stillness – Page 2 – Grow Mindfulness

Silence and Connection: Finding Peace in a Turbulent World

Last night I had the privilege of accompanying my wife to a fund-raising event at Stepping Stone Clubhouse in Brisbane – an organisation dedicated to enabling people with mental illness to rebuild and enrich their lives. The speaker for the night’s event was Trent Dalton, author of two recent books that were the focus of his discussion. Trent has become a best-selling author as a result of the first of the two books, The Boy Who Swallowed the Universe which features two boys who experience the darkness of adverse childhood experiences. The second book he spoke energetically about is his recently released novel, All Our Shimmering Skies – two girls experiencing trauma feature prominently in this book which is also an expression of hope, of wonder and life’s endless mysteries and miracles.

Life beyond trauma

Trent had many adverse childhood experiences and related trauma – including an alcoholic father, heroin-addicted mother, heroin dealer stepfather and a criminal baby sitter. His two novels then are part autobiographical, part fiction and part fantasy (“gifts dropping from the sky”). His two daughters had questioned him as to why he wrote the first of the two books with boys as the focal characters when he in fact had two daughters. So, two girls featured in the Shimmering Skies novel.

Trent mentioned that even though the books begin with darkness in the characters’ lives, they end with hope and wonder. He wanted to inspire his daughters to be strong and resilient despite what life brings in the way of obstacles and adversity. He also wanted them to believe in hope and a life beyond trauma as reflected in his own life – now as a multiple award-winning author who is internationally recognised for his writing craft and storytelling.

Finding peace in silence and connection

Trent spoke of his close connection to place and nature. His home suburb, Brisbane’s western suburb of Darra, features strongly in his writing as does Darwin which he visited a number of times, mainly on assignment as a journalist. He described with a sense of awe the natural beauty experienced during a guided walk through Litchfield National Park in the Northern Territory of Australia. His closeness to nature is reflected in his wonder at even the smallest living creatures.

His connection to family and friends provided a very real grounding and enabled him to rest in the strength of these relationships. Of particular note is his comment about how one of his daughters brought him very much “back to earth” after a whirlwind tour following his highly successful book, The Boy Who Swallowed the Universe. At one stage when he was at home and dropping naturally into his effervescent storytelling mode, his 11 year daughter said something to the effect, “You don’t have to impress us now – you just have to be Dad to us.”

Trent’s Shimmering Skies novel captures something of the stillness and reflection he experienced observing the night sky through his window in Darwin or from his writer’s den in Brisbane. His valuing of silence and stillness is reflected in his comment on Christine Jackman’s novel, Turning Down the Noise: The Quiet Power of Silence in a Busy World:

…a deeply personal assignment: treading bravely, beautifully into the wonder of silence.

Christine reminds us that life is full of noise, distraction and setbacks and yet there exists the wonder of stillness and silence – the unnameable space in which one was free to think and breathe and simply be. We just have to learn ways to access the silence in our lives – something I experienced at 5 am this morning when I walked along the Manly Esplanade in Brisbane as the sun rose and reflected on the shimmering water of the marina.

Reflection

Trent was able to inhabit the wounds of his trauma by revisiting his adverse childhood experiences through the key characters in his two books. In discussing his books and his life, he was able to be completely transparent and honest about his background, his challenges, and his small triumphs. This openness and curiosity about life are hallmarks of mindful living. By growing in mindfulness through reflection, writing and wonder, he could appreciate his connection to everything and his close relationships which are so central to his life and work.

I find it humbling and a source of gratitude that I personally was able to live a life of silence and contemplation for five years after leaving home and traumatic circumstances. I have lived through many adverse childhood experiences in my early childhood and traumatic events later in life. I found solace and peace in stillness and silence.

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Image by Ron Passfield – Sunrise at Manly Esplanade

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Meditation as Preparation for Dying

Meditating on death helps us to appreciate both the preciousness of life and its precariousness. Thinking about death and the dying process serves to motivate us to live our lives more fully and more aligned to our true purpose in life. Much as we might like to, death is not something to be swept under the carpet – it is an every life reality. Meditation itself can help us to prepare for death by helping us to face up to its reality and consciously build the capacity to die peacefully, with acceptance and equanimity.

