Mindfulness App Feedback

[Gareth]

He's always been supportive of my practice but despite seeing how it's helped me and being independently recommended it by others he's never taken the leap.

Reminds me of my own domestic situation.

[JonW]

Likewise.
Been trying to teach Banjo to meditate for ages. His mind is all over the shop.
Jon

[klamping]

Hey Jon,

I may not have explained myself correctly when saying that I've only known about it for a year. I've actually been practicing it on and off for that time, but haven't been consistent due to having little kids running around. That's actually where the idea to write the app came from. I wanted to see if I could fit mindfulness in to my life as a parent.

If you're interested in more details on it, I wrote about my journey towards discovering and practicing mindfulness on my blog: http://blog.kevinlamping.com/discovering-mindfulness/
I talk about why I like it and why I wrote the app in more detail.

[klamping]

Barbs,

Thanks for trying it out and sharing! The ability to use it anywhere was definitely my goal with the app. There are already great apps out there for focused mindfulness/meditation; I just wanted something you can fit in to times when you don't have solitude.

As always, suggestions and criticisms are welcome. I'm still mulling over how to improve the experience and make it even more minimal (less reading with a more intuitive interface). Also, I want to add some sort of breathing rhythm animation throughout the session so that it reminds you to focus on your breathe as you move along. Just need more time

[JonW]

Hi klamping,
Apologies. I misunderstood your previous post.
Wishing you all good things,
Jon

[Gareth]

Hi Kevin,

I just took a look at your blog - it's great. It's good that you are developing something for those people who feel like their life is too frantic to meditate. Meditation is a life-affirming thing, which I've found naturally brings about compassion. The more people that are doing it is a good thing in my opinion.

I find it interesting where you talk about people who don't have the time to meditate. It's not something that I'm certain I believe. I have two under 5s myself, and I still find the time to meditate every day, even if it's just for 10 minutes. I find that the benefits it brings me far outweigh the cost of the time spent in meditation. And to be honest, I would say that for me at least, meditation is a time provider, not a time consumer. The amount of time that I save from not following pointless thoughts must be greater than the time I spend meditating.

[klamping]

Gareth, I think you're spot on with that. Somewhere in my mind I thought that as long as I make this app, I'd start meditating regularly. It worked for a couple days, but then I got lazy. I keep making excuses that I don't have five minutes to "waste", even though, like you said, it makes me so much more productive outside of those minutes. I think I'm going to write up a follow-up blog post titled "these are the excuses I make about why I don't have time to meditate" and basically call myself out for not taking care of myself. Not in a bad way, just in a "i want to challenge myself to be better" kind of thing.

[klamping]

Posted about my post about not meditating in the "Mindfulness & Me" subforum for those interested: viewtopic.php?f=19&t=4229

[FeeHutch]

I think the app could appeal to a lot of people who are new to mindfulness. I was once the parent of 2 under 2 and if anyone had suggested I had time to meditate I would have probably laughed in their face (and then cried with exhaustion ).

I suffered both PND and PTSD after the birth of my youngest daughter and mindfulness back then could have made such a difference. The app with a one minute option would have appealed though. I am still waiting to see if my husband will try out the app. He has a chronic health condition too which while currently (thankfully) in remission and has been advised to try mindfulness before.