http://www.actionforhappiness.org/
I had the pleasure of hearing a talk by them last weekend, and I was advised by them to get in touch and explain what we are trying to do here, as one of the things they advocate is mindfulness. I did so yesterday and received a very positive response straight away. They love what we are doing here and gave the Twitter acoount a couple of retweets which has really boosted our numbers (they have many followers). They have asked me to write something about mindfulness to be published on their site, also to give us some promotion. They have many followers and people that read their site so this could be really important for us here. They have suggested to me something between 500 and 1000 words, and this that I have wrote comes back at 560, so there is room to add a little more if required. They asked me to write something about how mindfulness changed my life and the steps that we have been taking to promote it. I would appreciate your feedback on what I wrote, as this is quite important. Here it is:
Hello there, my name is Gareth Walker, and mindfulness changed my life. I was diagnosed with MS a few years ago which was an extremely stressful and anxious time for me. I decided that this level of stress wasn’t doing me any good, and I had heard that meditation was good for stress relief, so I picked up a book by Jon Kabat-Zinn called “Wherever You Go There You Are.” Kabat-Zinn happens to be the person who first secularised the concept of mindfulness and brought it to the Western world; this book changed everything. I fell in love with the ideals of mindfulness as soon as I first truly understood them, and the more that I practised, the more peaceful I became.
I have now been practising for about three years, and the levels of peace and happiness in my life are unparalleled. It seems quite unbelievable for a practice which is so simple and is free of charge for any human being. Mindfulness does not equate to happiness of course, but it does create the conditions in which happiness can grow and flourish. These days, my body is fundamentally broken, yet perversely I don’t think that I have ever been as happy in my entire life.You see, most of the bad stuff with MS comes from the future: “If I lose my sight then I will no longer be able to look at my beautiful children,”or the past: “I can’t climb mountains and see the countryside like I used to.” With mindfulness, we train our brains to live more and more in the present moment and those kind of stories in the mind become less and less, as we become better at escorting our minds back to the present moment. For me at least, the results of this daily practice have been breathtaking: significantly less anxiety, improved concentration, better sleeping, increased creativity, ability to deal with stressful situations and a general feeling of wellbeing that is seemingly unshakeable.
About a year ago, I had the idea to create a website about mindfulness to tell others about these massive benefits also to help de-mystify the practice, as it could be considered by some to be something religious or mystical, when in fact it is neither. Another barrier to promoting mindfulness is that it can be an alien concept to grasp until you have been practising it for a while, as mindfulness actually makes changes to the way that your brain works, and these changes can take a little while to take hold. The site is a work in progress, and we hope to improve it with the months and years to come, providing methods and support for people wanting to undertake the practice of mindfulness. It can be found here: http://www.everyday-mindfulness.org.
There is also a forum attached to the site, where people can come and get advice on their mindfulness practice and talk more generally about the whole thing. We also have a Twitter account (@mindfuleveryday) and a Facebook page (Everyday-Mindfulness) which are rapidly growing in popularity. This only aim of this project is to promote mindfulness in the best way that we can and anyone is welcome to join us. Do come along.
