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Maybe the best book about meditation and mindfulness ever!
Allow yourself to be as you already are. Friends and family most contribute towards happiness. Nurture your social connections.
Live life as if each moment counts and is important. Own and inhabit all your experiences , good, bad or ugly.
Just being aware that your mind thinks it knows everything is a big step toward learning how to see through your opinions and perceive things as they actually are.
Send messages for your muscles to relax when tension is accumulating if you are mindful enough to sense it. There is no need to wait for it to build past the point of panic.
The attitude with which you undertake mindfulness is crucial.
If you come as a “believer”, certain that mindfulness is “the answer”, the chances are you will become disappointed. As soon as you find out you are the same person you always were and that this work requires effort and consistency and not just a romantic belief in the value of meditation, you may find yourself with considerably less enthusiasm than before.
Seven attitudes constitute the major pillars of mindfulness practice:
Non-judging, patience, beginner's mind (seeing things like a child for the first time), trust, non-striving, acceptance and letting go.
Non-judging:
Some things/people/events are judged as “good” because they make us feel good for some reason. Others are “bad” and the rest are “neutral”.
Be aware when you find yourself judging. (No need to judge the judging and make matters more complicated!) If you find yourself meditating and saying “this is boring” then just note that judgement and go back to meditating.
Trust : It is far better to trust in your intuition ,than always to look outside yourself for guidance. If at any time something doesn't feel right to you, why not honor your feelings?
Non-striving:
Try less and be more. For example, if you sit down to meditate and you think, “I am going to get relaxed, or get enlightened, or control my pain, or become a better person,” then you have introduced an idea into your mind of where you should be, and along with it comes the notion that you are not OK right now. This attitude undermines the cultivation of mindfulness. If you are tense, then just pay attention to the tension. If you are in pain, then be with the pain. If you are judging, observe the judging. If you are feeling anxious, be with it, feel it, breathe into it.
“Healing” is coming to terms with things as they are.
You have to accept yourself AS YOU ARE NOW! Before you can change.
We try to get rid of thoughts, feelings and experiences that are unpleasant, painful or frightening and protect ourselves from them. In mindfulness we let whatever happens, happen and just observe it from moment to moment.
45 minutes a day, 6 days a week is how long you should practice as a beginner.
Focusing on the breath does not mean you should think about your breathing! Just feel the sensation.
Sometimes it's better to focus on the sensations in the belly, far from the head and the agitations of our thinking mind. Be with each in breath and out breath for their full duration.
Tune into your breathing at different times of the day for a few breaths every hour. Become aware of your thoughts and emotions in these moments without judging. Just observe. Is your awareness caught inside your thoughts and emotions?
As you become more practiced, you may discover that it is not the breath that is actually the most important element - it is awareness itself where the real transformative potential lies. The breath is simply a very useful object of attention
Not thinking does not necessarily make it a “good meditation.”
The awareness of our thoughts and emotions is the same awareness as the awareness of our breathing.
You can meditate to music if you like by imagining that your body is transparent to sounds, that sounds can move in and out of your body through the pores of your skin. Imagine that sounds can be heard and felt by your very bones. How does this feel?
The harp is an instrument that has been associated with healing since the bible.
Take note of thoughts that are “I”, “me”, or “mine” thoughts, and dont take them quite so personally.
Note what feelings and moods are associated with different though contents. How does “planning” thoughts feel like? What emotions do you feel when you have them?
We should get in touch with how wonderful it is to have a body in the first place, no matter what it looks or feels like!
The challenge when doing the body scan is to let each time be as if you were encountering your body for the first time. Not to feel that it's getting boring, and you want to move on.
The best way to get results from meditation is not to try to get anything from it but just to do it for its own sake. Don't try to get anywhere.
We tend to have standards of success and failure based upon a habitual and limited way of seeing our problems and our expectations. There are no failures or successes in meditation!
YOGA:
You can be feeling exhausted, do some yoga, and feel completely rejuvenated in a short period of time. ,
Breathe out as you do any movements that contract the belly and the front of the body, and breathe in as you engage in any movements that expand the front of your body and contract your back. Eg. Lying on your belly and lifting a leg, you would breathe in.
Never stretch beyond your limit to a point of pain.
Walking Meditation:
It means simply walking and knowing that you are walking. It does not mean looking at your feet!
Even when we normally “go for a walk” we don't really know we are walking. We have so many things churning through our mind.
