MF 29 – Thoughts and Tips for Cultivating Gratitude

MF 29 – Thoughts and Tips for Cultivating Gratitude

Thoughts and Tips for Cultivating Gratitude.

Kristina and myself talk about how we both practice gratitude through the week. For example Kristina looks at the dogs and feels gratitude, and learns from them, from their joyous being, their presence, and ability to stay present and attentive to the moment. It takes so little to make the dogs happy. And that makes them very valuable teachers. This inspires them.

Kristina also notices that when she’s very busy, and having to go off on errands. When she sits down in the car, she takes a few moments to relax and see the environment, and be grateful to look around and notice all that is around her. That she has the freedom to go anywhere she needs to go, so she feels grateful for having a car.

So that’s like a mini-meditation. She can remember all the things in her life that are beneficial. Looking at the sky and trees, and being amazed that we have so much beauty around us. And we need to remind ourselves of that.

Gratitude takes the focus, or shifts the focus away from what we don’t have to what we do have.

Even when being cut off from traffic, you can be grateful for all the things you do have, even in that moment of being cut off. For example, you are protected in the car, the car takes you from A to B, over and over again. What a miraculous piece of engineering! Just realizing those things will help you forget yourself, and decrease any destructive emotions that might arise.

Kristina says that even if you did have to walk to work, that too can be a wonderful experience. And can still be a mindful experience, take a breath and take in the beauty.

She also mentions her friend Betty, who has an answering machine message that says, “Hi, I can’t come to the phone right now, I’m busy counting my blessings. I’ll call you later”. It’s nice to appreciate that we even have a phone.

I like to stop and just think of just 10 things, just in this very moment, that pop up in my head. It gets real easy each time you do it, if you’ve never tried this before.

Kristina is grateful for her breath, due to her severe breath issues. She has lung disease. When you struggle for breath, it’s easy to forget the importance of breath. Just be grateful for breath every moment of our lives. To be alive, and be conscious of the things around us. Our breath is so fundamental, you have to be grateful for breath. Breathe in joy, and exhale the negative thinking. And turn your thoughts around. What am I grateful for?

Usually there is so much more grateful for, then there is not. Its a good exercise to catch yourself when you’re being negative.

Kristina also draws from her experience as a diet counselor for folks who had challenges with obesity and weight loss issues. She talks about gratitude for food. She talks about how we’re just eating. Learning to enjoy every bite, eating mindfully. That we have this amazing body that can taste and digest food.

I think that is one of the reasons why during retreats the eating portion is silent, which allows you to be more present for your food, by turning off at least one more channel.

Yes, Kristina says the eating in front of the television, you can’t really taste your food. Food is just something your’e doing while watching. And it’s better to just eat when your eating. And just appreciate it. One of the causes of all the weight gain, just not being conscious.

Kristina then talks a little about her own introduction to meditation through reading the Three Pillars of Zen and practicing Transcendental Meditation,  back when she lived in New York. She found lots of stimuli there, and wanted to be in touch with inner peace, harmony. She also talks about connecting and staying in touch with nature. She would have deep gratitude during those experiences. It helped her be in touch with something so much larger than herself.

 

MF 26 – How to Easily Bring Meditation into Your Workplace!

MF 26 – How to Easily Bring Meditation into Your Workplace!

In this post I would like to share some practical ideas for how you can easily bring meditation into your daily work life. This might be especially helpful if your current workplace does not have a dedicated meditation room, or higher level endorsement of this beneficial practice.

I’ll show you how you can incorporate, “mini”-meditations and mindfulness at your place of work, without having to look weird, or needing a, “meditation room”.

This said, having a dedicated meditation room in the workplace would of course be a great asset and high level endorsement of wellness!

I don’t have Time to Meditate at Work!

You may think that you don’t have time to meditate at work! Sure, most of us don’t have dedicated chunks of time during the day to practice formal meditation.

No problem! Lets break down a workday, and see how you can get the benefits from meditation during your workday. Some simple techniques can help you stay fresh throughout the day, and also help you through that afternoon slump.

