Week 2: Mindfulness, Skills for Life Training

Here's what we experienced on our second week of mindfulness training. Has it inspired you to get more mindful or start meditating?

Rebecca’s Session:

I wasn’t as nervous this week. This session involved Mindful Movement and we started with the clang of a bell where we quietly sat and focussed on our breathing (deep breaths in and out) thinking about the current moment, for a few minutes.

I found it hard to initially switch from work mode to mindful mode, probably because I had rushed to get to the class and was anxious about turning up late.

We were then instructed to speak with the person next to us for a few minutes regarding how our homework went, whether we completed it, what we didn’t get done and then some of us shared with the group how it was challenging fitting it into our home life. It was nice being given the option to share our experiences rather than being told it was compulsory.

For the first exercise, I decided to get fully involved this week by taking my shoes off as well as lying on the floor with my feet up on the chair. Again, this exercise focussed on slowing our breathing by taking deep and long breaths, listening to the instructor.

This practice certainly relaxed me and at one point I questioned whether I had drifted off for a short moment. As soon as I questioned myself, I snapped out of it and was back listening to the instructor, who continued to remind us to ‘Breath in…and breathe out’, her regular reminders definitely helped me focus. I concentrated hard on taking deeper breaths and felt the benefits from breathing more slowly - this is something I took away from the session.

Unfortunately, I was only able to carry out a couple of the mindful movement exercises at home as I was ill for a good number of days afterward. I wrote down a couple of points for the second part of the home exercise which was to provide examples of an action that made me happy and something that made me irritated during the course of the week.

Wing’s experience

I had taken a phone call just before I was about to leave and so I had to rush to get to the session. On arrival, I could see that I was the last person to get there. Having practically thrown my bag and coat in the corner I sat down trying to calm myself.

The first mindfulness exercise with lots of breathing did help but I’ve learned my lesson and will try to leave more time to get to the class next time.

The mindfulness movement exercise was good because the movements provided something to concentrate on rather than thinking ‘I was the last person arriving for class again.’ The exercises provided a time and place to be still. I’m actually quite good at blocking my environment out but the thoughts are not so easy.

I am a serial interrupter because my thoughts are running all the time, ideas pop up and I’m often bouncing off what people are saying. One of my New Year’s resolutions is to work on interrupting people less, it’s something I’ve been making a conscious effort with for a while.

I was more involved with the homework this time round and was able to complete the Pleasant/Unpleasant diary which I found very useful. I have been trying to do more things mindfully, like my running, showers, and the washing up, just trying to be in the task or action. I also managed to complete one formal mindfulness exercise, that’s 100% improvement from last week having done none the previous week!

Have you read the post of our first week on the mindfulness course?

See how we found week 3 too, 'Week 3: Mindfulness, Skills for Life Training'