Hello, thank you for signing up for 40 Days of Mindfulness and Compassion.

Beginning on Wednesday March 6, 2019 and ending on April 14, 2019 you will be sent an email each morning (approximately 6:00 am CST) containing a message for the day and a link to the following:

• A short lecture on the topic of the day
• A meditation tip of the day
• A short guided meditation of the day
• A brief self-reflective practice that can be included into daily life
• A form to submit questions and reflections

Here is an introductory message from Dr. Gitchel:

The materials that you will be provided with are intended to be practical and user-friendly. When speaking about meditation or contemplative practices, I often say “meditation is the easiest thing to talk about and the hardest thing to do.” Meditation is quite simple, but at the same time quite challenging.  It is challenging, at least in part, because it runs directly counter to many or most of our ingrained habitual ways of acting, experiencing and responding.

In these 40 days, we will encounter a smorgasbord of practices and explore tips and strategies for working with meditation practices.  At the end of these 40 days, it is my hope that that you have gotten something meaningful for yourself and have a few more tools in your toolbox.

This is very much an autonomous process. You can work with the material in ways that you see fit. Each of us is on our own path, and my sincere hope is that these 40 days are meaningful for you and your path.

 

Meditation Tips

That said, I would like to jump in and offer a few opening tips:

Tip #1: Consistency is very important. It is more important than quantity. Meditating for a brief period every day  (or close to every day) is much better than intensive periods followed by lagging periods. To that end, you will be provided with a short meditation each day. I sometimes coax my students into committing to five minutes a day to begin with. For most of us, this would be a very big step.

Tip #2: Try to adopt a posture while meditating that encourages both alertness and relaxation.  This is a point that will be revisited throughout the 40 days. Much of meditation is finding a posture that facilitates these aspects of alertness and relaxation. Alertness is emphasized through sitting postures that are grounded and upright. The back should be as straight as possible (using its natural curvature) and the gaze should be slightly downward. Your eyes can be closed or slightly open. If slightly open, allow the gaze to be “open” and not focused on anything. From this place of alertness and uprightness, allow the body and muscles to relax and settle. Now, you are ready to meditate!

 

Self-Reflective Activity

I encourage you to journal throughout these 40 days. Simply take a few minutes of your day each day and journal about your experiences. Just write, with little censorship or self-evaluation. It is like digging under the surface and seeing what is there. If you would like to begin here are two questions to reflect on:

• What are my core values? (the values that, at the deepest level, you would like to guide your life). Why?
• Why am I enrolled in 40 Days of Mindfulness and Compassion?

 

I encourage you to explore these questions for a bit, and to see what comes up for you. Don’t expect an answer. Just see what emerges. In working with contemplative questions, often asking the question is enough. It points in the direction of a new way of self-relating.

We will explore both aspirations and intentions during these 40 days. I have found working with them quite helpful. Here is a short intention meditation (5 minutes) that can be very effective to tapping into an intention for the day. I do this short practice most mornings, and it quite interesting what emerges each day and to note when what shows up in the short practice influences daily activities throughout the day.

 

Gitchel: Short Mindfulness and Intention Meditation (5 Minutes)

Downloadable File

 

I very much look forward to these next 40 days.

You will be receiving the email for Day 1 tomorrow morning.

If you ever have a question, or would like to give any feedback about working with the material, please use this online form. Answers to such questions may be included (anonymously) in daily messages. It is my experience that the answer to one persons question can often be helpful to many.