Most of our jobs involves a lot of sedentary sitting at a computer. But you still get up to go to meetings, or get some water, get your lunch, pick up your mail, go to the restroom, etc. Each of those transitions are opportunities for a quick mini-meditation!

A meditation does not need to be a certain number of minutes or a designated time to be of benefit.

Don’t take my word for it. Try it out and verify with your own experience right now!

Try this Mini-Meditation!

  1. If you are sitting in an office, straighten your back if possible, with your head and ears in alignment with your shoulders.
  2. Put your feet flat on the ground and feel the connection of your feet to the ground.
  3. Lay your hands on your lap, so that your shoulders can totally relax.
  4. Check your breathing, let the breathing relax as well.
  5. Now close your eyes, especially if your screen is still on.
  6. Take just 10 deep and conscious breaths, not hurrying it, or slowing it down on purpose, just 10 relaxed breaths.
  7. Count on each in breath, so that for each in, and out-breath, it counts as one.  You can count to 5 (each in and out breath counting as one, next in breath and out breath, count as 2, and so on until your count is at 5 or 10, then return back to one).
  8. Add another 10 if you have another minute!

After you have opened your eyes, tell me you don’t feel just a little bit better!

In all likelihood these 10 breaths took you about a minute of your time. Now imagine doing this multiple times a day, maybe once an hour, and you start to see how this feeling of relaxation and recharging and refreshed clarity might benefit your day at work and into the evening and next day.

Breaking Down a Work Day

So, let’s take a workday and break it down to see where you can squeeze in some mini-meditations.

Going to Work

First going to work. Most of us get into a car, or you get into the subway, or perhaps you are walking or biking to work.

All of these transitions give you an opportunity to meditate if even only for a few breaths.

Car Meditation

In the case of your car, be mindful of getting in the car and sitting down. Why not close your eyes and take 3-10 breaths before cranking the engine? Try it, and you will find yourself more intentional and conscious behind the wheel, which will also keep you safer and more awake on the road.

Now say you’re driving, if you like to listen to the radio, you could once in a while hit the pause button, or take a break from listening to the radio (maybe during a commercial) and again breathe consciously for 5 or 10 breaths at a time (there is more distraction while driving, so 10 breaths will be harder to keep track of at the same time you’re trying to be focused on driving.)

Another opportunity to do this simple breath meditation, is while waiting at a stoplight or traffic jam. Why not use the stop lights as small opportunities to meditate? Especially since they may seem like time wasters and may even be frustrating.

Make that waiting your queue to meditate, and become aware of how tempting it is to not want to be present in the moment, because you want to be at your destination.

These are all ways we can become aware of how easy it is to avoid the present moment, because there is always something better in the future to look forward to. The problem with that is that we then end up “missing our appointment with the present” as Thich Nhat Hanh has so wisely observed.

For the subway, bike, and walking meditation, use similar technique as explained above. Find something as your queue to do a short meditation, like waiting for the doors of the subway to close, or waiting at a pedestrian light.

Walking Meditation to your office

So those are some ideas of what you can do to incorporate meditation on the way to work. Same thing when you leave your car to walk into the building. Use the walk to your office to practice walking meditation.

This doesn’t mean you have to walk super slow; just be conscious while walking. Slowing down helps, as we do hurry a lot, and are overall as a species walking faster than we did a decade ago.

Pay attention, and hear the birds, or jackhammer, or cab honking, or fans above your head as you walk underneath them.

Notice your feet walking over the concrete. Notice your breath as you walk in various situations. Is it hurried as you walk over the boardwalk? Does it slow down as you walk on a quiet hallway?

Each breath is unique, and each breath will inform and teach you about how present, relaxed, or tense you are in that moment. Is your breathing coming from your chest or lower down from your abdomen?

The lower and more relaxed your belly and breathing, the more beneficial for your oxygen distribution and your well-being. If your breathing is tense and shallow, don’t worry, just keep practicing. It may just be tense in certain circumstances.

With consistent practice, it will over time get relaxed  more often, and you’ll start enjoying the present moment more and more. This will happen even in parts of your life that you previously thought were “boring” or “tedious”.

