Getting Grounded by Training the Brain, Day 2- Henry and Sara

Get Grounded by Training the Brain, Day 2

By: Henry and Sara

We had another amazing day of mindfulness, yoga, and meditation on Day three of getting Grounded by Training the Brain. The day began with a meditation to get us in the mood for all the fun activities that were planned. However, things did not go quite as planned today, as Dr. Reese had stepped away from the class to deal with some family issues. Nonetheless, we had a really fun morning. 

We began by writing in our ‘52 Lists for Calm’ books, which was a way to reduce stress by listing things like ‘objects that bring happiness in your life’, ‘the emotions you feel when stressed’, ‘ways in which you are different now than you were in the past’, and many other prompts. We then played with our zen gardens, making cool designs and just having fun with the sand. Next, we learned about the zentangle, which is a really fun drawing practice involving patterns and shapes.


   ^ This is Jaylas Zen Garden

We then discussed the material that we read, which was about the four foundations of mindfulness. The four foundations of mindfulness are mindfulness of the body, mindfulness of feelings, mindfulness of mind, and mindfulness of dhammas. Dr. Reese explained how feelings are different from emotions. Feelings are something that we feel in our body: The heat of anger, pressure from anxiety, etc… Feelings are the presence of what we later name as emotion. For instance, the warm fuzzy sensation that you might get when you do something nice for someone is the feeling which you later identify as ‘kindness’(which is the emotion). She explained that these feelings really only last for a short period of time. For example, the feeling of the heat of anger usually only lasts for 30 seconds. So if we understand that our feelings are different than our emotions, then we can stop those negative feelings spilling over into the rest of our day.

Next, we put the four foundations of mindfulness into practice by doing a physical yoga exercise. We spent time being mindful of our body as we practiced various poses, and then wrote down the negative, neutral and positive sensations in our journal. Then we learned how to do sun salutations(which was my favorite activity of the day) before breaking for lunch. 
                    ^Doing Chair Pose                                                               
  < Doing Downward Dog
                                
                                                 




< Online Students Doing Downward Dog



We spent most of the afternoon working on our zentangles, which was very relaxing and enjoyable. We concluded the day with a meditation from the ten percent happier app and journaled about how we felt during the meditation. We broke out into small groups and discussed what we journaled. We ended the day by doing some more journaling and reflection. Overall, I had a super fun and mindful day today and I cannot wait for what is in store tomorrow. 

           ^ The First Zentangles of the Online Students
< Blake Making a Zentangle










^ The Second Zentangle of the Online Students

Comments

  1. beth reeseJanuary 7, 2021 at 9:21 PM

    Thank you for this post! I, too, find it amazing how we can learn the difference between feelings and emotions! I look forward to learning how we can use this awareness learn to cultivate responses to situations instead of reacting.

    ReplyDelete

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