Unwelcome Truths

“Denial is the cornerstone of sanity,” or so my husband likes to say. We are all amazingly good at not seeing the things that we don’t want to see, whether that is a partner’s affair, the injustice of poverty, the reason why our mother winds us up so much or our addiction to our phones. It’s more comfortable to tell ourselves a different story or avoid thinking about it altogether.

One of the side affects of meditation, which people don’t often warn you about, is that these hidden truths tend to come into sharp focus. What was hiding in plain sight is suddenly uncomfortably visible. Once the busy chatter of very day thinking falls silent, what was lying underneath becomes visible.

The second of the yoga Yamas, or ethical principles, is Satya, or truthfulness.  It’s easy enough not to tell little fibs, but to be truthful with ourselves about our motivations and the world around around us is a whole lot more difficult. Once we dpconfront the truth, we may have to take action or change, and change can be scary.

Meditation helps us to become wiser and more self aware; we can spot our patterns of behaviour rather than acting them out without any awareness of what is driving us. Some truths are a huge relief and leave us feeling lighter, but others are less welcome.

A few such truths that I have become aware of are:

– My kids are growing up and they will soon leave home and pursue their own adult lives. Cuddles on the sofa will be a rare treat indeed.

– My husband is 12 years older than me. Both my grandmothers spent over twenty years in widowhood, longevity running in my family, and it is quite likely I will face the same.

– The aches and pains that I have at the moment are a gentle taste of things to come. They will only get worse! Yoga asana practice is already more about maintenance than progression, and soon will be about slowing decline instead.

– Climate change is real, it’s happening, and if we don’t collectively do something radical, large parts of the earth will be uninhabitable, and society as we know it now is likely to break down.

– World poverty is hugely unfair, and there’s are many people hungry while I live in plenty and comfort. I could give up half my income and still be relatively wealthy by world standards.

So, what to do about these truths? Should I stop mediating and go back to cosy denial? After all, denial may be what is keeping me sane! It’s one option, but it feels like the coward’s way out.

Some of these truths are uncomfortable, but I can comfort myself with the thought that everything is as it should be. It’s right that children should grow up, and older people should grow old and die, otherwise the world would be very over populated. It’s a natural cycle, and the wise and skilful response is to be grateful for the here and now, and enjoy each day for what it is, rather than waste them worrying about the future.

Meditation definitely helps with this, as it crates the skills to enjoy each present moment for what it is. Practicing gratitude also helps, reminding myself each day what I am grateful for. Many wise people say you should think about death every day as a reminder to live fully and show love.

When it comes to climate change and world poverty, however, “everything is as it should be” feels like the wrong response. I can practice gratitude for having been born into plenty, but I have to also acknowledge the injustice of it. Maybe it is normal and natural that one dominant species (humans) should become extinct and a new species take their place, but it doesn’t feel right to accept this without a fight.

The truly ethical response would probably be to give away most of my money, and join the climate change rebellion full time, but the honest truth is that I am too selfish. I like my comfortable life and I am reluctant to give it up. I still practice the deception that my life is more important than the life of those yet to be born or on the other side of the world. Enlightenment is still some way off! I still have a lot of attachment to my current lifestyle.

However, encouraged by my teenage son, I am eating more vegan food, turning down the thermostat, growing my own veg and thinking about a holiday by train next year. I am in awe of Greta Thunberg and all those who are speaking out about climate change, and will lend my voice to the campaign. It’s not much, but it’s something.  And maybe if I keep meditating I will develop the skills to let go of my attachment to selfish comforts at the expense of future generations.

 

 

 

 

Starting a Home Yoga Practice

 

If you have been to a few yoga classes, and “got the bug”, you might be thinking about starting a home yoga practice.  Even five or ten minutes of yoga each day makes a huge difference to how comfortable and at ease you feel in your body, and will also help you to combat stress and cope with challenging situations with more equanimity.

Sometimes it can be hard to know where to start though.  So many poses – what to practice?  And without a teacher to guide you, you might worry that you aren’t doing it right.

Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation) is one of the best all round exercises to start with, as it includes forward bends, back bends, inversions and deep breathing  coordinated with the movements.  It is complete practice by itself.  There are many different versions of Surya Namaskar, and you can also add in your own variations to make an interesting flow.

The Sivananda Sun Salutation is:

• Exhale, hands in prayer position whilst standing
• Inhale, raise your arms and arch your chest back to the ceiling
• Exhale, hands to the floor, bending your knees if you need to
• Inhale, right leg back to a lunge (knee and top of foot on floor)
• Retain the breath, left foot back to plank
• Exhale, knees, chest and chin to floor, keeping the hips lifted
• Inhale, hips to the floor and lift the chest to cobra
• Exhale, push back with your arms and lift the hips to downward dog
• Inhale, right foot forwards to the lunge
• Exhale, left foot forwards to join it in standing forward fold
• Inhale, rise up, hands to the ceiling and arching back
• Exhale, return to standing
• Repeat with the left leg leading in the lunges

You can do this sequence slowly, pausing in each pose to feel your way into it (sway the hips, peddle out the feet in downward dog).  Or you can do it more quickly, with each move corresponding to half a breath.  Try to make the movement and the breath the same length.

