session1.pdf

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction

Program Manual

compiled and edited by

Steve Shealy, PhD

www.BeMindful.org

813-980-2700

Note: I wish to acknowledge The University of Massachusetts Medical Center’s Center for

Mindfulness in Medicine, Health Care and Society and The University of Virginia Medical

Center, Department of Family Medicine as the source of some of the material in this manual.

Three books have also contributed significantly and are referenced in this manual and are

Recommended Readings for 8-Week program (listed in order of

importance):

(1) Full Catastrophe Living by Jon Kabat-Zinn

(2) Wherever You Go, There You Are by Jon Kabat-Zinn

(3) Heal Thy Self: Lessons on Mindfulness in Medicine by Saki Santorelli

Many of the contents of this manual reflect personal preferences of the authors, which are

shaped by our personal meditation and yoga practice as well as our teaching experiences. Please

consider this manual a "work in progress" and feel free to add your own "embodiment" of the

practices reflected here to any MBSR programs you undertake.

www.BeMindful.org Steve Shealy, PhD 813-980-2700

Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction: About the Program

Mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) is a well-defined and systematic client

centered educational approach which uses relatively intensive training in

mindfulness meditation as the core of a program to teach people how to take better

care of themselves and live healthier and more adaptive lives. The prototype

program was developed at the Stress Reduction Clinic at the University of

Massachusetts Medical Center. This model has been successfully utilized with

appropriate modifications in a number of other medical centers, as well as in non-

medical settings such as schools, prisons, athletic training programs, professional

programs and the workplace.

It is recommended that you take the program at a pace of one homework or class

per week. Don’t try to finish early or to put off a weeks assignment for a “more

convenient time.” Just make the commitment to “just DO IT.”

Please resist the urge to read through the course material in advance. This may

lead to forming expectations that may then lead to frustration when they are not

met. The classes build upon each other and are intended to be worked through in

the order presented. Stay with the program. Relax into the process as it unfolds.

As you will see early on, this is a challenging program that requires a strong

commitment if it is to be effective in moving you into a more peaceful way of being

in the world.

You will be asked to set aside 45 to 60 minutes per day, 6 days out of 7 to practice

the exercises presented here.

You may face the difficult challenge of “finding time” to work the program. This is

an important aspect of the program and one that will bring you face-to-face with

your attachments to doing things a certain way in your life. This program is about

examining and changing the unskillful habits of one’s life and replacing them with

skillful ones. Stay with the process. Stay with the struggle. The way out of these

unhelpful ways of being in the world is to sit with the discomfort that arises as you

push yourself to change. Remember, you are worth the effort it takes to change

into a more loving, peaceful and joyous being.

Good luck on your journey. May the taste of freedom be your guide and an

unwavering source of encouragement.

www.BeMindful.org Steve Shealy, PhD 813-980-2700

Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction

Homework

Week 1

• Practice mindfulness formally for 45 minutes every day for at least 6 days this

week using the Body Scan CD for guidance

• Practice mindfulness of your breathing from time to time throughout the day

• Read and reflect upon “The Journey”

• Read and reflect upon “Meditation and the Practice of Awareness”

• Do “the 9 dots” exercise and play with the other images included here. Can you

shift your perception to appreciate the two different images in each of the photos?

Check out the written paragraph… have some fun with this stuff 

Reflections

Nothing can be more useful to a man or woman

Than a determination to not to be hurried - Anonymous

The flower, the sky your beloved can only be found

in the present moment - Thich Nhat Hanh

Most men pursue pleasure with such breathless haste,

they hurry past it. - Soren Kirkegaard

Mindfulness means paying attention in a particular way: on purpose, in the present moment and

non-judgmentally. This kind of attention nurtures greater awareness, clarity and acceptance of

present-moment reality. It wakes us up to the fact that our lives unfold only in moments. If we

are not fully present in many of those moments, we may not only miss what is most valuable in

our lives, but also fail to realize the richness and the depth of our possibilities for growth and

transformation.

Dwelling in stillness and looking inward for some part of each day, we touch what is most real

and reliable in ourselves and most easily overlooked and undeveloped. When we can be centered

in ourselves, even for brief periods of time in the face of the pull of the outer world, not having to

look elsewhere for something to fill us up or make us happy, we can be at home wherever we find

ourselves, at peace with things are they are, moment by moment.

