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Tuesday November 2, 2021

Day 7 of learning how to meditate. Today's focus is bringing stillness to our bodies and minds. We began the session with our normal breathing techniques. The objective for this last session was to let go and roll with the mantra, which means a word or sound repeated to aid concentration in meditation. The word that we were asked to repeat was "So Hum '' in different tones making it effortless and easy. As we realized each breath, I listened within the silence and set an intention for this last session. To create space for growth in my personal life. As the 10 minutes were up I awakened my body and took a stretch as I felt at ease while taking this last step. Overall this experience was enjoyable. It made me realize that living in the present time is important to feel at peace. I would definitely recommend this meditation guide. I most likely will continue to incorporate meditation into my daily routine.

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Monday November 1, 2021

Day 6 of learning how to meditate. One more day and I have completed my journey. I am a little sad about it coming to end. I am also excited because in today's session, we focused on intention setting...to be completely honest I did not understand what that meant, I learned that this is a powerful tool that will help my own growth. We began by doing our grounding breathing exercises it felt longer than usual. There was no music in the first half it was only the instructors voice and guidance. We were asked to think of a word or feeling we would like more of, and try to bring that quality fully registered into our consciousness. Uplifting music began to play in the background. It was a challenging try to think of a quality I wanted more of. It took me a while to identify what I need right now. I was feeling motivated at the end of the session, this time around I did my session in the morning so it set an uplifting tone to my day.

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Sunday October 31, 2021

Day 5 of learning how to meditate. In today's session we learned about better managing our emotions with meditation, we can take those feelings to become more aware of those sensations, we began with our breathing techniques. Sitting up with our spine in a straight position. We were asked to think about a stressful moment but not feed into the thought instead focus on how we are feeling in that present moment. We are given a choice on how we wish to react. At the moment I was feeling extremely anxious, my body was starting to feel tender. It was difficult not to focus on what was making me anxious but I was redirected to identify those feelings. How was it affecting my body, was my heart rate going up or was my body becoming warm? It was interesting to do this technique. It helped me get back into a more aware state of mind.

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Saturday October 30, 2021

Day 4 of learning how to meditate. The focus of today was learning how to detach from our thoughts and bodies. The instructor mentioned that this session was best done laying down on a flat surface. I got into a comfortable position where I felt the most relaxed. We began with our usual breathing techniques: short inhales and long exhales to get us to a good starting point. This time around I was more observant. I noticed that the background music had changed to a more relaxing melody. We were asked to imagine a balloon with a string and the string held all of our fears and worries. The instructor asked to let it go and our bodies as well removing all tensions. To pay full attention to our bodies and acknowledge the movements with a gentle body scan. We were then given time to sit in silence for a few minutes and realize the bad energy. At the end of the session I felt happy and in a peaceful mindset with my surroundings.

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Friday October 29, 2021

Day 3 of learning how to meditate. The focus for today's session was understanding the misconception about meditation, the most common one was that we are suppose to stop all thinking. The misunderstanding for this is because meditation is retraining the brain to restore it's natural capacity to live in the present. The goal is to learn how to interact and deal with our own thoughts without having to stop our thinking. In this lesson I felt more relaxed and at ease, starting off with the breathing extercises. I focused on my thoughts coming through during this session but I redirected back to my breathing and one point I started to fall asleep.

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Thursday October 28, 2021

Day 2 of learning how to meditate. The focus of today's lesson was to learn how to use our sense to become fully present with ourselves and our lives. I began to close my eyes and find a comfortable postion to sit on in my bed. I was guided by the instructor to begin inhalin in and out for a couple of minutes, we than transitioned to feel the environment in the room or to connect with the present objects around me or the temperature in the room. It was intresting to sit down and just observe my surroundings. I did find myself getting distracted a few times but I tried to redirect my thoughts back to my breathing. The 10 mintues did feel longer than yesterday, because I was more focused about trying to finish the mediation and go to bed because of the long day I had today. Update on how I sleep last night I did not notice any major changes but I did go to sleep sooner than I normally do.

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Wednesday October 27, 2021

Day 1 of learning how to meditate. Focused on breathing techniques to help us control our "monkey mind". This term is used to describe emotions and thoughts that leap around and have no sense. I could agree, that I had difficulties controlling my own monkey mind. The thoughts of what I did today were going all over the place. At one point, I could not keep my eyes shut because I was too anxious thinking about work tasks that I did not complete. Although the instructor was reassuring that it was "okay" to have these thoughts. It was not easy to focus only on my breathing for 10 mintues. The goal for these seven days is to improve my focus skills and my sleep, which is why I decided I will be trying to meditate, every night to achieve better sleep.