The reality of our death

Irrespective of our belief about the existence of an afterlife, there are some inescapable facts about death and dying that we each have to face (not deny or ignore, despite cultural “taboos”):

The certainty of our death
The uncertainty of the timing of our death
The unknown about how we will die – there are so many potential internal and external causes of our death
The remaining span of our life is decreasing with each day (we are getting closer to death with each day we are alive – our life is inevitably running out, like the waters in an outgoing tide).

We can live our life in the light of the lessons from death and dying or continue to ignore death’s reality. One of the lessons Frank Ostaseski learned from observing the dying and practising meditation is that meditation is itself like the dying process.

What meditation and the dying process have in common

Frank identified a number of common elements between the dying process and meditation:

Stillness and silence
Being fully in the present moment
A focus on our inner life – “profound inquiry into the nature of self’
Accessing our inner wisdom
Progressive release from attachments
Deep sense of humility
Deep sense of expansiveness and connection to nature and everyone

The benefits of meditation for the dying process

The dying process is a solitary event – no external person or possession or power or wealth or physical beauty can assist us in the process of accepting the inevitable. What can help us to make the transition easier at the time of death is release from all attachment, comfort with deep self-exploration and reconciliation with ourselves and with others. What will help too are the positive states that we have formed through meditation – compassion, self-forgiveness and forgiveness of others, patience, wisdom and peace. The more positive our life has been, the better we will be able to accept all that is happening to us at the time of death.

Frank suggests that we should aim to replace guilt with remorse – not drowning in our guilt but expressing remorse for having hurt others. Remorse then motivates us to do better and avoid hurting the people we interact with. Forgiveness meditation is a powerful aid in this transformation.

Reflection

Once we accept that life is running out like the tide, we can value and appreciate every moment that we are alive, develop loving-kindness and build positive experiences where we contribute to the welfare of others. As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, and especially by meditating on our death, we can create the positive states of acceptance, peace, tranquillity and compassion that will assist us in the dying process. Meditation helps us to understand and accept the reality of our death and to prepare us for the inevitable (but uncertain) end to our life.

Frank’s book, The Five Invitations: Discover What Death Can Teach Us About Living Life Fully, can provide us with insights into the dying process and the lessons we can learn and, in the process, build our motivation to develop and sustain a daily meditation practice.

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Image by sabri ismail from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Connection – a Deeply Felt Need

In these times of physical distancing precipitated by the Coronavirus, we can feel the need for connection more than ever. We readily recognise the importance of social connection, our connection to other people, for our mental health and wellness, but often overlook our very real connection to nature and the physical world.

Connection in nature

Time-lapse photographer, filmmaker and producer, Louis Schwartzberg, reminds us that every living creature relies on other living creatures for its continued existence. He illustrates this concept through his recent film, Fantastic Fungi, where he shows how the mycelium network mirrors the internet in its pervasiveness above and under the ground. Mycelium is the vegetative branchlike structure that fruits to produce mushrooms and other fungi. They are critical to the “terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems” because of their role in decomposing organic material and contributing carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. They are invisible but cover massive areas. providing nutrients to the fungi and serving as “biological filters” – a term developed by world famous mycologist Paul Stamets who was a significant contributor to Louis’ film. In a recent TED© talk, Paul described six ways mushrooms can save the world, including treating viruses.

Louis, commenting on his movie, Fantastic Fungi, said that the real surprise for him in making the film about mycelium was the pervasiveness of connection. He said that in these times of physical distancing (social isolation and social distancing), people are realising that what they want most is connection. In Louis’s view, the core idea emerging from the film is that “connection is really nature’s instruction”.

Our connection to nature

In Fungi Day Live, Louis led discussions with co-author, Paul Stamets; Jeremy Narby – anthropologist and author; Francoise Bourzat – author of Consciousness Medicine; and Jason Silva – filmmaker, author and creator of the FLOW SESSIONS podcast. In discussing his short connection video, Jason explains that films provide a unique connection – enabling people to see the world from someone else’s perspective, to get inside their heads. He firmly believes that his role as filmmaker is to share his insights, engage in “intersubjective communion with other people” and provide an experience of connection that is “beyond language”. He cited astrophysicist, Neil de Grasse Tyson, to reinforce his passionate commitment to communicate about connection:

We are all connected. To each other biologically. To the earth chemically. To the rest of the universe atomically.

