You may have heard ‘mindfulness’ being spoken about or read about it in a magazine and wondered what it’s really about. Hopefully, this post will explain a bit more about it.

Basically, in this busy world, our minds are constantly pulled from pillar to post, scattering our thoughts and emotions and leaving us feeling stressed, highly-strung and at times quite anxious. Most of us don’t have five minutes to sit down and relax, let alone 30 minutes or more for a meditation session. But it is essential for our wellbeing to take a few minutes each day to cultivate mental spaciousness and achieve a positive mind-body balance.

So if you are running around, finding it hard to cope, try using these simple mindfulness exercises to empty your mind and find some much-needed calm amidst the madness of your hectic day.

Mindful Breathing – this exercise can be done standing up or sitting down, and pretty much anywhere at any time. All you have to do is be still and focus on your breath for just one minute.

Start by breathing in and out slowly. One cycle should last for approximately 6 seconds. Breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, letting your breath flow effortlessly in and out of your body. Let go of your thoughts for a minute. Let go of things you have to do later today or pending projects that need your attention. Simply let yourself be still for one minute.

If you are someone who thought they’d never be able to meditate, guess what? You are half-way there already! If you enjoyed one minute of this mind-calming exercise, why not try two or three?

Mindful Observation – this exercise is simple but incredibly powerful. It is designed to connect us with the beauty of the natural environment, something that is easily missed when we are rushing around in the car or hopping on and off trains on the way to work.

Choose a natural object from within your immediate environment and focus on watching it for a minute or two. This could be a flower or an insect, or even the clouds or the moon.

Don’t do anything except notice the thing you are looking at. Simply relax into a harmony for as long as your concentration allows. Look at it as if you are seeing it for the first time.

Mindful Awareness – this exercise is designed to cultivate a heightened awareness and appreciation of simple daily tasks and the results they achieve.

Think of something that happens every day more than once; something you take for granted, like opening a door, for example. These touch point cues don’t have to be physical ones. For example: each time you think a negative thought you might choose to take a moment to stop, label the thought as unhelpful and release the negativity. Or, perhaps each time you smell food, you take a moment to stop and appreciate how lucky you are to have good food to eat and share with your family and friends.

Choose a touch point that resonates with you today. Instead of going through your daily motions on autopilot, take occasional moments to stop and cultivate purposeful awareness of what you are doing and the blessings it brings your life.

Mindful Listening – this exercise is designed to open your ears to sound in a non-judgmental way. Select a piece of music you have never heard before. You may have something in your own collection that you have never listened to, or you might choose to turn the radio dial until something catches your ear.

Close your eyes and put on your headphones. Try not to get drawn into judging the music by its genre, title or artist name before it has begun playing. Instead, ignore any labels and neutrally allow yourself to get lost in the journey of sound for the duration of the song. Allow yourself to explore every aspect of track. Even if the music isn’t to your liking at first, let go of your dislike and give your awareness full permission to climb inside the track and dance among the sound waves.The idea is to just listen, to become fully entwined with the composition without preconception or judgment of the genre, artist, lyrics or instrumentation.

Mindful Immersion – the intention of this exercise is to cultivate contentment in the moment and escape the persistent striving we find ourselves caught up in on a daily basis. Rather than anxiously wanting to finish an everyday routine task in order to get on with doing something else, take that regular routine and fully experience it like never before.

For example: if you are cleaning your house, pay attention to every detail of the activity. Rather than treat this as a regular chore, create an entirely new experience by noticing every aspect of your actions: Feel and become the motion when sweeping the floor, sense the muscles you use when scrubbing the dishes, develop a more efficient way of wiping the windows clean. The idea is to get creative and discover new experiences within a familiar routine task.

Instead of labouring through and constantly thinking about finishing the task, become aware of every step and fully immerse yourself in the progress. Take the activity beyond a routine by aligning yourself with it physically, mentally and spiritually. Who knows, you might even enjoy the cleaning for once!

Mindful Appreciation – in this last exercise, all you have to do is notice 5 things in your day that usually go unappreciated. These things can be objects or people – it’s up to you. Use a notepad to check off 5 by the end of the day.

The point of this exercise is to simply give thanks and appreciate the seemingly insignificant things in life; the things that support our existence but rarely get a second thought amidst our desire for bigger and better things.