If you only have five minutes to practice, four Surya Namaskars followed by a minute lying down in Savasana to relax is perfect.

If you have a little more time, you could try some of the following:

• There are no twists in Surya Namaskar (Sun Salutation) so you might want to add a simple seated twist or Ardha Matsyendrasana (Lord of the Fishes).

• Dolphin pose is great for building the upper body strength needed for more challenging arm balances and Sirsasana (headstand).  It is like Downward Facing Dog, but done on the forearms.  As you exhale, bring your nose to the floor in front of your hands.  As you inhale, move your chin back towards your feet.  If you practice Dolphin every day for a month, you will probably be strong enough to start working in Sirsasana!
• To feel confident before a challenging situation, try Bhujangasana or Cobra pose, Ustrasana (Camel pose) and perhaps some Virabhadrasana (Warrior) poses.

• At the end of a long day, when you feel tired and in need of refreshment, you could try Legs Up the Wall.  This is a lovely way to refresh and re-energise, and you can hold it for as long as you want.
• Forward folds are also a good way to relax at the end of a long day, but can be challenging if you have tight hamstrings.  Try sitting down, knees bent and close to your chest, with your arms hugging around your thighs.  Then slowly walk your feet further away, until you can no longer keep the stomach in contact with the thighs.  Then breath deeply here, relaxing more with each exhale.
• Three part breathing can be practised anywhere!  A boring meeting, a supermarket queue, at your desk, supervising children, traffic lights, waiting for a train, almost anywhere.  Remember to breath deeply into your abdomen, chest, then collar bones, and exhale through the same three sections of your body.  You can also extend your breath by counting (for example, counting to four on the in breath and eight on the out breath).

Many people love the sound of chanting at the beginning and end of class, but worry about joining in.  The Sanskrit words are unfamiliar and lots of us are self-conscious about how we might sound.  If you want to become more familiar with the Sivananda chants, you can listen or practice here.

Finally, if you want to practice some meditation, I really recommend a free app called Insight Timer.  You could set up the timer for five or ten minutes, and set an interval bell for every one or two minutes just to remind to stay focused.  There are also lots of guided meditations to explore and some beautiful recordings of chanting, many of which are suitable for joining in with.

There is so much that you could practice, but you don’t need to practice it all!  Choose a practice that suits you and helps you to feel nurtured and restored.  If you enjoy it, you will be more likely to stick to it.  Don’t be too ambitious about how much time you will spend on it, but try to be consistent.  Five minutes a day is much better than one hour every two weeks.

I find it easier not to miss a day when I practice first thing in the morning.  The longer I leave my practice, the most likely it is that life will get in the way and it won’t happen.  But I do feel much less flexible first thing in the morning, so I need a gentler practice.  See which time of day works best for you, and then stick to it.

What Is Yoga?

My regular readers will know that I have recently started a Yoga Teacher Training course with Universal Yoga.  The course is beautiful and I feel very privileged to have this opportunity.  It is also challenging on many levels – emotional, intellectual and physical.  By the end of the second weekend, my head was spinning from philosophy, teaching techniques and anatomy and physiology, and I had done more asana (physical poses), pranayama (breathing exercises), meditation, mindful walking and chanting in a weekend than I believed could possibly be fitted in!

Our starting point was the seemingly simple question, what is yoga?  We examined dictionary definitions, definitions passed down the ages from the early yoga texts, and more modern descriptions from eminent yoga teachers, before moving onto our own personal definitions.  We all agreed that yoga is more than a set of exercises to do on your yoga mat each week, but what more it is seems personal.  Some of the group are very drawn to chanting and devotional yoga, while others are more drawn to secular mindfulness or strong physical practice.

For me, yoga is a set of tools that I can use to energise myself, maintain equanimity in difficult circumstances, stay healthy and find more joy in everyday life.  When I practice yoga every day, I feel different: lighter, looser, happier, less irritable, more focused and more compassionate.  It is hard to put my finger on exactly what is different, but other people notice it – my professional discussions go better, my family are more relaxed, I have more random conversations with strangers, and I pass less stress onto my team at work.

Many people are drawn to yoga for the physical benefits.  Through practising yoga, I have certainly become both more flexible and stronger.  It helps me cultivate stamina, since a vigorous set of sun salutations is definitely cardio-vascular.  Practising yoga with careful attention makes the poses safe; by learning how to come to my edge, and release with the breath, rather than forcing myself into a pose, I can practice without getting injured.  After a yoga practice or class, I may leave feeling energised and joyful, or calm and restored.

