Mindfulness

Mindfulness
Accepting how things are to change how things are

Accept how things are to change how things are

Acceptance can sometimes feel like it’s a rather passive approach to take to things. But in fact sometimes acceptance is the first step towards fighting for change.

For example, if you accept that you have, say an addiction, that act of acceptance is the first step towards fighting that addiction and doing something about it.

Health condition or relationship

Or if you accept that you have a health condition that you really didn’t want to accept, but now you accept it, you are far more likely than to do what’s necessary. You are more likely to work towards a cure or to manage the condition in ways that allow you the maximum choices in your life with that condition.

This is probably more important than ever now in the era of Long Covid but of course people have always been having to accept and deal with adverse health issues.

You could say the same about a relationship you’re in that’s causing you distress or about a situation at work that’s getting you down. Acceptance can be the first step towards searching for a solution.

Denial – never a good idea

Denial is never a good idea when it comes to important matters that we would be better off dealing with. Denial of a health condition, for instance, just postpones the day when you can do something about it.

So acceptance, however reluctant you may be about it, can be very empowering and that’s one of the most important of life lessons.

This Daily Bell might also help:

You don’t get to build without clearing away rubble. Sometimes, to build your future you need to clear away emotional rubble. What do you need to accept or forgive? Maybe not everything can be accepted or forgiven but a lot can. That clearing away allows you to live more in present moments than in your head.

Acceptance is a key aspect of mindfulness (sometimes think it’s the most important part of it) and you can learn more about all aspects of mindfulness in my 15 lesson online course Easy Mindfulness (pay by donation, so it’s affordable to all). Find out more here.

Easy Mindfulness

 

 

23/01/2025

Mindfulness  ·  Mindfulness Courses
Don’t feed the demons

 

Painful emotions often pass by in a fairly short time if you devote your attention to something else in the moment.

This isn’t always true, of course, but it’s true often enough to be useful.

Giving energy to the demons

We need to remember that if we dwell excessively on negative emotions, it’s like giving them energy that helps them to grow into what Dr. Russ Harris in The Happiness Trap calls ‘giant dangerous demons.’

Don’t feed the demons

So just remember: don’t feed the demons. Try shifting your awareness to something else and I think you’ll find that very often that helps the emotion to pass by much more quickly.

My True Friend self compassion online course can help you see yourself in a more tolerant way.  It’s an  online course and payment is by donation so it’s affordable to all. Learn more

True Friend
15/01/2025

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

Mindfulness  ·  Self Compassion
Inner critic – just the facts please

If you’re like the other 8 billion or so people on the planet, then you have an inner critic who gives you a hard time, sometimes very harshly. The critic can attack you over choices you made about the big things in your life, and choices you made about the small things. The critic doesn’t care, it’s all grist to its mill.

Important life skill

So it’s a very important life skill to not take that critic too seriously.

Sometimes the inner critic has something useful to say but, in my experience, not usually.

And I think a way to approach it is to always make a distinction between a fact and an opinion.

Suppose the inner critic says ‘You took on that project, and it didn’t work out, you’re a complete failure.’

The fact is, you took on that project, and it didn’t work out.

The opinion is, you’re a complete failure.

Not usually true

These opinions are normally global, like sweeping generalisations. They’re usually not true anyway (hardly anyone on the planet is a complete failure).

So if you can just acknowledge that, yes, I took on that project, and it didn’t work out but leave out the opinion that you’re a complete failure, life becomes easier.

Keep your opinions to yourself Mister

And I would suggest that, in future when the critic in your head starts off with its opinions, you could try saying something to it  like ‘When I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.’

Facts are easier to deal with than opinions. There are fewer facts than opinions in the world.

So try that little technique: Make a distinction between the facts of things that have happened and exaggerated, unhelpful opinions about you and who you are.

And ask the critic to keep its opinions to itself.

 

If you have a strong inner critic, my self-compassion course True Friend can help you to put it in its place. Payment is by donation. More than 2,500 people have taken this course. Learn more.

