Individual Counseling Techniques, Mindfulness Exercises Journal

Week of Jan. 25th – 10 minutes observing breathing
This was pretty easy to do, just hard to stay awake for! I often use this to fall asleep when I need to relax first. It’s also a part of qigong, so it was sort of hard not to just begin a routine, because I’m used to associating guided meditation with conscious breathing. Sometimes wandering thoughts intruded, but they were not too hard to push away.
My place is quiet, so as long as the cat is (He yowls and chases the other cat at inconvenient times.)so it is easy to relax and be uninterrupted. This is also something I have done to try and minimize an asthma attack, though not with meditation as a goal! I guess there were a number of associations that I have which are ingrained, and that was something I had to deliberately redirect to keep the exercise simple. I did notice that when I have more on my mind, that it is harder to make myself be physically still, and my mind is similarly resistant to slowing down.
Week of Feb. 1 – progressive relaxation
I didn’t really like the speaker, because he sounded fake, like someone narrating a children’s bedtime story. That was one distraction. It required a deliberate effort at non-judgmental observation to get past this, which I suspect the average listener isn’t trained to do.
The relaxation was hard to do because I normally feel some degree of physical discomfort throughout the day, and the tensing-relaxing directions were uncomfortable, and sometimes too fast to keep up with. This exercise is apparently designed for healthy, young participants! I will remember this if I ever ask elderly, hospital, or otherwise handicapped patients to try this technique – in fact, it would be better to re-record these steps my own way.
Going at my own pace, I noticed that although I was more physically relaxed, I