Mindful matters.

So its been a while and I am glad to say its been a positive time. I have found the practice of mindfulness very interesting and also useful. It is strange to think that long journeys commuting to London from here in South Wales can be a place to practice, but they can. With a CD of meditation practices on my IPad, I can use the time to practice my practice!I guess that means so can you if you decide to follow this way of developing mindfulness/awareness.
What though are the tangible benefits? Like many people I find that the practice of "bare attention" can reveal not only much about myself but also much about what surrounds me. Perhaps an example will help.
I undertook my practice as usual in the time between Newport and Bristol on the train. Its a handy 20 minute space where I can close my eyes and practice the breathing exercises that help develop practice.
It was a rather uneventful  journey, and a very grey and drizzly early morning as we approached Didcot on the journey to London. Yet I noticed that looking at the grey skies of Berkshire just how many textures and shades of grey there were in that early morning sky. It was a really positive moment of awareness. It didn't make my journey any quicker , but strangely pleasant.
So there is much to be seen and more to experience if we truly are aware of where and importantly who we are.

Mindfulness Week 3 : 22/7/13

There's much to write about in mental health services at the moment , but with your patience I am going to continue to consider the issue of Mindfulness and my on going practice. It has been really hard to build a sense of discipline into this area of my life and I guess discipline is not a virtue I possess but am keen to develop. It really is striking what can get in the way when you have to find all of 8 minutes for a meditation exercise. I recall clearly when I have had the task of writing or even the dreaded marking when a lecturer.
It was surprising then how much time I could waste on walking from room to room , or tasks that needed doing suddenly seemed urgent. I found myself engaged in any distracting behaviour rather than get marking that pile of dissertations.
In many ways this is similar , there are lots of reasons why I should do other things rather than pay attention to the needs of practice. Yet I persist, and have found real moments of calm and quiet. If we wait for the world we live in to be like that , then we can wait a very long time!
I have found one of the most revealing issues to be the constant chatter of internal dialogue that demands attention but which can be really fruitless, at worst this seems to take the form of ruminating and can be tiring. Yet a simple attentive episode of "noticing" can be so restorative, it seems to have the capacity to introduce actual choice as to the significance of what we experience.
I have found the exercises related to listening quite revealing (although dominated by the local jackdaws) , as they clearly point towards the listening we can undertake to internal thought "chatter" and whether choose to do more than notice its presence.
So yes still persisting and even more importantly feeling a real sense of benefit.

Mindfulness :Week 2

So two weeks of mindfulness practice have gone by, and what a really interesting (to me) couple of weeks it has been. I am now firmly into week 3 and really enjoying it.
I think some of the major challenges have been carving out time and also reconsidering how I engage with everyday life.
It has been a challenge occasionally to undertake the meditation exercises and I have resorted to doing them on my early morning commute to London at times. But, the good news is that it can be done!
I have also reconsidered exactly what happens when I spend time just thinking. I always thought that the quiet time I enjoy in the early morning with a strong cup of Assam tea  was a moment of reflection and preparation for my day.
However, using the practice of mindfulness I can see that it was usually far from restful. It was characterised by planning, anticipating and at times ruminating over what may happen, what very probably would happen and at times what would rarely happen.Far from restful and at times quite exhausting and also pointless. So what difference can mindfulness make?
Perhaps I can give you an example of yesterdays journey to a CQC meeting in London.
My train was cancelled, then the next train was delayed.In fairness this is a rare occurrence for me but still a frustrating start and I hate being late to a meeting.
I then got onto Paddington underground station and had to wait for a Circle line train.
However, as time went on I stepped to the open sun filled end of the platform stood in the sunshine, closed my eyes and mindfully focussed on my breathing. I may have spent only a minute or two, but I felt the sun and noted the sensations coming through my feet and just stayed in the moment.
It was not only a quick destressor but a very pleasurable moment. No real requirement other than to place into practice what I have been learning.
I hope that such occurrences of using what I am learning will continue to present themselves. I wonder if you would find such means of managing everyday issues helpful to?

Mindfulness: Week 1

So my first week of mindfulness practice ends today and only seven more weeks of the course to go. I must admit like most issues requiring discipline I have found this a challenge. So far I have enjoyed the delights of chocolate, examined the intricacies of a raisin and undertaken routine tasks in a mindful manner.As the week has progressed the two daily meditations on awareness of body and breath have been fairly easy to fit in my day as only eight minutes long. Somehow though they seem to be ending more quickly and leaving me wanting more.
So what are the tangible benefits of this approach to life, and what does the future hold on the programme?
Firstly there does seem to be a growing awareness of the "moment" and engaging with "now" rather than the past or future. A simple example being when a meeting started looking difficult as the IT was not present I found myself rushing down a corridor and getting in a real sweat about it. I found myself aware of this rushing and then just slowly returning to a sensible pace and feeling a lot better for it. I guess I intervened and prevented a situation escalating.
There also seem to be benfits in the awareness of the thoughts that can intrude and require attention (and therefore energy) when they are really rather pointless rehearsals or speculation about future events.So what is next on the course? I enter week two anticipating rather more lenghty meditation sessions, in fact I think they are about three times longer.
I will report back on the end of the second week.

Mindfulness : an Eight week programme

I have been discussing recently the issue with colleagues of levels of morbidity amongst the nursing proffession. The RCN provides a excellent welfare service and the level of demand is rising year on year. I couldn't help wondering if there was more that could be offered or even done in order to try and adopt a more healthy approach to the stresses of life than all the usual coping mechanisms we may all use at some time.
My attention was drawn by various events to the work of John Kabat-Zin who like Lord Layard before him has caught the eye of the top level of Goverment. The approach of Mindfulness whilst drawn from Buddist meditation practice has been integrated into approaches such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy and also Stress reduction. Well Ok you may say but isn't it all a bit West Coast USA?
Not really , apparently endorsed by  NICE , MBCT is recommended for people who have endured repeated episodes of depression.
So armed with such endorsements I have purchased the book Mindfulness by Mark Williams and Danny Penman and I am embarking on a 8 week course in Mindfulness practice.
First exercise involves eating Chocolate so should improve my journey home tonight
I'll keep you posted
Ian