Mindfulness Training Online— Mindfulness Stories

You cannot deny the popularity of mindfulness stories! You’ve either heard or read it already somewhere. Here are just two of the stories I encountered during my meditation teacher training.

1. No longer chasing time

I was diagnosed with breast cancer at 28 and it was a wake-up call. I realized how expensive time is, how time is our most valuable currency, and we can’t waste it. I had a lot of dreams at 28, I wanted a family and a place of my own. When the doctors finally confirmed their diagnosis, I felt like I was chasing the lost times I had, I felt regret, I was so close to being dragged into that pit of depression, up until I was taught about mindfulness.

Well, here we are 3 years later; I’m alive, and I’ve been able to watch my son grow into an amazing human being. It was not easy what I had gone through years ago, but that the little moments that I spent being mindful back then I had a secret pact to myself that through every moment that will pass, I am going to experience it to its fullest to waste as little time as possible because tomorrow isn’t promised.

2. I used to take moments and experiences for granted because of anxiety, or grief but when my doctor told me to take a course on mindfulness, some questions started to come up that I had never even asked myself because I didn’t realize they were questions that needed to be asked.

• When was the last time I sat still to fully be aware and fascinated by gravity that keeps me grounded on Earth?
• I breathe every second, 24/7, seven days per week, but how often do I appreciate and notice it?
• How many times do I react to something angrily without even thinking first if I could be a little more patient?

Years before I took mindfulness training online I thought I was already living my life to the fullest. I was all basing it on the things I wanted to do, but I learned that living life to the fullest is about being aware of every moment that passes you by. That we should not live by the principle of You Only Live Once (YOLO) but should instead doing things by the principle of “we only live now”.

I realized I mindlessly do things before, I didn’t know that it feels good to appreciate the simple things like driving to work, eating food, and having conversations. Mindfulness training online has taught me to keep myself fully present and engaged with as many moments in my life so I don’t miss anything— so I wouldn’t have to chase lost time again— ever.

Wife-approved disconnect to connect

Parenting is hard. Especially as everyone’s attention seems to always be consumed by technology, especially the kids these days! It’s like they cannot live a moment without having a gadget by their side for a moment.And as a parent who’s always looking for something to do with my children, I found that the mindfulness lessons that I shared with them were very helpful not just in our family relationship but also in the emotional and personal development of my children.I shared some lessons and techniques from my meditation teacher training with my children and we practice it every Sunday. It’s simple, we just disconnect from our gadgets and try to do things around the house or do hobbies that do not need the use of the addicting gadgets.The kids learned to try doing other things like arts and crafts and explore games at home like dressing up, playing tag, jumping on the trampoline, they even now liked baking and cooking! This has helped us learn to connect on a personal level.

Mindfulness also helped my kids learn how to manage their thoughts and emotions. My kids are aged 7, and 10 and you know how they can tend to have bouts of attitude problems during this age. One time I was cheering them up from such a bad day during our vacation but I almost tried everything and it seemed like nothing was working! Thinking they were just hungry we grabbed food, but it did not make any difference that I thought they were just being ungrateful, I almost lashed out, and react negatively.Good thing, I lived by the thing I learned from our mindfulness training online. It was good that I didn’t react negatively outright in that situation because one thing I did not realize was that they were tired from all the walking and running that we did, and they just seem to not realize it or they might have been just keeping it in.Since everything they’re experiencing is new for them, not only is it difficult for them to communicate their feelings to me but oftentimes they don’t even know what they’re feeling. When we finally sat down and took a minute, my 7-year-old explained that he was extremely tired and the two of them didn’t sleep the night before making him grumpy, which then turned into some misunderstanding with his sister.As soon as we returned from that trip, I started teaching them mindfulness, and I’ve seen them change so much over the last year. They are now able to identify their emotions and call out their negative thoughts much sooner and have devised ways and tools to calm themselves down.I thought that I was happy and content with life before, but my life has grown exponentially better with my consistent practice together with my kids. Each day, I learn more about myself as well as life, and we grow as a family. Even my wife told me that she’s happy with the mindfulness practice that I taught to our kids. Wife approved!

These are just two of the stories about the practice of mindfulness. In the meditation training in our course I not only learned a lot about mindfulness but also found a way to help ease anxiety and process emotions effectively.

Mindfulness Stories can be a simple as focusing on what you can hear, see, smell, taste, feel. But the idea is to deliberately and proactively for a set period of time, say 5 mins. Like physical exercise, frequency is much more important than quantity.