by Katherine Halliday | December, 2018 | Mindfulness
Mindfulness meditation has been around for thousands of years, with roots in Buddhist tradition and practice, but it is the past few decades that has seen a growth in western popularity with mindfulness and an increased understand of the benefits mindfulness meditation has on both mental and physical health. Mindfulness is now actively encouraged as not only as a tool to help improve one’s wellbeing but as a way of life. However, for many, mindful meditation is a difficult skill to master and a focus on this as the only method of practicing mindfulness can result in many giving up very quickly. What is Mindfulness? Mindfulness is a mode of attention which involves being present in the moment and allowing ourselves to understand it more clearly. This entails an understanding of ourselves (our emotions and sensations) and our surroundings (sights, sounds and smells) without trying to change or improve on them. For many, practicing this involves sitting, or lying, still and quiet with eyes closed, focusing on the rhythm of the breath or the sensations in the body, quieting the mind. For many, with practice, this skill comes easily, but for others, the mind can be a frantic, noisy and at times frightening place which can prove exceedingly difficult to calm. For these people, turning attention away from the body to the surrounding sounds and smells can be enough to help them focus and become mindfully aware in the moment, turning the mind away from the chatter in our heads to the world outside of it, and for a moment being at peace. But what if the surrounding world...
by Lisa Jones | September, 2018 | Mindfulness
Using savouring to expand our mindful experiences into appreciation There is a great deal of information out there that suggests we should engage in being more mindfully in the present moment. This blog explores what this means, and considers whether savouring might be an alternative way to be present, whilst also being appreciative of the world around us. What is mindfulness? According to Gilbert and Choden (2013) mindfulness is the “deliberate intention to observe the activity of the mind in a non-judgemental way” (p.257). It is typical of many of us to be caught up in our thoughts and not be fully present with what we are doing, thinking and feeling at any given time. Mindfulness is really beneficial to encourage us to slow down, stop and be in the here and now. An important aspect of mindfulness is the intention to not judge. This is to accept how you feel, what you see, and simply accept what is. By being more aware of what we are feeling, thinking and doing, we can make more informed choices about our well-being and how we might impact other people. Limitations of mindfulness Mindfulness has many valuable benefits to us that are being used more and more in therapy and activities that help us cope with our hectic lives. But like all interventions there are limitations. For instance Kashdan and Biswas-Diener (2015) tell us we need to be ‘mindless’ sometimes. We cannot sustain mindfulness all the time. We rely on the subtle messages picked up subconsciously, where we make sense of the complex world quietly in the background as we move through...
by Lee Newitt | April, 2018 | Education, Mindfulness
Children are amazing because they are mindful. When a child is shy they may express their feelings of shyness without fear, they are just ‘being’. They may be open to and aware of what they are experiencing in that moment without repression. Children start life inherently mindful and through their experiences they learn to cooperate, to collaborate, to consider, to understand and to empathise becoming socially aware and responsible adults. Disconnect However this journey in our modern world of fast pace, distraction, complexity and technology can lead to a person becoming disconnected from himself or herself, their experiencing and from others, a mindlessness. How can a person truly know another and give freely of himself or herself, if they do not know themself first? What if children were encouraged to grow and develop mindful awareness throughout their childhood into adulthood? How would those adults be different? More ‘in tune’? More connected? More giving? Happier? Evidence Base Research describes mindfulness as a moment-by-moment “awareness of present experience with acceptance” (Germer, Seigel and Fulton, 2013, p.7) or an “awareness that emerges through paying attention on purpose in the present moment, non-judgementally to the unfolding of experience moment by moment” (Kabat-Zinn, 2003, p.145). Studies Studies have linked mindfulness with reduced; anxiety and depression (Shapiro et al, 1998), mood disturbance (Rozenweig et al, 2003) and increased; wellbeing (Grepmair et al, 2007), nonjudgmental self-insight (Chung, 1990), empathy, compassion and selfcompassion (Neff, 2003; Neff and Germer, 2013; Shapiro et al, 2007), openness and acceptance (Bishop et al, 2004) and attention regulation, emotional regulation and psychological flexibility (Hözel et al, 2011; Hayes et...
