As you move through this course there will be countless occasions when you’ll feel like you’ve failed. Your mind will refuse to settle. It will race off like a greyhound after a hare. No matter what you try, within seconds your mind may become immersed in thoughts about this and that. 

At times it might feel that you are fighting a losing battle. You may even despondent that you can’t ‘create’ a calm state of mind. Or, while you listen to the formal mindfulness mediations you may feel sleepy and a deep drowsiness will begin undermining your intention to stay awake. At times you may even fall asleep.

You may find yourself thinking, “nothing is working for me”. But these moments are not signs of failure. They are profoundly important to be aware of. Like trying anything new, whether it’s learning to play the drums or learn an apprenticeship, it can be frustrating when the results do not correspond to the picture of expectation you have in your mind. 

In these moments it pays to persist with commitment and kindness towards yourself. 

Apparent ‘failures’ are where you will learn the most. The act of ‘seeing’ that your mind has raced off or that you are restless or drowsy, is a moment of great learning. You are coming to understand a profound truth: that your mind has a mind of its own and that a body has needs that many of us ignore for too long. 

You will gradually come to learn that your thoughts are not you, you do not have to take them so personally. You can simply watch these states of mind as they arise, stay a while, and then dissolve. It’s tremendously liberating to realise that your thoughts are not ‘real’ or ‘reality’. They are simply mental events. They are not ‘you’. 

At the very moment when you realise this, the patterns of thoughts and feelings that gripped you may suddenly lose momentum and allow the mind to settle. A deep feeling of contentment may fill your body. But very soon your mind will race off again. After a while, you will once again become aware that you are thinking, comparing, judging. You may now feel disappointed. You might think: “I thought I really had it then and now I’ve lost it”. 

You simply have to do the practices and learn for yourself. If you do, then every now and again, you will have an ‘Aha’ moment, a flicker of insight that is profoundly calming and enlightening. You will understand what other practitioners have been learning for thousands of years: that worries, stresses and anxieties can be held in a larger space, in which they emerge and dissolve, leaving you to rest in awareness itself.

it’s a sense of being complete and whole that is independent of your preconceptions. At the end of this course, many people report knowing, deep within themselves, that this feeling of profound stillness, of being happy, content and free, is always available to them, it is only ever a breath away. 

We wish you well as you continue along your path of increased mindfulness. 

A typical meditation consists of focusing your full attention on your breath as it flows in and out of your body.  

Focusing on the breath in this way allows you to be aware of and observe your thoughts as they arise in your mind and little by little, to accept their presence and stop trying to push them away. 

Thoughts are thoughts and cannot be pushed away…wouldn’t it be great if we could do that!

You will soon realise that thoughts come and go of their own accord but they are not your conscious thoughts but thoughts generated subconsciously. 

Thoughts appear, seemingly from thin air but we can learn to watch them as they appear in the front of your mind but if we allow ourselves to watch them as an observer and not a participator we can then allow them to disappear like a leaf on a stream. You will come to realise that thoughts and feelings, including -ones, or transient. 

Mindfulness is about observing something in the present moment without criticism or judgement and learning to be compassionate with yourself in these moments. When unhappiness, anxiety or stress are present, rather than taking it all personally, we can learn to observe them with friendly curiosity as they drift past. 

Simply put, mindfulness allows you to catch negative thought patterns before you follow them on autopilot. It begins the process of helping you be aware of how you feel in moment to moment situations and manage those situations in a more accepting way.

Overtime, mindfulness is effective in bringing about long-term changes in mood and levels of happiness, contentment and well-being. Many studies have shown that mindfulness not only prevents depression, but that it also positively affects the brain patterns underlying day-to-day anxiety, stress, depression and irritability so that when you can become aware of their presence, they can dissolve away again more easily. 

Following the mindfulness teachings of this course will give you the opportunity to create a calmer and more positive attitude in your day to day life.

Thoughts are Thoughts…NOT FACT

We follow thoughts, interpretations and beliefs as fact. Because they are in our mind we just accept them and react accordingly. Some people say, “it’s who I am”.  We worry and fret, we catastrophise the outcome of events. We have critical and judgemental thoughts and when we follow them it has a negative impact on our wellbeing. 

