Have you ever found yourself in a stressful situation? Your heart is pumping, blood is rushing to your face, you're breathing too fast. We all have. Stress is a part of life. It happens all the time - when you're at the supermarket and your kid is throwing a fit or when you're about to give a presentation in public. Mindfulness is a proven method in dealing with stress.
But being mindful is hard and practicing mindfulness in our everyday life is harder. This course will give you the practical and theoretical tools to incorporate mindfulness into your everyday life.
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Syllabus
Take control of your day with mindfulness practice. Mindfulness practice is the act of being aware of how you're feeling at this very moment. It's been proven to improve all kinds of aspects of life, from reducing stress level to improving happiness. But it's incredibly difficult to practice.
In this course, join Dr. Dina Wyshogrod, a licensed clinical psychologist and Certified Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Teacher and Trainer, as she walks you through the practice and theory of everyday mindfulness. You'll learn: • How to STOP and deal with whatever emotions are bothering you • How to reduce stress with simple, powerful techniques • How to incorporate mindfulness practice into your everyday life
A simple, powerful, easy mindfulness technique? Sounds too good to be true. But - that's the case of the STOP 🛑. The pareto rule states that 80% of the value for most things comes from just 20% of the causes - the STOP is exactly that. By learning how to use it, you'll be 80% of the way there, with just 20% effort.
In this lesson you'll learn: • What the STOP is • How to use it • Practice it with Dr. Dina
What is mindfulness? Where does it come from and what does it actually mean? In this lesson we'll explore the origins of what mindfulness is and just as important, what it isn't. You'll learn: • What mindfulness is and where it comes from • The working definition for mindfulness • Putting the STOP into action in everyday life • Developing nonjudgmental awareness
A key part of mindfulness is being aware of how you're feeling - as in being mindful - but not being judgmental about how you're feeling. We are all accompanied throughout our day by a soundtrack, a movie score, in our minds and it affects how we see, feel and experience life. Being mindful of that soundtrack and how it makes us feel is a key part of mindfulness practice.
In this lesson you'll learn: • What nonjudgmental awareness is about and how to practice it • More about the 'P' in the Stop practice • How to tune into your own musical soundtrack and how it affects you️
Sometimes you don't need full blown academic research. Sometimes, you just need street smarts. Why? Well things aren't always what they seem. It ain't necessarily so. That's what this lesson is about: learning to see through the noise and beginning to train your nonjudgmental observer, which is a critical skill down the path of mindfulness.️
Your thoughts are like the weather, passing over a mountain. Sometimes it’s cloudy. Sometimes it’s stormy. Sometimes, it’s sunshiny and clear. But you - you're the mountain. Strong, steady, letting the clouds float by and over you.
In this lesson you'll learn and start training one of the most important aspects of mindfulness: your nonjudgmental observer. This is the part of you that can detach from your underlying soundtrack, all the thoughts running through your mind and simply observe, nonjudgmentally what you're feeling.
There's one thing we can all control each and every day that's proven to increase our happiness. Ready? Pay attention.
That's it: to pay attention. Being mindful is all about choosing to pay attention, mindfully, but in what critical way - nonjudgmentally. In this lesson we'll explore: • What our attention is and what makes it what it is • Multitasking • Activating our nonjudgmental observer
We don't rise to the level of the occasion, we fall to the level of our training. That's a saying by Archilochus, a Greek poet and philosopher. It's true in life and it's true for mindfulness practices. That's why it's important to have mindfulness practices you can, well, practice. In this lesson you'll learn: • The Awareness of the breath practice • The Awareness of the body practice • Why training our minds is important
Think about the last time your mind wandered, Maybe you were sitting at your desk at work. Where did your thoughts go? Did they wander to a good place? Perhaps remembering a happy picnic you just shared with some friends? Or did it wander to a bad place? Maybe worrying that you're working too slow, or your boss is mad at you, or the jeans that you’re wearing are unflattering. Most people find that when they’re attention wanders, it’s to a place of anxiety and fear.
Why is this?
That’s what we’ll be learning in this lesson. Why we get stuck on negative thoughts and what we can do to stop that.
