The 'secrets' of all day mindfulness

[maxmindfulness]

Hi i'm Peter and this is my first post

Many people are aware of thoughts but many less of feelings. I'm not always talking about feelings in a verbal way like "i feel sad", its more about physical sensations so I'll make it clear where needed.

How its done

To use mindfulness you use your attention, your awareness. This means different things to different people so I'll give some other names for it;

Inner focus
Minds eye
Imagination
Self awareness

Whatever you call it, that's what you need, that's the weapon you'll use ok. I'll call it mindful attention because its scientific sounding enough but whatevs.

Like any weapon you may well want to take time to become familiar and knowledgeable with it before you pick it up as It's a powerful weapon indeed & deserves respect!

It's usually best to become proficient with it slowly & naturally. Start with the closest targets and the push yourself for further. Here are a few main target areas easiest to hardest;

The Body

Right now, using your mindful attention alone, 'look' at your foot. You don't need to close your eyes, just bring your full mindful attention there and keep 'looking'. Congratulations you just meditated. It's that easy.

Bringing your whole mental energy to one place in the here and now is meditation which means the same thing as the modern term mindfulness & you've used that skill a thousand times in your life just unconsciously, automatically.

To become a meditation master the first step is bringing that skill to full consciousness and actively practice it daily. Before we can go deep we have to start shallow so practice bringing attention to different places around your body whenever you remember, It's excellent practice stuff and will strengthen your meditation muscles.

The Thoughts

Mindful attention directed towards the head will start to pick up on your inner thought train. Thought train is an excellent term to describe what must be exactly that for many people. A train of thoughts, one linked to the next and the preceding endlessly and ongoing. At least that's how it'll start for you most likely.

Eventually, hanging around with full mindfulness on the head for long enough, will show you that your thoughts actually have gaps between them! We'll go into more on the significance of that in later posts but remember for now that it is in these gaps, that you will make bigger, that you'll set up camp and build your entire inner meditation empire from within.

You need a clear bit of mental space to build on, what better place than the gap between your thoughts, its empty!

Thought gap spotting let alone widening is advanced stuff. You will no doubt have plenty of other thought based things to keep you busy too.

Looking at your thoughts and not lying to yourself are the two crucial things needed now as you dive into and amongst your actual thoughts.

Practice watching your thoughts and some of the negative things you'll see will be your;

Fears
Predjudices
Fakeness
Hidden agendas
Two Facedness
Jealousy
Bitterness
Anger
The list goes on.....Can you see why people have had a hard time getting this across to people in the past? I can, who really wants to look at themselves to see these things?

But I know times are changing, people are getting braver and smarter. This process will take anybody with the smallest hint of theses qualities and payout according to the efforts they effort put into it.

The effort required is mindful effort focused onto such thoughts, hard, whenever they're noticed. Don't ask me why, leave that to the scientists, but focused mindful attention, over sustained periods, burns away outdated thought patterns, which changes you bigtime and for the better oh yeh!

We'll look deeper into that another time.

Feelings

Last and by no means least are feelings. Like I said i'm refering to physical sensations in the body here ok guys.

Anxiety produces big physical sensations in the body which is actually really helpful as they are like glaring beacons to anyone who knows about the power of inner mindful attention. Lighthouses constantly signalling their location.

Feelings left unchecked, unrecognized and unprocessed will trigger off many negative thoughts in the mind which will in turn intensify the feelings in a circle of viciousness.

Rip the spokes out of that circle by homing in on the physical sensations within your body, most often in the chest or stomach areas.

Find, seek, destroy!

At least that's what you'll be like when you first learn this skill! in time you learn to mellow with it but for now, go have fun and do the following to strike back effectively against inner BS.

Notice negative thoughts and bring your mindful attention to your body, like an eagle above waiting for the first hint of movement. Not all negative thoughts will give you physical feelings, we're looking for the big deals that set off all that crap you feel inside.

Notice and then immediately swoop right down above it, wherever it is inside.and set up camp just back from it a little, you just turned into an inner hyena or whatever so keep watch and be ready to do some watchful allowing.

Breath a little deeper now, your probably shallow breathing. Breath, look, watch, allow, feel that physical feeling & stick around for a while, process it, you'll get it.

