Mindfulness Quotes

“We try so hard to be happy that we end up missing the most important parts of our lives and destroying the very peace that we were seeking”
― J. Mark G. Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“Whatever you can do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius, power, and magic in it.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“when you start to feel a little sad, anxious, or irritable it’s not the mood that does the damage but how you react to it. • the effort of trying to free yourself from a bad mood or bout of unhappiness – of working out why you’re unhappy and what you can do about it – often makes things worse. It’s like being trapped in quicksand – the more you struggle to be free, the deeper you sink.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world

“Mindfulness meditation encourages us to become more patient and compassionate with ourselves and to cultivate open-mindedness and gentle persistence. These qualities help free us from the gravitational pull of anxiety, stress and unhappiness by reminding us what science has shown: that it’s OK to stop treating sadness and other difficulties as problems that need to be solved.”
― J. Mark G. Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“Mindfulness cultivates our ability to do things knowing that we're doing them.”
― J. Mark G. Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“In mindfulness, we start to see the world as it is, not as we expect it to be, how we want it to be, or what we fear it might become. These”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“Pure awareness transcends thinking. It allows you to step outside the chattering negative self-talk and your reactive impulses and emotions. It allows you to look at the world once again with open eyes. And when you do so, a sense of wonder and quiet contentment begins to reappear in your life.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“You can’t stop the triggering of unhappy memories, self-critical thoughts and judgmental ways of thinking – but you can stop what happens next. You can stop the spiral from feeding off itself and triggering the next cycle of negative thoughts. You can stop the cascade of destructive emotions that can end up making you unhappy, anxious, stressed, irritable or exhausted.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world

“Many of us find numerous ways to avoid or put off altering the balance between nourishing and depleting activities in our lives; usually for very solid-sounding and altruistic reasons. Some may say, for example: “I’m balancing being a mom, a career woman, a wife and a homemaker. Where do I find the time for myself?” Others will point to the large projects at work or home, and say, “Not now, not yet; maybe some day—when this project is finished.” On the surface, this approach seems reasonable; but try to see if it is possible to take the long view. In time, if we don’t rebalance our lives, we will become less effective at everything we do. We will become joyless, sleepless and witless.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“Context has a huge effect on our memory.”
― J. Mark G. Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“Mindfulness meditation teaches you to recognise memories and damaging thoughts as they arise. It reminds you that they are memories. They are like propaganda, they are not real. They are not you. You can learn to observe negative thoughts as they arise, let them stay a while and then simply watch them evaporate before your eyes. And when this occurs, an extraordinary thing can happen: a profound sense of happiness and peace fills the void.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world

“The spirit in which you do something is often as important as the act itself.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“It takes the fuel away from your endless, driving self-criticism. You will eventually be able to see more clearly that some things in life are less important than you had thought, and find it easier to let go of over-caring about them. You will find that the energy that they have been consuming can be used to treat yourself and the world more generously.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“The real voyage of discovery consists not in seeking out new landscapes but in having new eyes. ATTRIB. MARCEL PROUST, 1871–1922”
― J. Mark G. Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“The mind is constantly trawling through memories to find those that echo our current emotional state. For example, if you feel threatened, the mind instantly digs up memories of when you felt endangered in the past, so that you can spot similarities and find a way of escaping.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“in some cultures, doctors don’t ask, “When did you start to feel depressed?” but, “When did you stop dancing?”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“Once again, it is important to keep in mind that there isn’t necessarily a connection between how much you are enjoying the practice and its longer-term benefits. It can take time for the mind to reconnect fully with the body as countless networks in the brain have to rewire and strengthen themselves.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“Gradually, moment by moment, you may have come to realize that although you can’t stop the unsettling thoughts from arising in your mind, you can stop what happens next. You can stop the vicious circle from feeding off itself. The”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“it’s difficult to be curious and unhappy at the same time. Re-igniting”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world

“You’ll soon discover that although you feel time-poor, you are actually moment-rich.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“There is no need to compare your life (or standard of living) with either a fictitious life in the future or some rose-tinted view of the past. You”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“We are capable of directly sensing things like the sounds of birds, the scent of beautiful flowers and the sight of a loved one’s smile. And we know with the heart as well as the head. Thinking is not all there is to conscious experience. The mind is bigger and more encompassing than thought alone.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world

“The evidence is clear: brooding is the problem, not the solution.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world