It doesn’t have to be that way however. When we can become more aware of our autopilot thoughts, feelings, emotions and actions we give ourselves a great opportunity to have a better experience of any moment event. 

We are often carried away from our intention to meditate by the momentum of our busy lives.  Perhaps the most important moments of beginning a meditation practice are those few seconds when you remember your intention to stop and follow the flow of the breath. 

How long you stay focused on the breath is not as important as the fact that you stopped, switched gears from the endless cycles of planning and worrying, and turned to observe some of your present moment sensations and feelings with simple awareness, even if it’s only for a minute or 2 at a time.  

YOU WILL NOT JUST REMEMBER TO PRACTICE

With the best will in the world, you are unlikely to just remember to practice the short breath focus meditations, evenly spaced throughout the day, without some form of scheduling and structure. 

It is suggested that you set alarm reminders on your phone or in another way that will work for you. You are at the beginning of your mindfulness journey and any help you can give yourself to develop mindfulness practice will prove invaluable.

It is very common as you begin to practice Mindfulness to be surprised at how little your mind is truly in the present moment. Whether you are engaged in a ‘formal’ or ‘informal’ mindfulness practice your mind will wander away from your Mindfulness practice. 

This is absolutely normal. This mind wandering may involve thinking about the past, something you said or did or maybe thoughts about the future, an upcoming meeting or holiday. 

When you notice that your mind has wandered congratulate yourself for noticing this and gently bring your mind back to the point of focus in the present moment. 

It is often helpful to label the wandering thought that you had. For example: “there's the upcoming Wedding”, “there’s Saturday night”, “there’s the mortgage”. Then gently go back to your Mindfulness or meditation practice in the moment. 

One of the cornerstones of Mindfulness is being non-judgemental and accepting of your thoughts. 

As you continue, you will notice your mind wandering off again. This is entirely normal. Again, when you notice this happening, label the thought and bring your attention back to the present moment. 

You will do this process again and again. To quote Jon Kabat Zinn - "If the mind wanders a thousand times your only job is to bring it back a thousand times"

Irrespective of how often your mind wanders, always congratulate yourself on noticing that it has wandered and be gentle and compassionate with your mind as you bring it back into the present moment. 

Indeed, the very moment you notice your mind has wandered is, in fact, you actually becoming Mindful once again. Cultivating compassion for your mind is a very important principle within Mindfulness.

One of the reasons for this ‘cultivation of compassion’ for your own mind, is that as you evolve in your Mindfulness practice, you will find that this cultivation of compassion towards yourself will extend to others as well.

As the mind wanders it chooses its own direction. So, while we may not have control of the first thought that fires off in our minds and the associated emotions created by this thought, we do have control on how long we dwell on these thoughts. 

Research from Stanford University states that we have 60,000 thoughts per day but these thoughts can only happen in our minds, one thought at a time. 

As you develop your mindfulness practice it allows the opportunity to see your ‘thought stream’ in action. For a brief moment, you will become aware of your thoughts and their generated emotions as they move like clouds across your mind, some big some small. 

Mindfulness creates a distance between you and these thoughts. As you become the observer of these thoughts you can choose to accept them or reject them. When you become aware of this, it may become tremendously liberating. 

Remember, at all times you are only ever one thought away from the present moment. Step out of that one thought, focus on what's happening in front of you right now, using as many of your senses as possible and now you are practicing Mindfulness.

It is advised to carry out each informal meditation for ant individual day at least once but it is advised to create the time to practice the daily informal exercise 2 or 3 times during the day to get the feel for it.

“WHY?”, many people ask.

The simple answer is that you are learning a new skill that is probably unfamiliar to you. For Mindfulness to become habit and for it to have a positive impact on your wellbeing, regular practice is required.

Don’t Have Enough Time?