by Stuart Dickson | January, 2018 | Mindfulness
It is almost two years since I was introduced to the idea of colouring Mandalas as a form of relaxation. I was in Phoenix on a work trip and got talking to one of my crew colleagues on the flight over. She told me that she had started colouring Mandalas when her mother had become ill. She told me how the Mandalas relaxed her, allowing a reprieve from the stress and worry about her mother’s health. Additionally, she also found them a great way to switch off when she couldn’t sleep due to the dreaded jet lag and time differences. What is a Mandala? The word Mandala comes from the language of Sanskrit. In essence, it means a circle but it means so much more. Defining wholeness, it is referred to as a model of life itself and is in all aspects of life from religion to different cultures. Yin Yang is a popular Mandala symbol. My new hobby and the benefits of colouring After my trip to Phoenix, I spent about eighteen months, thinking about adult colouring and Mandalas. The daughter of a friend showed me an App for colouring so I decided to download it and give it a try. I enjoyed it but couldn’t stop thinking about doing it the good old way. Every time I went into a bookshop or large supermarket, I would look at the books, colouring pencils and pens. I was drawn very much to the idea of colouring in, something that I had loved to do as a child. Life is busy though and I told myself that I didn’t really...
by Sarah Monk | July, 2017 | Mindfulness, Sarah Monk
The rise and rise of mindfulness Mindfulness is, in it’s simplest form, conscious awareness. It has become big business. The assistant head teacher responsible for pastoral care at my children’s secondary school tells me he is overwhelmed with emails from businesses offering mindfulness training. Book shops offer a plethora of volumes on the subject and academic papers on the benefits of mindfulness abound. But is mindfulness overrated, is it possible to be too mindful? Too mindful? Kashdan & Biswas-Diener (2015) suggest that the unconscious mindless processes we all possess should not be underestimated. Being able to use these effectively is key in good decision making and optimal performance especially in complex situations and in promoting creativity. Being constantly mindful simply requires too much cognitive processing power to allow us to do all the things we need to do to function in daily life. We need the mental shortcuts of mindless thinking otherwise we’d never get anything done. Contrary to our instincts, unconscious thinking processes are better at handling and analysing large amounts of complex data, so believing that mindful analysis is always preferable may lead to less effective choices . So mindlessness is good and necessary, sometimes. Like many topics in Positive Psychology, it seems to be all about balance. Being able to flexibly use both mindful consciousness and automatic mindless processes in the right context and to switch back and forth between the two makes the most of our brain’s abilities and opens up our potential for success and well-being. Harnessing mindlessness: Sleep on it! So how do we do this? Kashdan & Biswas-Diener (2015) have a number...
by Lisa Jones | June, 2017 | Lisa Jones, Mindfulness
Hope can be defined as the difference between where we are now and where we want to be. Our hopes are not guaranteed, but we think there is a chance that what we want could happen. It requires us to project our thoughts into the future to visualise a change. Hope theory predominantly uses goal setting as the vehicle to achieve our hopes, which serves a purpose of focusing the mind on how to realistically get to where you want to get to. But – what happens to our well-being when we focus all our attention on thinking about the future, towards achieving goals? Science tells us that we increase our stress levels when we rush towards the future, planning out our lives without really living them. We stop noticing and listening to our emotions, we forget to be grateful for what we have, and we become more ‘mindless’. This can lead to a feeling of emptiness and low self-esteem, and it is argued, could result in poor mental health. So what can we do to counteract the stress when striving for our goals? We are increasingly advised to find time to be more ‘mindful’ by being fully in the present moment. But mindfulness would seem to be in conflict with goal focused hope as our hopes are for the future and we cannot spend our time thinking of the future, and at the same time be in the moment, accepting things as they are now. The Vietnamese spiritual leader Thich Nhat Hanh’s says: “Peace can only exist in the present moment. If you truly want peace, you must...
