Everyday Mindfulness

Hi, sorry for the delay in replying. I sympathise with your struggle, which sounds so familiar. Please just keep trying and I think that things will eventually change. A year after starting this course was the first time I was able to accept, at the time it was happening, that sometimes I feel utter...

Hello Peanut I agree with Jon, you've made great progress getting to week 4 and it's really hard to pursue this course if life is lacking in routine. So don't beat yourself up about it. Having said that, I have found it so useful during times of travel and unpredictability to put myself first for a ...

Hi Jon, yes, I have just finished that course, thank you. That's what has helped me notice the cycle. I suppose it is a question of practice both to remember to stay on the riverbank and then, having remembered, to have the will and the skill actually to do it. Thanks for reminding me.

Thanks to MBCBT I am much more aware of the cycle of thoughts, feelings & ruminations that make up the landscape of my mind. SO, I have recently noticed that an external event that makes me happy (like seeing my son perform well in a school event) can immediately trigger a host of unhappy reflec...

Mindfulness on waking, as described in Chapter 8 of FPIAFW, is proving disastrous for me. When I wake up, I need to get out of bed as soon as possible before the clouds begin to settle on me: scoot off and make a cup of tea before they find me. Lying there, as recommended in the book, taking my brea...

I have just reached Week 7 and your banter about dancing interests me. In our culture we don't learn to dance -- many other cultures have more formal types of dance that they learn as children and take part in as children and adults. I think that it is such a nourishing human skill, yet we have some...

Jon and Mick, thank you for such thoughtful replies. The revelation that it took 12 months for one of you to be at ease with the compassion meditation is encouraging, in a strange way. And I can see that unlearning the conditioning could take a very long time, particularly if it began in childhood. ...

Thank you for this forum. I am in a far-away, developing country at the moment with little professional support & it's wonderful to read the posts here. I have started Week 6 & am finding self-compassion hard even to understand. I feel completely cold when encouraged in the meditation to ext...

Hi Gareth and JonW, both of your comments make sense, and fit with what I am doing. I was just afraid that I was supposed to be achieving something else -- kind of thinking the thought and not thinking it at the same time. But your replies have given me confidence that I am on the right track. Thank...

I have just finished Week 4 and it seems to me impossible to "view" a thought, acknowledge its presence etc. without also changing it -- generally bringing it to an end in my experience. I feel that I AM my thoughts, in this case. A bit like Shrodinger's Cat -- to observe it is to alter it...