We’ll learn about: • Why negativity is a survival mechanism • What the negativity bias looks like in the brain • How we can turn it all around using only our own two feet
Mindfulness is like a bird. It has two wings: non judgmental awareness and compassion. In this lesson we'll be covering the importance of having compassion to yourself, those around you and the entire world. The practice we'll be learning is called the Loving Kindness practice: a practice built around compassion for the self and others.
Stress is one of the largest impacts on our health and wellbeing, and guess what - mindfulness practices can help deal with it. In this lesson we'll break down everything about stress and how to deal with it (hint - you've already learned the practices!).
You'll learn: • What stress is • How it impacts the body • How mindfulness can help
Imagine you're sitting in your garden. Reading a book. And then, just loud enough to discern, you hear a stealthy slither. You look up - BAM - you find yourself face to face with a hissing cobra. It’s tongue is tasting the air. And it’s looking...right...at...you…
Time stops. The world falls away. All you can see are the cobra's black beady eyes. Locked on yours. Nothing else exists. Nothing else matters.
Now, take away the cobra. Because the reaction you experienced is typical of stress. And stress can be caused by lots of things. Not just cobras. And in this lesson, we’ll look closer at this reaction.
We’ll talk about: • Why our brain goes into fight or flight mode, even when we’re not in danger • What happens in our brain when we’re stressed 🤯 • What chronic stress can do do our brain • How to get our body back to baseline 🧘🏾♀️
How much of life is really what you make of it? More than you might think!
In this lesson, we’ll explore the wisdom of the Greek slave Epictetus, a farmer from a Chinese village, and a first century Jewish sage. Each of them will show us how to free ourselves from our own perceptions.
We’ll then go on to discuss how to apply these principles even when we’re in a state of stress. Something that we’ll see is much easier said than done! Luckily, we’ll have the principles of mindfulness to help us along the way.
We’ll discuss: • The importance of stoicism 😌 • How (and why!) to tame your inner tiger 🐅 • Why it’s crucial to change your outlook on stress 👀 • How the amygdala affects your sense of time ⏰
Mindfulness trains you to find serenity and peace in all sorts of unexpected places. And the box breathing technique - which we’ll learn in this lesson - is no exception.
Through this technique, you’ll learn how to harness the power of a simple square to balance your breathing and calm your mind.
In this practical lesson we’ll: • Build on previous techniques of even breathing 😤 • Practice the box breathing technique • Learn how to use it to work through negative emotions like boredom and fear 🥱😨
We each have two wolves: One wolf is afraid. He’s angry. He’s critical. He doesn’t trust anyone. He’s full of hate. And the other wolf is courageous. He’s calm, and confident. He trusts people. And he’s full of love.
Which wolf wins?
The one we feed.
The neutral face/friendly face exercise in this lesson is derived from the work of Dr. Paul Gilbert, a British clinical psychologist and founder of Compassion-Focused Therapy (CFT) and Compassionate Mind Training (CMT). You can explore his ground-breaking work through his scientific articles, his books such as “The Compassionate Mind: A New Approach to Life's Challenges” and “Overcoming Depression” and his many YouTube presentations.
In the 6th century, the Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu diagnosed our problem: “If you are depressed,” he said, “you are living in the past. If you are anxious, you are living in the future.”
What’s the solution?
“If you are at peace, you are living in the present.”
Todays' lesson will explore living in the present moment and looking at the world around us with beginners mind.
Tell me, what are you planning to do with your one wild and precious life?
That’s how Mary Oliver ends her poem “Summer Day.” And that’s the question we’ll be looking at today. How do you stay grounded enough to accomplish what you want in this life while staying open to all of life’s possibilities?
That’s the question we’ll be exploring in this lesson.
We’ll learn: • What it means that life is VUCA • How whys make you wise 👴🏾 • How to anchor yourself when life feels uncertain • Why making a mental movie can help you accomplish your goals 🎬
This is the orientation to all the formal mindfulness practices you'll find in this course: how to set up physically, mindfully and emotionally for the practices.