Mindfulness For Beginners

When someone has hurt you, it can be tempting to say nothing because it’s not worth the quarrel. But bottling up anger isn’t good for your mental health or your peace - anger that lingers in your awareness becomes resentment, resentments leads to suffering for you and for others. Your feelings are important and should be listened to - practicing compassion meditation before the conversation can give you the confidence to express your feelings calmly and provide understanding of the other person’s perspective. 

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Meditation can be used to reduce stress / anxiety, improve your mood and live a  more peaceful, fulfilled life. If you find it helpful, I invite you to share on Facebook and say hello! If you're on itunes / Apple Podcasts, you may wish to leave a review. May you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you be healthy and live a long life.

If you're new to mindfulness or already practice, refreshing the fundamentals every so often is worthwhile. Mindfulness is about the here and now - focusing 100% of your attention on whatever you’re doing, being present with whatever you’re experiencing. Trying to be calm or happy doesn’t work - chasing after things which will make us happy doesn’t tend to either. Practicing mindfulness doesn’t switch off difficult emotions but through regular practice it can help us to transform difficult feelings and limit the damage that anxiety, anger and sadness can do to ourselves and others.

We have a Facebook group - if you find the podcast helpful, join and share:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/999461463825856/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mindfulness_for

Meditation  can be used to reduce stress / anxiety, improve your mood and live a  more peaceful, fulfilled life. If you find it helpful, I invite you to share on Facebook and say hello! If you're on itunes / Apple Podcasts, you may wish to leave a review. May you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you be healthy and live a long life.

We can lose people in different ways, sometimes someone close to us passes away or a relationship can come to an end. In both case we feel a sense of loss and grief - this is natural . Getting over the pain takes time and its normal to go through a process of remembrance before we we let them go. But we may find letting go difficult and our unwillingness to accept loss can cause us a great deal of suffering. Mindful awareness of our of our thoughts and feelings can support us to be in touch with our grief, ultimately transforming it. Meditating on impermanence can also help - like a cloud, we don't have a well defined beginning and ending. We are a continuance of those before and after.

We have a Facebook group - if you find the podcast helpful, join and share:  https://www.facebook.com/groups/999461463825856/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mindfulness_for

Meditation  can be used to reduce stress / anxiety, improve your mood and live a  more peaceful, fulfilled life. If you find it helpful, I invite you to  share on Facebook and say hello!   If you're on itunes / Apple Podcasts, you may wish to leave a review. May you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you be healthy and live a long life.

There's lots of misconceptions about mindfulness - some people think it's about clearing your mind, thinking positively or that it takes a lot of practice to see the benefits. In this chat with my friend and yours, Katie Sheen,  we put to bed some of the myths that exist about mindfulness. Katie is a fully qualified teacher who has been practicing mindfulness in her own life for over sixteen years, including through cancer treatment in 2015. Katie teaches mindfulness courses and has created her own online course and app (links below).

Free Breathworks self paced course to support through the crisis 

Appreciating Windowsills app

Katie's free Udemy Mindfulness for Anxiety course, now being watched by students in over 75 different countries!

The Happiness Calendar can be accessed for free via Katie's home page

I'm also joined by Joseph Hamer, author of Brain Awakes - his book is an activity guide for parents which teaches emotional regulation to children. In this episode, Joseph talks about dealing with anxiety and takes us through a 15 minute meditation. We end with a reading from Thich Nhat Hanh's book Happiness and a song - 'Easy' by the Commodores. That's why I'm easy.... I'm easy like Sunday morning...

[email protected]

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Twitter: https://twitter.com/mindfulness_for

A great way to reduce stress is to focus your awareness on what you can feel in your body - from tingling in your toes to tension in your brow. Scanning internally returns your consciousness to the present moment, letting go of anxieties about the future and regrets from the past. Feeling gratitude for the functions that different parts of our body provide also helps to improve our wellbeing - evidence shows that gratitude is a key trait of happy people. 