Opening Doors Meditation

So now you’re at the office, how do you open the door? Is it conscious, or on auto-pilot? How do you greet your workplace by way of opening the door and entering into what is a Big part of your life? This stepping into your office may be a good time to internally think about some of the reasons why you are grateful to have this particular job (even if it is not what you want to do the rest of your life). Being grateful as you get in the office will help you feel good and more purposeful about why you are there at that time

It will likely also make your day go more smoothly, even when there are fires.

Sitting Down into Your Office Chair

So now you sit down or stand to start the work day. That moment of sitting down, just like in the case of getting into the car or subway, is another opportunity to take a few breaths and pay attention to how you sit down and go about your work day.

Check your posture, that it is upright and not tense. Same with your arms, if they’re tense from holding the mouse, it will manifest itself as tightness in your shoulders and neck and turn into repetitive strain.

Now the trick is to maintain that upright posture throughout the day. And of course it is very easy to get totally absorbed in your tasks and end up slumping towards your screen or sitting way too long at a time.

So here are a couple of ideas you can try to avoid that slump creeping up on your as the day wears on, which then can turn into fatigue, if not checked.

Mindfulness Timers

What has worked well for me while working in various job environments and continues to do so, is setting timers. I’ll link to a couple of options here. You can use a Youtube meditation timer, such as this 8 hour video, with a mindfulness bell or bells going off, every so many minutes.

 

 

You can also install a mindfulness timer app on your computer or smartphone, to help remind you to get up and move around or meditate for a minute or two.

I’ve also tried kitchen timers, however, the mindfulness bells sound way nicer! 

One caveat though, if you use meditation bells too often, you may end up ignoring them. So vary them up if need be. And one thing I’ve noticed about a kitchen timer, is that if you use one that keeps on beeping until you reset it, it will force you to get up from sitting, and this will have the beneficial effect of forcing you to move. You can then utilize that pause to reset the timer as an opportunity to walk stairs, or do some stretches, exercises, or do some cleaning.

I’ve gathered all kinds of mindfulness bells and timers here on one page:

https://meditationfreedom.com/mindfulness-bell/

Once you have picked a mindfulness sound that works well for you, I would suggest trying different settings and see which one is most optimal for you.

For example, you could try a bell once every 30 minutes, or perhaps in a very demanding day, at least try once an hour.

If you can’t take a 5 minute walk, at least close your eyes in front of your computer, and just allow yourself to breathe for 10 or 20 breaths as mentioned earlier in this post.

As always recommended, please check your posture while doing that to make sure it is upright and awake.

This also has the added benefit of giving your eyes a break from staring at a monitor.

Getting Up and Walking is Crucial for Your Health!

Because extensive sedentary sitting is now known to not be healthy, and is now even compared to the harm of cigarettes. If possible, also try getting up for a brief 5 minute walks through the hallways or staircases of your office or office building. (An outside walk is of course even better. Try to fit that into your day routine as well if possible)

If you have staircases, great! Staircases are ideal, because they are very conducive to meditation. They are quiet, sparse in decorations (distractions), and peaceful. Give that a try! Stairs also have the added health benefits of being a good workout for your body.

If you have only a couple flights of stairs in your building, then just go up and down several times depending on how much time you have.

A consistent slower pace might be more conducive for meditation and mindful walking.

The nice thing about that, is that if you do this every hour or 45 minutes, that when you get back to your desk, your blood is flowing again, your brain is oxygenated, and you can then fully do another chunk of focused work again and be very productive!

You can also do the same type of quick mini-break whenever you walk to the restrooms, the water cooler, or fridge, and before a meeting.

By all means experiment, try things out, the idea is just to incorporate or weave small little mini-meditations throughout your day.

Rest-Room Meditation

The restroom doesn’t just have to be a place to “get your business over with”.

It can also be a rest-room, where you can take a minute or two to meditate!

For guys like me, even when standing, you can still take an extra 5-10 breaths before finishing up. That’s standing meditation. Same when washing hands, and drying. I notice with many people, the whole procedure is hurried, and treated like an inconvenience. Especially when there are lots of thoughts and busyness in the mind, it will express itself in the way you wash, and dry your hands.