When I first practiced yoga, I thought of it as a mainly physical practice and I enjoyed challenging myself to achieve more difficult asanas.  I had enjoyed gymnastics as a child, even though I was never very good at it, and yoga just seemed like grown up gymnastics.  I got a kick out of being able to stand on my head, get my forehead to my shins and twist myself into the lotus.  Other benefits of yoga quickly started to creep up on me though.

As a university student, I experienced a lot of anxiety, and my Mum gave me her Sivananda yoga book.  I started a daily practice and this helped me to control my anxiety  by focusing on the present moment rather than my large, existential concerns.  Each pose is a moment of stillness and focus, of noticing what is happening in the body and remembering to breath slowly in each different shape.  Yoga means “to yoke” or “union” in Sanskrit, and one way to think of this is the bringing together of attention on breath, mind and body at a particularly moment in time.  I wasn’t aware of the concept of mindfulness at the time, but without anyone ever explaining it to me, the yoga asanas (postures) helped me to be more mindful in the present moment.

Through my twenties and thirties, I had periods of practising and periods of not, but in most of the more challenging periods of my life – relationship breakups, health issues, bereavement, job insecurity, starting a family – I have been drawn back to yoga.  My mat is my sanctuary, a place where I know I can find respite from whatever problems I have.  My pregnancy yoga teacher was particularly keen on teaching us how to breath through physical discomfort, and this is a skill to return to over and over in life.  When I come into the present moment on my mat and focus on my breath, I come back to my true self and find my inner strength.  Yoga reminds me that I am still alive, still breathing and quite safe in the present moment.

In fact, the present moment is not much short of a miracle – the collection of atoms and molecules that make up me will only be together for a very short time in the life of the universe, and here I am, experiencing my own version of consciousness right here today.  One day my atoms will no longer make up me anymore, but will mix up again with the rest of the universe = the period of time that they are configured as me is short indeed.

Yoga asanas are intended to release built-up prana (life force) and to help energy to flow smoothly through the body.  This can be experienced immediately after any asana, when a few moments inward exploration will reveal energy changes – there may be a calm release of tension or an uplifting, even euphoric lift of energy.  By choosing a balanced sequence of asanas, the overall practice leads to a balanced energy.  When I practice yoga in the morning, I feel energised and focused throughout my day.  If I don’t practice for a few days, I feel sluggish, slow and heavy.

Patanjali’s opening sutras can be translated as:

Now, the teachings of yoga.

Yoga is to still the patterning of consciousness.

Then pure awareness can abide in its very nature. (translated by Chip Hartranft)

Yoga is a way of bringing stillness to the mind, so that we can let go of all the conditioning we have experienced, the assumptions we make, the thought patterns we have developed and our habitual ways of telling stories about the world, ourselves and our relationships.  In letting go of all that, we can experience stillness and a sense of unity with the rest of the universe.

Patanjali describes this as the uniting of individual consciousness with the universal consciousness – recognising that they are the same.  Achieving this sounds like a lofty and esoteric ambition, and would probably put off many beginning yoga students who just want to feel healthier and calmer.  A little research into modern neuroscience also calls into question his dualist perspective.  Nevertheless, as we progress in yoga, we may more inclined to wonder what this self or consciousness that we experience really is and to experience it in more subtle ways through meditation.

We are constantly narrating stories about ourselves and world around us to ourselves.  Nowhere is this truer than on the yoga mat, where I may be thinking, “I can’t do this, my arms are too short”, “We’ve been in this pose for ages, has the teacher forgotten us?” “Look at me in this amazing, clever pose”, or “This meditation is so boring, when will the time be up?”  In noticing my own internal monologue, I can start to step back from it and be less enmeshed in my beliefs and assumptions.  I might notice my ego fluffing up, boredom setting in or my resistance to a physical sensation, and in noticing it, that story and the set of emotions that went with it lose their power.  So yoga becomes a way of not just enquiring about my physical abilities and limitations, but also a way of enquiring about my thought processes.

Occasionally in yoga, there are moments of real stillness when the monkey mind ceases it’s chatter and all is quiet.  In these moments, there is an experience of something that sits underneath all our thoughts – the self that witnesses all those mental events but does not become them.  Experiencing this self helps me to realise that I am not my emotions and thoughts – these are just events that happen to me. In this way, I become less attached to the things that I think I need and want.

Seeing all of life as an opportunity to learn more about myself and to loosen the bonds of attachment to the things I want can also help to get through difficult times.  I remember a particular time when a group of us in my workplace had our jobs downgraded.  This was, of course, a huge threat to my sense of self, my status and my position in the organisation. But, by thinking about it as an opportunity to learn about my attachment to these things and practice letting go, I could get through it with a little bit more grace.  I still wouldn’t say it was graceful, but probably a lot more graceful than it could have been.

