20.593684
78.962880
Practising Mindfulness Latest Posts
Contact: Philip@practisingmindfulness.co.uk
-
Escape the Fishbowl
Round and round the little fish went
Consider how life is for the goldfish. The environment he lives in is fairly small and constrained, and yet, it’s all he knows. The goldfish is unable to experience what lies beyond his bowl. He knows there’s something else out there; a distorted world of strange shapes and patterns. He can push up against the glass and try very hard to reach this other world, but no matter how hard he tries, entry is forbidden.
Can we help?
We might want to lift him out of the bowl. We scoop him up with our hands and say: “Look at what else there is!” But as soon as we do, he starts to die. His gills are unable to extract the oxygen from the air and his convex eyes are unable to see. Perhaps, in the hope that they might evolve, we could take many generations of fish out of the bowl for short periods only. Their gills and eyes adapting to the air; their fins becoming more like hands and feet.
Of course I’m partly talking about Darwin’s theory of evolution by natural selection. The fish that’s able to survive for the longest, outside of its normal environment, gets to pass on these survivalist skills. Skills that potentially develop into their very makeup; their genes.
What if we can’t wait for millions of years?
For this goldfish experiment of ours to work, without millions of years of evolution, we could build an apparatus. This device would enable the goldfish to see and explore the outside world. We could place lenses over his eyes to help him see, we could develop a way to pump oxygen directly into his veins. We could oil his skin so it doesn’t dry out. What then of his brain? Would it not be the case, that his brain would also need some kind of development, to help him fully appreciate his new found world.
We would of course need to fully understand how to relate to this fish; to understand how he thinks
Yes, a form of translation would be needed; methods of communication would need to be developed, and ways of connecting with his perceptions, required. Once we have all of this in place, it might be possible to help our little fish, see beyond, the bowl.
Most, if not all of us, are living in our own restrictive fishbowl
The range of our perception has been adapted to fit our environment. We’re unable to fully appreciate how beautifully minimalist this is. During the millions of years it took for us to reach the stage we have, certain things have been lost, or have evolved in their use. Our gills have become lungs and our fins have become hands. We’ve adapted further have we not? We can now travel back to the water. In order to achieve this we take small pieces of our current environment down with us in the form of SCUBA (self-contained underwater breathing apparatus). So what of us escaping our environment in other ways? Well, we’ve now further proven our cleverness, by surviving for short periods of time in space. So what about escaping the fishbowl of our thinking.
The expression ‘fishbowl-thinking’ describes how we’re trapped within the environs determined by our beliefs
Our thought experiment helped our goldfish. We skipped millions of years of evolution through creating an imaginary scenario, and then developed a suitable apparatus, for escape. So in this respect, how extraordinary it is that in reality, we have reversed the processes of evolution, inflicted upon us, by creating SCUBA. In reality we have returned to the sea.
In order for us to escape the environs created by our beliefs we must also use tools
We cannot escape fishbowl-thinking with the same kind of thinking that created it. In other words, we must seek to escape the expectations defined, by our beliefs. We don’t know what we don’t know and can’t believe what we don’t yet believe. As such, we must suspend logical thinking, if we are to escape the environs of our beliefs. The first step toward achieving this, is to suspend our normal, restrictive, thinking.
At the beginning of the GOLD Counselling Method, a light trance, is induced.
-
Three Steps to Success
Step One – Meditation Course
Our workshop is specifically designed to teach the basics of mindfulness and meditation in one day. We believe in a no nonsense approach to teaching, and seek to remove much of the unnecessary confusion and mysticism, surrounding our specialism.
Step Two – Self-hypnosis Workshop
During a meditative state, we seek to raise our conscious awareness, so we may better understand the nature of our thoughts. Hypnosis differs in some respects to this. Even though the word hypnosis originates from the Greek word hupnos, meaning sleep, we must not confuse it as such.
Whilst ‘under’ hypnosis, we are in fact wide awake. All that has altered is our state of mind. This altered state concerns the bypassing of consciousness, so we may open the mind sufficiently, to gain access to our unconscious processing.
It is often our unconscious beliefs and understandings, that directly conflict, with our conscious desires. As such, learning the skill of self-hypnosis, awards us the ability to directly alter those things that unconsciously hold us back.
