Tag Archives: meditation

Wherever you go, there you are

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Just picked up this brilliant book - “Wherever you go, there you are” by Jon Kabat-Zinn, the follow-up to his fantastic, but complex, “Full Catastrophe Living”. I love the title, and it brings home how the jobs we get, the things we buy, and the ways we fill our days are so often an attempt to escape ourselves. And yet, even with that great new job, that new pair of shoes, that new partner – we are still fundamentally the same person inside.

That’s not to say that we shouldn’t aspire to greater things for ourselves, or enjoy identifying and achieving goals. But we won’t become a different person when we get them, and life won’t suddenly be simple and happy all the time. It will still be messy, difficult, interesting, frightening, disappointing and joyful. We just get better (or we don’t) at handling our circumstances.

It’s very accessible and easy to read – and each chapter has a “try” section, with practical applications of the issue discussed. I’m going to share a few of these (quotes directly from the book) in a series of blog posts as I find them really helpful and inspiring. Try:

  • Stopping, sitting down and becoming aware of your breathing once in a while throughout the day. It can be for five minutes, or even five seconds. Let go into full acceptance of the present moment, including how you are feeling and what you perceive to be happening. For those moments, don’t try to change anything at all, just breathe and let go.
  • Reminding yourself from time to time, “this is it”. See if there is anything at all that it cannot be applied to. Remind yourself that acceptance of the present moment has nothing to do with resignation in the face of what is happening. It simply means a clear acknowledgement that what is happening is happening…You might try acting out of a deep understanding of “this is it”. Does it influence how you choose to proceed or respond?
  • Work at allowing more things to unfold in your life without forcing them to happen and without rejecting the ones that don’t fit your idea of what “should” be happening.
  • Looking into impatience and anger when they arise. See if you can adopt a different perspective, one which sees things as unfolding in their own time. This is especially useful when you are feeling under pressure and blocked or stymied into something you want or need to do.
  • Recognising the ways in which you meet obstacles with harshness. Experiment with being soft when your impulse is to be hard, generous when your impulse is to be withholding, open when your impulse is to close up or shut down emotionally…Allow yourself to feel whatever you are feeling.

Mindful musings

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I’m coming to the end of my eight week course in mindfulness and thought I’d share some of the things I’ve enjoyed (or not), and my general thoughts about the programme.

I went into it with very high expectations – maybe excessively high. This was partly due to the cost (very expensive considering it’s only eight weeks. I guess it’s to do with university fees as the course is run by the University of Bangor, but I expected more materials for my money) and due to the positive experiences I’d previously had of mindfulness practise.

Each week, I had a one-hour chat with my tutor about how the exercises of the previous week had gone. There was a minimum of 45 minutes formal practise to do each day in addition to the everyday activities. It doesn’t sound like very long, but I had underestimated how difficult it would be to actually fit it all into my daily schedule. As the course went on, my formal practises because less and less frequent (due to illness, holidays, job interviews etc) and I felt increasingly frustrated with my inability to do it “properly”.

I can’t fault my tutor – she was kindness and understanding itself, and gave me some very useful tips about dealing with things as they were, rather than in the “ideal” structure of the course. I also learned ways to stay present, how to deal with ‘difficult communication’ (i.e arguments!), how to deal with stress, and how to accept things as they are as a prerequisite to change.

I have used some of the techniques I learned to positive effect – when getting back to sleep after I’ve woken at night with the kids, and when feeling nervous about job interviews. I also suspect I’ll be able to use the CDs of formal meditations more easily once the course is over. I am a very perverse individual at times, and feeling like I “have” to do something makes me more inclined not to do it. So I accept I am not an ideal student!

In summary, what I found useful was:

- having audio CDs to guide me in the meditation

- Being able to speak to my tutor who would tailor some of the exercises to fit my situation

- The fact that the course was eight weeks meant it was long enough to feel like I was progressing, but not so long that I totally lost interest and motivation.

