Category: habits

How to Begin Meditating: 4 Simple Steps to Get You Started

Posted on by Allan Johnson in habits, meditation, mindfulness

Meditation has been used for thousands of years to help people become aware of what is going on in their mind and body. Through developing this awareness we are able to take a step back and observe the thoughts that go through our mind, the feelings that arise in our body, and our reactions to events occurring around us. In mediation we learn to observe but not to judge our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours and to see how they affect the world around us and our relationships. When we learn to observe ourselves with greater awareness and clarity, we also learn to observe others with greater clarity, and we are able to bring more compassion and love into our lives. We become more aware of the impact of our thoughts, feelings, and behaviours on ourselves and others, and we are able to step back and recognise patterns that we have been repeating.

When we get into the habit of observing our thoughts, our feelings, and our behaviour, we begin to understand how our actions affect others around us. Meditation is not a one-time thing. It is a way of living and a way of learning how to observe our thoughts and feelings, how to avoid getting lost in them, and how to observe these ideas and emotions without judgement. Meditation is about learning how to live with greater awareness and clarity. 

Meditation is easy to begin but takes a lifetime of practice. These four steps will help you to begin your own regular meditation practice:

  1. Find a quiet place where you will not be disturbed. Get comfortable, close your eyes and begin to turn inward. You do not have to be in any particular position to meditate. Some people like to sit cross-legged and rest their hands comfortably on their knees, but you can also simply sit on a comfortable chair with your feet on the floor.
  2. When you are ready, begin to follow your breath. Take a few deep breaths, becoming aware of your breath. When you inhale, allow the breath to fill your whole body and when you exhale, allow the breath to leave your whole body. As the breath continues to flow in its own time, begin to focus on the sensations in your body. Be curious about how your body feels and how it changes from one moment to the next.
  3. Once you are familiar with your body sensations, you can begin to turn awareness to your thoughts. As you continue to be aware of the gentle movement of breath in and out, you can notice how thoughts, feelings and emotions arise and how these thoughts, feelings and emotions affect your life. You can see that thoughts and feelings are like clouds and you can watch them float by and dissipate if you just observe them.
  4. Next, begin to notice emotions as they rise within you, like the breeze blowing gently through the trees. Feel your emotions flowing through your body or filling your body as they pass through you. You can be present with yourself and allow yourself to notice and feel your reactions, accept them and be with them, understanding that they may be beyond your control.

The more often you practice meditation, the more you will learn about yourself and about your life. As you begin notice your thoughts, feelings, and reactions, you may find that they are created by the mind and that they are not solid things that can be held in our bodies. They can only be held in our mind, and when the mind stops, the thoughts and feelings stop too. Every morning is a new beginning, a fresh start to the day, a time to cleanse your mind and heart, and a time to let go of old habits and open up to new habits. By keeping this in mind you can learn to observe your reactions to stress, sadness, frustration, pain and anger and bring more compassion and love into your life, and use this compassion and love to become a better person, a better friend, a better parent, and help to create a more balanced and happier life.

Download your free 21-day course in The Path of Mindfulness. In this life-changing 21-day mindfulness journey, Dr Allan Kilner-Johnson guides you through a series of self-guided mindfulness exercises and shows you how and when to bring mindfulness into your daily life. 

Igniting your Creativity

Posted on by Allan Johnson in creativity, habits, wellbeing

Discovering your inner creativity begins with looking inside yourself. It is about understanding your feelings, your emotions, your past experiences, and your patterns of behaviour. As you learn to tune out the voice of self-doubt and listen instead to the voice of your inner wisdom, you begin to find your true voice and express yourself as you wish.

It is not always easy to let go of the fear of judgement and failure. However, when you are creative in the way you want to be, you will feel the sense of fulfilment that comes from knowing you are ‘doing something’ rather than ‘doing nothing’ and focusing on something that is meaningful to you. You begin to live your life according to your own ideas rather than those of others. You begin to find your voice and let go of the voice of self-doubt within you. By expressing your creativity in the way that feels right for you, you get more in touch with your inner wisdom, become more self-aware and gain more confidence.

There are so many ways to express your creativity: painting, sculpture, breadmaking, housekeeping, writing, dancing, design, photography, sketching, furniture making, journaling, scrapbook, modelling, cooking, acting, and jewellery making. These creative activities teach you the courage to let go of fear and self-doubt and, instead, to listen to the voice of your inner wisdom, define your values, set goals and start living your life on your own terms.

If you have not thought much about developing your creativity, getting started can be the hardest part. Often it is the thought of starting something that stops us from starting at all. Starting on something new does not mean that you can not make any more mistakes. It is about stepping out of your comfort zone and going your own way and realising that it is okay to make mistakes along the way. In fact, it is okay to make mistakes. It is about learning from your mistakes, paying attention to what is happening around you, how you feel, what is important to you and what you need to do to get what you want. It’s about stepping into your power and living your life on your own terms

Here are some things to think about:

  • What is your passion?
  • How would you like to be remembered?
  • What would the world look like if everyone had the courage to live life on their own terms? 