Step Three – Self-awareness Workshop
Raised self-awareness has to be one of the most powerful means of improving the quality of our lives. In real terms, the way in which this is achieved, is quite simple. The tools and information required, in order to begin the process of raising self-awareness, can be shared within one day.
We begin by discussing the importance of how brief examination of the past, highlights any difficulties we may be facing, in the present. This includes our beliefs: how they are formed and how they continue to help or hinder our thinking in the present moment. Mindful understanding, of the extent to which the past influences the present, automatically raises our self-awareness.
The techniques we teach, for recognising and removing the buried beliefs and character traits that seem to limit us through life, have proven invaluable. The School of Mind is committed to empowering you with these skills and resources.
Living a life, with all the unnecessary suffering and anxiety removed, is achieved when we better understand ourselves and how our minds work. Once we see clearly, the type of mechanisms we employ to manifest our own obstacles, the less likely it is, they will arise in the first place.
Contentment, mixed with a healthy appreciation of life and all it can offer, is something also awarded through raised self-awareness. It is true to say, once we have learnt how to be contented, our achievements, large or small, are far better appreciated.
-
Stable and Present (Stability of Mindfulness)
The Freedman College – Specialist school offering Training Workshops in Mindfulness and Self-hypnosis Instability is created when the mind is grasping and craving to be somewhere else. We’re unhappy, restless or bored with what’s happening right now, and so we crave to be somewhere other than the now moment. This creates powerful feelings that drive us to unsettle our situation, in an attempt to satisfy, our craving for stimulation.
We go out for a drink; we crave the attention of others; we seek any stimulation just to satisfy our craving. We grasp at the next thing, constantly looking ahead, to what we might be doing next. If there’s nothing happening in every moment, we fear that we’re somehow, missing out. We’re never settled, thinking there’s always something better, or someone better to be with. This is instability. Horrible when seen for what it truly is.
Stability
There’s a lot to be said for being stable and living a stable life. Some might associate stable with boring, or worst still, normal. Also, we might need to experience a period of instability, before we begin to seek its opposite. In this vein, we could adopt the view, that it’s instability that has become what’s boring. When feelings of instability are a constant, eventually, we’ll tire of this.
Routine
Many of us actually seek to avoid routine. We see routine as monotonous, and the flat, neutral feelings associated, as hard to cope with. Some routine is useful. When we have certain things in life that are regular; timed to occur at regular intervals, we form stability. Meal times are an easy example of this. Some children are raised with no regular meal times and so miss this particular grounding of routine. We need a certain amount of routine. It is important.
Meditation Leading to Mindfulness
Learning the art of meditation – in order to improve everyday mindfulness – is a sure fire method of creating greater stability. As with anything to do with self-discipline meditation takes strength of mind and persistence before it becomes one of those positive habits. The ability to bring the mind back into the present moment, time and time again, helps to discipline the mind and steer it away from the craving and grasping, associated with instability. In its simplest form, that really is the nature of instability:
The mind craving to be in a state it has become accustomed to
Those of us who’ve grown up in an unstable and insecure environments become accustomed to this. The mind sees it as normal. For there to be quiet and stillness is suggestive of there being something wrong. The ‘quiet before the storm’ is an uncomfortable place for some children.
For these unstable, insecure children, the quiet before the storm is often more frightening than the storm itself. As a result, it’s even more important for the unsettled adult, to remain in such a state (unsettled) because the quiet has become associated with anguish and fear. Therefore, the adult survivors of such an upbringing, can find meditation, particularly challenging.
Stability before the plan
As touched on in previous posts, meditation itself, can have an unsettling effect. When we’ve become accustomed to instability, and indeed this is the method we’ve employed to cope with difficult circumstances, meditation creates a change, the mind will initially fight against. Even so, we must find stability, and control over our impulsive nature, in order to form a coherent plan, to escape difficult circumstances.
Constant chaos and instability becomes a vicious cycle that’s difficult to escape. If the plan we’ve formed, is simply a reflection of a chaotic mind, it is bound to fail. So in this respect, learning how to still and settle the mind, before we begin to plan our escape, is a must.
Remember, by firstly understanding how we’re creating instability, we’re able to see what steps are needed, in order to find its opposite: Stability. A beautiful place to be.
