Kindfulness

Kindfulness  ·  Mindfulness
Wish well to your past, present and future selves (video)

It’s very tempting to focus on what we need to improve about ourselves. Indeed, this can even be helpful if not carried to extremes.

Missed opportunities

For some people though it means too much time thinking about paths taken that led to the wrong place or bad experiences at the hands of other people.

Thinking on and on like this makes it all too easy to fall into a state of gloom or to deepen an existing negative feeling. Wishing well to yourself of the past can help to counteract this. It’s saying that although some things went badly – maybe even because of choices you made – you nonetheless are a friend to yourself and you wish yourself well in spite of all.

In dong this you are giving yourself acceptance and compassion and with these you are more likely to move forward into tomorrow as best you can – and that’s better for yourself and others than staying stuck in gloom.

How to do it

Here are the steps to use for the exercise in the video:

Call to mind an image of yourself at some point in the past. Wish your past self well with compassion. Say ‘Be happy, be safe, be well.’ If you were not happy, safe or well at that time let this be an expression of what you would wish for yourself.

Now think of yourself at present and wish yourself well with compassion. Say ‘Be happy, be safe, be well.’ If you are not happy, safe or well at this time let that be an expression of what you would wish for yourself.

Now imagine an image of yourself at some time in the future. Wish your future self well with compassion. Say ‘Be happy, be safe, be well.’ If it should turn out that you will not be happy, safe or well at that time let this be an expression of what you would wish for yourself.

To end, rest into awareness of your body and your breath for a little while.

To go further

My True Friend course in self-compassion will give you many ways to be a true friend to yourself in your life. Pay by donation.

True Friend
28/05/2025

Kindfulness  ·  Mindfulness  ·  Mindfulness Courses
Breathing to see choices

Sometimes when we get caught up in thoughts, we can actually fail to see our choices.

That’s because we go around and around in circles, ruminating, often on things that are negative or scary from past or future. Or we build up our own stress levels ‘awfulising’ about something that’s coming up – a challenging piece of work perhaps. It then becomes so easy to see only the thoughts and not the reality of what else we could do.

Breathe mindfully

A little mindful breathing can help. I’m talking about something as simple as:

– breathing in for a count of four,
– holding your breath for a count of four,
– then breathing out for a count of four.

What it does

Just a little exercise like that can break down the chain of thought and rumination and can help you to see choices that were always there – but which you just didn’t see because you were lost in the tunnel of rumination.

Breathing in awareness can get you out of that tunnel.

 

My Easy Mindfulness course can help you spot rumination and to get yourself out of that tunnel.  It’s an  online course and payment is by donation so it’s affordable to all.

Easy Mindfulness
21/05/2025

Kindfulness
Treat yourself like a friend, not an enemy

The practice of mindfulness tends to increase our level of compassion. But we still fall into the trap of being compassionate towards others while being unfairly harsh on ourselves.

We can greatly improve our experience of life through the practice of self compassion which means treating ourselves as we would treat a friend with our faults and our virtues.

A space in which to choose

Mindfulness practice gives us the opportunity to pause when we realise we are attacking ourselves harshly. Then we have a space in which to choose to treat ourselves with kindness, acknowledging our mistakes if necessary but doing so in a friendly way. 

In other words that pause can enable you to treat yourself like a friend and not like an enemy.

This Daily Bell might also help:

The person towards whom you need to be self-compassionate is the person you are right now. If you wait until you achieve perfection, you may be waiting for a long time! In any case, the perfect person doesn’t need your compassion – it’s the imperfect person you are right now who needs it.

Try: Use the affirmation ‘Today is my day for self compassion’ at least three times today.

My 15 lessons online course, True Friend, can help you to build a habit of self compassion.

True Friend
27/04/2025

Kindfulness  ·  Mindfulness  ·  Mindfulness Courses
Acceptance, hard to define but worth doing

Acceptance is very difficult to define.

One way of looking at it is that it means not struggling with realities that you cannot change, but saving your energy for those that you can change.

Past or future

And that could be accepting something from the past, perhaps something that will never be resolved. Or it could be something that’s coming up in the future that you’re going to have to go through anyway, that you wish you didn’t have to go through. And accepting it will make the whole experience much easier.

Good at change

Curiously, people who are good at accepting things also tends to be very good at changing things. And that’s possibly because they save their energies for those things that they can change.

Not rushing to judgment

Another way of looking at acceptance is to say that it means not rushing to judgment,  just pausing to take in the reality of the situation.

If you explore acceptance, if you give it some effort, I think you will find that it’s one of the most beneficial aspects of mindfulness.

