PERSONAL REFLECTION ON MINDFUL MEDITATION & MENTORSHIP

By: Siphamandla Sithole

1.Mindful meditation

Mindfulness is a type of meditation in which you focus on being intensely aware of what you’re sensing and feeling in the moment, without interpretation or judgment. Practicing mindfulness involves breathing methods, guided imagery, and other practices to relax the body and mind and help reduce stress. I personally had no I idea what it meant to meditate. I always thought that in my mind that was a white people thing to do, because as a black man we don’t really care about non of that stuff.

What are the benefits of meditation?

Firstly I will start by outlining how meditating changed my life. It all started when I joined mixed martial arts classes that’s when I was guided through a lot of things, that firstly before training we exercise our bodies for the first 15 minutes then we kneel down, and one hand on top of the other, and we close our eyes to listen to our inner thoughts. This helped us to be able to forget about the outside world, and be able to bring our minds to the universe of peace. Fighting has always been my profession, and to be the best I firstly needed to meditate, and let my mind to be clear.

I started paying so much interest in how meditation has been studied in many clinical trials. The overall evidence that I found  supported the effectiveness of meditation for various conditions, which included: Stress, Anxiety, Pain, Depression, Insomnia, and  High blood pressure (hypertension). Meditation helped me experience thoughts and emotions with greater balance and acceptance. It has also helped me Improve attention, and Improve sleep.

What are some examples of mindfulness exercises?

There are many simple ways to practice mindfulness. Some examples include, Paying attention. It’s hard to slow down and notice things in a busy world, trying to take the time to experience your environment with all of your senses — touch, sound, sight, smell, and taste. For example, when you eat a favorite food, take the time to smell, taste and truly enjoy it. Live in the moment. Try to intentionally bring an open, accepting and discerning attention to everything you do. Find joy in simple pleasures. Secondly accept yourself, treat yourself the way you would treat a good friend. Thirdly focus on your breathing. When you have negative thoughts, try to sit down, take a deep breath and close your eyes. Focus on your breath as It moves in and out of your body. Sitting and breathing for even just a minute can help.

2.MENTORSHIP

Mentoring is a relationship between two people with the goal of professional and personal development. The “mentor” is usually an experienced individual who shares knowledge, experience, and advice with a less experienced person, or “mentee.”

The reason I outlined what mentoring is, is that my best mentor was my Sensei. I say this because he has taught me a lot of which most of them I was not aware of. I hated the part that he would tell me the truth in each and everything he guided me on, even though most was hurt full, but I knew deep down that he was indeed showing the right path in life. One day said to me that I should choose my friends wisely as they will determine my future. I never fully understood when he said that but then he showed me a picture that had a quote that said “ Show me your friends, and I will show you your future”. That motivated me a lot, because it made to be able to trust my mentor so much knowing that he wants nothing but the best for me, and also that, I should be able to choose whom I hang out with.