At a certain point we become aware of the impulse to start walking, and we note that initiating impulse. We also note that in preparation for lifting one foot, the other foot stabilises itself as the weight of the body begins to shift onto it. We continue to experiment in awareness the sensations in the body as the other foot lifts, moves ahead and then comes down and makes contact with the floor or the ground in its turn. Then we become aware of the weight slowly shifting onto that foot as the other foot lifts and swings out in front of us to take a step. And so we walk, step by step, with full awareness of the gait cycle: the lifting, the moving, the placing, and the shifting of our weight. Not that we need to say those words to ourselves; instead, we can simply be in touch with the feet and the legs and the entire body walking. Walk slowly, sometimes just one step a minute, so you can really experience the various aspects of the gait cycle, which is, when all is said and done, a continually controlled falling forward and catching oneself.
Do not look at the sights, but keep your gaze focused in front of you.
We are not trying to get anywhere , go from A to B, in the walking practice. We can walk around in circles in a room, that's fine. This in fact, helps the mind to rest, because it has nowhere to go, and nothing to distract it.
Do the walking meditation for 10 minutes.
When you park your car and go shopping is a good occasion to try walking with awareness.
Stay off your mobile!!
Don't think of your bad years as a waste...they were just leading up to this point in your life , right here and right now, where you are aware and free.
EACH BREATH REALLY IS A NEW BEGINNING TO THE REST OF OUR LIVES!!!
The challenge of mindfulness is to realize that “This is it.” Right now is my life.
All of life is fascinating and beautiful when the veil of our routinized thinking lifts, even for a moment.
When we identify ourselves with a permanent, solid “self”, it is a delusion of consciousness, a form of self-imprisonment, according to Einstein.
While it may not be possible for us to cure ourselves or find someone who can, it is possible for us to heal ourselves - to learn to live with and work with the conditions that present themselves in the present moment.
Non-doing is a powerful form of action!
If we have harmed others in our life, we can bring them to mind and ask for forgiveness.
Self-Efficacy : If you really believe something about your abilities then you can actually make that ability better. Your confidence in your ability to grow influences your ability to grow.
Hardiness: ask yourself very hard questions about where your life is going. Have the ability to let go of a bad event.
Be mindful of positive thoughts as they occur! How does your body feel when you see obstacles as CHALLENGES and not stressors? How does it feel when you trust others? When you are generous and showing genuine kindness and concern? When you are loving?
Lovemaking suffers when touching is automatic and mechanical. Don't just coast along in loving relationships in the belief that the love is there and strong, sooner or later connections will become strained or even broken. See and accept others for who they actually are.
Don't say to your child or loved one : “I dont know whats the matter with you!”
As with physical pain, our emotional pain is also trying to tell us a message. Encounter your feelings in all their force. Theres no other way to the other side of them. If we ignore or suppress them they fester and grow. Or if we exaggerate or dramatize them they can linger and cause us to become stuck in patterns that may go on for an entire lifetime.
When you next find yourself in a period of suffering, try listening for a calm inner voice that might be saying : “Isn't this interesting. Its amazing what a human can go through and how much pain and anguish I can feel or create for myself, and get bogged down in.”
Sit with your hurt, breathe with it, feel it, not trying to explain it or change it or make it go away. This in itself brings calmness and stability to the mind and heart.
If we get what we want, we usually want something else in addition. The mind keeps finding new things that it needs in order to feel happy or fulfilled.
To break out of the trap of always being driven by desires, ask yourself : "What do I really want? Would I know if I got it?" “Does everything have to be ‘perfect’ right now or under total control in order for me to be happy?”
Then ask yourself “Is everything basically OK right now?” It usually is!!!
Passageways out of suffering appear in those moments when it dawns on you that “this is it,” that the life you are actually living right now is your life, the only one you have.
Most of the time we grown-ups don't behave as if we understand life any better than our children do.
Be a loving parent to yourself in an embrace of self-compassion.
There are some people who tend to relate everything in life in an objective, problem-solving mode. In the process, they may cut themselves off from their own feelings about the situations they face, as well as fail to recognize and respond with emotional intelligence to the feelings of others. This creates so much unnecessary suffering.
The secret is to take a problem-solving approach alongside observing our emotional pain as it unfolds, with acceptance and kindness to ourselves.
ANXIETY:
Allow the anxiety itself to become the object of your non-judgmental attention. Observe fear and anxiety as they arise.
You may be tense all the time, waking up anxious for no real reason. Worrying all the time, “If it's not one thing, it's another… I'm lurching from one disaster to the next.” When this state of mind becomes pervasive and develops into a chronic condition, it is GAD. Being easily startled is a symptom.
Practicing mindfulness can dramatically reduce anxiety.
Stay highly motivated.
