Tag: mindfulness

Finding Time for Meditation: How to Meditate Amid a Busy Life

Posted on by Allan Johnson in habits, intention, meditation

Sometimes it is incredibly difficult to switch off from the stressors of your life and take the time to meditate. Many people believe that they do not have the time necessary to devote to meditation. Although we always seem to be catching a bus or a train, keeping appointments, or getting things done, we can still make space and time for meditation in our busy lives. When we take the time to meditate, when we become more self-aware and learn to observe ourselves and our reactions, we will find that we often find time for the things we need to do. Even if you are a busy person with a very full life, you can find time to meditate by integrating meditation into your daily routine.

Meditation does not have to be incredibly time consuming. Morning is an excellent time to meditate because that is when your home is likely to be the quietest. Consider waking up before the rest of your household to have a few much-needed minutes to yourself to complete your meditation. This is especially useful for those with children, who may find it difficult to meditate amidst the noise and demands of family life. You may not find time to meditate in the morning, but how about taking some time to meditate during your lunch break or in the evening? Often we can find time to meditate in the evening, especially if you can do it after dinner and before turning on the TV.

Even if you are out and about during the day, you can make time for meditation. When you go for a walk, do not be in a hurry–slow down and enjoy the moment. You will find that you have time to focus on your breathing and are able to concentrate better on the things you see and feel. If you notice that you are distracted, you can use your breathing to focus on the things around you and learn how to be less distracting to those around you. When you are in a meeting or at a social event, put your phone away and allow yourself to be truly present. As you begin to notice the things around you, you will find that you are able to focus your attention better and become more aware of how your thoughts and feelings are affecting you. If you are sitting in a waiting room, use the time to meditate by focusing your attention on the sound of your breath. Pay attention to how you breathe and how the way you breathe affects your thoughts, your feelings, and your emotions.

When you use public transport, focus on the sound of your breath and the movement of air on each inhale and exhale. You will find that this gentle meditative attention to the breath enables you more time to focus on the things you are experiencing. It may be difficult to find time to meditate when you are travelling, but you can find time by adapting to your environment as best you can and learning to take more time for yourself. If you want to meditate to music, try to listen to music that is familiar to you in a noise-free environment where there are no disturbances or distractions. If you can meditate in these moments of silence, you will have time to focus on the things you are experiencing, observe yourself and learn to become more aware of your thoughts and feelings.

You might also consider joining a meditation group so that you can learn the methods of meditation effectively before trying to meditate in an unfamiliar environment. If you have been meditating for a while, you may find that you find it easier to calm down and that you feel calmer, more relaxed and at ease when you do not have to focus on your reactions and calming your thoughts. Many meditation groups have online websites where you can find out about the style and tradition they teach and sign up for classes. The techniques and methods you learn from an experienced meditation teacher will help you achieve your personal goals of meditation and inner exploration by limiting the practise to a specific time per week that you set for yourself.

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 Live Intentionally

Posted on by Allan Johnson in intention, wellbeing

Living with intention means taking conscious actions that are in alignment with your deepest values and passions. It means walking through your world with a firm focus, a clear vision, and an unwavering gaze. It is about consciously choosing your thoughts and behaviours rather than allowing your thoughts and behaviours to be a product of your world. We have to choose to be intentional. Ideas, beliefs, and intentions create our environment, experiences and circumstances. We can create a world that supports the things we value and desire, or, alternatively, we can create a life that moves us further away from our values.

Intention is the seamless connection of your present situation with your highest, most meaningful goals. It is a way of being that involves daily, conscious choices. It means living wholeheartedly, without ego or fear, in the moment and without worrying about the future. It is a way of acting, of doing. Living with intention means first and foremost making a choice. When you align your thoughts and energy with your intentions, you create an environment that supports your goals or desires. When we are intentional and choose our thoughts and behaviour, we can direct our lives and we can direct them in a positive direction: the direction we desire. We can choose our thoughts and our actions because thoughts are not outside of us, and neither are our actions. This is what it means to be in the now.

There is a difference between living with intention and choosing to live your life in a certain way to achieve short-term goals. Intention is about making conscious choices for long-term happiness, meaning, and fulfilment, and working towards those goals. But intention is about realising that happiness is possible in the present, no matter what is happening around you. It is about learning to live each day with gratitude and finding peace in each moment. When you learn to live with intention, you can be fully present and attentive to the world around you. You can choose to be fully engaged with your surroundings and the people around you.

Intention is about taking action. It is about being fully present, engaging in the moment and making each day a new beginning. Living with intention is a state of engagement that leads you to make choices that are more mindful and more aligned with your values. When you act with intention, the world comes alive for you and this helps you to create new possibilities for the life you want to live. Living with intention is a way of being in the world, it is a way of being who you are and what you do while choosing to be fully present and noticing what is happening and what surrounds you. Do not wait and worry about the future, but be fully present in the moment. When you learn to live in the moment, you will find that the world lives with you.

Through meditation and understanding the processes of the mind and how the mind works, we understand the main causes and origins of our thoughts, attitudes, emotions and actions. We can understand that our actions, thoughts, and emotions arise from our beliefs and that the messages our mind sends are often not logical. This allows us to become more aware of our thoughts and feelings, understand their origins and learn from them. We can use this knowledge to choose what we believe and thus influence our thoughts, attitudes, and feelings. As a result, we can begin to act with pure intention and live with a clear, strong, and unwavering vision that enables us to make choices that are optimal for us and bring us closer to the things we really want and value in life.

You may want to reflect on these prompts about intentional living in your journal:

  • 1) What do you want to achieve in life?
  • 2) How will achieving this change your life?
  • 3) How can you achieve this? What needs to happen?
  • 4) How far along the path are you?
  • 5) What will you consciously do today to get closer to this goal?

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. 

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. 

The Mindfulness Principles

Posted on by Allan Johnson in meditation, mindfulness

Mindfulness doesn’t merely teach us to centre our minds in the present, but to powerful reorient ourselves to the full timeline of our lived experiences.   In doing so, we learn to recognise our experiences of the world around us in powerfully transformative ways.  While some may start with the concern that mindfulness is a selfish turn inward that removes them from the facts and realities of the world, that inward turn is only for a moment—the ultimate aim of mindfulness practices is, in fact, a return to the world that we are unconsciously watching pass by. 

Jon Kabat-Zinn described a number of mindfulness attitudes, which I like to summarise like this:

  • Non-judgement refers to the practicing of observing the moment without attributing positive or negative traits to it—instead, a non-judgemental approach seeks to simply recognise and reside with the thought, emotion, or moment.
  • Patience is the ability to allow events to come and to leave in their own time rather than trying to force one’s own expectations of how something should or shouldn’t be.
  • Developing a beginner’s mind enables us to see things fresh so that we are able to fully recognise their full implications without forcing our own preconceptions or expectations onto the experience.
  • By developing trust we learn to recognise that there is a great deal of wisdom in ourselves and as we connect fully to the present we are able to see things as they truly are.
  • Non-striving reminds us that even though our society pushes us towards goals and objectives, that we should allow events, emotions, and ideas to simply unfold without attempting to force a specific aim.
  • Acceptance is the willingness to see events, emotions, and ideas as they are and not trying to change things unnecessarily.
  • By letting go we can allow our mind to release unnecessary patterns or ideas that do not serve a greater purpose.

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.