Paul Stamets maintains that the Coronavirus is a result of our destruction of the “immune system of the environment” through deforestation, pollution, monoculture and other non-economically and non- ecologically sustainable solutions. Like the other presenters in Fungi Day Live, he asserts that we have failed to understand and respect nature – our source of inspiration, energy, wellness and breath. Jeremy, too, maintains that we have become disconnected from nature and live our lives in cement blocks and travel around in “glass-and-metal-bubbles”.

Reflection

These filmmakers, authors and researchers have spent a lifetime exploring, understanding and sharing about nature and its interconnectedness and our connection to it. As Florence Williams asserts, we are suffering from “nature-deficit disorder” and separation from the healing benefits of nature. Johann Hari argues that reconnection with nature and with each other is a means of overcoming depression and childhood trauma. We can grow mindfulness through nature and experience its many physical and psychological benefits, including calmness and the experience of connection. Lulu & Mischka provide us with one way to do this through their mantra meditations, including their “stillness in motion” mantra they sing while sailing with the whales.

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Image by Michi-Nordlicht from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Finding Stillness and Joy in Turbulent Times With Mantra Meditations

Mantra meditation involves the repetition of a word or phrase while meditating. It typically combines mindfulness meditation with some form of chanting. It is an ancient meditation practice that has deep roots and is experiencing a resurgence in these turbulent times. Mantra meditations can be sung by an individual, group or choir and accompanied by music and/or calming visuals provided via video. These meditations through sound and vision often capture our connection with nature.

For example, the Epic Choir’s rendition of the Om SO HUM Mantra meditation simulates the movement of butterflies as the sound of singing rises and falls rhythmically. The epitomy of connection with nature in mantra meditation is provided by Lulu & Mischka’s video of “stillness in motion” which incorporates their chanting accompanied by guitar playing with visuals of sailing and singing with whales.

Lulu & Mischka – exemplars of the practice and benefits of mantra meditation

Lulu and Mischka are global exponents of the art of mantra meditation and have recorded two albums and produced a songbook in e-book form, as well as conducted workshops, concerts and retreats around the world. They recently provided mantra meditations over six days accompanied by Lulu’s harmonium and Mischka’s guitar playing as a contribution to inner peace in these turbulent times.

Lulu & Mischka describe themselves as “musicians and inner peace facilitators” who offer “joyful chanting and effortless meditation”. The capacity of mantra meditation to calm the nervous system, reduce emotional reactivity and destructive self-stories has been researched and validated by researchers at Linköping University, in Sweden. Other researchers have demonstrated consistently that “focused attention practices” such as meditation in its many forms develop “attention and awareness” while reducing self-obsession and harmful reactivity. Mantra meditations build our awareness of our connectedness to each other and to nature.

Reflection

As we grow in mindfulness through reflection and mantra meditations, we can achieve a stillness and inner peace in these turbulent times when everything is changing through the disruptive impact of the Coronavirus – through the constant and unpredictable disruption to our social, financial, employment, health, education and familial environments. Lulu & Mischka demonstrate in their own lives and their mantra meditations that that this approach to mindfulness can bring calm and joy to our lives – providing a retreat from the waves of uncertainty.

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Image by Bernhard Stärck from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Developing Gratitude through Meditation

Diana Winston recently conducted a meditation podcast on the theme of Gratitude, prompted by the imminent celebration of Thanksgiving in the USA. Diana, Director of Mindfulness Education at MARC, observed that as people grow in mindfulness, they become more appreciative of different aspects of their life and work. Often, we operate on autopilot and as a result so much of our life passes us by – we are not conscious of what is happening for us or how we got to where we arrived. There is so much of our life that we take for granted, especially the simplest things like being able to breathe, walk, listen and converse. Through meditation we can become more focused on, and appreciative of, the present moment.

The benefits of gratitude

The benefits of gratitude are so great that it is well worthwhile consciously building appreciation as an integral part of your life. Research in this area consistently shows that gratitude contributes substantially to the development of positive emotions such as happiness, resilience, and joy as well as the displacement of negative or “toxic emotions” such as resentment and anger that can gradually erode your sense of equanimity and contentment.

