Integrative Health Blog

This is an invitation to the free online mindfulness and healing group on Sunday evenings. 

Title: "Mindfulness and Healing" - Guided Sessions Online

Dates: Sundays, July 5, 2020 - Aug. 30, 2020

Time: 7:00-8:00 pm

Presenter: Charles Gant, MD, functional medicine physician

*NOTE- This first session has ended but Guided Mindfulness Sessions are offered now very Sunday night at 7 via a call- in number. No registration is required.

At 7 pm, Call 712-770-4340  and enter the access code 566853# (pound) to participate.

Mindfulness in a Pandemic

Why should you consider a Mindfulness practice?

To give you some perspective, here is information from an expert on why mindfulness can be so valuable now during challenging times.

Jon Kabat Zinn, one of the most experienced and famous mindfulness teachers and researchers, defines Mindfulness as “awareness that arises through paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally,” and then he sometimes adds, “in the service of self-understanding and wisdom.”

If you would like to hear an introduction by Jon Kabat Zinn sent to a few 10’s of thousands of people in many countries (about 90 minutes) about mindfulness in an age of pandemics and violence, click this video:

What Mindfulness is Not

I would add that mindfulness is a separate faculty of consciousness which is NOT cognitive (thinking), emotional, sensory (5 senses) or behavioral, all of which are faculties that are governed by various brain regions.  Recent neuroimagery, cognitive science and neurophysiological studies suggest that approximately 1/6^th of our brain, our most highly evolved part, the prefrontal cortex, is the critical region of our brain that confers the faculty of mindfulness.

What to Expect from online Mindfulness and Healing

Each week we will continue introductory “techniques” which you can practice in your daily life;  mindfulness on the breath, on the soles of your feet and on the chair or bed when sitting or lying down. 

By becoming mindful on these sensory objects in different parts of the body, it will help you to break free from the seemingly perpetual thinking which takes us away from inner serenity.  Previously,  I presented the biofeedback diagrams suggesting that any body object, especially unpleasant pain in the body, can be used as an object that mindfulness “touches.”

By opening our hearts to experiencing unpleasant emotional or physical sensations as simply sensations that arise in our body, through “paying attention, on purpose, in the present moment and non-judgmentally,” the discomfort tends to subside.  This has also been referred to by psychotherapists who use mindfulness-based psychotherapies as “letting go.”  Each week we will deepen this practice, so bring any aches and pains or emotional hurts and worries with you and learn how to help make them disappear using mindfulness as a healing modality.

Please join me to connect and find refuge within from practicing mindfulness.

Note-

I invite everyone to join a free mindfulness group every Sunday night, at 7 PM, by simply calling 712-770-4340 and when prompted enter the code 566853# (pound).

Charles Gant MD, PhD,  is a physician, author and teacher and has practiced Integrative and Functional Medicine for over three decades. He specializes in getting to the root cause of health issues to support healing at the molecular level.  Areas of interest include ADHD, chronic diseases, metabolic, hormonal and immune disorders, infectious disease (Lyme and co-infections), genetic testing and more. He is an expert in interpretation of functional medicine testing to diagnose precisely what is deficient in each patient, and then replenish those missing, essential items.