MBSR - Second Class.

Today was my second class in the MBSR program at St. Joe's. I got there half an hour late and walked in the middle of the body scan meditation. I was embarrassed about this but the body scan meditation allowed me to get over it and relax. We discussed the principles behind mindfulness and how we can use it to control our reactions to stressful and emotional situations. The instructor was able to show us the theory in action when one of my fellow MBSR students got emotional and started to cry as she was asking a question related to her specific situation. The instructor, Debrah McKean, told this student to focus on her breathing and focus the breathing on the area where she was feeling the emotional stress, the student said she felt it in her chest, so that's where the breathing was focused. The student was able to control her emotions through mindfulness and it was at this point that the instructor told her that we can make the right decision regarding our situations when we are fully in control of our mind and body, this makes so much sense.

We also discussed the formal way of doing the sitting meditation. Apparently I was doing it wrong because I was sitting on my bed with my legs stretched out. We are supposed to do the meditation while sitting on a chair in an upright posture. I will definitely try this and hopefully all goes well.

In the future I do plan on blogging about my daily experiences with panic and anxiety. This topic will have its own section and there you can see how the struggle is like, I've had stories to tell about that and you'll get to read all about them once they're up. This site will also have videos, I just created my YouTube account so I hope to use that soon.