Developing gratitude through a personal reminder

It Is usually when we lose something that we begin to really appreciate what we have. For instance, one of the discs in my back collapsed in 1997, so for 18 months I was in extreme pain from sciatica – having difficulty standing and walking (and being unable to play my favourite sport of tennis). Now when I am playing social tennis, I try to appreciate the fact that I can run, hit the ball and participate in rallies. I am trying to make each mistake that I make a prompt or reminder to appreciate what I can do, rather than focus on what I did wrong when attempting to hit the ball. Developing a relevant, personal reminder (based on your life experience) is one way to build gratitude and appreciation into your daily life.

Developing gratitude through meditation

Another way to consciously develop gratitude is to practice a gratitude meditation. Diana offers one way to approach this in her meditation podcast. The steps involved are:

Grounding yourself in your body through being conscious of your posture (the pressure of your body on the chair and your feet on the floor), and undertaking a body scan exploring points of tightness and releasing any tension that exists in places like your shoulders, jaw or arms. The grounding can be strengthened by closing your eyes or looking down and/or touching your fingers together and feeling the sensation of your bodily energy flow.
Establishing an anchor for your meditation – this can be the experience of your natural breathing process wherever it is readily felt by you (in your chest or abdomen or through your nose), listening to sounds in your room or focusing on a particular body sensation (such as your fingers touching or your feet on the ground).
Appreciating the present moment – Diana introduces a 15-minute period of stillness and silence in this next stage of the meditation. The basic approach is to focus on your anchor, appreciate that you can experience the positive benefits of your personal anchor (breathing, listening or feeling) and naming any distraction (e.g. “thinking”, “avoiding”, “wandering”, “complaining”) before restoring your focus to your anchor. Instead of beating up on yourself for being distracted (a normal part of the human condition), you can appreciate your capacity to be aware that you have lost your focus, that you have developed an anchor to return to, that you have the capacity to restore your focus and that, in the process, you are building your awareness muscle. [I began to appreciate my capacity to focus on an anchor after I conducted a mindfulness session in my manager development course. One of the course participants commented that the meditation component did nothing for her because her mind was so agitated that she could not still her mind at all. This person suffered from severe anxiety as a result of post-traumatic stress. Fortunately, in line with the guidelines for trauma-sensitive mindfulness, I had offered everyone the choice of not participating in the exercise if they did not want to or were unable to for whatever reason.]
Free association – Diana suggests that you let your mind focus on something or someone that you appreciate in the present moment. If you are in an intimate relationship, you could appreciate, or be grateful for, the opportunities to share your successes or failures, the times of quietness spent comfortably together, the chance to go walking together in a pleasant environment, being able to enjoy a movie or a special location with each other, the pleasant feelings of friendship, sharing ideas and plans or the sense of support and unconditional love.

Reflection

There are so many things to appreciate in our lives and to be truly grateful for – many of which we take for granted. For instance, we can savour friendship, our achievements and rewards, the development of our children or, counterintuitively, savour being alone or experiencing boredom. As we grow in mindfulness through daily personal reminders or formal gratitude meditations, we can develop an ever-present sense of appreciation and accrue the desirable benefits of being grateful.

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Image by Susan Cipriano from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Paying Attention to Your Breath and Body

Allyson Pimentel, a teacher at the Mindful Awareness Research Centre (MARC), offers a guided meditation podcast on the theme, Mindfulness of the Body and Breath. She explains at the start of the meditation that mindfulness involves paying attention in a particular way that induces ease, restfulness and tranquillity.

Allyson focuses on three elements of paying attention that lead to inner and outer awareness:

Purposefully – paying attention is undertaken consciously with clear intention and purpose
Focusing on the present – paying attention to the present moment, not to what has gone before or to an anticipated future event
Openly – paying attention with curiosity and willingness to be with what is, not ignoring what is unpleasant, painful or challenging.

Allyson reminds us that our breath and our body are always with us in the present moment, even if our mind is continuously wandering with endless thoughts. Our body and breath provide the anchors in the turbulent sea of life.

Allyson cites lines from a poem, “I Go Among the Trees” by Wendell Berry, that capture this stillness:

All my stirring becomes quiet

Around me like circles on water.

My tasks lie in their places

Where I left them, asleep like

cattle…

Guided meditation on your breath and body

The guided meditation provided by Allyson incorporates mindful breathing together with a thorough body scan. After inviting us to sit “upright not uptight”, she encourages us to notice our breathing (its pace, length and evenness). After inviting us to pay attention to our breath, she guides us in a progressive scanning of the body.

