Find Holiday Stress Relief at the Library!

     Are the holidays causing you stress? Are you finding it difficult to cope with the pressures of family and work? The Dover Public Library can help you relax! Visit us any time during the week of December  9--14 to check out special books on stress management and relaxation, or to play with our Zen garden. Or, attend one of two lunchtime meditation workshops we’ll be hosting. Meditation is a way of encouraging and developing concentration, clarity, and emotional positivity, and studies have shown that a regular meditation practice has many positive effects on the mind and body.

     On Wednesday December 11, from 12-1pm, the library will offer “Loving Kindness Meditation”.

In this workshop, you will learn to cultivate loving kindness through a meditation in five stages. It begins with feeling this emotion for ourselves, which can be expressed with an image, such as shining light, or a phrase like “may I be well, may I be happy.” It then moves on to feeling loving kindness for a good friend, a neutral person in our lives, an enemy or person with whom we have conflict, and finally allowing loving kindness to spread and extend outward. Practicing loving kindness can transform your understanding of yourself and your relationship to the world.

      Then on Saturday December 14, from 12-1pm, you may attend the “Mindfulness of Breathing Meditation” workshop. Using breath as an object of concentration, this simple meditation brings us back to the present moment and all the richness of experience that it contains. Mindfulness of breathing is a good antidote to restlessness and anxiety, and a good way to relax: concentration on the breath has a positive effect on your entire physical and mental state.

     These free workshops will be led by Dharmachari Candradāsa, a practitioner with 20 years of meditation experience.    No pre-registration is necessary. Please call the Library, 516-6050, for more information.