I learned many things on this course but I will recount what I consider the most important insights and how I will incorporate them into my life.

       The most important thing I learned in doing the 8 week course was how little time we have to do the things we want to do and how difficult it is to leverage a new practice into our lives. Instead of a handful of good intentions we really need to focus on the one thing that is most important and find a way of building this into our lives. Meditation & journaling are the key practices for me that make everything else possible. I found that the diversity of materials and teachings on Palouse Mindfulness has considerably widened my understanding. I am confident that as long as I continue a daily practice of meditation I can stay heading in the direction of positive personal well-being.

       The practice of tasting the raisin deepened into a greater understanding of the importance of tasting life and how mindfulness can help to enrich our experience of life. However, the insight I gained was that Mindfulness by itself is not enough, we also need intention. We can choose between a mindful life built upon compassion for our personal well-being and the well-being of others, or we can allow ourselves to slip into undirected mindlessness. However, while mindfulness gives us the gift of awareness, it also needs a direction, an intention, and a moral aim to fully realize its potential.

       I gained the insight that the practice of mindfulness allows us to nurture our physical and mental well-being. That the emphasis in medicine is to apply fixes to mend people and this does not rally the powerful forces of self healing. Mindfulness awakes our ability for self healing through nurturing and this compliments and can sometimes replace medicines.

       Self kindness and self compassion were a revelation to me. Mindfulness is often defined as non-judgmental awareness. However, I have come to understand mindfulness better as a curious and kind non-judgmental awareness of our thoughts, moods and behaviour as applied to both our internal and external reality. Understanding that 'we are what we repeatedly do', reveals the importance of developing a habit of self-kindness and compassion.

       I hope to incorporate into my life a daily meditation and journaling practice. I am a life-long learner and have always been drawn to self-development and mindfulness. I have blogged on and off for several years, and I hope to make this a weekly habit with a focus on the broader subject of mindfulness.

       I hope that mindfulness will take me away from distractions and mindlessness and allow me to live a more intentional and joyful life.

       I am very grateful to Palouse Mindfulness for maintaining such a wonderful resource of materials and teachings and for offering a path to MBSR without the high fees charged for courses that do not have the same depth, quality, and quantity of teaching.