Mindfulness

Mindfulness
Mindfulness helps with issues you can’t fix, also

It happens in life that we experience stress and anxiety about issues we can’t fix directly or immediately or maybe at all. These include challenges and uncertainties with health, relationships or financial matters. What happens in the wider world, can, of course, be the original source of these personal stresses (as in problems in the economy) but we feel them as personal issues.

For instance, if your job is under threat, you will certainly be anxious and stressed over it.

What is the point of mindfulness in such a situation?

Simple mindfulness

Simple mindfulness practices can help to lower levels of stress even if, in the circumstances, it can’t create serenity for you.

Returning from fearful thoughts to awareness of your breathing or of your body, for instance, can lower the degree of stress, help you to get a better night’s sleep and bring you some clarity of mind. Deliberately paying attention to your breathing has been found to reduce stress in the emotional system.

Cultivating acceptance – which is part of mindfulness – of what you have to accept can also lower stress and help you to see more clearly what to do next. Even accepting uncertainty can help.

Blood pressure

Stress can trap you in a vicious circle of upsetting thoughts which, in turn, can generate new upsetting thoughts.

So even if mindfulness in these circumstances isn’t going to turn you into a serene buddha, if it brings the level of stress down from – to use a traffic light analogy – red to orange, that’s good for you.

And it’s easier to move from orange down to green, when circumstances allow, than to jump all the way from red to green.This Daily Bell might also help:Why does bringing calm awareness to the moment a few times a day matter? What good does it do? It calms the stress centres of the brain (paying attention to breathing has this effect), it stops you building up stressful thought after stressful thought and it makes a space in which to allow  positive feelings to arise. Try it now if you c

Try: For a few minutes observe your breath, especially your outbreath, and when your mind drifts, very quietly note that drifting and return to your outbreath.

I would add that acting attentively in your day and your life can lower stress as you bring more awareness to what you are actually doing and less to catastrophising about the near or far future.

This isn’t magic. It helps you to bring a quality of presence of mind to dealing with life, its challenges and opportunities.

Learn many simple mindfulness techniques with my 15-lesson online course, Easy Mindfulness. Payment is by donation so it is affordable to all.

Easy Mindfulness
26/06/2025

Mindfulness
What do you not want?

I find I’m a person who is often motivated more by what I don’t want than by what I do want, and I believe I’m not alone in that.

For instance, there may be experiences I don’t want to miss out on. Maybe there are conversations I don’t want to miss out on having. Maybe there are places I don’t want to miss out on seeing in my life.

So knowing that can motivate me strongly to move towards making these things happen.

Better health, happier meetings

Another example: Many of us take better care of our health because we don’t want to suffer the consequences of not doing so. So that “not wanting” is a very, very powerful thing.

Or you might be attending an event, a meeting or family gathering, and you don’t want to react in the way that you did before, maybe on a number of occasions. Once you know that, you can then plan what to do differently if somebody comes and pushes your buttons. That can make a big difference to your experience.

So I would suggest that you try this idea if you don’t already in your day, your week, your month, your life – knowing what it is that you don’t want that might get in the way of what you do want.

My Easy Mindfulness online course (15 lessons in your own time)can help you develop that vital skill of stepping back and realising what you don’t want. Payment is by donation, so you can afford it.

Easy Mindfulness
16/06/2025

Mindfulness
Negativity – it’s not all bad

People involved in wellness sometimes make the mistake of giving the impression that anything negative is bad and that we should aim to feel positive all the time. But that’s not realistic.

Negative feelings often are telling us something that we need to know.

Something you need to do

For instance, if you feel anxious about a particular undone task, maybe there is something you need to do about it.

If you feel guilty, maybe there’s something that you did that wasn’t right, and that you need to try to put right if you can.

If you feel bored, maybe you need to do something different in your day or in your life.

But the key thing is not to get lost in it, not to be overwhelmed by it. We need to be able to step back and see if there’s anything useful here.

If there is, the question then is what could I do about it?

If there isn’t anything useful, you can try to change your focus to something else. For example, feeling very negative over things that happened in the past that you can’t do anything at all about now often isn’t a very useful thing to do. And in such a case, you would try to change your focus to something else.