In my case, I often drink about a glass of water an hour, so that consequently meant about one restroom break every hour or two.

Meetings

If you are a director or manager and you are having issues with unproductive meetings, try and incorporate a one minute meditation right before starting a meeting.

Allow everyone to enjoy some calm and a few moments of silence, and create a collaborative meeting environment where team members can feel included, whether they are extroverted or introverted. Create a conducive meeting environment where it is less about showing off and more about drawing out and giving room to each team member’s talent. Where attention is gathered, instead of scattered.

Lunch

During lunch take notice of what you’re eating, really enjoy your food. And be mindful of how much you eat and how it affects the rest of your afternoon. If you eat mindfully, and slower, your belly will be able to signal that it is satisfied better, thus decreasing the risk of eating to much. Eating too much, or too much sugar may cause an afternoon slump.

Afternoon Slump?

See if you can repeat the above process of taking breaks in the afternoon. As you get better at it, notice how it may be harder to do the meditation/walking breaks in the afternoon.

If taking meditation breaks is more difficult, it is most likely because our will power decreases as the day wears on, we of course get more tired.

All the more reason perhaps to focus even more on these little breaks. It will much improve how you feel in the afternoon. Remember that by breathing fully and mindfully, it helps our brain keep oxygenated, which will help us feel more awake and fresh and available for each moment.

Be Kind to Yourself!

Lastly, be kind to yourself, don’t beat yourself up if you are doing this hundreds of times, and you don’t see whatever results you are expecting, or you forget to do it, etc.

I stumble with this practice all the time too. And it can be more difficult if your environment or job changes a lot. You’ll have to then develop new mindfulness cues and routines.

Just let it go, and try again at the next opportunity and tomorrow.

Start with one moment during your workday. With one thing that is easiest for you, and continue to incorporate more and more moments, or mini-meditations throughout your workday.

This mindfulness practice is a way of life, an ongoing process of becoming more aware and awake, not a goal to reach or something to cross of the list of things to “do”.

This is not about doing, it’s about learning to be here and now, and show up and fully appreciate your one and only precious life. In the process, you will increase your appreciation for everything else as well.

Enjoy the stumbles and discoveries of being forgetful and messing up. It is a wonderful gift just to be able to take a deep spacious breath and feel alive. And let me know if you tried any of this and what your experience was in the comments below!

Ep 24 – Guided Meditation with Kristina Rood and Ocean Wave Sounds

Ep 24 – Guided Meditation with Kristina Rood and Ocean Wave Sounds

Ep 24 – Guided Meditation with Kristina Rood and Ocean Wave Sounds

Kristina used to do diet counseling, and has practiced Zen and TM meditation for a long time. She will be interviewed on this show one of these days, so she can expand on her meditation journey. Please use the comments area below to share your thoughts on this meditation.

She would be happy to create another guided meditation, like a specific meditation for dieting if there is interest.

See also below the Youtube version of her ocean meditation.

Resources

 

MF 23 – Guided Meditation for Present Moment to Moment Attention and Awareness

MF 23 – Guided Meditation for Present Moment to Moment Attention and Awareness

Guided Meditation for Present Moment to Moment Attention and Awareness Cultivation with Sicco

This episode deviates from the usual interview episode.

Kristina and myself are in a time of transition. We’re moving to another state, hence I thought this would be a bit easier to do than arranging an interview. This is also based on request from several listeners. They wanted a guided meditation to listen to from my perspective, so here it is above (click on the link above to download or play directly in the web page).

Kristina trucking past Mt Hood

Kristina and me trucking past Mt Hood

The awesome Mt Shasta

Please let me know what you think of this episode in the comments below!

Thanks!

MF 19 – Melli O’Brien Mindfulness Teacher in Australia

MF 19 – Melli O’Brien Mindfulness Teacher in Australia

Interview with Melli O’Brien – Mindfulness Teacher in Australia

Melli O’Brien is an internationally-accredited meditation and Satyananda yoga teacher and an MTIA-trained mindfulness teacher. Ms. O’Brien was selected by the Satyananda Mangrove Mountain Ashram (the largest ashram in the southern hemisphere) to teach their mindfulness retreats. She also blogs about mindful living at www.mrsmindfulness.com

Below Melli explains what is mindfulness in her own words on a Youtube video

This is a summary (not a full transcript) of the interview

How did you get started with meditation practice?

