Review: Mindfulness Workshop with Cory Muscara

May 6th 2018

Take a few mindful moments today~

Mindfulness is a tool that I have found to be incredibly valuable throughout my life. As someone with anxiety and as someone who is a chronic overthinker, mindfulness and meditation are things that I have tried to educate myself on and utilize in my everyday life whenever possible. That is why, when my mom told me my local school district was offering a two hour mindfulness workshop with a professional coach named Cory Muscara, I was intrigued.

Mindfulness Meditation workshops are often rather pricey and to see that one was being offered by such a well respected individual made me feel even more inclined to attend. The talk would take place in my high school auditorium so my mom and I were able to walk over easily and grab seats early.

The auditorium is rather large, however, when the workshop started it actually felt quite intimate. Cory chose not to use a microphone as a means of breaking the barriers between the audience and himself which I felt greatly contributed to the comfort and intimacy. All of the things he talked about were actually quite common sense, but hearing them from someone who has extensive knowledge on all things wellness, really solidified the messages in my head.

You see, I used to be quite deep into wellness and meditation for quite some time until I sort of got stressed and fell out of my practice. That is silly to think, isn’t it? That getting stressed would make me fall out of a practice that’s entire purpose is to make me less stressed? Well, this workshop was sort of a wakeup call. The moment I heard the chime of bells that I was used to hearing in meditation classes and online tracks, I was transported back to the times when I would practice weekly and even daily.

Since this workshop was a major wake up call to me, I decided to come on here and share a few things I took away from the workshop as well as things I thought about in silent reflection after.

1- No more self-deprecation and limiting beliefs- I am the worst with this. You receive back the energy you put into the universe and the energy I was putting in was that I suck and don’t deserve shit. That is such a terrible way to treat yourself and also a very limiting mindset. Since I was talking myself out of my greatness and doing so without much awareness, I was missing out on a lot of living! And I still am! That is one major change I hope to see throughout my return to mindfulness.

2- There is always time for mindfulness- You can meditate for any amount of time and reap benefits from it. Take a minute of day to sit and be mindful. Little by little, you will start feeling changes!

3- The journey into mindfulness isn’t always easy, but it is necessary- At the workshop, one woman spoke about how she started meditating and as a result started having vivid nightmares. Cory said that this was something normal for people to experience. It is called Post-Traumatic Growth. The brain tries to release the tense created after a traumatic experience in order to allow it to gain insight into what impact the traumatic event had on you.

Overall, the experience I had at the workshop really inspired me to make some major changes in my life. I have begun Cory Muscara’s 31 Day Mindfulness and I can’t wait to give you my full review at the end of the month!

 

Jess~