Mindfulness In Everyday Life
Meditation doesn't just happen on a cushion. In this short talk, I share a personal story about my path to meditation, including a moment when I found myself yelling 'loving kindness!' at another driver. This talk explores how mindfulness can show up in everyday life, often in imperfect and unexpected ways. You'll leave with a reminder that practice is something we can weave into ordinary moments.
Transcript
Hi,
Welcome.
I wanted to share some things about mindfulness that have made a difference in my life.
I came to mindfulness at a time of a lot of challenge and I was not doing well.
I was neither coping nor was it skillful.
So when you say coping skills,
That was not,
That was not what was happening in my world.
And a dear friend had said,
Teresa,
Would you try meditation?
I was like,
I will literally try anything.
Ten years ago,
And it made such a difference in my life that I became passionate about learning how to teach and train and facilitate these tools and skills that are often considered simple but not easy,
And I say that because it is a practice,
Right?
So you might hear these things about mindfulness and meditation and be like,
I don't have time for this in my life.
And I am here to say that you can weave these mindful moments into your day.
It is something that can be really helpful and beneficial.
So has anyone ever had road rage?
I know I have early in my time of,
You know,
Learning to meditate.
I am.
My was my sister I think yeah my sister had said oh when I'm driving I use loving kindness and loving kindness is a type of meditation where you just send out well wishes and you send those out into the world and And so she's like,
I do that when I'm driving.
So I'm a little bit of a hothead when I'm driving.
I'm working on it.
Still practice.
And,
Um,
One time,
And I can still see exactly where I was,
Someone pulled kind of a ding-dong move,
And I remembered the practice,
But all that came out of my mouth in that moment was,
Loving kindness.
That's all I could think to say.
So I didn't wish them well,
But I did make myself laugh,
Which had the intended consequence of me shifting from anger and frustration to humor.
And we can use practices either the way they're intended or just yelling them out to help regulate and reset the nervous system and this can happen throughout the day.
There's a John Kabat-Zinn in his book Wherever you go,
There you are.
He has a statement that he says,
We can't control the waves,
But we can learn to serve.
And that's what these practices are.
So finding one or two things that you can weave into your day can really help that.
I'm glad that you're here and I hope that you'll stay and meditate with me.
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