-
Easy Self-Discipline
Sometimes it can seem like the hardest thing in the world
There are days, or is it just moments, where we think: what exactly is the point? What is it, this feeling, of not wanting people to bother with us? We don’t want them to talk to us or try to communicate with us on any level. We want to sleep, but can’t.
Is this just a down day? Of course it is, and yet, when there’s a part of us that felt so alive and enthusiastic for life yesterday, we can’t help wondering, what the hell has happened for all this to change?
The energy within each trigger
Beliefs are very much dependent on triggers. Events that occur throughout the course of the day influence the flow of electrochemical energy flowing through our brains. When we think of the interconnected nature of the neurons within our brains, it’s easy to understand how this flow can influence our thinking.
In terms of how long they’re being fueled, by this electrochemical energy, beliefs can be relatively short-lived. As each belief is triggered and then replaced by one that has a greater energetic trigger (emotion), we feel our moods shifting and changing.
Our mood and mental health change from day to day
And so, as we can see, our mental health changes from moment to moment. It can take the slightest thing to change how we feel; for our beliefs to shift. This could be something a person has said or not said, for that matter. It could be the company we keep. Is it the influence of others deciding our mental stability? Perhaps it’s simply the tiring effect.
It doesn’t matter how impervious to the influence of others that we feel we’ve trained ourselves to become. People can still affect our moods and mindset. The alternative to this is being alone. It can be time alone that’s altering our mood. We can become withdrawn and inwardly focused, feeling like we’ve lost our motivation. How strange the mind is that it can alter, or be altered, so simply and inexplicably.
So here we come the issue of self-discipline
How can we keep ourselves on track and motivated when it seems our mind has different plans? This has a lot to do with understanding how we’re allowing ourselves to be distracted. What is it we’re doing to alter mood and mindset? What are we doing to alter our mental health?
When we look deeper, we will see that to a greater extent than we realise, it is actually us that’s doing the changing. It is us that’s responsible for these seemingly inexplicable shifts.
Put yourself in the place of someone you believe to have immense stability, self-discipline, and determination
Take the racing driver, Lewis Hamilton, as an example. What does this person have that enables him to be so consistently good? What does he have that makes him such an achiever? What is the secret to his consistency? It’s more than a good car, that’s for sure. A winning car is only this way when driven by a passionate and winning driver. Not to mention his team; the people around him.
Self-discipline involves the matter of consistency and stability coming from within
In other words, we must keep ourselves aware of any inconsistencies within our patterns of thought and behaviour. Take diet as a simple yet powerful example. We might think it okay to eat well and healthy one day, and the next, just pig-out on sugary and fatty junk foods. This might be a pattern of behaviour. It could well be a pattern that’s been allowed to build in strength for years and years; as such, it’s something we’re no longer fully conscious of.
If this type of eating were a followed pattern, it would be a prime example of how we change moods from the inside out. We might now think that this is a chicken and the egg situation: that it’s the mood prompting the day of junk food or whatever. It is more likely, though, that it’s simply a pattern – established many years ago – being acted out, over and over again. It’s this that’s changing mind. We are what we eat.
Take a moment now to think back to the consistency of our racing driver
During the racing season, you can be sure Lewis Hamilton will be following strict routines. His patterns of thought and behaviour will be stable and consistently beneficial to winning races. He will have an awareness of this. So when it comes to self-discipline, it’s far easier to have this when we’re aware of what we might be doing to alter our mindset from within. On a daily basis, we must ask ourselves:
How am I making this harder for myself?
What am I doing that is in direct conflict with being consistent and stable?
Diet, thoughts, and behaviour have a lot more to do with conflict than we might first realise. If we’re to find stability and consistency, self-discipline must extend to all aspects of our lives .
Important ingredients to success
Take a few more moments to imagine what kind of mindset our racing driver possesses. Actually, close your eyes and imagine. Imagine his exercise regime; his diet, and the people around him. Consider his general lifestyle. With this, think about his moods, mindset, and mental health. What place is he in psychologically?
Apply this to yourself
Think of what changes and improvements to lifestyle, diet, thoughts, and behaviour you must now make. The outcome will be consistency and stability that begins from the inside out.
Along with thinking skills, one very important aspect of routine and self-discipline is the ability to stop thought and just act. In other words, it’s our self-talk; our internal chatter, which can sometimes be the problem. By ceasing internal chatter – and just doing things routinely – we increase good habits and patterns of behaviour.