From : “Wherever You Go, There You Are” by Jon Kabat-Zinn , pgs 4 and 96 .

www.BeMindful.org Steve Shealy, PhD 813-980-2700

The Journey

One day you finally knew

what you had to do, and began,

though the voices around you

kept shouting

their bad advice-

though the whole house

began to tremble

and you felt the old tug

at your ankles.

"Mend my life!"

each voice cried.

But you didn't stop.

You knew what you had to do,

though the wind pried

with its stiff fingers

at the very foundations, though their melancholy

was terrible.

It was already late

enough, and a wild night,

and the road full of fallen branches and stones.

but little by little,

as you left their voices behind,

the stars began to burn

through the sheets of clouds,

and there was a new voice

which you slowly

recognized as your own,

that kept you company

as you strode deeper and deeper

into the world,

determined to do

the only thing you could do-

determined to save

the only life you could save.

Mary Oliver , Dream Work, Grove Atlantic Inc., 1986 & New and Selected Poems, Beacon

Press, 1992.

www.BeMindful.org Steve Shealy, PhD 813-980-2700

Meditation and the Practice of Awareness

The method of meditation I teach can be seen as a two-step process - samatha and vipassana, or

calming and wisdom -with breath awareness as the cornerstone of the practice. The breathing is

an ideal object to focus on. It isn't like a mantra; it has no cultural connotations or other

associations. It isn't like a physical object, so that you have to be in a certain place or carry it

with you. Breathing is simple and portable; we are all doing it all the time. We can notice it not

just when we are sitting in meditation but at any time during the day. And it is always

happening in the present. It is our doorway into the present moment.

In order to practice breath awareness as a formal method, the meditator chooses a quiet place

and settles into a relaxed but erect sitting posture: cross-legged, with a cushion under the but-

tocks to help the spine stay straight; kneeling, usually with a cushion or a bench under the

buttocks for support; or sitting in a chair, with the feet on the floor. In all of these postures there

are three points of contact, so you are stable, like a three-legged stool, and you hold yourself

straight, not in a rigid military way but in a relaxed manner, with just the amount of energy that

it takes to stay erect.

Then you bring your attention to the process of breathing, in whatever locale it seems most vivid

to you, the nostrils, the chest area, or the abdomen. You don't try to breathe in some particular

way. You simply observe the breathing as it is, the in-breath, perhaps a short pause, the out-

breath, perhaps a longer pause. You take notice of this simple process without which none of us

would be alive. You don't do it; you let it happen. You surrender to the natural process that is

already going on.

The act of following the breathing is quite profound; it can be, quite literally, the work of a

lifetime. The more we watch it, the more we see that the breath is a whole world, a universe unto

itself, and as we follow it over the course of months and years we go deeper and deeper.

Some breaths are long; some are short. Sometimes the breathing seems to take place in the

chest; sometimes it is way down in the belly. Sometimes it feels brief and tight and constricted;

other times it is effortless and very deep. It might be smooth, like silk, or rough and coarse, like

burlap. All of these variations are possible, and countless others in between, even within the

space of a single sitting. There is tremendous variety in the simple act of breathing. You realize

eventually that no two breaths are alike.

The human mind, of course, is a lively instrument, and it has many things it would like to do

other than follow the breathing. Most of us are quite restless and distracted; we don't realize just

how distracted until we try to do a simple thing like following the breathing. Our minds, it

seems, would rather do anything else. All kinds of things come up. That mental activity isn't

really a problem; it's a discovery. You're seeing how wild your mind really is.

But at this stage of the practice, you don't want to look at that wildness in detail. When you see

that the mind has wandered away, notice that, then come back - without any feeling of shame or

judgment - to the simple act of breathing. At some sittings it may seem that that's all you're

doing: noticing, you're away, then coming back. Other times - especially as your practice

progresses - you may be able to stay with the breathing for longer and longer periods. It doesn't

matter how you're doing; this isn't a competition and you don't want to struggle. Come to see,

instead, that the awareness of unawareness is in itself valuable practice. Wandering away from

the breathing isn’t a mistake or the sign of a weak character. Simply follow the breathing, and

when you notice you’re away, come back.

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