Bringing Mindfulness to Life
Over the past ten years, ElderSHINE has been the source of much joy and connection for a group of low-income elders living in East Baltimore. This is how one ElderSHINE participant describes her experience: “You know I’d be fit to be tied if I missed my SHINE group! It’s my joy. It makes me a better person towards other people.”
It’s so easy to compare and judge, thinking that YOUR mind is the least focused one around. You know – forgetting words, losing things, wondering why you’ve just gone upstairs, jumping from thought to thought. A question I hear in EVERY SHINE session is, “How can I keep my mind from wandering?”
Here’s how we teach this in SHINE, using awareness of the breath as the anchor for attention.
You do so much for others. You take care of a million details, check off your to-do list, make sure things get done. Yet, when do you step back and offer yourself the same energy, care and consideration that you so willingly extend to your list, to your projects, to others?
