More on this book
Community
Kindle Notes & Highlights
many people use meditation to give them an extra edge in a particular discipline, job, hobby or sport
see what 10 minutes a day can do for you.
training the mind with meditation can make the area of the brain associated with happiness and wellbeing thicker and stronger.
It’s usually when we’re caught up in all the little things that we start to make mistakes.
So mindfulness means to be present. It means being ‘in the moment’, experiencing life directly as it unfolds, rather than being distracted, caught up and lost in thought.
Meditation is simply a technique to provide you with the optimum conditions for practising the skill of mindfulness.
when it comes to meditation it’s about quality rather than quantity.
short, regular, daily meditation sessions.
Sometimes there’ll be external situations that require change, that might even demand change, and you’ll need to handle these situations skilfully, with mindfulness.
training the mind is so important.
By focusing less on your own worries and more on the potential happiness of others you actually create more headspace for yourself.
We go out, lead busy lives, get stressed, need something to make us feel better afterwards, and so do some meditation.
meditation does not make you think! All it does is shine a big bright light on your mind so that you can see it more clearly. This bright light is awareness.
you’ll find it easier and easier to just sit and watch the thoughts go by. This is the process of meditation.’
‘the sky is always blue.’
we don’t need to create anything. The blue sky is headspace, and it’s always there – or, rather, here.
If you can give up your desire to always experience pleasant things, at the same time as giving up your fear of experiencing unpleasant things, then you’ll have a quiet mind.’
‘you can’t have one without the other.
when you’re more aware there is very little room for these unpleasant emotions to operate.
the emotion itself is often not the problem. It’s the way we react to it that causes the problem.
I feel worried and I start to feel worried that I feel worried.
Headspace does not mean being free from emotions, but rather existing in a place where you are at ease with whatever emotion is present.
Meditation activates parts of the brain related to happiness
the quieter the mind, the greater the clarity.
the thicker the region, the lower the pain sensitivity.
when you sit to meditate, not only are you changing your perspective, but you could also be changing the physical structure of the brain.
The effort is simply remembering to notice when you’ve been caught up in thoughts or feelings and, in that moment, redirecting your attention to a particular point of focus.
Rather than thinking of just being mindful during your ten minutes of meditation each morning (and then trying to make it through the next twenty-three hours and fifty minutes of your day until you meditate again) maybe start to think of mindfulness in terms of something you can apply throughout your day. Remember, all it means is to give your full attention to whatever you’re doing, whenever you’re doing it.
extremes are rarely a healthy way of living,
the perfect mental balance between focus and relaxation.
In moving closer to it, in fully experiencing it and even encouraging it, there’s a complete shift in the usual, habitual dynamic and very often the pain is released as a result.
practise the technique during the day rather than at night,
it’s not helpful to get involved in new thinking at this time of night.
No matter what thoughts arise in the mind, whether they’re about going to sleep or otherwise, simply allow them to come and go.
meditation only works if you do it! It’s only when you sit down and do it on a regular basis that you’ll see any benefit.
a chair that encourages just a little bit of effort to maintain your posture might be best. There are a few general suggestions for sitting:
there’s one time to avoid if you can, and that’s straight after lunch.
we are still only talking about ten minutes. And this is ten minutes that is going to set up your entire day for you.
When it comes to meditation, every day is different. One day you might find that your mind is very quiet, at other times it might be very busy.
the simple act of doing the exercise day after day is enough to stimulate positive change in the brain.
‘It’s hard to say exactly what the benefits are. All I know is that on the days I do it I feel great, and on the days I don’t do it, I feel rubbish.’
If you’ve been busy doing other things, or have simply been thinking a lot, the mind is unlikely to immediately sit still.
We tend to identify very strongly with being a certain type of person, but when you do this exercise honestly, it makes you realise that actually we are much more than that one type of person. We’re always changing, one moment to the next, one day to the next.
It’s also useful to notice how your perspective can shift – how one day you can get on a crowded train and not be too bothered about it, and yet on another occasion it appears to push every button you have.
Kindness makes the mind softer, more malleable and easier to work with in your practice. It creates a mindset that is less judgmental and more accepting.
his obsession with trying to control the anxiety was actually driving the anxiety itself.
I asked her to make sure she only used the bedroom for sleep,
I asked her to avoid taking naps during the day
she now recognises that her sleep won’t always be perfect, but that’s OK, she’s happy to ride out the wave.
We spent a long time talking about how it was possible to step back from thoughts, to create a little more space. We talked about not needing to identify with the thoughts so much, that they were not who she was,