Some people say they don’t have enough time; that they can’t fit in the different mindfulness practices. Just think for a minute the times during the day where you aren’t doing anything that requires physical attention or mental attention:

• Quiet times at home or work.
• Having breakfast or any snack/meal during the day.
• Walking to work or the train station. Sitting on a train or bus.
• Waiting for the children at school.
• Preparing/cooking a meal.
• Waiting for the kettle to boil.
• Sitting on the toilet.
• During lunch breaks or in the evening or other times where you are ‘free’.
• What about the amount of time you might spend on social media? Maybe you could choose to be more mindful during your ‘phone time’ and practice Mindfulness during some of these moments.

Practice Makes Perfect!

The more you practice Mindfulness, the more it will become part of your day. YES, it will be a little difficult at first because this is not ‘normal’ practice for you:

• Take time to create awareness of the practice required for each day. 
• Schedule the time when you believe you can practice. It won’t just happen without your input and commitment. 
• Set schedules you can keep.
• Create an effective reminder system, whether that is reminders that ping on your phone, set email reminders or post it notes in convenient places.
• When you are familiar with the individual mindfulness exercises and meditations, practice them each day without the accompanying recordings.

If you get into the right mindset of learning and practicing Mindfulness, not only will you see that the practices for each day do not interfere with your day, you will soon recognise that it is easy to develop effective mindfulness practice. 

It will soon become 2nd nature for you.

• Schedule your practice time that fits in with your day. This is also to include settling in time and reflection time when you finish.

• Find a place where you will not be disturbed.

• Settle in to a comfortable position before starting the session.

• You may find you get distracted during your session. This is normal. When you notice distraction, label the distraction just a distraction and bring your awareness back to your mindfulness practice.

• When you finish your session give yourself a minute or two to reorientate yourself back to your environment.

• Allow time for reflection and when you feel ready return back to your daily activities.

• If you notice sabotaging thoughts to put you off your practice gently remind yourself that you are participating in a mindfulness course that the intention is to deliberately focus your attention on the present moment free from judgement.

Mindful awareness is an important factor to recognise where mindfulness can have its best impact. 

Some people practice mindfulness purely because they choose to do this as a form of self-improvement.

Others embark on mindfulness practice because of of negative autopilot habits. With this in mind it would be helpful to relect on:

• How has my day been today?

• How have I felt?

• How have my thoughts been? 

• What has impacted on me?

• How have I reacted to thoughts, feelings, situations or people?

BE HONEST WITH YOURSELF AND YOUR REFLECTIONS. BE AWARE WHERE YOU BLAME OUTSIDE INFLUENCES AND LEARN TO TAKE PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY FOR YOUR WELLBEING.

You do not want to let countless autopilot moments pass by without recognition of negative stimuli that comes your way. If this was to happen, your mindfulness practice will find it hard to find a home.

You might find it helpful to make some notes in a jouranl so you can train your mind to recognise where being more mindful will be of most enefit to you and others.

Being Mindful is a Choice. 

You can choose to continue your autopilot habits of behaviour or you can choose to be more mindful of your experiences.

As you go through your day start to pay more atention to where you could be more mindful:

• Pay more attention to thoughts whether you are worrying, being critical or judgemental. Maybe you are catastrophising. 

• Pay more attention to bodily feelings and sensations. Where in your body do you experience unpleasant feelings? 

• Be more aware of how you are feeling: sad, angry, fearful, anxious, stressed.

• Be more aware how your autopilot mind wishes you to respond.

Your mindfulness practice so far has enabled you to be in the moment with the object of practice including: The breath, eating and your senses.

During your mindfulness practice, you have been encouraged to practice being in the moment with these, being observent of your experience, feeling the experience and staying in the moment whilst bringing yourself back from distraction when it occured.

The aim is to help you use the same philosophy when negative stimuli comes your way.

• We want to help you learn how to observe a thought and recognise it as a thought...no thought is permanent and we can let it pass through.

• Bodily and emotional sensations are learned habits. Observing the presence of bodily feelings and sensations helps us to be less reactive to them.

• Being aware of our emotions helps us to step back from them rather than play them out.

• When we can become more aware of our intended responses we have the opportunity to create a more mindful response.