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Jan 31, 2010

The Right Mantra for Your Type click here(Annie B. Bond)

The Right Mantra for Your Type click here(Annie B. Bond)

The Value of a Mantra click here (Deepak Chopra)

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Posted: Jan 31, 2010 9:23am
Oct 20, 2009

To eat mindfully is to live in the present.
It calls for paying attention to every act, every sensation and perception, for its own sake, in the moment. From the start to the finish of your meal, your intention is to link the moments together into a continuous stream of sensory awareness.
Some suggestions:
 Be mindful.
To become focused, become silent and breathe in a relaxed manner. Choose a time when you’re not hurried or distracted by other things.
Visualize the meal. Become focused in your mind’s eye on what you’re going to prepare, its appearance, aroma, ingredients, etc.
Plan the meal. Mentally focus on all the steps involved in preparing the meal. Will you prepare it? For whom will you prepare it? What will you make?
Prepare the meal. Be mindful of the action of washing the food, such as vegetables you may be preparing for a fresh salad. Notice yourself reaching for the refrigerator door, and other preparation activities.
Set the table. The table on which you eat can be as sacred as the rest of the meal. Create a table that is inviting, for both you and the food.
Serve the meal. Be mindful of each action associated with serving the meal: selecting dishes and utensils, setting the table, bringing food to the table, etc.
Eat the meal. As with the Zen monastic meal, be mindful of each aspect of the food you’re eating. To begin consider saying words of thanks or appreciation for the food. Savour the aroma of the food by inhaling deeply.
Clean up. Regard this as a sacred process, too. It is just as important a part of the meal as the other phases.
Digest the food. After you’ve eaten, be aware of how the food feels in your stomach, how you are feeling. Are you aware that you overate? Under-ate? Are you still hungry, or ate just the right amount?
From start to finish and throughout the dining process, continue to witness the effects of having prepared, eaten, and digested the meal.
For in the witnessing lies the essence of life itself.
       ===============================
Adapted from A Mindfulness Meal Meditation, by
Veronica, selected from Intent.com Care2's Healthy & Green Living.
Reference:
Feeding the Body, Nourishing the Soul by Deborah Kesten.
Deborah Kesten, MPH
, Certified Health and Wellness Coach, nutritionist for reversing heart disease through lifestyle changes without drugs or surgery, and Director of Nutrition on similar research in Europe. Author of The Enlightened Diet, Feeding the Body, Nourishing the Soul, and The Healing Secrets of Food. Visit her at
www.Enlightened-Diet.com .

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Posted: Oct 20, 2009 5:01pm
Oct 17, 2009
"At every instant of our lives, change is guaranteed. We fight to keep it away, or work to get it here sooner because we think we know what should happen. We are certain (sometimes rightly!) that the change coming toward us will ruin or kill us. We think and hope that the right change will fix us (or them or it) once and for all."
  - "Making Peace with Change" by Gangaji, Care2 link
.
   "Few admit the enormous failure rate of attempts to change people's behaviour - in marketing, in public policy, in (change) management and in our daily lives. It's really hard to set out to change behaviour - far better to help the behaviour change itself..."
.
   "(We)...overestimate the role of conscious or directed following. An alternative reading of the literature would suggest that much of the time we do what those around us are doing, think what they're thinking and feel what they're feeling. Our lives, as Wilde put it, are quotations from the lives of others - even if it seems otherwise to each of us."
   - "Herd - the hidden truth about who we are" link
.
The Stages of Readiness to Change
   This is a 'model' or framework for thinking about change, for people who want/need to change behaviour patterns and habits, e.g. smoking, unhealthy eating and exercise habits. It can also be applied to any major life decision where a person may be 'in two minds' about it, such as whether to leave a job or stay.
.
In this model, people move 'from being unaware or unwilling to do anything about the problem, to considering the possibility of change, then to becoming determined and prepared to make the change, and finally to taking action and sustaining or maintaining the change over time'. As you can imagine, this is not always a straightforward process.
.
Proachaska and DiClemente also emphasise that 'moving through the stages of change requires effort and energy for thinking, planning and doing'. No wonder even thinking about change can make you a bit tired!
.
...   Precontemplation = before thinking about change
...   Contemplation = thinking it over
...   Preparation / Determination = making a decision to change  
...   Action!
...   Maintenance
= keeping going
...   Relapse = slipping back
.
It is important to remember that people often cycle through these stages a number of times before they successfully change a particular pattern of behaviour, so don't give up the first time - think of it as spiralling upward rather than going round in circles!
.
Spiral Of Change Diagram

 Timetable details here.
.
The above is based on information provided by
Gangaji, www.gangaji.org
WHISC - Women's Health: Interventions for Smoking Cessation and from "Motivational Interviewing: Preparing people for change" (2nd Ed) by Miller and Rollnick (2002).
A Behavior Change Model by Prochaska and Diclemente (Changing for Good, James O. Prochaska, John C. Norcross, Carlo C. Diclemente, 1994)
http://www.counselling.unsw.edu.au/help_yourself/academic_progress/change_readiness.htm
See also http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viral_Change

 

 
 
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Thubten Chokyi
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Sydney, Australia
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