Sunday, January 11, 2009

Pay attention, and breathe

While at a resort, ended up with my own personal meditation class. After explaining no I haven't meditated and no I've never tried yoga, the instructor immediately turned off the lights, turned on spa music, arranged my position, made me breathe a specific way and insisted I look directly at her (or the floor) for the next hour. And she talked.

From memory, here's her advice (as there's no way it would have been okay to pull out paper to write notes) ....

1. Live in the moment - stop always planning ahead or looking back;
2. "Be blessed, not stressed" - at times of transition or stress, you need to stop, breathe, and experience gratitude that you're able to feel. And spend time thinking about gratitude;
3. Pay attention - even if it's easy to multi-task you'll be surprised at the rewards of paying complete attention to someone who is talking to you. Look at their eyes entire time; or if you're on the phone don't look at your computer, blackberry, television, anything else at the same time;
4. Find joy.

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