Back to the future? No! Let's stick to the present!

I know!  It's been an age! 

I'm not sure why that is, maybe just that life has got in the way somewhat....or is that just an excuse!  I do that with mindfulness sometimes.  I really do need to finish this episode of Emmerdale before I meditate! No honestly.....that ironing really is my priority (as is emptying the bin, decorating!!!  Both of which I hate but they are good excuses!)  It sounds like I don't like meditating which is ridiculous because I love it, it's so calming and has changed my life in many ways.  But there is just this little voice in my head (actually, it's like having a Good Buddha and Bad Buddha on my shoulder, whispering.....). Good Buddha says, you know you will feel so much calmer if you do half an hours meditating?  Bad Buddha replies, yeah but think what you might miss on Twitter!!!  It's really happening on there!!!  Good Buddha says, well ok then, if you can't do half an hour, how about being kind to yourself and just doing 20 mins?  Bad Buddha says, nah!  It's hardly worth it - do it later, tomorrow, next week, you're only playing at it anyway!!!  At this point, Good Buddha interjects, punching Bad Buddha on the nose and shouting, "She is not playing at it, that's just a critical, judgemental thought and we don't do those!  She's trying really hard at this and it's important to her so STOP distracting her and filling her head with negativity!   Good Buddha then recovers her composure, dusts down her ....(whispered aside...what do Buddha's wear?  Is it a tabard...No!!  A toga?  I think it might be a toga, gosh I really should do my research) dusts down her toga (???) and being totally accepting of herself, doesn't judge herself for having "gone off on one", gently saying "Missy, just do it" and so.....here I am!

It's been an important week in our household for two very different reasons and I think it highlights the benefits of being mindful and "living in the moment".

I've been to hospital this week with my dad who'd had a screening test for cancer which had thrown up an anomaly.  Now, with older parents you expect that there are going to be health issues but cancer is in a league of it's own!  My mum couldn't bring herself to say the word, thinking that if she said it, then it would happen!  Anyway, I go with them, a 3rd pair of ears because I know when you are at hospital having tests you can be so stressed you don't hear a word. He has the tests, reassured and supported by the most wonderful doctor and staff (for some people it really is a vocation isn't it - you can just see it in their eyes and their whole demeanour - like a stick of Blackpool rock with "caring" written all the way through!)  At the end, the doctor drew up a chair (an alarm bell rang).  It's not as good as we'd hoped he said!  (a cacophony of bells) I felt calm.  He explained more.  I breathed and still felt calm (what's going on, I'm normally catastrophising by this stage!!).  Now I don't know if it was the reassuring support of the doctor and staff who explained things so clearly and gently, painting a clear picture of the problem and how it would be dealt with, or my continued mindfulness practice but somehow, I was able to take a step back, observe the situation and not allow my thoughts to pull me into some negative narrative that didn't have a happy ending!  In this moment, I was able to see that dad had a problem and the medical staff were going to try and fix it!  Result!  I felt like I'd come of age!  So fingers crossed, dad will have his treatment and be fine!  And I am so grateful to mindfulness for giving me the skills I needed to handle such a difficult situation.

And finally, FA cup final week in our house.  35 years of waiting for a trophy!  My husband was beside himself!  He's been a bag of nerves, distracted, edgy!  There's hardly been a smile cracking his lovely face!  I can see in his eyes that he's been in the future all week, somewhere around the 89th minute of the game, with City 1-0 up and he dares to allow himself the possibility of winning!!   But then, his own Bad Buddha has been tagging along all week and he's not been whispering....oh no ...he's been shouting!!  City win the FA cup!  Don't make me laugh!  You will never win anything AGAIN!   You can't win, you're not allowed to win, you City fans have to have something to moan about, and joke about in the self deprecating, City way!  It's the law!  And with that he swooshes his toga (for he wears one also) over his ample girth and grins menacingly!!!  So it's 1pm and coverage starts, D makes excuses not to watch the preamble, helping me clean the house (oh the things we do to distract ourselves!!).  Eventually, 3 O Clock arrives and we watch with bated breath.  The minutes tick by, first half over (we're playing well?!!!  There's a tinge of relief but we need a goal!).  Just when we think it's never gonna happen and we (mentally) fast forward half an hour seeing the agony that is...extra time and penalties!! City score!  I scream and D makes a sound like a possessed hyena!  But on no,  we've still got 15 mins to play!  D paces the lounge, I tap my legs randomly!  It gets closer and closer, D watches less and less until finally after several last minute corners (to Stoke) the ref blows and they have done it!

D is elated!  Followed by deflated!  I fear that he has lived this match and the outcome so many times in his head he can't now deal with the reality of it!  35 years of waiting and he can't enjoy the moment!  I'm sure he's not alone!

