Grounding Presence

Dear friends, 

Due to the current uncertainty and difficulty to plan short or long term, Beijing Mindfulness Centre will pause with activities through May holidays and announce next steps after the holidays. As various cities in China have already been experiencing tremendeous sufferning during past months, Beijing might be next. One thing that I know for sure, it is not easy to be in a leadership position at this time. So kudos to all who can maintain their calm and cool, who can feel motivated to move forward even when all signals show that we cannot move anywhere. 

For decades now mindfulness has been offered as a skill that enables us to endure hardship and bypass survival response. These days I contemplate on one question: What does it mean to bypass survival response when all I am thinking about is survival: will we have enough food, can I protect my family and our companions, and how to be there for the community?

With these questions in mind I learned that making the practice achievable, easy and enjoyable brings more to me than lengthy meditations. You will make more impact on your wellbeing if you do four two-minutes practices a day than to try to maintain twenty minutes practice while your mind keeps thinking about survival and upcoming difficulties. In the video below I offer some ideas on how this can work. The video is a recording of an online session I have delivered for an organization that has offices in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing. To maintain confidentiality during interactive sessions, faces and names have been edited out of the video. 

As for the activities at the Beijing Mindfulness Centre, at the moment we  have lined up Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy (MBCT) 8-week training with Chris end of May. Beyond that I will announce the future steps after I spend time during the May holidays to define the vision for BMC and BMC Academy.   

Stay safe and healthy, maintain grounded presence and keep in touch,

Dalida