Mindfulness and stepping back

Developing the skill of stepping out of memories and mental dramas is a major part of what is meant by mindfulness. Very often, it brings a sense of acceptance and peace. You can come into the moment by switching awareness to your body or breath or to whatever you can hear and see right now. You never get to stay in the moment for long but the trick is to keep coming back. And that makes it much easier to see what is useful and what is not useful.

So negativity is not always negative, especially when you are aware of what is going on and what useful guidance it might be giving you.

My Easy Mindfulness online course (15 lessons in your own time)can help you develop that vital skill of stepping back. Payment is by donation, so you can afford it.

Easy Mindfulness
12/06/2025

Mindfulness
Moving from reactions to response to make better choices

From reaction to response for better choices

The concept of the Cycle of Reaction can help us to appreciate and enjoy some important benefits of mindfulness practice in our everyday life. In particular it shows us how mindfulness helps us to get better at moving from reaction to response.

The sequence works like this:

The Cycle of Reaction sequence

Many times a day things happen to which we have a reaction. For instance, someone who did me a bad turn walks into a restaurant where I am about to have dinner.

I react to this with thoughts, memories, emotions and physical feelings. I tense up, I feel angry at their presence, how dare they even be here, I think, as I recall what they did.

I am now relating to all of those things going on in my head and in my body, namely the memory, thoughts, physical tensing and so on and not just to the bare reality of what has happened. I have forgotten about my dinner and I am lost in my anger about this person. But all that has actually happened is that a person I have reason to dislike has walked into the restaurant.

The next stage in the cycle is that I act under the influence of my reactions. In other words I act on autopilot if you like. So, for instance, I may tell myself that the whole occasion is now ruined, and leave the restaurant. Then I spend the evening thinking and complaining about this person while feeling upset.

A better response

When you practise mindfulness you build your capacity to notice these reactions before they take over.

Then you can choose a response, whether that is to do nothing or to act.

So in this case, when that person walks into the restaurant you notice your thoughts and feelings, etc flaring up. But instead of getting lost in those reactions, you bring your attention to your breath or perhaps to the experience of your body sitting in the chair. In this way you avoid that trance state.

Now, instead of being in a trance, you can consider what choices you have in the situation. These still include leaving but they also include staying and getting on with your dinner, or maybe even talking to the person. I am not saying that one response is better than the other but at least it’s a chosen response. When you act in mindfulness you are more likely to choose a response which is in your interests. Also, in my experience, you are more likely to feel good about whatever response you do choose.

And it doesn’t just apply to “live” scenes like the one I’ve used in the example. The “something” that happens to start the sequence could be a memory. For instance it could be the memory of the bad turn that this person has done. That, again, can throw you into that circle of reactions, trance and behaviour – the behaviour in this case could be to lie awake at night going over what happened. Instead, whenever the memory strikes you, you can observe these reactions kicking off, and you can step back into awareness of breath or body.

This is one of the ways in which mindfulness practice can bring a greater experience of peace into your life.

The above article is an edited extract from my 15 lesson online course Easy Mindfulness. Payment for the course is by donation. More information

Easy Mindfulness
04/06/2025

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

Mindfulness
Not happening now – sidelining ‘sticky’ thoughts

 

Negative thoughts about events old and new or about what’s coming up in the future can easily harm our peace of mind. When such thoughts are occurring more often than is useful, try using a phrase such as ‘Not happening now’ to sidestep the thought, to park it, so to speak , while you turn your attention to whatever is going on for you in the moment. That might just be your breathing or whatever else you are physically doing.

Rude interruption

If, for example, someone interrupts you rudely in a shop queue and you didn’t have a chance to object, that interruption can return to your mind many, many times. You re-run the scene, you say in your head what you wish you said in reality to the interrupter and so on.

Sticky thoughts

After you’ve had these thoughts a few times you might want to drop them but they’re ‘sticky’ – they keep coming back to bother you (I’m assuming that in real life you won’t be able to make your objections clear to this person who may be a stranger who has vanished into the crowd.)

Staying in the moment for any length of time can become more difficult because of the re-running of these thoughts. In other words it makes it harder to practise mindfulness. And such thoughts can come between you and your sleep.

