3 Science-Backed Contemplative Practices to Increase Your Body Awareness, Meta Awareness, and Kindness
By becoming self-aware, you gain ownership of reality; in becoming real, you become the master of both inner and outer life — Deepak Chopra
We spend at least half of our time thinking about something else not related to what we are doing.
Daniel Gilbert and Mathew Killingworth did a study involving 2,250 participants that established that we are present ONLY 47% of our waking time.
The good news is that you can practice not just taming your wandering mind, but also building meta-awareness, and kindness.
How do you anchor your wandering mind while building meta-awareness, and kindness?
It happens that the answers can be found in a Resource Project which was carried out by Tania Singer.
Tania is known for her contributions to brain plasticity research which changed the way we view our ability to learn things.
In 2007, together with Bethany Kok, they recruited a group of 30 participants who were required to carry out different mental training practices for 11 months.
The training was focused on cultivating presence, building self-awareness, and loving-kindness.
Training for presence through a body scan and noticing the breath
The ability to be present is a skill that we require not just to live a fulfilling life, but to make meaningful connections, be calm, be creative, and notice our internal, and external environment.
Group one of the participants was instructed to do body scans, and observe their breath.
Body scanning involves paying attention to parts of the body, and bodily sensations in a gradual sequence from feet to head.
The results
When you practice paying attention to your body, you increase your body awareness, and lessen your mind wandering.
Jon Kabat Zinn’s Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction program (MBSR) capitalizes on body scans to treat chronic pain, and other long-term illnesses.
Training for meta-awareness by observing your thoughts
Our mind’s wandering tendency is often called the monkey mind because of its ability to jump from one thought to another.
Freedom comes when you learn to observe your thoughts, and let them go without judgment.
It takes practice to be gentle, kind, and compassionate when you catch your thoughts in places you wouldn't go to yourself.
The second cohort of participants practiced thought-watching by sharing their streams of thoughts for 10 minutes daily either through a cell phone, or cell phone app.
The results
The act of deliberately focusing on the content of your mind helps you monitor, control, and regulate your thoughts, and emotions.
With self-regulation, you can build social connections, and emotional intelligence.
Training for compassion and loving-kindness
Sharon Salzberg, who is co-founded the Insight Meditation Society at Barre, Massachusetts with Jack Kornfield, and Joseph Goldstein are central figures in loving-kindness meditation practice.
Sharon was a panelist in a dialogue with the Dalai Lama in 1989 when she told the Dalai Lama that many Westerners felt loathing towards themselves.
The Dalai Lama was very shocked because he assumed that people naturally loved themselves.
We can NEVER give others what we have.
Group 3 was told to practice loving-kindness meditation where you wish good thoughts to yourself, and others.
Results
Practicing loving-kindness increases our positive thoughts, and moods. It also makes us happy.
Now you know, you have the ability to train for focus, awareness, and loving-kindness.
Do you want to read unlimited number of articles on Medium? Click here and become a member.