Two things that I noticed with the body scan are its completeness and the focus on openness. She guides us to pay attention to our head as well as the rest of our body – top of the head, our forehead, cheeks, eyes, mouth and tongue. While Allyson asks us to release points of tension in our body during the body scan, she also suggests that we notice points of openness once tension has been released.

As we grow in mindfulness through paying attention in the present moment to our body and breath, we can become grounded, release tension in our body and experience the ease of acceptance. We can learn to more skilfully and openly respond to the challenges of the many aspects of our daily life and extend kindness to ourselves and others we encounter. This, in turn, will lead to the experience of equanimity.

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Image by John Hain from Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Re-energise through Meditation

In this day and age of hectic living, people are constantly tired or exhausted – basically drained of energy. In the absence of a conscious effort to re-energise ourselves, we can become prone to all kinds of physical and mental illness. Meditation provides multiple ways to re-energise and restore physical and mental balance.

The daily pressures at home and work can leave us drained. Added to this are increasing financial demands, adverse environmental conditions (e.g. extreme weather reflected in floods, cyclones and bushfires), increasing violence in communities and the growth of terrorism.

The human impact of these multiple pressures is reflected in constant tiredness and fatigue experienced by people of all ages, even children who are experiencing the demands of exams, parental expectations and university entry requirements. This constant energy drain can be reflected in many illnesses, not the least of these being chronic fatigue syndrome. Alan Jansson, Japanese acupuncturist with more than 30 years experience, has noted that chronic fatigue syndrome, which used to be the province of elite athletes, is now being experienced by managers in large organisations and people of all ages, including teenagers.

Re-energising through meditation

It seems contradictory that meditation, noted for its focus on stillness and silence, should be a source of energy. In fact, there are specific guided meditations that focus on re-energising the body and mind. One such 10-minute guided meditation offers an approach designed to boost energy and build positivity.

Other forms of meditation help us to release tension and trauma, e.g. somatic meditation, remove the energy draining effects of negative thoughts, build positive energy through appreciation and expression of gratitude, and access the energy in the natural world around us through open awareness. Even mindful listening, being fully present and attuned to another person, can energise us through openness to their ideas and passionate pursuits and through the power of connection.

Reasons why meditation re-energises

The Exploration of Consciousness Research Institute (EOC), drawing on the latest resesearch, advances five reasons why meditation increases energy. These reasons are summarised below:

Meditation changes the way we respond to stress: replacing energy-sapping fear and anxiety with resilience through a reduction in the “energy-zapping” chemical, cortisol.
Boosts endorphins thus increasing calm and focus and reducing the need for energy-depleting, temporary stimulants such as “energy drinks” and coffee.
Induces deeper sleep and energy restoration through increased awareness of the present moment (not locked into the past or the future) and through an increase in the sleep-enhancing hormone, melatonin.
Boosts two key chemicals DHEA (develops overall sense of well-being) and Growth Hormone (GH) which increases our strength and energy storage. The overall effect of these two chemicals is a reduction in fatigue and an increase in the energy of motivation.
Upgrades our personal battery and recharges it – by enhancing our emotional control centre (the pre-frontal cortex) and reducing our fear centre (the amygdala).

As we grow in mindfulness through meditation, we can re-energise our personal batteries when they run low, build resilience, reduce energy-sapping emotions and chemicals, and increase chemicals that have a positive effect on our overall strength, the restorative quality of our sleep and our sense of well-being.

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Image source: courtesy of ColiN00B on Pixabay

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Meditation For Increased Energy: How & Why it Works – 5 Reasons

Standing and Walking Meditation

Standing and walking meditations have the common aims of helping us to get in touch with our bodies, to become grounded, to slow down the pace of our lives and to clear our minds of constant chatter. I have previously written about mindful walking and here I want to talk about using standing and walking meditations together.

Standing meditation

The idea in the combination approach is to use standing meditations as bookends for a walking meditation – that is, as you complete each forward and return leg of a walking meditation, you stop and complete a standing meditation.

The standing meditation begins with being aware of the feel of your feet on the floor, then being conscious of the muscles that support your upright position. You can hold your arms in any number of ways – with your hands loosely in front of you, your arms hanging loosely beside your body or joined loosely behind your back. I find that with my arms hanging loosely beside my body, I almost immediately find the tension draining out of my arms and hands.

