Reflection paper 4: Mindfulness exercise

For this assignment, you will be asked to complete a mindfulness exercise on 3 separate days.  Make sure you leave yourself enough time to do this! You are being asked to repeat the exercise because we want you to reflect on how your experience changed over multiple trials. We will also ask you to consider how mindfulness may be beneficial for both therapists and clients. For the mindfulness exercise, you will be asked to select your own exercise by downloading one of the following apps or using one of the YouTube links below.  Select a mediation that is AT LEAST 7 minutes long. You must report which mediation you used in your reflection paper and you should use the same mediation on all 3 days. If you regularly do mediation practice, please select a new meditation for this exercise.

Please address the following topics in your reflection.  Make sure that you provide a HEADER in your paper for each of the following sections:

1) Meditation selected: Report which meditation you used.  Describe the purpose of the meditation and how it is meant to be beneficial.

2) First experience: Describe your experience the first time you went through the meditation (e.g., Did it turn out the way you expected? Were there any surprising moments?)  What was your emotional experience during the meditation? What was your physiological experience (i.e., your body experience)? 

3) Experience over multiple trials: Describe your experience over the 3 days that you completed the meditation. In what ways was your experience the same? In what ways was it different?  Based on your experience, do you think that regular practice (e.g., daily or multiple times a week) is important for meditation?  Why or why not?

4) Applications to therapy: Based on your experience, how do you think mindfulness could best be used in the psychotherapy context to help clients (e.g.,  get more out of therapy and improve their well-being)? How do you think that practicing mindfulness in their daily life could help a therapist be better at their job and help them manage job-related stressors (e.g., improve the therapist’s success and well-being)?