Introduction to Mindfulness_349810_bookemon_ebook.pdf Coaching and Practising Mindfulness | Page 165

Mindful movement
Key learning (feature ii):
Building on the foundation of the body scan in learning how we can
bring awareness to and inhabit bodily experience/sensation
Experiencing awareness of the body in motion, as it often is in life
Relating to the body with friendliness; for some increasing enjoyment
of the body’s capacities Movements and postures offer an
embodiment of life experiences and processes Seeing habitual
tendencies played out Working with physical boundaries/intensity
offers a parallel to working in similar ways with emotional experience;
experiencing that physical movement can change emotional
experience Learning and experiencing working with present moment
acceptance, including of our physical limitations, and learning to
relate in new ways to pain Learning new ways of taking care of
ourselves
Mindful Movement Exercises
When practicing Mindful Movement, you tune into your body, into
sensations and movements which you normally tune out because they
are so familiar, and get in touch with how wonderful it is to have your
body, no matter what it looks or feels like.
One form of Mindful Movement is gentle stretching and
strengthening exercise.
This is done very slowly, without striving to change yourself, and
without forcing yourself to do more than your body can safely
achieve. In this exercise you practice accepting your body as you find
it, from one moment to the next, as you stretch, or lift parts of the
body, or balance.
This is very different to most exercise classes, which focus only on
what the body is doing. In such body-oriented exercise there tends to

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