Video edited from my Easy Mindfulness course.

My Easy Mindfulness course can help you to appreciate and practise acceptance among the many aspects of mindfulness.  It’s an  online course and payment is by donation so it’s affordable to all. Learn more

Easy Mindfulness
04/02/2025

Kindfulness
Nobody’s perfect? Don’t just say it – take it to heart with self compassion

It’s one thing to say ‘nobody’s perfect’ as many of us say from time to time. But in a world in which – in my view – perfectionism makes people feel bad about themselves because they cannot live up perfectly to its demands (nobody can) we need to take the statement seriously.

Self compassion would ask this: if nobody in the house, the country or on the planet is perfect then why should you beat yourself up because you’re not perfect either?

No perfect people

None of the beautiful things we see around us was made by perfect people. Yet these things are beautiful although they undoubtedly contain flaws.

How many beautiful, useful or fun objects or happenings have we missed out on because of perfectionism? One of its effects us to make people put off starting or finishing projects because of a fear that they cannot reach some high standard which probably wasn’t reachable in the first place.

A richer world

How much richer the world would be if the imperfect things had been completed. And it’s safe to assume that some of these would have been of a good, even high, standard – some people’s ‘good enough’ is often very good indeed. What a pity they often abandon the effort because they cannot reach the impossible standard of perfection.

So drop the demands of perfectionism, bring self compassion to bear, and aim to do things well – or in a way that is ‘good enough.’

This, I think, is well worth reflecting on and taking to heart – doing so can open the door to peace.

My 15-lesson online course True Friend can help you to foster and practise self compassion. Payment is by donation. Learn more here.

True Friend

08/01/2025

Kindfulness  ·  Mindfulness  ·  Mindfulness Courses
Try positive version thinking

When you can think positively about things, this tends to increase your sense of well being and happiness. But sometimes it’s hard to do that. Maybe many aspects of a day are not so positive.

What’s a positive version?

One approach you could try is what I would call positive version thinking. Here you say, well, the day looks pretty negative  – but maybe there is a positive version of today as well. Perhaps it will also include things that can make me feel good, a fun activity or talking to a favourite person for instance.

So that’s a positive version of today, and I can allow that into my awareness also. You don’t have to convince yourself that this is a really wonderful, fantastic day, but you are allowing yourself to see also the positive version of it.

Relationships too

And that can be true of relationships also – so-and-so is really annoying me at the moment but there are also lots of good things about him or her that I can include in my awareness, my judgment, my attitude.

Try it, especially when you are feeling down and/or grumpy.

Ask, what’s positive in the day that I can bring in alongside the negative?

 

Video edited from my one hour presentation on happiness in December 2021.

My True Friend course can help you to build compassion for yourself – to be a friend to yourself whatever happens.  It’s an  online course and payment is by donation so it’s affordable to all. Learn more

True Friend
01/01/2025

Kindfulness  ·  Mindfulness  ·  Mindfulness Courses
The flawed person got it done!

We all have flaws and despite our efforts to get rid of them we usually go on having flaws. They’re not always the same flaws though often they are.

Credit for what worked

But we’ve also had successes in our lives and we need to remember that these were also brought about by a person with flaws. If you’re wondering who that person is, look in the mirror.

A defence system

In many respects you could think of yourself as a defence system, always looking out for what might go wrong. But when all we can see are the imperfect things about ourselves, we are not seeing the complete picture.

We need to give ourselves the credit also for what worked and for what we, flawed as we are, brought about.

My True Friend self compassion course can help us to stop being unfair to ourselves. It’s an  online course and payment is by donation so it’s affordable to all. Learn more

24/12/2024

Kindfulness  ·  Mindfulness  ·  Mindfulness Courses
Know your purpose, know your feelings, do what needs to be done

 
 
“Know your purpose, know your feelings, do what needs to be done.”
 

An anti-anxiety therapy

 

In that formula, which I am going to call a “direction,” a Japanese psychiatrist, Dr. Shoma Morita, summed up his therapy a century ago. It’s a very simple direction, but many people have found it useful. His approach gives us a way to work with the inevitability of anxiety. It’s about being guided by your purposes without denying your feelings.

The steps

 

So, you work out what is your purpose for the next hour, for today, for this year or this week, and then acknowledge your feelings about that. Feelings need to be acknowledged, so acknowledge the feelings. See if they have anything useful to tell you. Maybe they have, maybe they haven’t. And having done that, then do what you need to do next, to bring about your purpose.
 