For example: electricity powers your kettle, the postman delivers your mail, your clothes provide you warmth, your nose lets you smell the flowers in the park, your ears let you hear the birds in the tree by the bus stop, but…

• Do you know how these things/processes came to exist, or how they really work?
• Have you ever properly acknowledged how these things benefit your life and the lives of others?
• Have you ever thought about what life might be like without these things?
• Have you ever stopped to notice their finer, more intricate details?
• Have you ever sat down and thought about the relationships between these things and how together they play an interconnected role in the functioning of the earth?

Once you have identified your 5 things, try to find out everything you can about them and their purpose to truly appreciate the way in which they support your life.

In Summary – the cultivation of moment-by-moment awareness of our surrounding environment is a practice that helps us better cope with the difficult thoughts and feelings that cause us stress and anxiety in everyday life.

With regular practice of mindfulness exercises, rather than being led on auto-pilot by emotions influenced by negative past experiences and fears of future occurrences, we harness the ability to root the mind in the present moment and deal with life’s challenges in a clear-minded, calm, assertive way.

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This is an adaption from a quote by the author Margaret Overton in her book about divorce, dating and ‘other near-death experiences’. What she says is so true, as I’ve found in my own life – everything can change from what and who you trust, your health or that of a loved-one, your home and family…..the list goes on.

Of course, we all know that but, even so, when the moment arrives and everything you depended on changes, it’s often still a huge shock. Then, we have to try to change and adapt and that all takes time. Some people find change easier than others and can ‘roll with the changes’.

It’s not only about how we adapt to change though, but about living in the moment and appreciating what we have right now rather than yearning for what we hope to happen in the future.

Whether you’re a young person, saving up a deposit for a mortgage or to travel, that’s your current goal, but it’s important to enjoy what’s going on now as well. Does that sound impossible? Well, your youth and hopefully your health are at optimum levels right now – make the most of them, revel in them, enjoy what you can do now rather than what you’ll achieve in the future.

If you’re a young parent experiencing sleepless nights and the endless needs of young children, try to enjoy this stage – soon your children will be teenagers and that will bring its own issues. You probably won’t get this time again, unless you start a second family (and that will come with its own challenges!) so try to hold onto the fact that this time will pass, your toddler will stop throwing food around, you will eventually be able to have a cup of coffee in peace and have a tidier house, if this is what you yearn for.

Later on, middle-age brings its own challenges – maybe a partner leaves, you have the care of an elderly parent or you’re made redundant. These aren’t easy challenges to deal with although previous life-experiences may help you through. Again, make the most of this time – it will have its advantages, even though you can’t see them right now.

If you’re older and feeling your age, beset with health problems or money worries, this is possibly the most challenging time of all as youth and its optimism aren’t on your side. But, life is still there to be enjoyed and even simple things can help you through.

This isn’t a lecture about the stages of life though – it’s about enjoying what’s going on right now, trying to see the positives even though they might seem elusive. Throughout my life, I’ve seen how some people have a very positive world view, despite negative or sad things happening to them.

Some of my work as a psychotherapist was about challenging clients’ views about themselves and other people – if you’ve grown up in a negative environment or one where you were often pulled down, it can be hard to change your views of yourself and what happens, but it’s not impossible and, with some work on yourself, you can look at things in a different way.

However, the main thing is to enjoy this time, not ruminate too much about yesterday or fret about tomorrow. Take today, enjoy it and take the good things from it to reflect on. Good luck with this – let me know what you think.

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It’s one of the hardest things to overcome – you thought you’d be together for the long-term, possibly forever, and then you find that your partner doesn’t want to be with you any longer.  There may not even be another person involved but he/she wants out and there’s no persuading them otherwise.

This is often a particularly difficult time of year to experience a break-up, although sadly, it’s also a time when many relationships falter. After an extended holiday period such as Christmas, many couples realise that their relationship just isn’t working.

Here are a few things that may help on a day-to-day basis – they won’t solve the awful feelings of loss that you’re experiencing but they will hopefully get you from day to day until eventually you feel slightly better.

