First One In!

[FeeHutch]

Hi
My name is Fiona and I have been practising Mindfulness for around 3 months now. I started off doing the 8 week course in the Mark Williams book. I have gone on to practice by myself daily and am waiting to take delivery of the Bob Stahl Mindfulness based Stress Reductions workbook.

I think I need some guidance and structure as I really embed mindfulness into my life fully.

I survived a brain haemorrhage 18 months ago and have various medical type stuff going on. Mindfulness has really helped me reconnect my mind and my body and accept a lot of what has happened and continues to happen to me.

I am looking forward to hopefully meeting other Mindfulness type people and think this forum is a great idea :-)

[Gareth]

Lovely to meet you Fiona.

I'm no mindfulness expert, but I have been practicing for a couple of years now. It has improved my life so much that it has inspired me to create this place - I hope it helps you. Mindfulness meditation was tough at first because there wasn't any real benefit to me for a long(ish) time. But something kept me going (thank goodness it did). I was a believer that meditation could help with stress reduction, and I knew that stress was bad for me (I have MS). The stress reduction finally happened alright and it brought with it tons and tons of happiness. Happiness at the smallest things too, like the sound of raindrops outside or flower petals. Beauty is everywhere, we just need to learn how to deal with our thoughts and have time to notice it.

Tell us about your practice as it is, and we'll help in whatever way we can. I don't think there is a 'right' way to do mindfulness, but sharing your experiences with others can certainly help.

[FeeHutch]

Hi Gareth, lovely to meet you too :-)

Right now I try and start my day by taking 5 mindful breathes. I've read so much that I can't remember where this idea came from. I found trying to meditate before I got up (and the children woke up) didn't really work because I'd often fall back asleep!

Because I have severe fatigue now I found Mindfulness initially actually got me to stop for 10 minutes. 'Just resting' wasn't working for me but mindfulness caught my attention. It appealed to my 'doing' nature ironically. It was hard to start with, actually paying attention to my body meant really noticing the fact I am weaker on my right side and actually feeling pain for example. It was uncomfortable but as I progressed and stuck with accepting the new 'me' post haemorrhage it suddenly seemed easier.

So now I meditate at least once a day. I find late afternoon or early evening best and try and do around 20 - 30 minutes. I have various guided ones on my i-pod so I can choose the type that feels most useful for me that day. I have also started to spread my wings a bit and do silent meditations. My occupational therapist is pleased because I am much better at managing my fatigue because I am both resting more and listening to my body. My physio is happier because now I don't ignore my body I fall over less and my husband is happier because even though I am currently under going more investigations for further neuro damage including the possibility of MS, I am calmer and much more aware of my thoughts running away with me!

Nearly dying already changed me quite a lot, made me appreciate the good things about my life and my inability to do half a dozen things at once anymore was actually a blessing! Mindfulness has helped me build on that feeling to be more aware, not sweat the small stuff or even some of the much bigger stuff. I meditated through a recent MRI, considering the mention of having one a few months ago prompted a panic attack as I'm claustrophobic, it is real proof to me that mindful meditation has real benefit in my life.

You said : Happiness at the smallest things too, like the sound of raindrops outside or flower petals. Beauty is everywhere, we just need to learn how to deal with our thoughts and have time to notice it.
That is just how I feel. When I go out now I look up, I look around and I notice things I just never saw before despite living in the same city all my life and it gives me real pleasure.

[Gareth]

Congratulate yourself Fiona! It sounds like you have made some really good progress so far, better than me at any rate when I was three months in. At that stage I could manage about 12 minutes a day I think. I used to be constantly bombarded by the thought "Is it nearly over yet", it made the meditations quite difficult. I have MS, so I know all about fatigue. Mindfulness of body is really good for that, when my body tells me its time to rest, then it's time to rest. It sounds like you are doing something similar to the body scan meditation. I did lots of that too, although I do it a lot less now.

You can meditate anywhere, anytime. Sometimes we'll be going on a car journey and I'll tell my wife not to talk to me for half an hour while I meditate to the sounds of the car sounds of the road etc. I have read stuff in various places that tells you how long to meditate for and in what position. Personally I don't think all that stuff is important - you just need to meditate.

Probably the most important lesson that I learned along this path was not to judge myself whenever I had a crappy mind (here, there and everywhere). That's just the mind works - you can't fight it. On the flip side of the coin, I've had meditations where I've been able to sustain my attention for pretty much the whole time, which is an altogether blissful experience.

From what I read, your practice seems great. Keep going and keep experimenting.

[FeeHutch]

I think the fact there are few rules can seem intimidating at first. I used to be someone who needed rules so I knew I was doing it properly.. that didn't work at all! Now I can't really follow rules that easily it all works much better :-)

I travel on public transport and mediation is very helpful there! I physically can't maintain a certain posture so I love that I don't have too. I have also found the fact that I can't 'fail' at meditation as I found in other approaches has had a knock on effect to the rest of my life. Slowly it is making me less self critical. Someone said it is called practice because we will always be practising and never done, I like that feeling.

I'm hoping the next book and CD will teach me a bit more about the idea of mindful eating amongst other things. People wanting to feed me lovely things in the last 18 months combined with maybe 10% of my previous amount of exercise has left me unhappy with my physical appearance. I am hoping I can learn to be more mindful about food. I do the raisin or chocolate meditation and think 'wow this tastes amazing, I must do this with more of my food' and then fall back into bad habits!

[Gareth]

Remember, all you need are your senses to meditate. The bus sounds like a great place to practice, lots of sights to see! I find visual meditation a touch more difficult than audio though, but I enjoy trying it, especially when I have something particularly nice to look at.

The guided meditations are mostly good, although you may find after a while that you don't need/want them.

[FeeHutch]

As your signature says, the journey is the destination!

[One Aware]

As your signature says, the journey is the destination!

An interesting and wonderful journey awaits you FeeHutch. You will learn lots about yourself and the world that surrounds you. I wish you the best and we are all here to chat.

[MarkW]

Hi

I am Mark, from York in the UK. I teach Mindfulness for City of York Council and it certainly helps me in my life. We have two mentally disabled daughters and had my wife not introduced me to Mindfulness, I'm not sure we'd have got this far as a family unit. So, fair to say I'm a big advocate. Happy to help anyone with questions etc - but also realise that in life, one never stops learning, so feel free to put me right. :-)

[FeeHutch]

Hi Mark, lovely to 'meet' you :-)