Our last blog discussed how to learn attention and concentration skills using formal and informal meditation methods. However, remember that to integrate new information and habits, you must repeat the practice daily or every two days, whatever works for you. But the repeating process is critical, and you need to be patient and non-judgmental about your experience because it might take months for this integration to happen.
I discuss integration from an interpersonal biology perspective and how the embodied system integrates new information. Daniel Siegel explained that:
"A healthy mind emerges when self-organization is optimized. What this means is that the emergent property of a complex system called self-organization enables its natural push toward differentiating and linking to emerge. This process, of linking differentiated parts of a complex system, can be simply called, "integration." Integration enables harmony to emerge as the characteristics of optimal self-organization include being Flexible, Adaptive, Coherent, Energized, and Stable (FACES)".
2) Informal contemplative creative practice' visual concentration' (about 14min)
Today I invite you to discover an external practice to strengthen attention and concentration using contemplative creative practice. We started to define contemplative creative practices as a continuum of internal meditation techniques, such as concentration, mindfulness, and compassion. In practice, you will use an external object or medium to investigate the embodied mind.
In this practice, you need proper posture, clear intention, connect and synchronize mind, heart, body and brush, or the tip of the brush!
1) Prepare a clean space for your practice (table, chair, cushion, no distraction. Turn off your phone and take 15/20 minutes)
2) Visual materials: use a blank piece of paper large enough or magic paper water painting, brushes, markers, crayons, or oil pastels. You want materials that are flowing on the medium.
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