The Keep:Mindful STAGs

=Mindful STAGs=

Description: A private group for meditation and mindfulness challenges and accountability pooled from participants in the the Short Term Goal Accountability Guild (STAGs). You don't have to be a STAG to join - just let us know your UID and we'll get you added! Link to the guild.

Date created: June 22, 2016

Challenges

 * Mindful Study: Being mindful and meditating regularly is easier when it is often on your mind. In this challenge, you will incorporate daily study on meditation and mindfulness - you can read something/listen to something, however long or short, about mindfulness, meditation, or meditation-based stress relief (yoga, etc. counts as well!). Your study can be an article, chapter, passage, or poem that you've read, a podcast that you've listened to, a TedTalk that you've watched, or an in-depth conversation with a peer or mentor regarding your topic of choice. Then, share a passage, quote, or summary from your study that inspires you to keep practicing and may help encourage others as well! Don't forget to cite your quote!

I’ve found this to be a simple, but powerful practice. All you need to do is create a daily with a checklist of your intentions, read the checklist each day, and check off for gold! Your intentions can be written by you, inspirational quotes, etc.
 * Mindfulness Chick-In: How mindful was I today?: I have found in my practice that periodically checking to see how mindful I am helps develop self-awareness around what contributes to a peaceful, clear mind, and what does not. Challenge instructions:
 * Decide how many times per day you will check how mindful you are. I suggest once per day to begin; i.e. "On average, how mindful was I today?"
 * Define your scale. I use a 1-10 scale. Write a bit about what your scale means. For me, a 5 or 6 is when my mind has many distracting thoughts and it takes a bit of effort to let them go rather than following them. A 7 or above indicates a state of mind in which even distressing thoughts are simply being "watched." There is a feeling of detachment and the sense of simply "observing" the thoughts is strong. The scale is subjective, of course. As your mindfulness skills develop, your scale will change, too, and that's great!
 * Keep a log of your mindfulness and any notes you might wish to add. You might reflect on what helped contribute to states of increased awareness, and what didn't. Notes are optional for this challenge. To give you journal ideas, I've used a simple note in Evernote and also Excel spreadsheets.
 * Intentional Attention: I’ve found that reading my reasons for practicing mindfulness each day aids greatly in sustaining motivation and energy.

Acceptance

 * "There are always ups and downs in meditative practice, as there are in life. Sometimes meditation is easy, fun, even ecstatic. Sometimes it's annoying, difficult, painful. Whatever it is, we stick with it: Effort needn't be struggling or straining - it can be relaxed perseverance. Those inevitable up-and-down cycles don't need to define our sense of progress in meditation. You can't bull yourself into awareness; kindness and acceptance work much better....we capture the energy previously used to blame ourselves and direct it toward making informed choices about how we want to relate to what has come up in our minds." - Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness (@BeanieB)
 * "A student in some distress came in and said, "I just had this terrible experience...I was meditating and I felt all this tension in my jaw and I realized what an incredibly uptight person I am, and always have been and I always will be." "You mean you felt some tension in your jaw," Joseph said. And the man said, "Yes. And I've never been able to get close to anyone, and I'm going to be alone for the rest of my life." "You mean you felt tension in your jaw...You're having a painful experience. Why are you adding a horrible self-image to it?"" - Sharon Salzberg, Real Happiness (@BeanieB)

Practice

 * "Look for ways to create a rhythm of practice." - Tara Brach, True Refuge, pg. 35 (@donotgogentle)