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7

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>> And people will say to us after eight weeks[br]in our Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Clinic

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at the University of Massachusetts[br]Medical Center that they felt

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like they got their life back in some way.

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And these are people with cancer of various[br]kinds, heart disease, chronic pain conditions,

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people who've in some sense[br]not gotten satisfaction

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from the mainstream health care system.

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And where the invitation in MBSR,[br]mindfulness based stress reduction is

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to actually do something for yourself that[br]no one else on the planet can do for you.

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And it really involves this quality

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of cultivating what I would call[br]affectionate attention or mindfulness,

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and they're specialized ways that you[br]can use to help facilitate that process.

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And so people who understand[br]about meditation or have heard

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of meditation often think, oh,[br]yeah, it's about breathing.

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Oh, yeah, it's about breathing for instance.

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And a lot of our patients when they're finished[br]with the MBSR, and you ask them, "Well,

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what did you get out of the program?"

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A lot of them will say the breathing.

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And I say, "Wait a minute.

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You were breathing before[br]you took the MBSR program.

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You're going to be breathing[br]for a long time after that.

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What are you talking about with the breathing?"

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So they're not really talking[br]about the breathing or breathing.

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What they're talking about[br]is my intimate relationship

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with my breath that I didn't have before.

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And that is called awareness,[br]pure and simple or mindfulness.

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But when you pay attention to the[br]breath, to the rising of the breath

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on the inhalation, and the[br]sensations in the body.

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We're not talking about the thinking about[br]the breath, but just the sensation of the wave

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of the breath coming in, and then peaks,

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and we can feel that peak not[br]breathing in, not breathing out.

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The wave of the breath leaving the body,[br]and then the trough, and then the next wave.

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And when we ride on those waves, like[br]surfing on the waves of the breath,

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first of all, it naturally calms us down.

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It naturally slows us down.

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It naturally centers the focus of our awareness[br]in the present moment, and in the body.

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So when people talk about the breathing,[br]what they mean is mindfulness of breathing.