareness of Breath meditation from the book, Mindfulness without the Bells and Beads. It is recommended to do this meditation daily throughout the 8-week course. The most basic way to do a mindfulness meditation is simply to focus your attention on your breath, the inhale and exhale and anytime your mind wanders away, just notice what your mind got caught in, release it, and bring your attention back to noticing the sensations of breathing.
MWOBB Body Scan Meditation
Duration : 15 minutesThis is the Body Scan meditation from the book, Mindfulness without the Bells and Beads. It is recommended to do this meditation during week 1 and 2 of the course. Like the Awareness of Breath meditation, the Body Scan helps bring our minds into the present moment and strengthens concentration. Additionally, it enhances our ability to notice physiological sensations of the body with more clarity. Physiological sensations can give early warning about the arrival of emotions.
MWOBB Sounds, Thoughts, and Emotions Meditation
Duration : 10 minutesThis is the Sounds, Thoughts and Emotions meditation from the book, Mindfulness without the Bells and Beads. It is recommended to do this meditation weeks 3 and 4 of the course. This is an open awareness meditation. We will be widening the aperture of our awareness beyond just focusing on the breath and allow for a broader focus on the landscape of sounds, thoughts, and emotions. This helps us see the similarities between sounds, thoughts, and emotions.
MWOBB Delving into the Difficult Meditation
Duration : 11 minutesThis is the Delving into the Difficult meditation from the book, Mindfulness without the Bells and Beads. It is recommended to do this meditation during week 5 of the course. In this meditation we will be deliberately bringing up difficult situations, therefore please use your best judgement regarding what you choose to “work” with during the exercise. It’s best not to start with the most traumatic situation in your life. We are delving into the difficult, not diving into it.
MWOBB In the Same Boat Meditation
Duration : 8 minutesThis is the In the Same Boat meditation from the book, Mindfulness without the Bells and Beads. It is recommended to do this meditation during week 6 of the course. In this empathy building meditation, we remind ourselves how similar other people are to us and that we are “in the same boat” of life, facing similar challenges, meeting with the same inevitable ups and downs, and navigating life as best we can. This helps create the mental habit of perceiving common humanity with others.
MWOBB Unconditional Friendliness Meditation
Duration : 9 minutesThis is the Unconditional Friendliness meditation from the book, Mindfulness without the Bells and Beads. It is recommended to do this meditation during week 6 of the course. This meditation strengthens our capacity for compassion and kindness towards ourselves and others. These can be trained just like any muscle in the body.
MWOBB Just Sitting with Openness Meditation
Duration : 11 minutesThis is the Just Sitting with Opennes meditation from the book, Mindfulness without the Bells and Beads. It is recommended to do this meditation during week 8 of the course. In this meditation we release the narrow focus on the breath and take a much wider perspective, opening the aperture of our awareness as wide as possible. We can still notice the breath is in the picture but we are not laser focused on it.