Melli looks back and reflects on the pivotal moments in her childhood for forming the beginnings of her interest in meditation. As children we’re good at being in the present moment. She spend a lot of time in alone in nature. Time in nature, contemplating in nature.

When she was about 8 years old, she watched the news, of the Gulf war at that time. And she realized that the adults that she looked up to, that she was going to become like, were really insane, not functioning harmoniously at all. That hit home for her.

Something hit her deeply, it created an existential crisis for her. Coming to terms with her place in the world. It became a slippery slope into depression, and even despair.

As Melli got older, she wondered if it was possible that there are people out there who live in harmony with each other and the planet, who have some wisdom and are not with despair and distress.

She started looking for an answer to see if it was possible to be happy and harmonious. That led her to reading books about comparative religion, self-improvement, to look for answers.

She found answers, and her curiosity was fed.

So you were a teenager at this point right, a few years down the road?

Yes, the depression and despair was getting deeper, and at the same time, I was opening up to the wisdom traditions.

How did that develop into a meditation practice?

She did a course on meditation with her friend in her late teens, and started doing yoga. And she started reading eastern wisdom traditions. She started to get it, that she could investigate her mind, and free herself from the patterns that were causing depression and distress.

Was there a particular meditation practice?

Melli was doing simple breath meditation back then, it has evolved since then, but it is still mostly breath meditation. So it is not so much the technique, but the way that the practice, and the orientation, and attitude of herself, has changed, the ability to simply be. The quality of her practice has evolved a lot, rather than any particular technique.

Did you start noticing the depression de-escalating or dissolving?

It made a huge difference really quickly, because what happened I realized.

That I am not my mind

That was unbelievably liberating.

I am separate from those things that I had been so entangled and so identified with, things that caused her so much suffering.

She was really enthusiastic about utilizing that realization to the best of her ability. She put a lot of effort watching her mind, watching the current of her mind go by, seeing how it worked.

Even simple insights like noticing that when I have bad thoughts, it makes me feel bad. And then choosing to drop it, when I found that it wasn’t serving me.

This was absolutely life-changing, absolutely incredible.

Two things happened there,

1. You have this incredible opportunity for liberation. Seeing the way you get caught up when you’re no longer the witness, you’ve falling in the river of thoughts and emotions. Again and again you can chose to have more and more liberation.

2. The noticing of the fact when I’m not caught up, witnessing, I felt so at home. So in a natural state of contentedness, deep sense of being connected with life. Not the things that that my culture said would make me happy, white picket fence, achievements, etc, but what would make me happy is being the witness. Sitting in my own being-ness. That was  a wonderful realization to have at a fairly young age. This avoided me from getting caught up, that I probably would have gotten caught up into.

So it sounds like you got started investigating why we’re unhappy really early..

When Melli was 19, she worked in a nursing home, with people coming to the end of their lives. They would share their wisdom with her, what makes a wonderful life, and what doesn’t. This was a huge catalyst in Melli’s life.

To focus on embodying the present moment, living the moments of my life, so that when I got to the end of my life, I wouldn’t have regrets.

The message that they would tell her, was that the things that are supposed to make you happy, don’t do it. It’s about being alive to the moments of your life. Melli heard that over and over again.

It sounds also that the more awareness you have of death, the more important it is to be aware of your choices in each moment your attitude, and how you live your life. 

Yes, it’s great to really see how the avoidance of death, the simple fact that we’re mere mortals. Life is always changing. There’s quite a bit of uncertainty in life. This body doesn’t last forever. It’s confronting and really freeing at the same time. Living with that in mind puts everything into perspective.

Have you seen any other changes results or benefits from this practice that you didn’t see when you started this practice?

Yes, one really wonderful thing that happened to me, is taking things less seriously. I’m more kind and gentle to myself now then when I was younger. I laugh a lot more. I make plenty of mistakes, I mess up all the time. I’m human. I get caught up, and I catch myself. In the past I might have been self-critical about that. Especially if you’re a mindfulness teachers.