Back to the future anyone!  Nah!  I'll stick with the present thank you!

Have a good week.

Mindfulmissy xxxx

I really must stop catastrophising!

As part of my on-going development as a mindfulness trainer I regularly attend supervision meetings.  The aim of these sessions is for trainers to discuss any issues they may have either with their own meditation practice, or with their work with others.  We also have time to discuss books we've read about the subject, interesting courses we've seen, future workshops that we are planning and the merits of internet dating (Yes I did say that!).  Well it's not all work work work!

Anyway, it was at one of these supervision sessions that the idea of "trust emergence" was discussed.  It's a Buddhist principle which, in a nut shell is about not always planning everything to the nth degree but going with the flow and seeing what emerges.  So for instance, instead of me sitting down with a specific subject for my blog, I just wait and see what inspires me and what my subconscious throws up.  I've just realised that my definition isn't perhaps as eloquent as I'd like so for a more edifying description, see below:

To 'trust' is to make the leap of faith required to enter the seething sea of change. 'Emergence' refers to the process by which the complex things we experience arise spontaneously from underlying contributing factors.  Insight Dialogue: The Interpersonal Path to Freedom…(Paperback)

by Gregory Kramer, Chapter 13

 

I really loved this definition and the idea of jumping into "a seething sea of change".  I called my first blog "leap of faith" and it took me about 20 minutes to press the send button when I'd written my first post.  This was because I was totally outside my comfort zone, standing on the precipice of a brave new creative world.  I didn't know what outcome would emerge from my random ramblings, I just had to trust that it was the right thing to do and jump!!!  Having landed firmly on the other side, well ok I may have hit my head on the way but no other major injuries (no bruised ego or wounded pride......well not yet anyway) I can look back at the view and think "I'm really glad I did that".  I never thought I would sit at a computer and feel excited at the idea of writing a blog or be able to cope with the fizzing adrenaline rush that consumes me when I haven't got a clue what to write!!!  But I'm still here and I'm still writing.

 

So I guess I'm inviting you to have a go at a little "trust emergence".  Do you always need to know where you are going and plan for every eventuality?  Is your path mapped out for you or can you take a diversion because who knows what's down this road as opposed to that road; what view you may miss or experience you may not have.  "Trust emergence" is really about being totally in the moment or "mindful".  Just letting things happen and going with the flow.  Why don't you give it a go and see what "emerges"!

 

One quick story to finish off with:

 

The other evening I was awoken by the sound of our side gate being rattled.  It was 5.30 am and still dark outside.  Hub was, as usual, dead to the world, puffing and blowing so I gave him a nudge - D!  There's someone trying to break in!    He stopped snoring and sat up bleary eyed!  "Someone is trying to break in at the side gate!!!  What shall we do?"  By this stage D was awake and confirmed that the said gate was indeed rattling like a rattley thing!  I ran to the back bedroom window - the security lights were on....gulp!  D ran to the front - that wasn't on (BECAUSE HE'D NOT REPLACED THE BULB DOH!!!).  Unfortunately, it was at this point that we realised we didn't have a view of the side.  I therefore made the executive decision to race down to the kitchen and set of the infra-red alarm sensor in a bid to scare off the burglars!  I felt sick with anticipation as I went into the kitchen as I could see the side light was also on - someone was definitely there trying to break down our side gate.  Alarm goes off - cats go wide-eyed with fear - I go wide-eyed with fear and then look round to see D, fully dressed armed with mini-D's cricket bat. "DON'T GO OUTSIDE!!!"  I say.  "What if they beat you up? ". I was terrified, but with a small sense of pride at my bloke being all manly!  I stand behind him, not knowing whether to arm myself with the bread knife  (risky) or the cat scratching post (just weird!!)  and we took a deep breath and tentatively opened the back door.

 

And there, in the darkness he stood,

 

Bobby the badger!

 

And so you see, that's what happens when you have a powerful mind!  Talk about catastrophising!

 

Have a good week.

 

Mindfulmissyxxx

 

 

Don't miss one day like this...

I read a really interesting article this week, all about how technologyy is shaping our lives.  We live in a digital age where our every waking moment, thought or action is recorded for all to see.  It so instantaneous, but does it interfere with us living in the moment?

