GOOD MORNING BTT is a guided mindfulness practice to start the day with awareness.
Every Tuesday and Friday at 9 A.M.The sessions organized by BTT are open to everyone, including people with no previous experience.
Leads instructor Francesca Rosso, who got her Master’s degree in Mindfulness at Università La Sapienza (Rome) and is co-founder of Adesso Mindfulness.“We can’t stop the waves, but we can learn to surf.”
– Jon Kabat-Zinn
‘Mindfulness’ is a trendy word. Courses and practices inviting to wellness, self-care, and care for others – through almost miraculous sounding words – are popping up everywhere.
Jon Kabat-Zinn – the molecular biologist who introduced mindfulness in hospitals at the end of the seventies to help people dealing with chronic pain – defines it as “the intentional and judgment-free attention to what emerges moment by moment.”
Mindfulness means ‘fullness of mind,’ ‘being in the present,’ and is often translated as ‘awareness.’ However, we should also talk of ‘heartfulness’ – the fullness of heart – and join heart and mind.
Let’s start by saying what mindfulness is not. It is not a set of relaxation practices, it is not a religion or a new age practice, it is not a way to drive out thoughts, to numb the pain of living, nor is it a pair of glasses to transform the world in a pink bubble.
People often start to practice and complain about not being able to relax. The bad news is that relaxation is a side effect, although positive. Instead, mindfulness teaches us to stay with whatever is there, moment by moment. It is a set of awareness practices that allow us to keep in touch with the present moment, free of the mind’s narrations, which are always projected in the past or on the future – memories, images, comparisons, plans for the future.
Mindfulness trains us at being present, coming face to face with what is there, without rejecting anything, and without growing attached to anything.
Especially in turbulent times, coming back to what happens instant by instant allows us not to get lost in the past – which is precisely this, past – or in the future – which is yet to come – in order to fully live in the present, in all of its unrepeatable beauty.
Through mindfulness, it is possible to explore sensations, emotions, and thoughts in such a way as to break pre-determined and reactive patterns and open ourselves to creative and transformative responses. It is possible to develop attention and concentration, become kinder, more flexible, and better at dealing with complex situations.
But most importantly, mindfulness is a practice. It is time to leave behind words, what we know, and open ourselves to what we perceive. There is no other way. No one can practice for us.