KNOW THAT ANXIETY VARIES IN INTENSITY AND THAT IT COMES AND GOES IN SHORT AND LONG CYCLES JUST LIKE EVERYTHING ELSE.
Let your anxious thoughts and feelings come one at a time. See it. Let it go. Return to calmness. Then the same with the next thought, over and over, holding on to the breath.
You are not trying to get rid of the thoughts, just observing them. Anger feels like this, fear feels like this, sadness feels like this, etc. Your awareness of the anger is not angry.
Rather than saying “I am afraid” or “I am anxious” , say “I am experiencing a lot of anxious thoughts” so there is not such a strong identification of them with who “you” are - since you are much bigger than any thought or emotion you might be having.
You could even say “The body is feeling anxious” or “It is fearing at the moment” as if you would say “It is raining at the moment.”
You can easily become a slave of your own craving. Money money money, more time, control, LOVE, food, etc.
Or you can have thoughts and feelings of wanting certain things not to happen or to stop happening, the desire to get rid of certain things or elements in your life that you “think” are preventing you from feeling better, happier, more satisfied.
You become a prisoner of your aversions.
We hardly ever perceive that we may actually be basically OK right now!
In time you may wonder where your demons went for a while, or even if they ever existed!
TIME STRESS:
Letting go of time transforms your experience of time when you move back into it.
Documenting and sharing so quickly on Facebook speeds up life so you hardly stop and notice it as it goes by.
“Hurry sickness” : People who have this syndrome are driven by a sense of time pressure to speed up the doing of all their daily activities and to do and think more than one thing at a time. They tend to be very poor listeners. They are constantly finishing other people's sentences for them… This is all totally me!!!
This can erode the quality of your life and threaten your health.. Slow down!!
Nowadays we even transmit time urgency to our children. How many times have you said “Hurry up” or “We have to go!” to your child. We hurry them to eat, to get dressed, TO GET READY FOR SCHOOL. By rushing around ourselves, we are just giving them the message that there is simply never enough time.
This can make children stressed and get high blood pressure at an early age, instead of following their own rhythms. It can cause psychological problems. Be nice to your kids!
Time is a product of thought. Minutes and hours are conventions, but they have no absolute meaning as Einstein pointed out famously.
Choose not to watch TV as you shovel your food into your body. If you are taking care of your child for the weekend, then really be with them. Be fully engaged. Turn your phone off. Turn your PC off.
If you are helping your child with homework, make the effort to be fully present. Make eye contact. Own those moments. Slow down.
If you want to reminisce about the past, or plan the future do that with awareness as well. Remember in the present. Plan in the present.
SLEEP STRESS:
When we talk about “going to sleep” the language itself suggests “getting somewhere”. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that sleep “comes over us” when the conditions are right.
If you have trouble sleeping, your body is telling you something about how you are conducting your life.
Remember though, as we get older, our need for sleep diminishes.
40-55 year olds need only 7 hours sleep.
Buddhists just assume that if they can't sleep, it may be because they don't need to be sleeping just then.
If you are having trouble sleeping in the middle of the night, try doing a 15 to 30 minute body scan. It will help calm you down. If you still can't sleep then get up! Try to find that peace there is in the middle of the night. Don't panic about lack of sleep. Enjoy the peace, and do some gentle work or reading.
When you are awake, be fully awake and aware, then your sleep should take care of itself.
Many practitioners of meditation give up their sleeping pills pretty quickly.
PEOPLE STRESS:
When we are totally absorbed in our own feelings and attached to our own view and agenda, it is virtually impossible to have (two-way) communication.
If you are in an adversarial relationship where the other person won't change. Dont worry. When you change and relate differently to them, the dynamic of the relationship changes automatically, even if the other person seems totally unwilling to cooperate.
Eventually the other person will sense that you cannot be intimidated or overwhelmed. She will feel your calmness and self-confidence and willingness to step in, to enter, and engage - and will in all likelihood be drawn toward it because it embodies open-hearted presence and equanimity, and inner peacefulness and balance that is in subtle ways contagious.
You need to be secure enough in yourself to listen to others and how they see things without objecting, arguing , making yourself right and them wrong. They will feel heard, welcomed, accepted, met. This feels good to anybody. They will then be much more likely to hear what you have to say as well.
Be aware of stressful communication while it is happening and learn from it. Learn to be more assertive about your own priorities. Don't be afraid of expressing feelings honestly.
The first lesson in assertiveness is that your feelings are simply your feelings. They are neither “good” nor “bad”. Those are just labels that you or others put on. To act assertively requires a non-judgmental awareness of your feelings just as they are.
