Our events for the next few days have been removed from the calendar as the guides are all taking the weekend off. The center remains open 24/7 as your tranquil, safe space in SL. We encourage you to continue your personal practice, both in SL and in RL.
Many helpful resources like meditation videos and advice can be found throughout this blog.
With loving-kindness, we all wish you a healthy and safe New Year and a wonderful weekend!
See you all Monday with a fresh start. ♥
Here's a nice article to inspire you to make a special place for meditation in RL while your avatar joins us for our mindfulness events inworld.
_人_ Namaste ♥
Shared by Bronus and grateful he always shares those nice snippets with us in Discord ♥
Happy Holidays from the Center for Mindfulness Team ♥ Find your gifty at the Center (on landing go right and click the happy holiday sign, don't forget to activate your group! )
After the holidays I will make a texture HUD and you will be able to buy it with meditation coins!
Let the magic of this holiday season surround you with unlimited happiness. In this comfiest season of the year, may you find many reasons to smile, have a tremendous and joyful start to this new year and have the wheel of luck running throughout the year.Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season.
Anna, Alexander, Dann, Blitz, Nami, Raeven, Reko, Cythe, Pet, Norton and Ren ♥
It's not so much how or where you mediate. It's more about being mindful and taking the time to do it. Yesterday in Share & Care, Lancelost shared that there's a game on steam to help you learn to meditate. If you suffer from anxiety, it could be a useful tool.
♥
A video game that helps players learn and build a daily habit of meditation. Grow & transform the game world by meditating. Build resilience to stress, experience calm and relaxation.
As my current focus with leading meditations in SL have been Loving-Kindness, I felt compelled to share this graphic that Bronus posted on our discord channel. In this season of giving, during this crazy year we're all experiencing, let's be mindful to treat ourselves with loving-kindness as well as to everyone else who crosses our path.
Another one Bronus shared with us, this time this little gem coming from The Midnight Gospel on Netflix. This scene is cry under a minute ♥
We do not have a formal structure for the Share & Care event. It is a time to sit together and connect with others. To build trust and friendships. It is a time and a place where the structure is based on what you bring to it, and what you would like to take from it. If you are someone who lives with anxiety or depression and would like to share what is troubling you, this is a safe place to do so. If you have helpful advice to pass on to others, we encourage you to present that to the group. It could be extremely helpful to someone who needs it. Some of you may feel more comfortable just sitting amongst peers and listening. We welcome that as well.
This week the theme of Share & Care did not focus on anxiety or depression at all. Instead we casually talked about how being in a virtual world has been a source of relief, especially during this pandemic.
Cythe mentioned how retail therapy in Second Life can mirror retail therapy in RL and how it brings a sense of comfort. We talked about how Second Life relationships can make us feel close to one another and how lasting bonds can be formed. Some friendships that are eventually taken to RL and others even resulting in marriage.
We discussed how something as simple as a group hug can truly be a source of solace for someone. How playing inworld games with other people can be such a wonderful distraction to take us away from the things that might be happening in RL.
We also acknowledged some of the amazing places people have created for everyone to explore and enjoy inworld. Just to simply escape the things that may be causing you anxiety or depression. Or, even to pass the time and witness some very creative places in SL. Who knows, you may even find a peaceful little spot to meditate.
Here are some links that came up in our session:
He also shared this link on Chronic Pain Control Techniques
Wow, we covered so much in just one short, casual hour and we even managed to squeeze in a group hug too! On behalf of Dann, Cythe and myself, I’d like to thank those who came. Even your quiet presence is a welcomed contribution because without knowing it, you could be helping to create a sense of comfort, safety, and a supportive community for someone else. Helping others can also help mend the deep wounds within ourselves, help us grow, and heal. Or, you might just make a new friend to explore and share SL with. Plus, by simply coming and spending an hour with us, you earn a CFM coin.
Hope to see you all next week, same time, same place. 4pm SLT at the Yoga Platform.
This podcast shares the story from Prof Doty I shared with you yesterday...
In this episode of the podcast, Sam Harris speaks with James R. Doty about his memoir Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon’s Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart.
They discuss: ● the significance of childhood stress ● the possibility of changing one’s core beliefs about oneself ● the relationship between surgeons and their patients ● the nature of compassion ● the Dalai Lama ● the relationship between wealth and empathy ● the worsening problem of social inequality ● the physiology of compassion ● the broken healthcare system in the U.S. ● and other topics James R. Doty is a clinical professor in the Department of Neurosurgery at Stanford University and the director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University School of Medicine. As director of CCARE, Dr. Doty has collaborated on a number of research projects focused on compassion and altruism including the use of neuro-economic models to assess altruism, use of the CCARE-developed compassion cultivation training in individuals and its effect, assessment of compassionate and altruistic judgment utilizing implanted brain electrodes and the use of optogenetic techniques to assess nurturing pathways in rodents. Presently, he is developing collaborative research projects to assess the effect of compassion training on immunologic and other physiologic determinants of health, the use of mentoring as a method of instilling compassion in students and the use of compassion training to decrease pain. Dr. Doty is also an inventor, entrepreneur and philanthropist having given support to a number of charitable organizations including Children as the Peacemakers, Global Healing, the Pachamama Alliance and Family & Children Services of Silicon Valley. He is on the Board of Directors of a number of non-profit foundations including the Dalai Lama Foundation, of which he is chairman and the Charter for Compassion International of which he is vice-chair. He is on the International Advisory Board of the Council for the Parliament of the World’s Religions and also writes for The Huffington Post.