These days I’ve lightened up, treating myself more kindly. I have a so much deeper and kinder connection with others. Willing to see the ways in which I do get caught up all the time. That has been a delightful unfolding.

You mention being more human, and being able to connect, and not taking the dogma parts of religion. Could you elaborate?

Yes, for my path, and partly due to my personality. I enjoyed seeing all these religions, and was curious about all religions. I noticed the similarities. I saw that they were one perennial philosophy, universal teaching, but using different words. This mindfulness is not just a Buddhist thing. It’s a Buddhist word, and roots in Buddhism.

But the actual practice of mindfulness, which is stepping out of auto-pilot mode. And consciously switching attention, and being fully embodied in the present moment, and dis-identified from the mind. That is in every single wisdom tradition around the world. Different words, but same teaching.

What I love about this approach. You can draw from the essential teachings. All of these wisdom traditions, and not get dogmatic, saying you’re doing it wrong. It’s open, spacious, kind and accommodating. We’re all kind of doing the same thing, but go a different way with it.

When I teach courses, I quote from different traditions and time periods. I don’t have an agenda to promote one tradition. It’s just essentially the wisdom traditions can be broken down into two core teachings about how to end suffering.

1. Humans have a tendency to create suffering for themselves in normal consciousness. When the mind is untrained.

2. There is a way to wake up from that dysfunction, and come back to clarity, harmony.

The essential way to do that is through practicing mindfulness. Melli has boiled her teaching down to mindfulness.

Because mindfulness is the means by which we come home to ourselves. 

Also the way to dis-identify from the mind. Which is the key to ending suffering. 

And the mind can also can run astray from the feeling of separateness. 

Yes, exactly. When you’re identified with the mind, it creates  a sense of separateness from the world. A strong sense of me, I am, I need, and I want.

When you embody the present moment fully and deeply, and there’s a dis-identification from the mind, and there’s the mind. And here you are as a witness. That sense of separation, of being a separate self with complex wants and needs, fades into the background completely.

The sense of warmth and gentleness and compassion towards myself is part of what’s unfolded with long-term practice. It makes me feel more warmth and connection to everybody, also with folks who may feel differently with those who may feel differently as to what is the right way to get home.

The heart of teaching can get kind of obscured, with agendas, etc, when a religion/wisdom tradition gets institutionalized, has that influenced you?

Yeah, there was a resistance with me to hunkering down with a particular religion. Perhaps it is me, but I’ve seen it over and over again, we all have a tendency that our way, and that we can get a little bit rigid.

I love Buddhism, mystical Christianity, Sufism, they all have so much beauty and wisdom to offer. There’s been wonderful teachers who have embodied the teachings. They have so much to share. How can I hunker down with one, when there is so much beauty in all of them to draw from.

Once you can get past the clothes, ceremonies, and the forms of religions, you’re naked as brothers and sisters. Some people get disillusioned because a religion’s outer form may have been put them off?

Yeah, it feels like there’s these surface differences. Essentially there’s these 3 elements, practices, teachings, and stories in wisdom traditions. Like parables and stories, and certain practices and ethics.

The ethics of all the world’s religions and wisdom teachings. These are the foundations of ethical behavior, if you live your life like this, it will be much easier for you to be aware and awake, and to feel what is there at the depth of your being. When you are able to feel that, you can live from a place of harmony, of being a part of an evolving dance of evolution in this universe.  Part of something really wonderful.

If there’re not an ethical component, and just want to practice mindfulness while having affairs, or stealing, people after you, etc, it will be very hard and difficult.

  • Let your life be simple,
  • Give yourself spaciousness
  • Be around nature.
  • Keep things simple, not get too complex.

Don’t believe they were meant to be rules. Melli doesn’t believe  these dogmatic rigid things that if you don’t do them you are a bad person. If you want to get in touch with the essence of who you are, then these things will help you.

And the mindfulness will help people get more conscious and see how behavior helps or harms. 