The standing meditation can involve mindful breathing, body scan, inner awareness or open awareness – taking in sounds, sights, and smells. The key aim is to be present in the moment, in touch with your inner and outer reality.

Walking meditation

There are many forms of walking meditation and what I will cover here is an approach that is used in combination with standing meditations. Walking meditations are valuable because we spend so much of our day moving around, typically racing from one place to another in pursuit of our time-poor way of life. All the time as we move, our minds are also racing – we become caught up in thinking about what needs to be done, planning our actions or feeling concerned about possible undesirable outcomes.

Walking meditation enables us to get in touch with our body and at the same time to notice what thoughts are continuously preoccupying us. I found for instance that the thoughts that continually invaded my consciousness as I was doing a walking meditation all related to some form of planning or other related thinking activity – planning for the things that needed to be done after the meditation or the following days.

Tara Brach suggests that if you walk indoors, it is useful to have a walking space that is 15 to 30 steps in length. This means, in effect, that there is no end goal in terms of where you are trying to get to physically – which counters our daily habit of being goal directed in every movement. Instead, with the walking meditation we are very present to each step, each movement forward – not pursuing an end goal. It also provides the opportunity to undertake a standing meditation at each end of the walking space to add increased stillness and serenity to our mindful walking practice.

The idea is to start to walk a little bit more slowly than you usually walk and, at the same time, to pay attention to the sensations in parts of your body, e.g. your feet, lower legs, arms, chest and thighs. In contrast to your standing or sitting meditation, your breathing will tend to be in the background and your bodily sensations in the foreground.

The basic idea is to become conscious of lifting your feet, stepping out and landing your feet in front of you. The standing meditation at the end of each leg of the walking space involves pausing and stillness and thus deepening your grounding and your awareness of the present moment.

As we grow in mindfulness through combining standing and walking meditations, we become more grounded, more conscious of our bodily sensations and tensions, more in tune with our present reality and better able to be still and silent and to open ourselves to the richness within and without.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of Skitterphoto on Pixabay

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Gratitude in Times of Difficulty

Having gratitude in times of difficulty can increase resilience and overcome depression, anxiety and despair. Gratitude changes the quality of life that we are living as we gain better control over our thoughts and feelings and learn to accept what is.

As you develop this practice, you start to see things that you had not noticed before, the taken-for-granted things in your life. Diana Winston recalls noticing the way sunlight reflects on a plant and the assorted colours that were in a painting on her wall. She attributes this increased awareness and associated thankfulness to taking the time to slow down and meditate on the place where she was – very much a form of open awareness meditation.

So, mindfulness and gratitude go hand-in-hand, in a two-way reinforcement. As you meditate, you become more aware of what you are grateful for and your growing gratitude, in turn, helps you to be more aware of positive experiences and people in your life.

Gratitude in times of difficulty

We so often miss the simple things of life that are before us and can act as a stimulus for gratitude. In times of difficulty, it can be very hard to look beyond what we are experiencing and suffering from and, yet, the simple things in our life can be easily noticed and employed to pull us out of our self-absorption. When we are experiencing difficulties, we often can’t see beyond what is challenging our equanimity.

Somatic meditation can be very helpful in times of challenge, whether the challenge relates to health of our body, our mental state or an external negative stimulus. Adopting a meditative position, in the first instance, enables us to get in touch with our breathing and provides the stillness to observe our own body as we undertake a body scan and progressively release the tension within.

This physical grounding and release provides the foundation to turn our minds to what we are grateful for. A recent experience may become the focus of your appreciation. For example, in a recent meditation, the focus of my gratitude was a conversation I had the day before with a long-standing colleague and close friend. I recalled the ease of the conversation as we were “shooting the breeze”, the deep connection through shared experiences and convictions, the exploration of new terrain, the supportive challenge to perspectives, the mutual respect and admiration and the challenge to identify what gives me a “buzz” at a time of semi-retirement.

Reflecting on this recent experience made me realize the warmth of the interaction and the things that I value about the friendship which lie below my consciousness because I have never attempted to express my gratitude for this profound connection. Our meeting was not only a face-to-face conversation, but also a meeting of minds – a source of mutual enrichment.

As we grow in mindfulness through gratitude meditations, we start to see things that we have taken for granted, appreciate more deeply and explicitly what we value in our experiences and friendships and strengthen our inner resources to deal with the challenges that confront us.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of dh_creative on Pixabay

Disclosure: If you purchase a product through this site, I may earn a commission which will help to pay for the site, the associated Meetup group and the resources to support the blog.

