Hello

[starbug]

Hi, everyone. I'm new to mindfulness. I'm following the book 'Mindfulness for Health: A practical guide to relieving pain, reducing stress and restoring wellbeing', which is an eight week course. I'm in week two.

I've been looking for an online community, as I don't know anyone else who uses mindfulness. I started because I've been getting stressed out at work. As this is all new to me, I hope to learn a lot from this forum!

[FeeHutch]

Hello starbug and welcome to the community
I've got that book but am currently working through How To Train A Wild Elephant and Headspace. I am planning on starting this course in the new year. I'll be really interested to hear how you have found it so far and how the rest of the course goes. I'm sure you won't be alone starting out too.

[starbug]

Hello, Fee.

The book comes with a CD of meditations. It recommends two meditations each day, one in the morning and the other in the evening, plus a 'habit breaker'. In week one, the meditation was a body scan, morning and evening, and the habit breaker was spending at least 15 minutes per day outside, looking and listening to nature. I really enjoyed this, as I like being outdoors anyway, so I found it easy.

The meditations for week two are the body scan and the breath anchor. I'm finding the breath anchor more challenging because it's less structured than the body scan. I find it more difficult to recognise when my mind has wandered. The habit breaker this week is watching the sky, which I'm also struggling with because the clouds just sit there and I find it so boring. It's quite a relief to get back to the body scan again!

[FeeHutch]

When I first started my mindfulness journey I followed the 8 week programme from the book Finding Peace In A Frantic World which is structured in a similar way. I have found some guided meditations more helpful than others, some I have not enjoyed and then one day it has 'clicked' and others just don't feel so helpful. The great thing about mindfulness is we try to avoid striving for a goal or quantifying something in negative or positive terms, it is all about where we are in this moment. It is also about being compassionate with ourselves.

I hope you keep sharing your experience

[BioSattva]

the habit breaker was spending at least 15 minutes per day outside, looking and listening to nature. I really enjoyed this, as I like being outdoors anyway, so I found it easy.

Hi Starbug.

I find this a limitless source of 'refuge' too. It's the core of my practice. Unfortunately I live in a city so I have plants and things to boost the amount of 'nature' around me.

Nice to have you here.

Bio.

[Gareth]

Hi starbug, and welcome to our community!

My favourite meditations are the ones outside in nature, just listening to the sounds of the world around me. It's early days for you, but remember that the most important thing is to keep practising.

[starbug]

Hi, everyone. Thank you so much for the warm welcome.

I persevered with the Mindfulness for Health book, but found it was aimed more towards people with chronic pain, rather than stress. It was talking about pacing diaries, which doesn't really fit with my type of stress (caused by certain situations and people rather than overwork, so pacing wouldn't really help). Because of this, I decided to switch to the How to Train a Wild Elephant book. As everyone else is on week 40, I'll dip in and join you.

It's a bit of a weird week to start off with, looking for signs of aging! However, autumn is the right time to look at the changing trees etc. See you on the elephant trainers thread!

[FeeHutch]

I wonder if the Finding Peace In A Frantic World might be more helpful than the health one, that is more geared towards anxiety etc?
Be lovely to have another elephant trainer and I agree that autumn does make looking for aging that bit easier

[starbug]

I've got a copy of FPIAFW, so I've loaded the CD onto my ipod. I thought I'd follow the 'elephant trainiing' book, but use the CD exercises for a more formal daily practice.

The mindfulness is already having an effect, after only two weeks. This morning, my mind was about to start running off all over the place as usual, but then I realised that today is the only day I can actually 'live', as yesterday is gone and tomorrow isn't here yet. I've been more mindful today than before.

[Gareth]

Keep experimenting, keep practising, and remember this practice is about you. It's great to read about your journey.

How did you find your way to this forum?