Buddhists have a very nuanced description of what mindfulness is, it can be very simple or very nuanced. It creates insights with regards to what you can get caught up in, by watching your mind. Which will help you create intelligent wise actions as a response that alleviates suffering.

For example, when I criticize myself hardly, it doesn’t help. It is futile to beat myself up mentally, doesn’t make me a better person. Compassion and treating myself with kindness is a much more intelligent approach. Works much better, better result.

As a teacher have you noticed what people come to you with? What particular struggles do students come with? And how do they overcome or work with those struggles?

I think one of the things that we all struggle with, is noticing that the mind has wandered. That you slipped into auto-pilot again, we have a tendency to be self-critical in that moment. In that moment when self criticism comes in the door,

“I’m so hopeless, I can’t do this, I can’t even be awake for 2 seconds, I’ve got the most unruly mind” etc.

That is the voice coming straight in the back door again, allures us again. Can be quite seductive of the mind to seduce us into that.

What I tell my students, that the moment when you wake up to really congratulate yourself for waking up. Noticing how does it feel to be awake?

Coming out of the mind wandering. Notice it’s a joy to be awake. And then with a warm gentle and kind attitude drawing the mind back to the present.

I’ve been practicing for a long time, and it still will be crazy at times. Especially, our minds can be so wild. In the beginning this can be difficult. This can be frustrating, and your practice can get tension and tightness in it.

That act of congratulating yourself when you wake up from mind wandering really can be useful, makes it more rejuvenating.

The other thing for all of us, encountering difficult, and negative emotions, can have a gravitational pull. The way we tend to react, is wanting to avoid or suppress, wanting it to go away. Not realizing that makes it worse perpetuates it.

Like that saying,

“Whatever you fight, you strengthen. What you resist, persists.”

With mindfulness, you do something courageous and really wise. You stop the running, and kindly, gently turn towards exactly what it is that you’re feeling in that moment.

For example, agitation, boredom, anxiety, you can leave the breath for a moment, and focus on feeling what you’re feeling. in the case you can break the loop of avoidance. It might just boil down to strange feeling in the tummy, little bit of labored breathing, some tension.

It’s not as big and scary anymore. I find it helpful to say, Ah, there’s anxiety in me, or embarrassment in me, etc. Accepting that it’s there, and knowing that all emotions come and go, being with it, and noticing it’s changing qualities, as part of a meditation practice.

It’s wonderful, because it immediately dis-identifies you. Here you are as the awareness, and there’s the emotion. If needed, you can investigate what’s going on in there, and chose some wise action. It’s mostly just being with it, not fighting it, allowing it to come and go as it does. That’s quite liberating.

What is your sense as to how people who get discouraged as you mentioned earlier feeling like they are not good at meditating, on how they can be encouraged by meditating in a group with the encouragement and guidance from a teacher?

Yes, that includes myself. That is why I also go on retreats at least twice a year with teachers that I respect. You benefit a lot from someone who’s walked the path before. As you would with any other skill like golf, learning from someone who’s a bit more experienced. Someone you can ask questions to, you have the support there.

And then it helps you when you do practice on your own as well. 

There’s not substitute for practicing. I used to think you can just embody the present moment in every day life, and not practice. I tried that for a couple of months, and wanted to get back to practice.

I realized that it’s like fitness, like a muscle, you have to take some time every day to just tune into just BEING. In a world that is so obsessed with doing, taking some time to just be, is like an oasis. Such a precious thing. I really think there’s no substitute for practicing every single day. Mornings are great. That energy carries you through the rest of the day.

That makes it easier to be fully present through the rest of the day. Yes, that is Melli’s experience as well. But we’re all different, with different personality types, and inclinations, so I don’t believe there’s one right way.

Any final thoughts or inspiration?

There’s so many different, beautiful teachers and wisdom traditions that helped me become more present. If someone were to ask me if you have a teacher, I’d say looking out my window. My greatest teacher has always been nature, and we’re part of it. We’re part of this evolving mysterious universe. Nature is my greatest teacher. The close observation of nature, natural wildlife, being in trees, or even cloud watching, is a wonderful teacher. Watching how things come and go with such grace and ease.

Same for me as well, for feeling at home.

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