The same focused inner mindful attention that melted away your outdated thoughts will do the same for your inner inbox of unfelt feelings. Do it until you are free of yourselves, no one can do it for you!

Peter Cole maxmindfulness.co.uk http://wp.me/4yDsD

[FeeHutch]

Hello
Thanks for joining our forum. I see you have copied the above from your website. While we encourage all members to share as much as they feel comfortable, we remain mindful of how this might be received. Self promotion doesn't sit comfortably in this community because mindfulness is a personal journey.
If you'd like to get to know us then please stick around and talk to us, we'd love to get to know you.

[maxmindfulness]

The only reason I've done that is time. I'm not selling anything dude I have to work like everyone else.
I'm gonna go into depths in time, do I have to rewrite each article specifically for the forum?
Understand about getting to know me sorry I did just dash in didn't I
I'm Peter Cole, 35(yesterday) and from leicester in the UK. I've practiced All Day Mindfulness for many years, Just this year I have started to understand what its all about and I feel people will want to hear it. I'm trying to both remove the BS and tell it straight. I want to share my bogs on here, my 'agenda' is feedback that lets me know what does and doesn't come across so I can refine them further.
Its going to help people know why and what they're doing with their mindfulness practice which can only help others more than it can me right?
Sorry I didn't take the time to say hello first guys, a fool rushed in!

[Gareth]

There is no problem copy and pasting stuff in directly from your own site, we are always interested in new mindfulness content here. As long as it is relevant and promotes healthy discussion.

Please bear in mind that many people who come to mindfulness do so from quite a difficult place, so we try not to be too instructive or too wordy/lengthy in our responses to them. Often mindfulness need to be taught to people very gently.

Posts like your initial one are OK here in 'experienced practitioners,' but I wouldn't want anybody to put off who is brand new to the practice. One of the central aims of this forum is to assist people that are new to it.

In the early days of this forum, we had an issue with a poster who would reply to every topic with gargantuan posts about how to meditate. It was very off-putting for new members, and in the end we had to take the difficult decision to ban the member.

Please don't let this put you off us. We are a very inclusive community, and we try to welcome anyone who cares about mindfulness. You will be very welcome here but please understand that we have to maintain the integrity of the forum.

[JonW]

"I'm gonna go into depths in time, do I have to rewrite each article specifically for the forum?"

Hi Peter.
I'm not sure what you mean by the above? Are you planning to cut and paste excerpts from your website on this forum? Because that would not be in keeping with the spirit of Everyday Mindfulness. As much as we encourage new ideas and healthy discussion, we cannot allow the forum to operate as a platform for other websites.
If you are looking for feedback for your site, then by all means provide a brief description of its contents together with a link. Meanwhile, please feel free to join in the conversations on the forum.
Thanks.
All best wishes,
Jon

[maxmindfulness]

OK fellas happy to abide by protocol x

[piedwagtail91]

a lot of good points , but the words used don't make me feel comfortable.
mindfulness as a weapon, seek and destroy, and ripping out set off all sorts of feelings that weren't there before.
not pleasant ones either!
i don't see mindfulness as a weapon because i'm not out to destroy anything, just to allow and accept.

[JonW]

Agreed.

[maxmindfulness]

Great feedback I guess it does sound a little rough, I hadn't considered that and I will bear it mind for future revisions.
While we're here though if it stirred up bad feelings in you, you could look at that as if its done you a favour. Now they're here you can feel em right out, allowfully...if you want. thanks for your view

[JonW]

Thanks for being understanding, Peter.
We aim to be all-inclusive here at Everyday Mindfulness but, once in a while, certain posts have a jarring effect. The site is growing quickly and we feel that we have an especially big responsibility to newcomers who might come to the site looking for a way into mindfulness. We try to keep the general tone as simple and straightforward as possible as that seems like the truest way of honouring the practice.
Initially, meditation can be fairly challenging for those suffering from chronic anxiety, depression etc. So we're careful to emphasise the importance of gentleness, patience and self-compassion at all times.
I've never heard mindfulness described as a weapon before and I've read pretty much every available book on the subject. To be honest, that description doesn't sit easily with me and my fear is that it might create the wrong impression in someone coming fresh to the practice.
All best wishes,
Jon, Hove