Often, all we need to do is simply stop thinking about it and act. As Ralph Waldo Emerson put it: “Do the thing, and you will have the power.” Discipline yourself and just do it.
-
Reaching for Ideals
Ideal:
noun
- a conception of something in its perfection.
- a standard of perfection or excellence.
- a person or thing conceived as embodying such a conception, or conforming to such a standard, and taken as a model for imitation.
Should we seek the ideal? Is being an idealist different from being a perfectionist? The English dictionary defines the idealist as this:
- Someone who believes that very good things can be achieved often when this does not seem likely to others.
We’re told that perfectionism is a negative
We’re told that wanting perfection and only settling for this is something to be avoided. If we believe there’s no such thing as perfect, yet at the same time seek it, we’re certainly going to be wasting a lot of energy.
Alternatively, when we understand perfection – as simply an ideal to strive for – we’re able to achieve our best in any given moment of time. Our efforts may not have been perfect, yet we can be comfortable in the knowledge, we did our best. In this respect, we must have a ‘benchmark’ to reach for. There must always be a gold standard.
So whether we like it or not, perfection is always going to be something striven for. The perfect body, the perfect house, life, car, job, child, marriage, we could go on. The downside of this will be the negative feelings we’re left with when we inevitably fall short. We’ll feel frustrated, dissatisfied, and unfulfilled when we fail to reach perfection. Eventually, we may give up altogether.
With this in mind, only reaching for the ideal, is the objective
Being the best we can be without achieving perfection is the plan. After all, to be perfect would leave us with nowhere else to go; a very dangerous situation indeed. And so in this respect, it’s very sensible for us to see perfection, as unachievable. Thankfully, there will always be better to strive for. Seeing this for what it is gives us room to work harder, even when we know we’ve done our very best.
It’s the knowledge that there is always more that keeps humans striving to move forward. We can always do better. There is always more. A very reassuring fact. This brings me on to the key understanding we must strive for.
At The Freedman College, we believe it makes perfect sense for us to be striving for a better understanding of one key element in our lives.
When we focus our attention on this one key element all other things are found
If we come back to the examples given of what we seek perfection in for a moment (be it lives, bodies, marriages or houses), all of these things are easily achieved, when we have a clear understanding of this key element. Here it is: The Ideal of Love.
Once we cease – in our misunderstandings and misinterpretations of love – we will stop striving for an unachievable ideal. Because we’re confused about love, we don’t actually know what we are, in fact, striving for. For example, we’re told that love is many things. The nonsense of this definition is the very thing causing confusion. If we don’t even know what it is, how can we strive to find it?
When young we often think we’re in love
We confuse the feelings we may have for someone as love. We may feel that we need someone, or that we feel lost without them; that we pander for them, or pine for their attention. We mistake lust and infatuation for love. We must make ourselves aware: Emotions of craving have nothing to do with love. Further to this, we mistake many aspects of fear, for love. We think that because we fear losing them, we must love them. Fear of loss is fear of pain. Love is completely devoid of this.
We really only need ask ourselves one thing to know whether we’re in love or not. Here it is: Do I want to empower this person? The true emotion of love is something we’re awarded when we witness the freedom of our loved ones. Anything other than this will never be love and only a poor imitation and illusion of it.
To know if our version of love is reciprocal, all we need to do is turn the question around like this: Is this person empowering me?
At this stage, be sure to have a clear understanding of the word empower. It is not empowerment to need a person, and neither is it empowerment to give yourself up to another. Empowerment is when we’re able to lift a person to be a free individual standing on their own two feet who is the best version of themselves they can possibly be at that moment in time.
At the same time – as your empowerment of them – this power sets you free. The more people who have a clear understanding of this, the better.
Here is the definition of an ideal love that we believe to be A Basic Human Right:
“Love and the ability to teach it, is wanting and needing to empower your partner and children to evolve into whole human beings who are free of fear, because that process gives you pleasure, freedom from your own fear, and brings you closer to wholeness”
– Create Beautiful Partnerships
Wholeness is a calm acceptance of this version of love and that of yourself as a near perfect example of a human being.
Strive for this ideal, and all other things will come.