17/12/2024

Mindfulness
Breathe for a better reaction

Fast, constricted, shallow breathing is one of the ways in which stressful events express themselves in how we breathe. They express stress without reversing it.However, we can learn to turn this process around and use our breathing to change our relationship to the event. As Cyndi Lee, a yoga teacher and author, says, “Rather than allowing our response to an event affect our breathing, we can learn instead to let our breathing change our relationship to the event.”Create a breakWhen we return our awareness to calm breathing, even for a few minutes, we are creating a break in the cycle of reactivity.We are giving ourselves space to calm down, to clear our minds and to gain some perspective. We are also sending a signal to our body and brain that we that we can handle the situation.By returning our awareness to calm breathing, we are not ignoring or avoiding the event, but rather we are taking care of ourselves in the midst of what’s going on. We are showing ourselves some kindness and compassion.A better responseWe are also opening ourselves to the possibility of responding to the event in a more constructive and creative way, rather than impulsively or defensively.Try: Do some calm breathing right now for a few minutes or even a minute or even half a minute in the awareness that this is you taking care of yourself. You can do this anytime and anywhere, whenever you feel stressed or overwhelmed by an event.Notice how your breathing changes your relationship to the event and how you feel afterwards. Breathing is not only essential for survival – it can also be a friend for life.How to breathe calmly?Slow breathing through your nose while noticing your belly rising and falling will activate the calming part of your nervous system.Mindful breathing is a key aspect of the overall practice of mindfulness. Bring mindfulness into your life, or revive your mindfulness practice with my Easy Mindfulness online course. Payment is by donation so it is affordable to all. More information

Easy Mindfulness
11/12/2024

Mindfulness
Too hard on yourself? Maybe you’re channelling someone else’s opinions

The concept of ‘channelling’ is one I first heard of in relation to psychics transmitting the thoughts and emotions of various spirits.

Most channelling involves the living, though  – falling into the trap of judging yourself according to someone else’s expectations.

This is ok when you know what’s going on – then you can make choices about what’s good for you and what isn’t. For instance, ‘Make efforts to meet your goals’ is good for you but ‘Achieve your goals perfectly or you are a failure’ is bad for you.

Super-critical

It’s when you don’t know what’s going on that self-compassion can go out the window as you drive yourself forward to meet the demands of someone who’s dead or absent.

If you are critical of your performance even when you succeed are you ‘channelling’ a super-critical person from earlier in your life?

Maybe someone who never saw the good in what you did but was quick to point out your mistakes?

Or maybe you think you have to act in the same way as someone you admire and you feel you never measure up? Maybe you went into a career such as medicine because you thought you should emulate your father or your mother or even a grandparent?

Someone else’s life

All of these are examples of psychologically ‘channelling’ someone else. When you are being especially hard on yourself it’s helpful to ask if you are upset because you are failing to live someone else’s life. Or if the voice that’s condemning you is the remembered voice of someone else.

Self-compassion can cut through all this. If you decide that, no matter what, you are going to be a friend to yourself, then you can silence the voices or, at the very least, make them less powerful in your life.  Mindfulness helps too.

Judgements as information

That’s because mindfulness of what’s going on gives you the space in which to make a better, self compassionate, choice.

Instead of ‘channelling’ absent people, take their ideas not as instructions but as information which you are free to use or not, depending on what’s positive for you in your life. Mindfulness also helps

See also: Self-compassion, kindness towards the person you already are.

Learn more about being kind to yourself with my 15-lesson online course  True Friend. Payment is by donation.

True Friend
03/12/2024

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

Mindfulness
To live well, accept uncertainty

A disadvantage in the world

Clinging too tightly to how we think things ought to be, has probably always been a disadvantage in the world. But in a world of such uncertainty as that in which we now live, it’s a very definite disadvantage.

And it has a very definite negative effect, I think, on our ability to live well. This has always been part of the philosophy behind mindfulness.

Accept uncertainty

In order to live well, we need to be able to accept uncertainty, and to give most of our awareness, to the present moment that we’re living through. This doesn’t mean we can’t plan – of course we can . But if we come become too attached to how things or indeed people ought to be, we increase our unhappiness, because we’re attempting to control the uncontrollable.

If there’s one thing we’ve learned, it’s that we cannot control the world although we have a good deal of control over what we actually do in the world.

The path that’s opening out

So we all want certain things, and we’re motivated to go and get them. But mindfulness teaches us that  the important thing is to be able to let go, when that’s no longer doable, when it no longer makes sense to keep clinging on.  Instead to appreciate whatever is good in the path that’s opening out in front of us as we make our way in uncertainty. It’s about not clinging beyond reason, and cultivating an appreciation of this moment now as we move along the path.

My 15 lesson online course Easy Mindfulness will teach you the practice and theory of mindfulness at your own pace. Payment is by donation. More information 

Easy Mindfulness
19/11/2024

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

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