1. Accept that your feelings of anger, uncertainty, agitation, fear and shock are normal. There’s no right or wrong about feelings and you’ll be on a roller-coaster of emotions for a long time.
2. Tears are healthy – you may feel numb for some time but it’s important to allow yourself to cry too.
3. Write a journal. Write down your thoughts and feelings your partner’s behaviour and why it feels so painful.
4. It’s still alright to laugh. Try watching a funny film or TV show and, if you can bear it, spend some time with people who make you smile.
5. Ask all the questions you want to – however, be aware that you may not get the answers you want or even any answers at all. You can’t make someone give you reasons, frustrating though that is.
6. Do not make any major decisions about how you want things to be – this is the time for reflection and recognising that even though you thought things were okay, maybe there were some things that needed to be dealt with.
7. If you have children, they need to know that you are going to be okay. You can’t hide the fact that you are going through serious stress or trauma and your ex-partner may well be their other parent. If not, your ex might well have been someone important in their lives. Being honest with your children is usually the best approach depending upon their age, but don’t weigh them down with details.
8. Take it one day at a time and try not to look too far into the future.
9. It takes time to get beyond the pain of having break-up. Don’t expect the mixture of feelings, the sense of confusion and limbo, and the mistrust to go away immediately. There are stages to loss (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and hopefully acceptance at some point) – you can’t fast-forward through these, much as you’d like to.
10. Think about practical things – look at your finances, housing situation, transport etc. Make sure you have thought out where you will live, if you have enough money to pay for your essentials and how you’ll work out the new practicalities.
11. Only confide in people that you can trust – it’s good to talk but be careful that you only open your heart to people who can keep things confidentially.
12. Seek counselling if you’re struggling too much to cope – it can really help to talk to a professional who can listen and give strategies for the future.

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Also, any comments gratefully received!

Maybe you broke up with your ex-partner just before Christmas, which was bad enough – somehow you got through the whole holiday with your family trying not to make tactless remarks (not including Uncle Billy who got drunk on Christmas morning and managed to say enough insensitive things to make up for your entire family), huddling under the duvet for as long as possible and eating enough to fill a small supermarket.

You may have gone out with your friends on New Year’s Eve (they insisted that you shouldn’t be alone “to wallow”) but it was a relief to get home and cry some more.

Now, though, you’ve just been flicking through Instagram and there they are – kissing someone else, looking happy and, frankly, better than they’ve ever looked! Your friend’s just told you that she saw them out together and they looked really loved up. How could they do this? So soon after your split? You both said you’d take your time before getting together with anyone else and now they’re behaving as if they can’t remember that conversation at all.

There will be lots of soul-searching – ‘is he/she funnier than me? are they better looking than me? have they more in common?’  There probably isn’t a logical answer to this but you’re bound to ponder on it, sometimes for a long time.

If you had been in a long-term relationship and maybe had children together, this is particularly hard (if you look on various social media sites you will see how other parents try to deal with this situation and also, how hard it is).

But whatever your situation, here are a few ways to try to come to some sort of acceptance of the situation whilst keeping your dignity:

• First of all, try not to contact them about the photos you’ve seen and the rumours you’ve heard – whatever you think now, it’s not going to help in the long-run! You will want to know if something was going on when you were actually together, but ask yourself how much it will help you right now if you get an answer to that.
• Don’t go to that party if you know they’ll be there – it’s a definite route to unhappiness. If they look really happy together, it will be like a knife in your heart and if one of them looks unhappy, it will make you think that there’s still a chance it will work out for you but repeating the same things results in the same endings.
• Instead, try to go out to different places and do different things – you’ll meet new people and it might be fun, even though it will be hard getting out there alone.
• Don’t get drunk when you’re alone – chances are, you’ll end up crying into your glass and feeling worse than before. The hangover won’t be much fun either!
• This is a good opportunity to do some of the things that you put on hold when you were with them, perhaps because it wasn’t practical or because they didn’t like it.
• Don’t put too much pressure on yourself – take one day at a time until things begin to get a bit easier and you can make a bit of a plan about your future.

If you’re struggling with this or other issues, maybe this is the year to give counselling a try – you may already be seeing a therapist but, if not, it would be worth looking into this as you can talk about your feelings in a confidential setting and work on strategies that will help you  deal with what’s going on.

I hope that you’ve found this blog interesting; if so, please comment if you’d like to do so. Why not follow me as well, then you’ll get an update each time I write something new.