The Headspace Guide to Meditation & Mindfulness Quotes

“When it comes to meditation, though, the goal and the journey are the same thing.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“Meditation isn’t about becoming a different person, a new person, or even a better person. It’s about training in awareness and understanding how and why you think and feel the way you do, and getting a healthy sense of perspective in the process.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“The kind of happiness that I’m talking about is the ability to feel comfortable no matter what emotion arises.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“This distinction between headspace and the emotion of happiness is an important one. For some reason we’ve come to believe that happiness should be the default setting in life and, therefore, anything different is somehow wrong. Based on this assumption we tend to resist the source of unhappiness – physically, mentally and emotionally. It’s usually at this stage that things get complicated. Life can begin to feel like a chore, and an endless struggle to chase and maintain that feeling of happiness. We get hooked on the temporary rush or pleasure of a new experience, whatever that is, and then need to feed it the whole time. It doesn’t matter whether we feed it with food, drink, drugs, clothes, cars, relationships, work, or even the peace and quiet of the countryside. If we become dependent on it for our happiness, then we’re trapped. What happens when we can’t have it any more? And what happens when the excitement wears off? For many, their entire life revolves around this pursuit of happiness. Yet how many people do you know who are truly happy? And by that I mean, how many people do you know who have that unshakeable sense of underlying headspace? Has this approach of chasing one thing after the next worked for you in terms of giving you headspace? It’s as if we rush around creating all this mental chatter in our pursuit of temporary happiness, without realising that all the noise is simply drowning out the natural headspace that is already there, just waiting to be acknowledged.”
― Andy Puddicombe, The Headspace Guide to: Mindfulness & Meditation

“Have you ever noticed how much emphasis some people place on even the smallest amount of difficulty in their lives, and how little time they spend reflecting on moments of happiness?”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“It can sometimes feel as though we’re so busy remembering, planning and analyzing life, that we forget to experience life—as it actually is, rather than how we think it should be.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“as long as there’s resistance, there’s no room for acceptance. And as long as we don’t have acceptance, there’s no way of having a peaceful mind.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“It required a presence, a brutal honesty to put something out there and see what happens. Sometimes it was inspired and the thrill was exhilarating, other times it was painful and the result was humiliating. But somehow it didn’t matter. What mattered was going out there and doing it, not thinking about it, not worrying what others might think, not even being attached to a particular result, just doing it.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“A great many of my thoughts fell into the ‘unhelpful and unproductive’ category. ‘If you’re worried about losing these creative thoughts,’ he gestured somewhat dismissively, ‘then where do you think they come from in the first place? Do those moments of inspiration come from cold, rational thinking, or do they arise from the stillness and the spaciousness of the mind? When the mind is always busy there’s no room for these thoughts to arise, so by training your mind you’ll actually make more space for these creative thoughts to arise. The point is, don’t be a slave to your mind. If you want to direct your mind and use it well, then good. But what use is the mind if it’s all over the place, with no sense of direction or stability?”
― Andy Puddicombe, The Headspace Guide to: Mindfulness & Meditation

“By focusing less on your own worries and more on the potential happiness of others you actually create more headspace for yourself. Not only that, but the mind becomes softer, more malleable, easier to work with. It tends to be quicker to settle on the object of meditation, less easily distracted by passing thoughts. It also tends to be clearer, more stable and less reactive to volatile emotions. So giving your practice an altruistic edge is about so much more than simply doing the right thing. It should come as no surprise that the impact this simple skill can have on your relationships with others is quite profound. In becoming more aware of everything and everyone, you inevitably become more aware of others. You start to notice how sometimes you might unintentionally (or even intentionally) push their buttons, or notice what causes them to push yours. You start to listen to what they’re actually saying, rather than thinking about what you’d like them to say or what you’re going to say next. And when these things begin to happen you’ll notice that your relationships with others really start to change. But so long as we’re immersed in our own thoughts the whole time, it’s very difficult to truly find time for others.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“We like to think we control our minds, control the flow of thought, but if it was possible to do that then you wouldn’t have travelled halfway around the world for my advice.’ He pointed at me, playfully, laughing. ‘In fact, if it were possible to control your thoughts then you’d never have any reason to get stressed at all. You’d simply block out all the unpleasant thoughts and live peacefully with all your happy thoughts.’ I couldn’t believe how obvious it sounded when he explained it like that. It was almost as if I already knew it at some level, but had somehow forgotten to apply the idea to my life.”
― Andy Puddicombe, The Headspace Guide to Meditation & Mindfulness

