Mindfulness Exercise - Lying Down Mindfulness of Breath

Lie down with your back on the floor and place your hands on your belly in a way that feels comfortable to you. Take a deep breath in, hold it for a few moments, and breathe out. Repeat three times, seeing if you can feel your belly rise and fall. Now continue to breathe naturally, however the breathing goes, whether shallow or deep, and say to yourself 'in' as you breathe in, and 'out' as you breathe out. Or if you prefer, you can say 'rising' and 'falling' as you breathe in and out. Try and practise for as long as you choose to, perhaps 10 minutes or maybe more. You can keep your eyes open or closed, whatever you prefer. Each time your mind wonders off into worries or other physical sensations as you realise, kindly bring you attention back to the breath. Remember, it's okay for your mind to wonder off, that's the nature of the mind. Just bring it back whenever you realise. It may not feel like it's helping, but trust in the process and persevere.

Mindfulness For Dummies (For Dummies (Psychology & Self Help))

Mountain Meditation

Mount Fuji

Try This - Mountain Meditation - As you sit, visualise the image of a beautiful and majestic mountain. Get a sense of its stability and majesty. Now allow that image to merge within yourself, so that you are sitting with the same sense of dignity, and feel centred and grounded, just as the mountain is. Now feel your breathing at you sit for a few minutes or so.

If you've got the book 'Mindfulness For Dummies', this meditation is also on one of the tracks on the CD.

Mindfulness For Children and Parents

Teaching Mindfulness to Children

Mindfulness has a natural, child like quality to it. When you are being mindful, you are connecting with your own inner sense of curiosity, wonder and innocence. In this sense, children are naturally mindful. Unfortunately, due to excessive use of modern technology and high levels of fear and stress, children need to be taught different techniques so that they have ways of coping with the various pressures placed upon them.

Here are some things to remember when teaching your child to be mindful:

- Be light-hearted rather than serious. If you can make the mindfulness exercises into a game, you are more likely to succeed in encouraging your child to try them out.

- Keep the mindfulness exercises short - children cannot focus for as long as adults, so a few minutes may be more than enough

- Avoid pressure - if you force your child to be mindful, you loose the freedom and joy of mindfulness and the exercise is no longer a mindful one

- Be patient - you're not likely to be successful every time you try to teach your child to be mindful. Experiment with different techniques and see what works.

There are lots of little mindfulness exercises you can do with your child. For example, if you child is very young, you can ask them to lie down and place a teddy bear on their belly. Then, ask them to become aware of the teddy bear rising and falling as they breathe in and out. Ask them if they can make the teddy bear move up and down more slowly. At the end, ask them how they feel compared to how they felt at the beginning of the 'teddy bear meditation'! 

Mindful Parenting

Parenting is the most difficult, important and rewarding job in the world. Mindfulness can really give you a helping hand so that you can manage your stress levels and be more present for your child. Everyone knows that children need love, but that love comes from giving attention. That's why children who are sadly not given enough love become 'attention-seeking'. Mindfulness is about training you to giving attention and so is ideal for parenting. A mindful parent practises mindfulness meditation on a regular basis, makes time for their children and gives them their full attention and warmth and also looks after themselves. Parenting is a tiring business and so you need to make time for you. As you learn to become more mindful, you become more aware of your own needs and learn to look after yourself in creative ways. 

Here are some tips:

- The heart of mindful parenting involving practising some mindfulness meditation on a daily basis, whether you choose to practise for 5 minutes or 45 minutes, a daily routine is very helpful

- Use opportunities when you are with your child to give them your full attention rather than constantly multi-tasking. Just as you get annoyed when someone doesn't give you their attention, so children feel frustrated when their parents are constantly ignoring them.

- Try and see things from your child's perspective. This may help you to be a little more patient.

- Take time to look after yourself. You could treat yourself to a night out, or go for a mindful walk from time to time or take on a new hobby to take your mind off things for a while. Although these may sound like difficult things to find time to do, if you make the effort, you'll feel better in the long run and will gain in energy. Mindfulness is about being kind and understanding towards yourself as well as others.

- See the fun side of things when you can. Mindfulness is not about being hyper-aware and serious all the time. See if you can laugh at your own imperfections as well as those of your child.

Here's a couple of books I recommend. Mindfulness For Dummies has a chapter on mindfulness for children and parents, and the 'Mindful Child' is all about that subject. Check them out :)

Your comments and questions would be more that welcome - Thank you!

Exercising with Mindfulness

This morning, after practising some meditation in my little garden outside, I decided to go on a bike ride. I live near Bushey Park and enjoy spending time there. So, I hopped on my bike and began making my way through the park in a mindful way. Here's what I discovered on my journey:

1. If you look just in front of your front tire, you become unstable and loose track of where you're going. You need to look far into the distance and then you are far more stable and reach wherever you need to go. In the same way, look at the long term in life and that'll point you in the right direction. If you concentrate too much on what you need to get done by next week, you may end up wobbling!

2. It's easy to end up with a frowning face and crunched up shoulders if you are not aware of your own bodily sensations. Be mindful of your physical body as you exercise.

3. Thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations can easily be forgotten in the moment. Through being mindful, you begin to notice just how much is going on and so can begin learning to take control rather than allowing your mind to drift into negative thoughts and then unhelpful emotions.

Mindfulness For Dummies is shipping in the UK

I'm pleased to say that the first copies of 'Mindfulness For Dummies' are finally being received by people today in the UK. The book is actually being released globally, and apparently it will be translated into many different languages, but at the moment, it's only shipping in the UK.

As this is my first book, it's particularly exciting! It's strange to see my name on Amazon, and on the cover of the book. I can't seem to make myself actually read it....perhaps with time.

However, I do listen to the CD that I recorded, almost every day. As I wrote the script for the CDs according to my own taste, I find the mindfulness meditations particularly good, if I may say so! I like mindfulness meditations to have lots of reminders to be kind and compassionate to oneself, and to be spoken with a soft voice, which is what I've done. I've also separated the introductions to the meditations from the actual meditations themselves, which is useful because if the intro is part of the guided meditation everytime, it becomes a bit tedious.

I've ordered some copies myself from Amazon, but won't be getting them till Friday. I can't wait! Fortunately I have several friends and family members that want a copy, and so I very much look forward to signing it for them.

Mindfulness For Dummies Publishes Today

After a year of sleepless nights, staring at a laptop screen and discovering what writer's block actually feels like, I am proud to have a copy of the book 'Mindfulness For Dummies' in my hand. It has been a real honour to be asked to write the book, and a wonderful experience. I must say, one of the best things I've enjoyed about it, is the community that I talk to everyday on facebook. I started www.facebook.com/mindfulnessfordummies and was pleasantly surprised by how many people are so support of a writing project such as this. They asked and answered questions, offered advice, and generally created an atmosphere that made me feel welcome. I'd like to thank them all on here too.

Today, I'm doing an online book launch of the book. I'm gonna be on this laptop for as long as I can today, apart from when I'm practising mindfulness of course(!), and hope to answer everyone's questions about mindfulness in general, and the book 'Mindfulness For Dummies' in particular. So, fire away with your questions if you have any. If not, just the odd comment would be appreciated, so I know I'm not talking to myself.

Once again, a heart felt thanks for coming to visit this page. May you be very, very well :)