Even before the advent of social networking and camera phones I've always argued with my hub, D, about his need to photograph everything and keep a record for posterity.  Now this is a lot to do with his penchant for archivy - history and record keeping is kind of what makes him tick so I know I should cut him a bit of slack.  However, I have often found myself saying - stop photographing and LOOK AT THE VIEW!  I'm just not sure you can ever fully do justice to an image by photography alone - it needs to be in context.   I have a photo of the Grand Canyon which looks great but what makes the Grand Canyon GRAND is the fact that it's impossible to capture by camera due to it's utter vastness.  It needs to be seen in context not in isolation.   You'd think I'd practice what I preach but no!  In a moment of madness I decided to take a photograph during an Elbow concert - imagine the scene, it's the encore.....Guy Garvey begins to sing "One day like this", his voice like a gorgeous piece of toast, soft and buttery on the top but with a bit of crunch underneath! - the chorus arrives (Throw those curtains wide - one day like this a year will see me right) the lyrics rising majestically - huge and anthemic, the crowd singing as one, totally lost in the moment! And then.....it happens!  Loads and loads of huge bouncy balls descended onto the crowd, accompanied by a veritable ash cloud of ticker tape!  It was breathtaking!  I was beside myself, singing my favourite song, marvelling at the mad view in front of me, people laughing and batting these huge balls from one side of the crowd to the other, their faces misted by the descending confetti!  I must capture this moment I thought and reached for the camera.....In the excitement I couldn't find it - then I did...quickly I need to get it out of the case:  aghgghghgh where's the "on" switch - oh it's there!  Quickly (Throw those curtains......la la la)...more ticker tape, what should I photograph?.....I want it all, a photo of everyone enjoying this moment, get the balls in and the ticker tape CLICK, CLICK, CLICK.....and then it was all over.  It was at this point I realised that I wanted to do it again because I hadn't taken it all in - I hadn't been fully engaged from start to finish and I really really wanted to be.  It's one of my favourite songs and I wanted to hear every note, sing every word and watch the performance unfold before my eyes.  Instead I watched half of it (which was WONDERFUL) but missed the finale as I was too busy taking the photo!  Oh I was SOOOO annoyed with myself afterwards - especially when I saw the photos - THEY WERE RUBBISH!  You can't even tell what they are supposed to be.

So I guess what I'm saying is that despite the advancement of technology - don't miss what's happening in your "here and now".  It's nice to let friends know what you are up to via facebook, posting photos or videos but it's also important to savour the moment too!

Have a good week

Mindfulmissyxx

ps:  Just in case you are interested, here's a You Tube video of the Elbow song!  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hk2xaeXnxlM&NR=1

pps:  Hey I've really been in the moment today as was supposed to be writing more about Twitter and Facebook but have gone off on a completely different tangent!  I love it when that happens!

Work in Progress

As much as I really like mindfulness and all it stands for sometimes it can be really hard to practice what you preach!  Take last night for instance....

I spent 3 hours in the company of my lovely mindfulness colleagues under the guise of supervision.  We meet regularly to discuss mindfulness, it's problems, personal practice issues, working with mindfulness, that kind of thing plus, we eat lots of cake and nibbles and take the time to find the fun in life (that's my favourite bit!!).

So, our facilitator for the evening compiled our agenda then chose to work backwards...well that threw me off kilter straight away......woah!  Backwards.....but that's not straightforward ( I can be a bit obvious sometimes).  Anyway, I remained in the moment, went with the flow and the meeting turned out really well.  We discussed the retreat - fabulous!; our up and coming Saturday workshop - themed "The Senses" - We like a theme and for some reason they always begin with "S".  Soon we are really going to have to be creative with that one!  We also discussed how we integrate mindfulness into our work (not easy for me) and also about me hitting my metaphorical meditation "wall" at 16 minutes 57 seconds.  To explain, I've recently downloaded an app (so IT savvy) called "Zen Timer".  You can set it for a certain length of time and then it chimes bells when you are done (what's wrong with that!!!???).  Anyway, for some strange reason, each time I put it on, I think it's gone faulty.  Surely it must be 20 mins by now....I resist looking on several occasions but then when I do look.....it says 16 minutes 57 and has done so on several occasions!  Spooky or what.  So, we discussed this and the wiser and more experienced of our group put forth the idea that meditation comes in waves and sometimes it is necessary to ride these out to progress.   As I'm only practising for a relatively short length of time, I'm only really getting one wave!  So, I'm going to extend my time next week (via the Zen timer!!) and see if I can do some serious surfing!

The evening ended with a great meditation just simply focussing on the breath, hands on tummy, feeling the rise and fall.  It's really comforting feeling the warmth of your hands resting on you as you meditate and an easy place to focus on.  I left feeling really chilled........and then I lost my keys (arhghghgh where are they!???  Someone might find them and burgle the house!!!!).  Suddenly the "moment" was lost and I was hijacked by my thoughts, catastrophising over what might happen!!! 

I guess you could say I'm definitely "Work in Progress".

update:  Used Zen timer tonight and hit the wall at 15.05!  So much for my theory then!

Have a good week.

Mindful Missy