Full Catastrophe Living - necessary? Worthwhile, even?

[JonW]

Hi mindphil,
I too had a strong resistance to mindful movement but had to face up to that resistance when we reached that stage in my mindfulness teaching course.
It might help to think of it as "meditation in motion" rather than yoga.
I've come to realise that it's a crucial part of the 8-week course in terms of being present with bodily experience.
And you don't need to wear purple spandex pants when you do it. You can do it in the nude instead.
Jon

[piedwagtail91]

yoga isn't a necessity , if you're exercising/moving mindfully that's just as good.
any movement or exercise can be done mindfully.
i do practice yoga, but also practice nordic walking mindfully. when i could ride the bike then that was done mindfully, aware of my body and the surrounding countryside.
one teacher i know practices tai chi, she just doesn't do yoga!

[MindPhil]

I think I would much prefer tai chi to yoga.

I've read Alidina's book. It's okay, better than FCL. But he repeats the dots puzzle (without attributing it, which I think is a bit naughty).

I DO wish these books wouldn't have fake case studies, though. Particularly when one 'participant' commented that, after he was mindful of the sounds in a traffic jam, it sounded like the ocean.

We are told that the practice will not change reality and not to have unrealistic expectations. So why come out with crap like this? I doubt that even Mathieu Ricard hears traffic noise as ocean-like when he's in a jam.

[piedwagtail91]

i like matthieu ricard, he seems very straightforward and open.
his books , for me , reflect that.

[Gareth]

I DO wish these books wouldn't have fake case studies, though. Particularly when one 'participant' commented that, after he was mindful of the sounds in a traffic jam, it sounded like the ocean.

A line like this would annoy me too.

It's part of the raison-de-etre of this site. Mindfulness in a very plain fashion; it's not served well by being too new-agey - puts many people off.

[piedwagtail91]

for the course i just ran with a close friend we wrote our own based on our own experiences.
that course was for a couple of my friends friends, they said it made it real.
they'd read some of pre-course stuff from the mindful way workbook and weren't too impressed.
i'd planned to dip into that book during the course but gave up on it and never used it after their comments!
we also tailored our weekly handouts to fit them so that they could identify with what they read.
i sometimes feel that some of the mindfulness books, including the one mentioned above, are a bit patronizing and don't credit people with any common sense at all.

[hammill1969]

I have both full catastrophe and frantic world books. I find the frantic world book much easier to read & take in. The guided meditations in frantic world are much simpler & clearer too. I think buying a copy of frantic world would be a wise investment , you can pick a copy up online for around £8.

I have also downloaded the insight timer from google play it's free and there are loads of guided meditations on there which you can learn from.

[littlestudent]

Have you tried Palouse Mindfulness (http://palousemindfulness.com/index.html)? It is a free 8 week online course. It is rather intensive, as I didn't do much else when I took it, but I loved it!

[MiM]

I started with a shortened (4 week) course IRL and when that was ending, I found the course at Palouse. I am still just a beginner at this, but I too really like that course. All of the materials speak to me in different ways and the meditations are calming in a very helpful way.

[Janknitz]

Sounds like you've tried yoga and it's not for you, but I just want to say that I did not expect to like the yoga at all in the MBSR course, and it's the part I ended up liking the most. The reason is that it's just hard enough for me that I have to really focus, and my monkey mind is relatively quiet during yoga. This yoga is very gentle, no crazy poses (no way could I do a downward dog!) and the emphasis is on non-striving. Just take your body where it can go and breathe.

My husband does not meditate but he is big on Kettlebells AND yoga. The yoga gives him flexibility and stretches out those sore places from the kettlebells.