5th week: motion as an anchor to the present moment
Before moving on to the next theme, take a moment to look back at last week’s themes. Think about your experiences with practising.
How did practising body scanning feel? What kinds of thoughts stirred up in your mind or what did your mind start doing during the exercise? What kinds of sensations and bodily experiences did you notice?
How did it feel to observe your breathing? How was your experience during different practise sessions?
Next, you can move on to this week’s themes. But before that, do the familiar three-minute meditation exercise.
3-minute meditation
Motion makes you present
One of the most common misconceptions about mindfulness and meditation is that you have to sit quietly in a dark room, doing and thinking about nothing. It may be a relief for you to learn that exercises can also be done on the move, and the aim is not for you to empty your mind. In the video below, experts by experience talk about what practising mindfulness has been like for them.
Experiences of practising mindfulness
This week, we will look at how we can return to the present moment regardless of time and place and detach from the difficult tendency of our thoughts to time travel. There are several different routes to this, and this week we will focus on motion.
Any time we move intentionally – i.e. on purpose and not reflexively – our mind is involved in the motion. The more complex our movements or combinations thereof are, the more we have to focus on them and the less our mind has time to work on its own.
We can carry out any movement consciously. However, you should start practising conscious movement in an instructed manner, which is what the recording below is for.
The recording instructs you to carry out a series of movements that includes stretching and soft motion. If you have aches or a limited range of motion, listen to or read the instructions first and then decide whether you should try the movement in question. The aim is not for any movement to cause pain. You can skip any instructions that you are physically unable to carry out, or you can imagine carrying them out in your mind.
This exercise is long, so you can also do it in parts, e.g. ten minutes in the morning, ten minutes in the afternoon and ten minutes in the evening. Once you are familiar with the exercise, you should also try to do the entire exercise in one session.
Mindful movement
Walking meditation is a traditional form of meditation in which you focus your attention on the sensations caused by walking. Try the exercise in a place where you have room to take 5–10 steps in the same direction.
Mindful walking
Walking meditation is an especially useful exercise because we walk at least a few steps daily in our everyday life. When you first practise bringing your mind to the present moment through your steps slowly in an instructed manner, you can gradually learn to use your steps to anchor you to the present moment anytime, anywhere.
Exercises for the week
Use the recording to practise conscious movement on 2–3 days this week. Try to do the entire exercise during at least one practice session.
Practise conscious walking as well. Following the instructions of the recording, do the walking meditation exercise on two days and try to pay attention to your steps as often as possible when walking from place to place.