What was less positive:

- The cost of the course

- The quality of the printed materials supplied. Recommended books were not included in the course fees (which I would have expected as a minimum) and the booklet with exercises and weekly reading was of terrible quality. Bad photocopies, mixed fonts and sizes, it looked like something you’d mark poorly as part of a sixth form project.

I am a total convert to mindfulness and I can honestly say it has already enriched my life, so I suspect this course may be the start of a lifelong journey of learning. If you’re interested in knowing more details of my feedback on this specific course, please contact me directly.

Why I’ll never make it as a proper yogi

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As you may have gathered from this blog, I have a taste for the alternative. Not in a weird sex way, but alternative health – cf my forays into mindfulness, yoga, autogenic therapy, etc. Although even I happily acknowledge that homeopathy is bollocks. But whenever I consider extending my commitment (training to be a teacher of aforementioned therapies, for example) I come across the same stumbling block time and again. I’m just not earnest enough.

I made it to my first Bikram yoga class today in ages, and overhearing some of the changing room conversations just left me a little deflated (and I don’t mean in a “less fat” way). There was no humour anywhere, people simply comparing various levels of self-imposed deprivation. It all seemed a bit dull. And before you think I’m coming over a bit superior, on the contrary, I feel very inferior when comparing myself to some of these people who are making very significant changes to their lives according to something they believe in.

I love the classes and the way my body and mind feel afterwards (before I reward myself the same evening with a speedy retox). But there just aren’t enough laughs in it for me to take it any further. I can do serious and earnest, but only up to a point, then I collapse in a heap of self-loathing and cynicism. And the only thing that will bring me out of it is a good book and drinks with good friends. No amount of saluting the sun or meditating on my tummy button will achieve the same effect, I’m afraid.

Although I’ve just come up with a brilliant business idea for people like me – yogic retreats in wine country, where getting arseholed on the local vintage is heartily encouraged. Anyone else up for it?

 

Wading through glue

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That’s how I feel at the moment. I’m not going to bang on about having the lurgy, as it appears practically every other person I know has been struck down over the last weeks by a particularly virulent virus. I do find, though, that illness definitely exacerbates my depression. It makes you very much aware of, and a prisoner in your own body.

I’m not used to being ill. I’m used to being tired, but if you add another ingredient, that tiredness becomes unbearable. The thing is, I know rationally that I will be better soon, and that things will look rosier. It’s a paradox – through my mindfulness training I’m trying to be very present and accepting of what’s going on in my body and mind. And yet, to prevent being overwhelmed with feeling awful, I need to imagine a future state where I’m not coughing up my guts every two seconds.

Maybe if I were properly mindful, I would be able to somehow deal with the rubbish feeling and transcend it. I suspect that’s what seasoned meditators do. I still feel very new to it though. I’m enjoying the training, although I’m not managing to do the ten minutes twice a day. At this stage, it’s about learning to mentally scan the body, and be aware of the sensations in each part, as well as focusing on how the breath affects the body.

Whenever I do it, I just become more aware of my feelings of tiredness. But maybe that’s part of the process. Only by acknowledging my physical fatigue, rather than battling through it, can I begin to make changes.

 

This is a 10 minute exercise I’m really going to commit to…

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…because I’ve shelled out 60 quid for it! I’ve enrolled on an online ‘Introduction to Mindfulness’ course, which is run by the Mindfulness Center in Sweden. This has an association of some sort with the British company, Breathworks, which specialises in training about mindfulness and meditation.

Anyway, I decided to sign up for this as I don’t really have time to attend a course, and it seemed a reasonable amount to pay for a 10 week programme. There are audio files and relaxation exercises to listen to, and other daily “things to remember”. I’ve only done the first few exercises, but the idea is to commit to 2 x 10 minute sessions a day. At the end of the course, it claims you will feel calmer, more able to live in the present, sleep better, be more spontaneous, have more energy etc.

I’ll try and update my blog every week with how I’m doing, and see if it produces the results I’m hoping for.