{"id":729,"date":"2020-05-06T20:24:25","date_gmt":"2020-05-06T20:24:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/?p=729"},"modified":"2020-05-07T18:07:12","modified_gmt":"2020-05-07T18:07:12","slug":"things-ive-learned-during-the-pandemic-2020-part-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/?p=729","title":{"rendered":"Things I\u2019ve Learned During The Pandemic 2020 – Part 4"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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To say the least, it\u2019s been an interesting couple of months.  We are navigating in unchartered territories, and it is yielding quite a different world.  The good part is that the world is going through this together and not against each other.  And it\u2019s up to us to learn from it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mindfulness & Meditation<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I have had a scheduled reminder to meditate every morning at 8:45 am for a few years now. Typically, it\u2019s a short meditation due to how busy the day is scheduled, but during the shelter in place, I\u2019ve been able to routinely meditate first thing in the morning as I wake up without an alarm.  I truly believe it brings a better level of peace that sustains throughout the day.  During this time, I can be more focused, and have tried a few different new techniques to heighten the experience.  In fact, my health insurance company offered a free subscription to eM Life as they value good mental health.  Another app and free one year subscription, Balance, has been very helpful in moving my mindfulness forward.  The meditations are flexible, and I have been working on increasing the duration and frequency since it is yielding positive results.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

One recent positive example is that I was annoyed with someone, and almost sent an unfriendly message.  I decided to take my meditation break before sending it. The focus of the day was on Loving-Kindness.  This helps you learn to better understand yourself and relate to others.  It clarified what my next steps would be to handle the situation which included deleting my unsent message. I handled it in a calmer manner, and I did feel much better.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I know when one starts meditating, there are a lot of distractions and uncertainty, but I assure you, once you continue the practice of mindfulness, it increases well-being, reduces stress and anxiety, decreases self-criticism, and improves attention.  Don\u2019t you think these are all benefits we can embrace?  <\/p>\n

<\/p>

<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Mindfulness & Meditation is the 4th of a series of lessons I\u2019m learning from the pandemic<\/p>\n

Read More<\/div><\/div><\/a>","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":732,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[12],"tags":[54,43,55,56],"class_list":{"0":"post-729","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-enlighten","8":"tag-meditation","9":"tag-mindfulness","10":"tag-peace","11":"tag-reduce-stress","12":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/drkareneng.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/AEDC5030-B8C5-4AC5-BB56-B677D64A97BE-1-scaled.jpeg?fit=2560%2C1920&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3sJ0Y-bL","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=729"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":739,"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729\/revisions\/739"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/732"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=729"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=729"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/drkareneng.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=729"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}