Answer these questions openly and honestly. Take your time, write down the answers, and let your ideas flow. When you have finished, take a moment to read your responses. How do you feel when you look at what you’ve written? Do you feel excited? Do you feel encouraged? Do you feel motivated? If you have any of these feelings, then you have already taken a positive step towards becoming a more creative person.

There are so many ways to be creative. Think of the things you like to do and the things you do regularly. Are there ways you could be more creative in any of these areas? Is there something you hear on the radio or see on TV that you could create or do yourself? Is there something you already do that you could change or do differently? Is there someone you know who you could help to develop their creativity? Is there something you could do to make yourself feel more alive, excited, or energised? Explore these feelings and consider what steps you could take to become more creative in the way you want.

Today is a new day to be creative! Now that you have taken some time to self-reflect, you are in a position to shape your life according to your own ideas. Make it your mission to be creative every day. Choose a project, take some time for yourself, and do something you enjoy! Let go of the fear of failure and instead enjoy the moment. Express yourself. Be creative. Become the person you want to become. If you have not already, take some time to write down your creativity goals that will help you take action and start making positive changes in your life.

Take the time to listen to your own heart, discover your own truths, express yourself in the way that feels right for you, act and do something. Be creative in the way you choose and take the time to follow your own path. Through creativity you learn to live your life on your own terms, to trust yourself and let go of fear, to listen to your inner voice and come into your power.

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17 Powerful Questions for Connecting to Gratitude

Posted on by Allan Johnson in gratitude, habits

What are you grateful for?  Listing and affirming gratitude is one of the best ways that we can begin to bring positive change for ourselves and those around us.  As we begin to become more aware of the many blessings already present in our lives—from the small things, to the overlooked things, to the big and important things—we are better able to see and connect to the abundance that is around us.

A fantastic way to begin is with a formal gratitude listing practice.  There are a lot of really great gratitude journals available on the market, but you don’t need to buy a new journal to start recording the things you are grateful for. Any notebook will do, and all it takes is a few minutes at the beginning or the end of your day to make a list of the things that you are most grateful for right now.  Your gratitude journal can include anything, big or small.  There will be some days when things are not going especially well and you struggle to find anything to be grateful for.  These are the days when the most important invitation to you is to return to the simplest gifts that are with you all the time: fresh air, beautiful sunlight, clean water.  On other days your list of gratitude might be more plentiful.

I’ve been keeping a daily gratitude journal for over five years and have seen immense benefit from it.  A study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology called ‘Counting Blessings versus Burdens: An Experimental Investigation of Gratitude and Subjective Well-being in Daily Life’ showed that ‘a conscious focus on blessings may have emotional and interpersonal benefits’.  Starting your day with a list of gratitude sets the tone for the day, and once you’ve turned gratitude into a daily practice you’ll begin to experience greater awareness, acceptance, and compassion.  These powerful questions can be a great starting point for connecting to gratitude and starting a daily gratitude practice:

  1. When did you find inner strength to overcome a great challenge?
  2. What has made you smile recently?
  3. Who helped you to achieve a recent accomplishment?
  4. What inspires you?
  5. Who has shown you kindness this week?
  6. Where are you best able to express yourself?
  7. When did you feel cherished?
  8. Where do you feel most at home?
  9. What part of the natural world inspires you most?
  10. What wishes have come true?
  11. Who brings joy into your life?
  12. What negative experience ultimately led to something positive?
  13. What can you see outside your window?
  14. Who really listens to you and hears you?
  15. Who or what has recently entered your life that you are grateful for?
  16. What room in your home most inspires you?
  17. Who has helped you to make a difficult decision recently?

Download your free 21-day course in The Path of Mindfulness. In this life-changing 21-day mindfulness journey, Dr Allan Kilner-Johnson guides you through a series of self-guided mindfulness exercises and shows you how and when to bring mindfulness into your daily life. 

Journaling to Support Creativity

Posted on by Allan Johnson in creativity, habits

I’ve kept a daily journal for almost twenty years.  It’s served many different purposes throughout the years, but has always offered me many benefits and has become a regular part of my daily ritual. In The Artist’s Way, Julia Cameron suggests to her readers to begin each morning by writing three pages of stream-of-consciousness writing in longhand form. The topic of these ‘Morning Pages’ is not predetermined, nor are there any explicit goals or objectives for the content of the entries themselves. Rather, Cameron saw these three longhand pages as a vital way to clear the air for creative thinking, and bring focus back to the creative process.

