Mindfulness Meditation (For Everyday Life)

studied casualness across the back of the neck and
shoulders.
But working in the stress reduction clinic, the white
coat would be a true impediment. I have to work
overtime as it is to reflect back all the projections I get
from people that I am "Mr. Relaxation" or "Dr. Have-it-
all-together" or "Mr. Wisdom and Compassion-
incarnate." The whole point of mindfulness-based
stress reduction - and for that matter health
promotion in its largest sense - is to challenge and
encourage people to become their own authorities, to
take more responsibility for their own lives, their own
bodies, their own health. I like to emphasize that each
person is already the world authority on him - or
herself, or at least could be if they started attending to
things mindfully. A great deal of the information each
of us needs to learn more about ourselves and our
health - information we desperately need in order to
grow and to heal and to make effective life choices -
is already right at our fingertips, at the tips of, or
rather, right beneath, our noses.
What is required to participate more fully in our own
health and well-being is simply to listen more
carefully and to trust what we hear, to trust the
messages from our own life, from our own body and
mind and feelings. This sense of participation and