You've tried meditating on a cushion....watching your breath, only to find that you have monkey mind--with your mind going everywhere. You jump up in frustration never to use you new, expensive meditation cushion again.
I'm here to tell you that you don't need to spend all of your mindfulness time sitting still on a cushion. Mindfulness can be fun and effective. We'll do Petitations®, we'll take our dogs for a walk, go to the zoo, drive, go to restaurants, take showers...all mindfully.
What are Petitations®?
Several doctors told me that meditation, as for most people, would be very helpful for my physical and mental health. But trying to sit and meditate was almost painful. My brain went everywhere from the piles of dirty laundry, to my to do lists, to the latest episode of the Big Bang Theory.
My dog, Pago, was whining at the door. In exasperation, I finally let him in. He licked my face and sat in my lap. As I petted him, I realized that I was no longer focusing on the future or worrying about the past, I was only paying attention to his fur and our unconditional mutual love.
Wow! I had meditated for ten whole minutes, and it was fun.
What other meditations could I do if I focused on Pago? Research has shown that the gratitude meditation helps with mood, relationships and compassion toward self and others. This time, instead of the typical gratitude meditation, where you start out by focusing on yourself, I thought about how wonderful Pago and Pippi, my other Schipperke, were to me and how this felt in my body. I then extended my circle of gratitude to include other beings in my life, myself, Hyjinx, a Schipperke that I had lost and then Pago and Pippi again...it felt so good.
What about a body scan? This practice is well known in the world of meditation. You focus on parts of your body one by one. This time, I focused my attention on Pago’s body from head to toe with all my senses. We were really getting somewhere.
What can we call these? How about Petitations®? I will be walking you through Petitations® for adults and adolescents in detail with audio and video in future blog posts.
You might have heard that going on a silent meditation retreat is crucial to your meditation practice. Although these can be inspiring, sometimes this isn't feasible or desirable. Instead, we'll do an at-home-retreat together.
You'll be introduced to awesome and fun books and an easy to digest app for mindfulness meditation on the go.
You can use this site in the order I post the blogs or you can choose the posts you believe are most relevant to your life. All I ask is that you to keep an open mind.
Most of all, have fun!