“now is the future that you promised yourself last year, last month, last week. Now is the only moment you’ll ever really have. Mindfulness is about waking up to this.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“come to realise that thoughts come and go of their own accord; that you are not your thoughts. You can watch as they appear in your mind, seemingly from thin air, and watch again as they disappear, like a soap bubble bursting. You come to the profound understanding that thoughts and feelings (including negative ones) are transient. They come and they go, and ultimately, you have a choice about whether to act on them or not.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: A practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world

“We often have very little empathy for our own thoughts and feelings and frequently try to suppress them by dismissing them as weaknesses.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“The Raisin meditation2 Set aside five to ten minutes when you can be alone, in a place, and at a time, when you will not be disturbed by the phone, family or friends. Switch off your cell phone, so it doesn’t play on your mind. You will need a few raisins (or other dried fruit or small nuts). You’ll also need a piece of paper and a pen to record your reactions afterward. Your task will be to eat the fruit or nuts in a mindful way, much as you ate the chocolate earlier (see p. 55). Read the instructions below to get an idea of what’s required, and only reread them if you really need to. The spirit in which you do the meditation is more important than covering every instruction in minute detail. You should spend about twenty to thirty seconds on each of the following eight stages: 1. Holding Take one of the raisins (or your choice of dried fruit or nuts) and hold it in the palm of your hand, or between your fingers and thumb. Focusing on it, approach it as if you have never seen anything like it before. Can you feel the weight of it in your hand? Is it casting a shadow on your palm? 2. Seeing Take the time really to see the raisin. Imagine you have never seen one before. Look at it with great care and full attention. Let your eyes explore every part of it. Examine the highlights where the light shines; the darker hollows, the folds and ridges. 3. Touching Turn the raisin over between your fingers, exploring its texture. How does it feel between the forefinger and thumb of the other hand? 4. Smelling Now, holding it beneath your nose, see what you notice with each in-breath. Does it have a scent? Let it fill your awareness. And if there is no scent, or very little, notice this as well. 5. Placing Slowly take the object to your mouth and notice how your hand and arm know exactly where to put it. And then gently place it in your mouth, noticing what the tongue does to “receive” it. Without chewing, simply explore the sensations of having it on your tongue. Gradually begin to explore the object with your tongue, continuing for thirty seconds or more if you choose. 6. Chewing When you’re ready, consciously take a bite into the raisin and notice the effects on the object, and in your mouth. Notice any tastes that it releases. Feel the texture as your teeth bite into it. Continue slowly chewing it, but do not swallow it just yet. Notice what is happening in the mouth. 7. Swallowing See if you can detect the first intention to swallow as it arises in your mind, experiencing it with full awareness before you actually swallow. Notice what the tongue does to prepare it for swallowing. See if you can follow the sensations of swallowing the raisin. If you can, consciously sense it as it moves down into your stomach. And if you don’t swallow it all at one time, consciously notice a second or even a third swallow, until it has all gone. Notice what the tongue does after you have swallowed. 8. Aftereffects Finally, spend a few moments registering the aftermath of this eating. Is there an aftertaste? What does the absence of the raisin feel like? Is there an automatic tendency to look for another? Now take a moment to write down anything that you noticed when you were doing the practice. Here’s what some people who’ve attended our courses said: “The smell for me was amazing; I’d never noticed that before.” “I felt pretty stupid, like I was in art school or something.” “I thought how ugly they looked … small and wrinkled, but the taste was very different from what I would normally have thought it tasted like. It was quite nice actually.” “I tasted this one raisin more than the twenty or so I usually stuff into my mouth without thinking.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“A quietude profunda que tanto buscamos não surge porque o mundo está parado ou porque a mente está serena. A quietude é alimentada quando permitimos que as coisas sejam como são, no momento em que estamos. Momento a momento e respiração a respiração.
(meditação 4 - respiração e corpo)”
― Danny Penman, Mindfulness: Atenção Plena

“willingness or ability to show up fully in our lives and live them as if they really mattered, in the only moment we ever get, which is this one”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World

“Depression is taking a staggering toll on the modern world. Around 10 percent of the population can expect to become clinically depressed over the coming year. And things are likely to become worse. The World health Organization1 estimates that depression will impose the second-biggest health burden globally by 2020. Think about that for a moment. Depression will impose a bigger burden than heart disease, arthritis and many forms of cancer on both individuals and society in less than a decade.”
― Mark Williams, Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World