A Moment of Mindfulness
On February 24th, I joined Dr. Siegfried Bleher in his weekly meeting called a Moment of Mindfulness. This event occurs every Wednesday between 4pm – 4:30pm on WebEx. Since I was a newcomer, Dr. Bleher had asked me if I had ever meditated before. Having a little insight on the topic, we discussed it further. He had educated me a bit more on meditation, in which we began to do shortly after.
We started with posture. We were sitting on the floor, our legs we kind of crisscrossed, but more with one leg on top of the other. This is putting your knees more down and helps lift the hips, which helps you sit upwards easier. He explained that there were multiple ways to hold your hands, either resting on your knees and facing upwards or downwards. When your hands face upwards, it keeps your shoulders wide and keeps your chest more open. When facing downwards, they rest more easily but can make the shoulders ground. Once we had our posture and hands the way we liked, we pulled our shoulders back and lifted our chests. We then closed our eyes and relaxed our hands, took a slight deep breath, and used our exhalation to feel as if we were relaxing into our posture. Meditation was our time for focusing on our breathing and feeling present, without anything else requiring our time or attention. We stayed like this for 20 minutes, until we were done.
With a background of meditation and yoga for over 25 years, Dr. Bleher and his wife have a studio in Morgantown that they teach in. He is also a member of the Creative Sustainability Council at Fairmont State, where they decided to offer something that others could benefit from as well. “Meditation is used to be aware of our connections with other people, nature, and the life around us. It shows how we impact it, and how it impacts us. With a bit more awareness, we can cultivate better connections and interactions in our daily lives,” Dr. Siegfried Bleher said when explaining why they chose to offer Meditation.