We have a Facebook group - join and share this episode! https://www.facebook.com/groups/999461463825856/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mindfulness_for

Meditation  can be used to reduce stress / anxiety, improve your mood and live a  more peaceful, fulfilled life. If you find it helpful, I invite you to  share on Facebook and say hello!   If you're on Apple podcasts, you may wish to leave a review. May you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you be healthy and live a long life.

One thing I’ve noticed when practicing mindfulness with other people is that on average the group tends to be around two thirds women, one third men. I think part of the reason why men are less keen on mindfulness and meditation is that awareness / concentration on what you’re feeling. It’s something many of us are brought up to be uncomfortable with.

Things are changing - which is great - but this varies from country to country, from region to region and from family to family. With a culture shift there’s always a backlash against it - and you see on social media people trying to define what a real man is and does. But to me, a real man - or just a kind person - is someone who is prepared to engage with their feelings, to accept their anger, fear and sadness so that they can transform it into peace. And living in peace they become more aware of the suffering of others and try to help them.

We have a Facebook group - join and share this episode! https://www.facebook.com/groups/999461463825856/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mindfulness_for

Meditation  can be used to reduce stress / anxiety, improve your mood and live a  more peaceful, fulfilled life. If you find it helpful, I invite you to  share on Facebook and say hello!   If you're on Apple podcasts, you may wish to leave a review. May you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you be healthy and live a long life.

Looking after your wellbeing is the most important thing that you can do to make the world a more peaceful place - when you're stressed you have more difficult interactions with others, they impact others and so on. So how do you prioritise your mental health? Through the choices you make in every moment, and these can be big, life-changing decisions and the little decisions we face in every moment. 

For example when considering a new job, we might look at it and say that it’s stressful and long hours, but a good step in our career and will lead to us being happy - at some point. But another option could allow us to enjoy our career and won’t take us away from the things that are good for our mental health like our family, friends and mindful activities. By making our peace the top criteria in our big and little decisions, we can lead more peaceful and happier lives.

We have a Facebook group - join and share this episode! https://www.facebook.com/groups/999461463825856/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mindfulness_for

Meditation  can be used to reduce stress / anxiety, improve your mood and live a  more peaceful, fulfilled life. If you find it helpful, I invite you to  share on Facebook and say hello!   If you're on Apple podcasts, you may wish to leave a review. May you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you be healthy and live a long life.

Why does mindfulness practice focus so much on the breath? We spend most of our lives breathing, so every moment is an opportunity to return to the present moment, let go of our worries and focus on our inbreath and outbreath.  We can do this anywhere / anytime and by regularly returning to our breath we can live calmer, happier lives.

We have a Facebook group - join and share this episode! https://www.facebook.com/groups/999461463825856/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mindfulness_for

Meditation  can be used to reduce stress / anxiety, improve your mood and live a  more peaceful, fulfilled life. If you find it helpful, I invite you to  share on Facebook and say hello!   If you're on Apple podcasts, you may wish to leave a review. May you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you be healthy and live a long life.

We see injustice around us every day; discrimination, bullying and exploitation are commonplace. We have a responsibility to use our voice to highlight injustice and reduce the suffering of others. But in shining a light we can speak out of anger - we're often told we should be angry or to "get angry". We should acknowledge our anger, listen and accept it, but acting directly on anger (even when we believe we're right) can escalate  hate and violence. Speaking from peace can make our words heard, more powerful and ultimately have more impact in the world. 

We have a Facebook group - join and share this episode! https://www.facebook.com/groups/999461463825856/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mindfulness_for

Meditation  can be used to reduce stress / anxiety, improve your mood and live a  more peaceful, fulfilled life. If you find it helpful, I invite you to  share on Facebook and say hello!   If you're on Apple podcasts, you may wish to leave a review. May you be happy, may you be peaceful, may you be healthy and live a long life.

If you're struggling to deal with someone whose behaviour seems unreasonable it can be tough. It may be very difficult to understand why they behave the way they do and we might write them off a just being bad people. In reality, there aren't really bad people - just folks who have had a different set of experiences. Like a dog I grew up with on the farm...

We have a Facebook group - join and share! https://www.facebook.com/groups/999461463825856/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/mindfulness_for