 
Perhaps you need to take a flight but you are nervous about flying; or you need to attend an interview but you are nervous of being judged; or you need to make a phone call but you are nervous about voice calls (this is very common nowadays especially in people who  hardly ever make voice calls but use some form of texting). Acknowledge that nervousness without having it dictate to you. Then work out the steps you need to take, and begin. For example go onto the airline website; make a list of questions you might be asked at the interview; or look up the telephone number of  whoever you need to ring.
 
 
Many people find it helpful to repeat the direction: “Know your purpose, know your feelings, do what needs to be done.”

It’s simple – try it

 

So that’s the direction that’s been used by millions of people over the past century. It’s very simple and I suggest you try it a few times today. “Know your purpose, know your feelings, do what needs to be done.”
 

My Easy Mindfulness course can help you to live in a more purposeful way through the practice of mindfulness.  It’s an  online course and payment is by donation so it’s affordable to all. Learn more

Easy Mindfulness
28/11/2024

Kindfulness  ·  Mindfulness  ·  Mindfulness Courses
Drop self-attacking language

 

Watch out for the use of attack language where you’re attacking yourself, calling yourself a ‘failure’ or ‘stupid’ or anything of that sort.

It’s the very opposite to self compassion – and we need to give ourselves self compassion in this often hard world.

We sometimes – maybe often – use attack language like that to ourselves when we get something wrong, something as simple as dropping a spoon!

But watch out for that kind of language because it doesn’t really do anything except make you feel worse.

I don’t talk to myself like that anymore

You could instead redirect your attention to dealing with what just happened and you might also say something to yourself like ‘I don’t talk to myself like that anymore.’

The use of this self-attacking language is something that people often do outside of awareness almost, especially if they are used to talking to themselves in that harsh way.

When you practise mindfulness you can spot that language so much more easily.  If you need to know more about mindfulness this post will help.

Self-attacking language can make people feel very down and it’s not really justified.

It doesn’t help you in your life – so remember:

I don’t talk to myself like that anymore.

Video edited from a self-compassion presentation.

My True Friend course can help you to build compassion for yourself – to be a friend to yourself whatever happens.  It’s an  online course and payment is by donation so it’s affordable to all. Learn more

My book Kindfulness can also help you drop the self-attacking habit. 

True Friend
14/11/2024

At work mindfulness  ·  Kindfulness  ·  Mindfulness
Burnout – how self-compassion can help

Burnout is usually associated with work. When you arrive at burnout:

  • you no longer derive pleasure from your work,
  • you can become rather cynical about its value, and about the workplace
  • and what you see as the lack of support.
  • You also become negative about your own abilities
  • and you can dread going back into the situation each day.

Some workplaces are toxic environments which people need to get out of as soon as they find an alternative.

What we’re concerned with here is that stress we can reduce significantly ourselves with the practices of mindfulness and self-compassion, in other words self-generated stress.

Perfectionism

What are some personal sources of stress and burnout?

One is perfectionism. As Kristin Neff has pointed out, research shows that perfectionists are at a higher risk of psychological problems, including depression, anxiety and eating disorders.

An approach based on self-compassion would drop the perfectionist demand instead of striving endlessly to achieve the impossible.

Attachments

Your attachments can also be a source of stress and burnout. For instance, suppose you are attached to an image of yourself as a person who can endure whatever life throws at them. If you cling tightly to that image, you are likely to remain in situations (unending workplace bullying for instance) that you would be wiser to get out of – and self-compassion can help you to see that.

But when you are stressed out, that’s very hard to see. Stress induces a sort of tunnel vision that narrows your options.

Mindfulness can help you to pull back from that swirl of thoughts and feelings and to see more clearly.

Saying ‘no’

Self-compassion allows you to say ‘no’ to loading more and more onto your shoulders. Greg McKeown, in his book Essentialism, points out the obvious but often unappreciated fact that we don’t have to meet every request life throws at us.

He also points out the less obvious fact that creating some space in your life can require turning down good opportunities as well as bad.

“Only once you give yourself permission to stop trying to do it all, to stop saying yes to everyone, can you make your highest contribution towards the things that really matter,” he writes

Inevitable stress

Some stress is inevitable. For instance, if you’re a parent of a child with demanding disabilities and you’re also trying to hold down a job, you probably have a higher degree of stress in your life than many other people. In this situation, self-compassion and mindfulness can be a huge support. Mindfulness can help to calm down your own emotional system as you address your many challenges. And self-compassion can give you that kindness and support that you need and that you may or may not get from others.

Finally …

Remember the fundamental principle: whatever is going on in your life, offer yourself self-compassion. That is always in your power to do.

This article is a shortened version of a lesson in my True Friend self-compassion online course which is available on demand.

True Friend

01/10/2024

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