Your entries might be completely and utterly mundane, but new insights and observations can emerge from this daily stream-of-consciousness writing more often than one imagines. Cameron also reasserts the importance of writing the Morning Pages out longhand, in order to stabilise the rate of thinking and the rate of writing, and to highlight the important physical connection between thinking and writing. 

By setting aside time each day to write about and reflect on your current projects, you will immediately be bringing a new level of focus to your work that might not be achieved otherwise. Many creative professionals find it helpful to begin each day by writing an entry in their research journal. They might review what they wrote about their reading yesterday, and use their daily entry as a jumping off point, or a ‘to-do’ list for the day ahead. There is also certainly a meditative aspect to this type of reflective writing, which can help to give you the motivation and focus to tackle the next step of your writing. 

Morning pages also allow you to record and analyse your own behaviours and habits as a creative. Do your entries suggest to you that you tend to do your best work in the morning? If so, then by all means examine your daily schedule and see how you can best accommodate this. Your research journal can serve to capture some subtle but very important insights about your own unique approach to the research process. 

You can learn a lot about yourself and gain a lot of insight into your life. There’s something magical about writing that thinking alone just doesn’t have.

Use these tips to take advantage of journaling to gain insight into your mind and your life:

  1. Review your day. Take a look at your day and make some notes. What is getting you down? What are the situations, people, habits, and beliefs that are causing you the most grief? Why do these things bother you? What can you do about it? What are these two things and what was so great or terrible about them?
  2. List progress toward your goals. Writing down your goals each day is a powerful way to stay focused on them. Write your 10 most important goals each day and notice how they evolve over time.Think about your goals and list the progress you made toward each. If you failed to do anything to make progress toward one or more of your goals, note that, too.
  3. Address your fears. Write about your fears. What are you afraid of? Why do you think you’re afraid of those things? How do your fears impact your life? What is your plan to address those fears? What’s standing in your way? List the obstacles in your life that you believe are blocking you from happiness or achieving your goals.
  4. List five things that make you feel grateful. What are you grateful for? Make a list of several items each day and notice how your perspective on life changes.
  5. Make a plan for the future. Aside from your specific goals, what does your dream life look like? How are you planning on getting there? Think about it and sketch out a plan.
  6. Write about what is causing you to feel negative emotions. What is getting you down? What are the situations, people, habits, and beliefs that are causing you the most grief? Why do these things bother you? What can you do about it?

Journaling each day can take some time, but it’s time that’s well spent. Develop a routine that incorporates journaling into your life. It won’t be long before you begin noticing the benefits. Do what the most successful people in the world do and write about your thoughts and your life.

Download your free 21-day course in The Path of Mindfulness. In this life-changing 21-day mindfulness journey, Dr Allan Kilner-Johnson guides you through a series of self-guided mindfulness exercises and shows you how and when to bring mindfulness into your daily life. 

How to Cultivate Gratitude Every Day

Posted on by Allan Johnson in gratitude, habits

As the nights begin to grow longer and we move into our second national lockdown in the UK there is a fair amount of uncertainty, gloom, and worry hovering about our lives.  But now more than ever is an important time to reflect on all of the things that we are grateful for. Gratitude is a practice and an attitude that we can consciously cultivate every day of our lives through a series of simple, mindful exercises: 

Start a Gratitude Journal 

Keeping track of things that that we feel grateful for can have an amazingly positive impact on our wellbeing.  If you already have a regular journaling practice, you can begin list three things that you are grateful for in each entry.  If you do not already have a regular journaling practice, begin a gratitude journal simply by starting each day by writing down three things that you are grateful for.  Spending a brief moment to reflect on what you are grateful for is a fantastic way to start the day.

Notice the Simple Pleasures 

One of the best ways cultivate more gratitude in your life is to begin to pay attention to the small things that bring you pleasure: a beautiful flower, a perfect cup of coffee, a conversation with your partner.  In those moments, take just a brief second to reflect on the pleasure that you receive from the simple things in life.  

Look for the Positive in a Negative Situation

When you find yourself in a challenging situation reflect on what positive angle you might be able to find.  The worry of having to stay at home during lockdown, for instance, may seem negative, but it could likewise be an opportunity to catch up on books you’ve been meaning to read, complete some DIY, or try to recipes that you don’t usually have time for. 

One-Day No Complaints Challenge

For just one day, set a challenge to yourself to not complain.  This includes both complaints that you say aloud to others as well as complaints that are only in your head.  The one-day no complaints challenge can seem difficult at first, but has the amazing ability to shift your perceptions very quickly.  When you find yourself about to complain about something, pause long enough to reflect on how you might transform that complaint into a positive action. 

Give an Authentic Compliment

In our society we are often bad at both giving and receiving compliments, and we often worry about how others will receive the compliments that we give to them.  However, giving authentic, genuine compliments to those around you is not only a powerful way to acknowledge what you are grateful for but helps to make the world a happier and kinder place.