Imaginative mindfulness (video)

If you’re feeling stuck in your mindfulness practice, you may benefit from bringing in your imagination. In my experience, it’s a good way to develop a practice that we actually enjoy.

Here’s a video with a bit of background on why the imaginative can be helpful in mindfulness:

Additional Resources:

Examples of imaginative practices from my own recordings would be ‘Support Your Self’, ‘Imagining Compassion’ and ‘Supported By The Earth’ which can all be found on my meditation recordings page.

Blog posts of mine that relate to this topic are Creative Mindfulness For Reluctant Meditators and Reclaiming Our Natural Wellbeing

Another way to stoke your imaginative fire is reading fiction. If you think that your attention span wouldn’t be up to that, you might like to try flash fiction (‘one-page stories’). Although very short, I find this form of storytelling can foster a more mindful reading experience than longer works. This Saturday is National Flash Fiction Day‘s 10th Anniversary – you can find out more on their website.

Notes on things I mentioned in the video:

Reggie Ray explains in his book ‘The Awakening Body’ that ‘the functions typically associated with the “right brain” are in fact distributed throughout the entire body’.

An example of Paul Gilbert’s ‘Compassionate Colour’ exercise can be found here – https://www.compassionatemind.co.uk/resource/audio (and also in his book The Compassionate Mind).

Bret Lyon’s work on how the ‘imaginal realm’ links to our somatic (body-based) experience is explained here https://healingshame.com/articles/empathy-compassion-and-optimal-distance-by-bret-lyon-phd