Ralitsa Mindfulness

“Even after all this time, the sun never says to the earth, ‘You owe me.’ Look what happens with a love like that. It lights the whole sky.” Hafiz

The beginning of the year is always a good time to try something new that will benefit you in a positive way and will have a long term impact on your well-being.

I try to stay away from the trap of new year resolutions, which comes from a deficiency model that you’re not healthy, not fit, not good enough. There’s a subtle aggression in this narrative of self-improvement that contributes to the feeling of not enough-ness.

One approach that has been widely researched to provide long lasting benefits to our well-being is MINDFULNESS. It works simply because it’s not a quick fix - it equips us with the lenses of awareness and clarity that are so often lost in our autopilot way of living. It gives you tools that stop you right there in your tracks when you find yourself caught up in a cycle of stress, worry or rumination.
Do you often feel that life is just “happening” to you and you don’t know how to make the shift back to the driving seat?

Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Life 8-week course is an in-depth, evidence-based program developed at Oxford Mindfulness Foundation.
I’ve been teaching this mindfulness course for number of years now and I’m always humbled by the insights participants experience on the course. The program teaches you a combination of mindfulness practices and cognitive techniques and helps you to apply these in your daily life. Learning in a group provides you with invaluable support and insight into our common struggles and human experiences.

If you want to hear more about this foundational training in mindfulness, please sign for one of the free information sessions:

https://forms.gle/3VWvkFmhzEPZXbGLA

Monday, Jan 13@7pm-8pm
Monday, Feb 10@7pm-8pm

Hope to see you there! 🧘‍♀️🍀✨

One of the best explanations I’ve heard of two cognitive distortions from the amazing Esther Perel and how these invisibly lead to heightening polarization.
These are also called “Uncontious Biases” - they’re so hard to see clearly, because they are unconscious😄

Fundamental Attribution Error - “I’m in a bad mood because there was bad traffic etc…You’re in a bad mood because you are a cantankerous person. Mine is circumstantial, yours is characterological”
&
Confirmation Bias - “We tend to look for evidence that reinforces our beliefs”

*This* conversation surfaced an essential idea, the kind of thing that once you internalize it, you will catch yourself doing it all the time. Thanks to Esther Perel for tuning me in to something called Fundamental Attribution Error. What a joy to circle up with Katie Couric and Timothy Goodman to get our heads around the weird ways we humans work and how we might tweak our own systems to improve every relationship we’re in, from the guy at work to the most important person in our lives. Watch now at PBS.org/kelly For those outside of the US, this episode will be available on the pod next Tuesday, 5/7. (link in bio)

“You have traveled too fast over false ground;
Now your soul has come to take you back.

Take refuge in your senses, open up
To all the small miracles you rushed through.

Become inclined to watch the way of rain
When it falls slow and free.

Imitate the habit of twilight,
Taking time to open the well of color
That fostered the brightness of day.

Draw alongside the silence of stone
Until its calmness can claim you.”
― John O'Donohue

The Peace of Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.

Wendell Berry

New 8-week mindfulness course starting on May 6 - June 24!
Sign up for a free information session if you want to learn more about the course and mindfulness in general:

https://forms.gle/y7hpvxfPLfvLBhqn6

“In the midst of winter, I found there was, within me, an invincible summer."
Albert Camus

When we set our intentions for the new year we don't usually reflect on the fact that building any new habit or breaking an old one always involves learning two bigger habits of:

1) Paying Attention
2) Showing Up

Without awareness we are at the mercy of our automatic behaviours, habits and reactions. It may feel as if life is happening to us and we're constantly catching up.
Mindfulness is the foundational capacity to be more present and deliberate in our choices, to feel more connected and aligned with our deepest values and the person we aspire to be.

Join me and my colleague Suyoung Yoo for a free information session for the upcoming 8-week Mindfulness Based Cognitive Therapy for Life Course tomorrow, Jan 10 on Zoom @ 7pm-8:30pm HKT.
Register to receive the Zoom link for the meeting:
https://forms.gle/QzAHmGqiJAd4oDcFA

Be careful not to lose your humanity.

“I imagine one of the reasons people cling to their hates so stubbornly is because they sense, once hate is gone, they will be forced to deal with pain.”
― James Baldwin, The Fire Next Time

https://www.bbc.com/news/health-66807432 #:~:text=People%20should%20try%20to%20meditate,doing%20yoga%20and%20practicing%20mindfulness.

This article doesn't come as a surprise at all - we all know that stress is a big contributor to having high blood pressure and there's more and more evidence accumulating that meditation and mindfulness have a positive effect on managing hypertension.
I remember one of my clients did an experiment by measuring her blood pressure before and after a body scan meditation to find out that the practice helped her reduce the hypertension.
Another client shared how every time she would do a lying down meditation, her cat would come and lie on top of her, feeling that her nervous system was more regulated.
It's wonderful to see the mainstream medicine taking a more holistic perspective by acknowledging mind-body-heart connection and the potential of less traditional methods for improving physical health.

The panel of experts from 18 countries advise:
- Try daily stress-busting strategies like meditation, deep breathing, yoga and mindfulness
- Consider practising gratitude by focusing on positive things you can be thankful for, and doing acts of kindness to gain a sense of wellbeing
- Chill out to some calming music for at least 25 minutes, three times a week

Taking your mind off the daily grind has an important and cumulative stress-busting effect on your mind and heart, says Prof Williams.

Meditate to beat stress blood pressure, say guidelines There is enough scientific evidence for some less conventional "body and mind" approaches, say experts.