The tactic that works

For me the tactic that helps is to use a phrase like ‘Not happening now’ to interrupt the thought when it comes back and then get on with whatever it is I’m doing. If the thought stays around for a while, I don’t get involved with it – I just say ‘Not happening now’ and go back to whatever else I’m doing.

It’s a simple tactic that works better the more you use it as your brain associates the phrase with moving past the thought.

To build on this: My online course Easy Mindfulness can help you to develop a life-enhancing mindfulness practice.

Easy Mindfulness
14/05/2025

Mindfulness
What quality am I bringing to this moment?

This question can bring you straight into the practice of mindfulness – so long as you don’t answer it.

By asking the question, you step out of habitual responses for that moment – out of the wandering mind and preoccupations in which we all spend a good deal of time.

When I ask the question I see fairly quickly that I am welcoming the moment or pushing it away or wanting it to go on for longer or feeling irritated or one of any number of attitudes or qualities.

Hardly aware

It seems our attitude to the moment can be something we are hardly aware of – yet it colours other people’s experience of us (grumpy vs happy for instance) as well as our own mood.

Why not answer the question? Because you ask the question only in order to come out of that light trance.  If you need to change the quality you are bringing to the moment you will realise this instantly, in my experience, and will alter your approach without needing to analyse.

The experience I am having

By the way, when I say ‘this moment’  I’m really saying ‘the experience that I am having right now.’  So a longer version of the question would be “What quality am I bringing to the experience I’m having right now?”

One could say the question is another way of saying ‘Wake up!’ And mindfulness practice aims to keep us awake to our experience and to what we are adding to it.

So the question, “What quality am I bringing to this moment?” can bring us straight into the heart of mindfulness practice.

My 15-lesson Easy Mindfulness online course can enable you to bring many mindfulness practices to your daily life and to learn what mindfulness is and why it’s a good idea to practise it. Payment is by donation so it’s affordable to all. 

Easy Mindfulness
08/05/2025

Mindfulness  ·  Video
Getting to acceptance – silent acknowledgment

We know acceptance is good for our mental health, for our general emotional well-being and for our long-term relationships. But how do you get to acceptance?

Stages of acceptance

Acceptance can include stages such as: Acknowledging something has happened while complaining internally in your mind about it. This reaction is natural and possibly even helpful at first but after a time it can keep much of the stress of the event alive.

Acknowledging that something has happened but silently, without getting into a dialogue or speechifying about it in your head. This allows the memory of the event to fade its own time. But it does so without you prolonging your stress.

Physical/Emotional memory

The emotional memory of an event, even when accepted, may still hurt or make you sad.We often feel emotions physically (in the stomach area for instance or around the heart, chest or throat). Neurons in the stomach and heart communicate with, among other places, the emotional centre of the brain.What you can do is to acknowledge and feel the physical feeling just on its own while not talking to yourself about it. After a time, the feeling begins to fade.

Some emotional memories, I should add, take a long time to fade but even still, this approach can help you. In such a case, if you find it stressful to use this approach, set it aside if you need to.

Acceptance is often an act of self compassion and you can learn more in the True Friend online course on self compassion. Payment is by donation so it’s affordable to all.

True Friend

02/05/2025

Mindfulness
Water the good seeds

‘Water the good seeds’ is a Buddhist metaphor which recognises that a garden has the seeds of flowers as well as of weeds. The weeds symbolise ruminating on negative thoughts about yourself and the world. To gain balance, we need to shine the light of awareness on the seeds of the flowers also. If we have to search to find them, that’s time well spent.

Does that sound simplistic? Of course it does. But the thing about simplistic ideas is it very often they are easier to say than to do. Basically, you have to remember to water the good seeds or it won’t happen – but if you take the idea on board you are more likely to remember it and to use it when you need it.

Do that a few times and you are reinforcing a habit that can give you a whole new outlook on life.

If you want to bring the benefits of mindfulness to your life, without lengthy meditations, do my 15 lesson Easy Mindfulness course, already taken by thousands of people.

Easy Mindfulness

 

23/04/2025

Page 1 of 11