-
How to Defend the Empath
A modern term banded about nowadays is that of being an Empath. It’s really just a way of describing those who have a particularly overblown sensitivity to the mental or emotional state of another
One of the main reasons for this sensitivity, I believe, comes as a result of the empath being very in touch with themselves. Those of us who have a good understanding of what it is to ‘know oneself’ do tend to display above average empathic abilities.
There is of course disadvantage, as much as there is advantage, to being an empath. The empath can find themselves easily affected by the behaviour of others. They can also tend to be highly suggestible, and effected by others moods, to such a degree, they’re often swept along by the moment.
There are times when the majority of us, and not just highly empathic people, become all too aware of the unpalatable and unpleasant aspects of human nature. Under such circumstances, we must all know how to protect ourselves, from its effects.
We must distract ourselves by focusing our minds on the more positive aspects of human nature. Becoming more involved with the world around us will also help. Move attention, away from the feelings centre, and more toward the other senses.
I clearly remember telling a trainee therapist one time, how, if she ever felt emotional – at an inappropriate moment – she’d find it useful to look upward
This is done in order to take the mind out of our feelings or kinaesthetic sense. You’ll often see this when people are unconsciously seeking to control tearfulness. Conscious awareness of this phenomenon (of moving eyes upward) awards us greater control.
When it comes to greater control, one last thing for us to look at today, is that of how easily empathic people can be emotionally manipulated. This is simply due to their high degree of awareness: the moods of others become theirs. When others are sad so are they, when others are happy, so are they. With this in mind, the clever, abusive manipulator, has the empath in the palm of their hand.
An uncomfortable paradox for the empath is they’ve often experienced neglect, and other kinds of abuse, during childhood
And to add insult to injury, as adults, they can also easily find themselves in the hands of abusers. Paradoxically, this is due to survival skills established during childhood, creating vulnerability (if not understood) in adulthood.
Be aware: if you are empathic there are times when your mind, is quite literally, not your own. Taking back control involves detaching yourself from certain senses. Move your mind onto other things. Allowing yourself to be distracted from the moods of others, may be necessary, to take back control of your mind. As odd as it sounds, you may need to start caring, slightly less.
-
Hypnosis
The word hypnosis originates from the Greek word for sleep (hupnos). Even though this is how, and from where the word originates, hypnosis does differ, in some respects, to sleep. In fact, it could be said the use of hypnosis – in a modern therapeutic setting – actually wakes us to a new awareness; an awareness of why we often seem to behave in limiting, and uncontrolled ways.
There has been, and still is to some extent, much confusion around the subject of hypnosis. Let’s clear it up.
Think of a time when you’ve drifted of into an imaginary would all of your own; think of how that has distorted time. Think of a time when you’ve been so lost in your own world, that you’ve not heard what someone said, or even seen them leave the room.
Think of a repetitive activity – a car journey, coach, or train trip for example – and think of how you’ve not noticed time slipping away. Think of how good it felt, that time, when you were so very focused, to the exclusion of all other things; in the zone, as they say. All hypnotic states.
It could be said we’re all constantly in a state of hypnosis, that simply varies from light, to slight, and back again during the course of our day.
Sleep is something we do at night to rest our bodies. Our minds are potentially more active during sleep than during medium to deep hypnosis. Notice the use of the words medium to deep there.
Medium to deep hypnosis is used by the Clinical Hypnotherapist as a means of accessing the unconscious, non-critical, part of the mind. Once hypnosis has been induced, positive suggestions for change are indirectly (through judicious use of metaphor) or directly emplaced – “You find change attractive and exciting” – for example.
It’s often the unconscious part of our minds that keep us on a self-destructive path. Reprogramming – that which has become an unconscious activity – is the name of the game here.
Here’s a gentle example – of something that has potentially become unconscious: could a good hypnotist suggest you no longer remember where your keys are? Could he suggest you’ve forgotten where you put them? The simple answer is yes, however, the professional Hypnotherapist, is only interested in emplacing suggestions that are beneficial.
Analytical Hypnotherapy is used to help resolve the more stubborn confusion and conflict (neurosis) the mind may harbour. Often, we must understand the purpose and origin of a behaviour or way of thinking, before we can convince the mind to give it up.
So there we are, relax, it is all in the mind.
Practising Mindfulness 