If someone is bossing you around : You might first try informing the other person that you would be glad to fulfill the request if the circumstances were different (dont lie!) or you might in some other way acknowledge that you respect the other person and his or her needs. You don't have to say why you are saying no.
If you are stuck in a rut with someone like a bad marriage : try to spot your impulses to fall into bad habits and confining mind-sets and LET GO of them in the very moments they arise.
WORK is not bad! It can lend meaning to our lives. Make work part of your practice.
Bring awareness to the whole process of preparing for work.
When driving, take a moment or two to come to your breathing before starting the car. And when you park, sit and breathe a while before you carefully get out.
Monitor your bodily sensations when you are working. Is there tension in your jaw, shoulders, face, hands or back? YES! How are you sitting or standing right at the moment? Do you have good form? Let go of any tension as you exhale and shift to a posture that is balanced, dignified and alert.
Multi-tasking does not work! It degrades your performance on every task you are juggling.
Every hour stop for a minute and become aware of your breathing.
FOOD:
Do Dr. Ornish’s food program. Your telomeres will increase in length! For real!
Be aware of how you feel after lunch. Do some foods make you feel better or worse?
Try not to make any changes initially to your diet and eating regime, but simply pay close attention to exactly what you are eating and how it affects you. Observe how your food looks and tastes. What is its texture, colour, smell, shape? How does it taste? How do you feel right after eating it? Is it what you wanted? Does it agree with you?
Can you see the sunlight and the rain that went into creating this food?
Notice how you feel an hour or two after eating. How is your energy level? IMPORTANT. Do you feel bloated or light?
The food itself will teach you what you need to know and eating in an healthier way will be the result.
You will naturally be more mindful of your cravings for certain foods, you will be able to see those desires more readily as thoughts and feelings, and you will be able to let them go before acting on them.
It is also important to PREPARE FOOD MINDFULLY. Peeling , chopping. Be aware of your breathing and your whole body as you prepare. Do you feel better?
Human beings are the disease of the planet. We are both the cause of the earth's distress and its victim.
It is right here and now, that the future gets created.
Try meditating outdoors or where someone else can see you! Don't be afraid!
KEEP MEDITATING AS IF YOUR LIFE DEPENDS ON IT. IT DOES. MAKE TIME TO DO IT EVERY DAY. IT IS THAT IMPORTANT.
If you have signs of progress, such as calmness, liberating insights, feelings of relaxation and confidence and feelings better in yourself, it is very important to just let that happen without generating a big story and DON'T TAKE TOO MUCH CREDIT!
Don't tell other people that you are meditating. JUST DO IT.
8 WEEK MEDITATION COURSE!
Every week you are allowed one day of “rest” from the CDs and practices.
Week 1:
Body scan every day, plus 10 minutes of mindful sitting at another time. Try the body and breath meditation when you do the 10 minutes.
Bring awareness to some day to day activities, such as brushing teeth, taking a shower, eating, driving, shopping, cooking, doing the dishes.
Week 2:
as week 1, but add a 3 minute breathing space to your day.
Week 3:
Alternate the daily body scan with a daily yoga experience.
Do sitting meditation for 15 minutes a day. And one breathing space.
Be aware of one pleasant event a day in your life as it is happening. Make a diary of these events. What makes an experience pleasant? What body sensations to you have? What thoughts are around? How does it FEEL?
Week 4:
Alternate the daily body scan with a daily yoga experience.
Do sitting meditation for 20 minutes a day (sounds and thoughts meditations). And one breathing space during an unpleasant event.
Be aware of a stressful or unpleasant event as it is happening and make a note of it in your events diary. What makes an experience “unpleasant?”
Week 5:
Alternate the yoga practice with a 45 minute guided sitting meditation (broken into two parts if you prefer with one exploring difficulty meditation.) And one breathing space.
Start practicing the walking meditation. Do some gardening every day.
Week 6:
As week 5 except two breathing spaces. Try the befriending meditation. Do a good deed for someone else.
Week 7:
Devote 45 minutes a day to a combination of sitting, yoga and body scan meditation. The mix is up to you. Do not use the CDs anymore. Two breathing spaces.
One of the days do a “Day of mindfulness”. page 158-159 Dummies.
Week 8:
Go back to the CDs. Again do 45 minutes, but choosing your own mixture. Two breathing spaces. Congratulate yourself for reaching this point! Review the 8 weeks.
BEYOND 8 WEEKS:
Sit every day, mornings are best. You will generate a positive effect for the whole day.
Practice yoga every other day with the body scan.
