Mindfulness: Slow Living, Connection, and the Ordinary Life: Recent Episodes
Filtod Walker
Mindfulness Interviews, News, and Educational Views. We do weekly updates on what is new in the field, talk with experts and local area teachers, and cover the basics of the different parts of the practice.
A chance to do the basic version of mindfulness meditation together to start your Wednesday.
The differences between actual mindfulness vs. pop culture mindfulness. Mindfulness is more than just being present. It is HOW we are present.
A teaching and meditation around the simple truth that until something is allowed to be broken, it can't be fixed. When we are the only one propping something up or filling in a gap, we often enable things that need to be fixed or need to end to continue on indefinitely into the future. There are times when the healthiest and most helpful option is to let it break.
Instructions for creating your own mix-and-match self-guided meditation to use at night time to help fall asleep and remember your dreams.
Mindfulness and Sleep Month continues and we add in a bedtime meditation to aid in dream recall as well as falling asleep.
A meditation designed for use at bed time to help you fall asleep and maintain awareness into sleep. Begin listening to this meditation in bed and eight hours before your wake up time.
In this brief welcome to Mindfulness and Sleep Month, I talk about what to expect during the month. The first activity for the month is to determine the best bedtime for you as you do mindfulness work each night ahead of sleep. Participants are also encouraged to keep a dream journal this month to help with the lucid dreaming practice coming up.
The official launch of Mindfulness and Sleep Month occurs later today. In this podcast, we go over just how mindfulness benefits things like insomnia, falling asleep, anxiety, racing thoughts, and an over-active mind at bedtime. A practice audio to use at bedtime will be posted separately.
Instruction and practice time to cover one of the oldest of the meditations: Samatha aka Mindfulness of the Breath.
One of the more popular meditations to do in nature, today we go back to the basics for listening meditation instruction and practice together.
In mindfulness, regret is a virtue. It is an acknowledgment that we have hurt ourselves or another person and it reflects our commitment to repair and ongoing changed behavior.
Today, we start moving beyond the basics of the practice and go one level deeper in the emotional awareness training. We look at where your emotions are stemming from and introduce the concept of second tier emotions.
Today, we examine two core teachings, "You Are Not Your Possessions" and that "At Our Core, We Are the Same" and how they relate to me saying, "If it makes you feel superior, it's not the right path." There is a difference between saying a BELIEF is better and saying WE are better at our core than another.
Website Link: http://filtod.com
Patreon Link: https://www.patreon.com/filtodwalker
Recorded on 2/23/2020, this podcast delves into ways we falsely attribute our success to the things we are succeeding "inspite of" vs. "because of."
Recorded on 2/17/2020, this episode is a brief contemplation about what it means to really listen and stay relevant as the torch is passed from one generation to the next.
Recorded on 2/9/2020, we review the difference between what you possess vs. who you are. Quite often, people don't understand that opinions and points of view are just as much a possession or something they own as the living room furniture.
Previously recorded on 2/2/20, we review what Attack Thoughts are and how they impact our mental state, why we use the words "letting go" over "forgiveness," and what it means to take back our power from the people who've hurt us.
Back to the basics today as we review and learn the technique of breath counting. We emphasize two things: (1) that every meditation has a home and (2) the purpose of this basic form of meditation is to learn to focus, notice when we are lost and distracted, and then refocus our attention.
It's back to the basics today as we cover the standard body scan with pain mapping technique as one of the ways to practice the embodiment piece of your mindfulness practice.
Today we dive into display rules and the research saying we are at an increased risk for depression, fatigue, and bodily aches and pains when our outside face doesn't match what we are actually feeling and experiencing on the inside.
We often readily see how we have personally changed from even a week ago yet cling to our opinions about who others are from 10 to 20 years ago. Today, we talk about what it means to give yourself and others the gift of being new.
Today is a teaching and meditation on the two traits I've noticed in movement leaders who last from generation to generation and are able to have an impact throughout their lives.
Today, we talk about the Bottle and Blast Technique when you keep a record of wrongs that come out all at once and also what it means to create a safe environment for people to speak up in.
Today, we release the anger, bitterness, and hurt around our more damaging relationships.
In Session 3, we look at reasonable vs. unreasonable expectations, the ways we poison our thoughts, and our fears around confrontation and difficult conversations. The session concludes with a releasing meditation designed to also help shift our thinking around how we view and deal with our hurts, disappointments, and conflicts.
Today, we talk about acknowledging, apologizing, repairing, and changing behavior as a way to make amends for the harm we've caused other people.
Today is Session One of Letting Go of Anger and Resentment Week where we dive into the ways we've hurt ourselves. The talk and meditation explore our own ignorance, our culture's Doctrine of Deservedness, the myth of perfection, and Inner Saboteur.
