Meditation and Mindfulness

What are the benefits of Meditation?

  • Over time you learn to be less reactive and more response - (reducing feeling stressed, exhausted, overwhelmed, anxious)

  • Over time your mental and emotional health improves hugely

  • Over time meditation becomes an essential part of your day - just like brushing your teeth

  • Meditation actually isn’t hard - it can be as simple as just observing your breath, while you sit quietly

  • Just 5 minutes first thing in the morning or last thing before bed will make a huge difference over time

  • There’s no such thing as a good or bad meditation - there’s just you practising meditation

  • Over time you come to gain a new perspective on yourself and your life.

  • Over time you gain a little space between your thoughts and your actions.

  • You don’t have to clear your mind of thoughts (good luck with trying)

  • You don’t have to sit in Lotus posture - a normal chair is fine!

  • You don’t have to sit down for an hour a day every morning

  • You don’t have to win at meditation or achieve a result

As Jeff Kober - an experienced meditation teacher notes: “Though it can feel very restful, meditation is not just a vacation from the inside of my head. It’s actually a way to progressively remove stress, stress triggers and stress chemistry from my system. As it works on these over-active aspects of my survival response, lessening my reactivity to the world and its challenges, it expands my capacity for what we might call ‘adaptation energy,’ the ability to meet new challenges as opportunities for learning and adventure, rather than as one more #*&!*#! thing keeping me from feeling okay or safe or at peace. I become able to choose away from worry, anxiety, fear and anger, and adopt a mood of acceptance and expectation. I am able to stop the constant comparison of what is to what should be. I become able to live in the moment, instead of the grinding worry of my immediate future and all the dragons of horrifying possibility there.

So if you have the gift of meditation, use it today.”

Here’s a simple breath awareness meditation for you to try.

What is the Difference between Meditation & Mindfulness?

For me the simplest way to explain the difference is that Meditation is what you practice - a means of training yourself and Mindfulness is how you put that training into practice in every day life.

Meditation is a practice of slowing down the pace of your life, your thinking and giving yourself a chance to become calm, peaceful and gain a new perspective on things. It’s a practice of Being rather than Doing. Which for most people is a challenge - we have goals, deadlines, maybe families to take care of. A whole host of rational reasons to be busy constantly.

My question to you is, how is that constant busyness working out for you?

Meditation is a practice that can help you enjoy life more. Because you begin to take time for you. Not to escape, but because your mental and emotional wellbeing is a priority. It’s like the routine on an aircraft before takeoff - when the Stewards tell you to put your oxygen mask on first. We just don’t do that in life enough. When we do - EVERYONE around us benefits! Our families, friends, colleagues, clients.

The Good News?

I used to experience depression and anxiety on a serious level. I have experienced severe PTSD, agoraphobia and panic attacks and over time yoga, meditation, conscious breathing and mindfulness have helped me HUGELY. I’m unrecognisable from that period in my life. It’s worth noting that meditation is not an alternative to therapeutic intervention if you are struggling with mental health.

I teach meditation in ALL of my yoga classes. I teach meditation and mindfulness in all of my corporate sessions. And, there are meditation videos here on my website, on my YouTube and there’s one on this page too!

Mindfulness is how you live

  • Mindfulness is eating food without a phone - it’s noticing how your food tastes and smells, what the texture is and how it makes you feel

  • Mindfulness is doing one thing at a time without multi tasking

  • Mindfulness is choosing to pause and slow down

  • Mindfulness is learning to take your time

  • Mindfulness is learning how to calm yourself regularly and reduce stress

  • Mindfulness is learning to notice what you feel in your body before you say something rash, or fire off that email to someone..!

  • Mindfulness is noticing everything in your life more every day

  • Mindfulness is like a massage for the mind and nervous system

  • Mindfulness is the secret to productivity, and the possibility of clarity and peace of mind every day

Feel free to join this Grounding Meditation below, recorded as one of the meditations offered as part of the 16 week Sunday Service free meditation programme offered from March 2020 during the first lockdown.