“By changing the way in which you see the world, you effectively change the world around you.”
― Andy Puddicombe, The Headspace Guide to: Mindfulness & Meditation

“By stepping back and getting a little bit of perspective (something I could never have done without meditation) I was able to see the original emotion for what it was.”
― Andy Puddicombe, The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“How many of us live our lives in this way? Swept away by memories of the past and plans for the future. So preoccupied with thinking that we’re completely unaware of what’s actually taking place right now, oblivious to life unfolding around us. The present moment just feels so ordinary that we take it for granted, and yet that’s what makes it so extraordinary—the fact that we so rarely experience the present moment exactly as it is. And quite unlike anything else in life, you don’t need to go anywhere to get it, or do anything to create it. It’s right here, no matter what you’re doing. It’s in the eating of a sandwich, the drinking of a cup of tea, the washing of the dishes … ordinary, everyday activities. This is what it means to be mindful, to be present, to be aware.”
― Andy Puddicombe, The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“As I heard this story unfold I felt increasingly ashamed of my grumbling, moaning and complaining in life—of always wanting things to be exactly as I wanted them to be, and not being satisfied unless I got my way.”
― Andy Puddicombe, The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“True happiness doesn’t distinguish between the kind of happiness you get from having fun and the sadness you feel when something goes wrong.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“The body and mind are not separate. When we have presence of mind we have presence of body, when we possess mental focus we possess physical focus, and when we have an ease of mind we have an ease of body.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“how about showing yourself some of that kindness—especially in learning to be more mindful.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“The idea of finding time early in the morning can be daunting. But keep in mind that we are still only talking about ten minutes. And this is ten minutes that is going to set up your entire day for you. We may feel desperate for more sleep, but the deep rest experienced in meditation is far more useful and beneficial than the extra ten minutes of sleep you would otherwise get. What’s more, you’re conscious of it.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“That’s the interesting thing with meditation. It’s a reflection of the way in which you relate to the world around you.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“Perspective—choosing how you see your life”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“It was an extreme, and extremes are rarely a healthy way of living, no matter which end of the scale they may be.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“Even when it appears as though there’s nothing but big, dark, heavy clouds, there’s always blue sky there.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“the starting point is to acknowledge that it’s the mind itself that defines your experience. This is why training the mind is so important. By changing the way in which you see the world, you effectively change the world around you.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“Using sophisticated brain-mapping techniques they discovered that the reduction in gray matter that typically comes with aging had actually been offset by the meditation.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“Researchers investigating the effectiveness of mindfulness found that after just five days of meditating for a very short time, participants showed increased blood flow to the area of the brain that helps to control emotions and behavior.”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“That’s why I prefer the word “headspace.” It describes an underlying sense of peace, a feeling of fulfillment or unshakeable contentment, no matter what emotion might be in play at that time. Headspace is not a quality of mind dependent on surface emotions; this means it can be experienced just as clearly in periods of sadness or anger as it can in times of excitement and laughter. Essentially it’s “being okay” with whatever thoughts you’re experiencing or emotions you’re feeling. That’s”
― Andy Puddicombe, Get Some Headspace: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“Traditionally, meditation students were taught first how to approach the technique, then how to practise it, before finally learning how to integrate the techniques into their everyday lives.”
― Andy Puddicombe, The Headspace Guide to: Mindfulness & Meditation

“we’re so busy remembering, planning and analyzing life, that we forget to experience life—as it actually is, rather than how we think it should be.”
― Andy Puddicombe, The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day

“Your mind is like this wild horse when you sit to meditate,” he said, “you can’t expect it to stay still in one place all of a sudden just because you’re sitting there like a statue doing something called meditation!”
― Andy Puddicombe, The Headspace Guide to Meditation and Mindfulness: How Mindfulness Can Change Your Life in Ten Minutes a Day