Creativity through Mindfulness

Over several blog posts I have explored the relationship between mindfulness and creativity. In this post, I want to bring these ideas together to provide a more complete picture of how to develop creativity through mindfulness.

Mindfulness creates the internal environment for creativity through the following:

Stillness and silence

We discussed previously how creative people use stillness and silence to access their inner resources including their imagination. The busyness of life and constant thinking means we are rarely still or silent. In the process, we cut ourselves off from creative insight. Jon Kabat-Zinn and Reg Revans also remind us that exploring what we do not know or understand is the beginning of learning and creative solutions. As we practice mindfulness through meditation, we engage in stillness and silence and open ourselves up to what Jon Kabat-Zinn describes as “deep interior capacities” that lie within the “spaciousness” of our minds.

Turning down negative thoughts

Mindfulness can make us aware of the negative thoughts that often block creativity and constitute self-sabotage. Creative people like David Lynch, Amanda Sinclair, Elizabeth Gilbert and Seth Godin report the importance of turning down, or turning off, thoughts about potential failure or deemed personal inadequacy. Seth even ascribes this self-sabotage to the “Lizard Brain”. Sam Smith, singer-songwriter, during a recent interview while performing in London, spoke of the internal demons that beset him and almost prevented him from pursuing his highly successful songwriting and singing career.

Mindfulness enables us to address negative thoughts and stories and defuse their strength to release creativity. Boy George in a recent coaching session with a very nervous performer on the TV show, The Voice, encouraged the singer to let go of preoccupation with what others might think of their performance:

I think you are someone who really thinks about what people think about you. We do that as performers – it’s just one of those things, it’s like a default setting in out make-up. We worry too much about what other people think of us and that can get in the way of what we do. Don’t think about it too much is the key.

Positive anticipation instead of disabling fear

In a previous post, I discussed the research of Anna Steinhenge and her demonstration of how positive anticipation can overcome the disabling effects of fear and enable us to access clear thinking and creativity. In this discussion, I explored the R.A.I.N. meditation process that enables us to face the fear within and conquer it so that we free ourselves for new insights and creative endeavour. Through mindfulness meditation we learn to name our feelings in order to tame them.

Calming the busyness of our minds

Mindfulness enables us to calm our minds and free us from mental busyness or what Haruki Murakami describes as “convoluted waterways of my consciousness” that result in a “restless aquatic organism” . Even experienced meditation practitioners will sometimes find their mind racing and being invaded with endless thoughts. Kabat-Zin reminds us that this is part of the human condition and we will not be able to stop the thoughts. He suggests that instead of entertaining these thoughts, we view them as bubbles in boiling water floating to the surface and bursting on reaching the extremities of the container – our minds.

Being present and grounded

Rasmus Hougaard and Jacqueline Carter, co-authors of The Mind of the Leader, stress the importance of leaders being present and grounded. They argue that being present in conversations gains respect and facilitates open sharing of ideas. Being grounded before beginning a conversation or meeting can enhance a leader’s capacity to listen, take in ideas and access their own creative potential. Practicising somatic meditation, which incorporates many approaches to being grounded in our body, will strengthen our capacity to be present in the moment, stay grounded in the conversation and be open to creative ideas.

Acting on creative ideas with boldness and bravery

It is one thing to have creative ideas, it is another to have the necessary boldness and bravery to implement creative ideas. Amanda Sinclair points out in her book, Leading Mindfully, that creativity involves breaking with tradition, taking risks, trying out something new and having the self-esteem and resilience to be able to persist in the face of opposition – especially from those who have a vested interest in maintaining things the way they are.

Mindfulness helps us to maintain focus, to remain calm, build resilience in the face of opposition and setbacks, and to become braver and less fearful of the difficulties, dangers and risks involved in implementing creative ideas.

As we grow in mindfulness, we are able to access our inner resources through stillness and silence of meditation, overcome our fears, stay present and grounded, remain calm in the face of difficulties and develop boldness, bravery and resilience as we venture beyond “the tried and true”.

By Ron Passfield – Copyright (Creative Commons license, Attribution–Non Commercial–No Derivatives)

Image source: courtesy of geralt on Pixabay

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