That line, I don’t have to believe everything I think, jumped out at me from Elisha Goldstein’s 2010 post on PsychCentral’s Mindfulness & Psychotherapy blog, and it still holds true. Goldstein writes about a correspondent who, in the past, used […]
We are often urged to practise gratitude to improve our well-being?
I once noticed that I felt happy when I was walking through the rain on a cold autumn day. That’s illogical – I don’t like cold rain – but I accepted it as a mysterious bonus and enjoyed the happiness. The experience taught me that when I’m in a good mood it’s probably not because life got better; when I’m in a low mood it’s probably not because life got worse.
We get lost in thoughts which repeat fears, anxieties, regrets and resentments. Very often these concern issues we can no longer do anything about because they are in the past or because they haven’t yet happened. In mindfulness we try to get good at coming out of this painful mind-wandering whenever we notice we are lost in it.
We can’t always have something to celebrate for ourselves when our emotional mood is low. But taking pleasure in the good fortune of other people can help lift the darkness.
“Sometimes good, sometimes bad. That’s how today, tomorrow and the next day will be. Accepting that this will be so, removes a layer of anxiety. It also allows you to get on with whatever, if anything, needs to be done […]
Everybody worries but I have met people who build great cathedrals of worry in their heads. They ponder, not only every angle of the issue that faces them but every angle of every angle. A review of research on worry […]
Photo Credit: https://pixabay.com/users/free-photos-242387/ I have met people who refuse to be happy because happiness doesn’t last. They have never accepted the fact that you can’t summon happiness and you can’t make stay. It comes and goes. Mindfulness doesn’t guarantee happiness. […]
In mindfulness practice we are often encouraged to observe our thoughts and let them float by. It’s a way of disengaging from unhelpful or hurtful thoughts. But when Ruby Wax went to Cape Town to teach mindfulness to young girls […]
The Buddhist magazine Lion’s Roar has republished (from 2010) an article by Thich Nhat Hahn on mindfulness. Some quotes: “Our true home is not in the past. Our true home is not in the future. Our true home is in […]