Today, we review and practice one of the ways to modify the mindfulness practice to help with anxiety.
Today, we do the full basic practice and a brief explanation about cultivating the observer self.
In this episode, we talk about one of the underlying principles of mindfulness: that we befriend rather than battle the parts of ourselves that are difficult or problematic.
Today, we do a brief sitting and talk about this idea of Emotional Shrapnel -- where the practice creates the space for all those things we've been suppressing, repressing, and denying the light of day in our minds to emerge.
Back to basics today as we go over the first part of emotional awareness training as we sit on the cushion together.
A handy list of emotional labels to use when doing the emotional awareness and labeling exercise from this episode.
LIST OF EMOTIONS
The chart below is from a branch diagram of 135 emotion names found in the Emotional Knowledge: Further Exploration of a Prototype Approach Emotions section in Social Psychology: Essential Readings (Shaver et al, 2001):
-- LOVE --
Affection. Adoration, affection, love, fondness, liking, attraction, caring, tenderness, compassion, sentimentality
Lust. Arousal, desire, lust, passion, infatuation
Longing
-- JOY --
Cheerfulness. Amusement, bliss, cheerfulness, gaiety, glee, jolliness, joviality, joy, delight, enjoyment, gladness, happiness, jubilation, elation, satisfaction, ecstasy, euphoria
Zest. Enthusiasm, zeal, zest, excitement, thrill, exhilaration
Contentment. Contentment, pleasure
Pride. Pride, triumph
Enthrallment. Enthrallment, rapture
Relief
Optimism. Eagerness, hope, optimism
-- SURPRISE --
Amazement, surprise, astonishment
-- ANGER --
Irritation. Aggravation, irritation, agitation, annoyance, grouchiness, grumpiness
Rage. Anger, rage, outrage, fury, wrath, hostility, ferocity, bitterness, hate, loathing, scorn, spite, vengefulness, dislike, resentment
Exasperation. Exasperation, frustration
Disgust. Disgust, revulsion, contempt
Envy. Envy, jealousy
Torment
-- SADNESS --
Suffering. Agony, suffering, hurt, anguish
Sadness. Depression, despair, hopelessness, gloom, glumness, sadness, unhappiness, grief, sorrow, woe, misery, melancholy
Disappointment. Dismay, disappointment, displeasure
Neglect. Alienation, isolation, neglect, loneliness, rejection, homesickness, defeat, dejection, insecurity, embarrassment, humiliation, insult
Shame. Guilt, shame, regret, remorse
Sympathy. Pity, sympathy
-- FEAR --
Horror. Alarm, shock, fear, fright, horror, terror, panic, hysteria, mortification
Nervousness. Anxiety, nervousness, tenseness, uneasiness, apprehension, worry, distress, dread
Using this list of emotions can make labeling and identifying your emotions easier and also help to expand your emotional vocabulary.
As you do the thought labeling part of the basic practice, the label of 'Story Story' becomes an important one. Today, we look at the difference between objective reality and our subjective perception and start giving those types of interpretative thoughts a label.
Relax and listen to 45 Power Thoughts and Affirmations. Let the words wash over you, paying attention to the teachings you most need to hear right now. If you notice any resistance to certain thoughts, let those go for now. Keep what works for you. Let go of the rest.
Today, we look at how we tend to stick with the first version of any belief, story, or account that we hear with everything that comes second, third, or there after needing to defend against that first version. The Primacy Effect talks about the staying power of the first version of anything we learn.
A brief meditation for the stress that comes with Monday. Join me for some time together to re-center, breathe, and express some love for yourself.
This month's Facebook Live event was for Walking Meditation instruction. Join in and learn the basics. This video was recorded live. Please excuse the occasional audio fluctuation.
This week we cover a flaw in thinking called the Rites of Passage Fallacy and how often unintentionally, we become preservers of systems of passage that are harmful, unhealthy, and damage ourselves or other people.
This week's contemplation and meditation is on how simply doing the work will lead the meditator into naturally seeing the difference between personal and universal truths.
A guided mindfulness meditation to use during the week to check-in with yourself and recenter.
Often goal setting starts with what we want to do instead of who do we want to be. In mindfulness, goal setting starts with, "Who do I want to be in the world?" Not in terms of status or titles but in terms of virtues. It becomes a question first of, "What virtues do I want to embody?"
Prepare your cup and join the group for afternoon slow tea and meditation. Recorded from live broadcast on 3-27-2021. Please excuse the occasional audio or video fluctuation.
Welcome to Mindfulness: Slow Living, Connection, and the Ordinary Life. This is full theme song for the podcast.