Try searching out groups in your area who you can sit with sometimes.
Ask yourself many times :”Am i fully awake?” “Do I know what I am doing right now?” “Am I fully present in the doing of it?” “How does my body feel right now? “ “ How is my BREATHING? “ “ What is my mind up to?”
Whenever you feel troubles in your body or mind, you should see the Breathing Space meditation as your first port of call.
“Capture” your moments, like a camera, at certain points of the day. Touch base. Do not fall into automatic pilot mode. If you do, notice when it tends to occur. Take note of what pulls you off centre.
Be aware when you fall into old habits.
Bring awareness to waking up each morning and linger in bed long enough to realise for yourself that you are awake and it's a brand new day in your life. Rest in the corpse pose for a few minutes and do some mindful stretching.
Remember : you have only moments to live. Each moment is truly the first moment of the rest of your life. Now is the only time you live. Let each breath start the rest of your life.
If you get stressed, try to remember preceding mental states or actions.
Remember to be social, intimate and LAUGH! Share time with friends accomplishes all three of those things!
Mindfulness is a lifetime's journey along a path that ultimately leads nowhere, only to who you are.
When stress hovers overhead, rather than taking it all personally, you learn to treat with them with friendly curiosity as they drift past.
Happiness is looking at the same things with different eyes. Tomorrow and yesterday are no more than a thought. So make the best of it. You do not have to wait for the future to be an improvement on the present. You can find it here.
The mind’s running commentary on the world is like a rumour. It may be true, partially true, or wrong! Rumours can be incredibly powerful and derail not just the minds of individuals but of whole societies!
Common thoughts that pop into your head when you are stressed (symptoms of stress) :
(1) It's up to me.
(2) Why dont they just do it? (3) What's the matter with me?
(4) I can't give up.
Go out on watch a movie! Sow some seeds or look after a plant!
Acceptance:
Gently notice the temptation to drive away or suppress any unsettling thoughts, feelings, emotions and physical sensations. Explore the sensations, not wanting them to go away, face up to them, which can be difficult, but not as difficult as resigning yourself to a life blighted by unsettling thoughts, feelings and emotions. The secret is to take tiny steps towards acceptance.
By letting go of the need to ‘fix’ things, a more profound healing has a chance to begin.
Think about your friends and family. How can you make their lives a little bit better?
If you see someone needing help today, why not give them a hand?
Approach your work in a different way. Practice being fully present, even if you find it unpleasant. Become fully mindful of everything you do while you work.
Meditate after your morning work.
When you are feeling down and depressed, motivation follows action. Act first, then you will become more motivated and happier.
Engage in enjoyable activities such as: Visit a friend, do some gardening, phone a friend, bake a cake, go shopping, watch something funny, go to the movies, listen to some music. Go out for coffee or lunch. Make a fruity drink. Plan your next holiday/excursion.
Tasks you can do mindfully:
Preparing food: Vision, taste, smell, touch the food. Focus on the feel of the knife or peeler as it slices through things. The smell released from the cut food.
Try eating without the TV on, focus on the colour and shape of the food. Where did the food come from? What does the fourth mouthful taste like, not just the first!
Washing up: Explore all the sensations, water flow and temperature.
Driving: The sensations, movement of your hands and feet. Visual scanning.
Red lights: An opportunity to sit peacefully and be aware of the breath. No phone.
Listening: When you are listening, notice when you are not listening - when you start to think of something else, what you are going to say in response etc., Come back to JUST LISTENING.
Walking : Can you feel the pavement through your shoes? Can you taste or smell the air, can you feel the air on your skin?
We often rush from task to task. Take time to realise when you have completed something.
If you can practise cultivating a sense of completeness, you might learn that you are complete, whole, just as you are.
Anxiety, stress, unhappiness and exhaustion are SIGNALS that there is something wrong in our lives. They are signs that we need to pay attention.
NOW is the future that you promised yourself last year, last month, last week. Become fully aware of the life you have got, rather than the life you wish you had.
Pay close attention if you feel the need to ‘grit your teeth’.
"If you go from place to place, rushing to finish all that stuff on the to-do-list, and when you’re done, are so exhausted that you just collapse in front of the television, you may have a bit of a problem discovering who you truly are."
Commitment is most challenging when you’ve had a hard day, when the last thing you want to do is to sit down and meditate. Ironically, that's when you need it most.
Discovering Patience:
Next time you see a yellow light when driving stop rather than speeding through. See how it makes you feel.
Rather than frantically choosing the shortest queue at the supermarket checkout, just choose the nearest one! How do you feel?
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