There is also a moral code in yoga.  The Yamas and Niyamas which Patanjali outlines in the Sutras cover ethical principles that include non-harming, truthfulness and non- stealing.  Most yoga teachers do not discuss these moral principles in general interest classes, but I believe the practice of yoga naturally draws people towards a more thoughtful and compassionate lifestyle.  As my ego has softened, I naturally see myself as part of a large inter-connected universe.  Harm to one part of the universe is harm to the whole, and therefore to myself.

Although I have been vegetarian or longer than I have practised yoga, I find yoga increases my commitment to avoiding harm to animals and the environment.  It seems natural to be concerned about the well being of other people, animals and our planet.  Of course, I am very far from perfect, and I lead a normal Western lifestyle, so I am aware that I do have a negative impact on the planet.  It’s not always easy to make ethical choices (is imported soya in a plastic bag better or worse than free range eggs in a cardboard box?) and the great temptation is to give up on thinking about it altogether (often guilty, sadly).  Awareness is the first step towards taking some steps to minimise harm but this is a tough journey.

Yoga, and the increased self-awareness it brings, also leads to noting the impact of what I eat on my energy levels and general health.  Caffeine tends to give me headaches, so I try to avoid it, and sugar gives me an unbalanced energy that later leaves me with more cravings, so again, I try to minimise it (difficult because I don’t have a lot of willpower when there is a packet of biscuits in front of me).  Yoga helps me to mindfully enjoy food as a daily pleasure, without getting too drawn into either depriving myself or over-indulging.

So, if I had to sum it up, I would say yoga is like a secret super-power that enhances the good days and gets me though the bad days intact.  The teachings are a treasure chest of amazing tools, and we are lucky that there have been so many great teachers who have spread the word.

 

 

 

Ten Career Coaching Rules That Worked for Me

This time last year I was feeling a bit stuck in my career.  Now, as a careers professional, that is not always a great admission.  Surely we should be able to apply our skills to ourselves and get ourselves out of any career ruts we might briefly fall into?  Doctor, heal thyself, as they say.

My difficulty was that I actually liked my job.  It was varied, creative, autonomous, collaborative, and gave me the work-life balance that I want.  I very rarely saw other jobs advertised which looked better.  But I had been doing this job for a while, and it had lost the freshness and excitement it once had.  I didn’t necessarily want to get another job, I just wanted to re-discover my spark.

I decided to make 2017 a year of change.  So, in a bid to see which career coaching approaches might actually work for me, I picked out a few of the most buzzy, enticing career books, all promising to help me re-invent my working life, follow my dream or achieve career success.  I followed their rules to see what would happen, and low and behold, I did actually make some real changes as a result.  I am still in the same job, but I am also involved a dream professional project – writing a book – with a much admired colleague, I am about to pursue another lifelong dream of doing a yoga teacher training course at the weekends  – and I am doing more of the things that I really enjoy when I am in work.

Of course, it is not all perfect, and I am still at the mercy of those regular restructures which seem to be a feature of the public sector these days, but I now feel I have other options and am developing some lines of work that could create new possibilities (a portfolio career, perhaps).

So which career coaching rules really did make a difference for me?

• Meditate a lot – it’s a not necessarily a rule that many career coaches would use, but things did become much clearer for me through meditation.  One day I just sat down and what I needed to do next was absolutely clear.
• See what you can do in just ten minutes a day that will plant seeds for the the future.  This is a great tip for the time poor, because we can all find ten minutes a day.  For me, the ten minutes was writing this blog.
• Nurture quality over quantity in your professional network.  Take the trouble to keep in touch with the people you really click with, because these are the people that you will do your best professional projects with.  My dream project came from someone I know pretty well, but hadn’t seen in quite a while – getting back in touch was the best thing I could have done.
• Take the trouble to give sincere appreciation to all the people who have inspired and mentored you over the years; people like to be appreciated and these are the people who are most likely to give you more help and inspiration in the future.
• Tell people, even when you have to grit your teeth to do it, if they have done something well that you admire.  It is easy to praise people when you have a good relationship, but not so easy when they are the one person you seem to be constantly in conflict with. This simple tip massively improved one of my most difficult and furstrating work relationships.
• Identify the tasks that you want to do with your heart and soul (you would even do them for free or at the weekends), and then identify the tasks which you really only do because you have to (the ones that sap your energy more than they should).  Keep focused on the tasks you love and try to move towards them there were you can.
• Analyse your working week and identify which tasks you really enjoy, which tasks have impact and where you waste time on low value activities.  Work out how you can do more of what you enjoy, the tasks that really makes a difference, and do less of the work that drains you.  For me, that was learning to delegate better so I could do more training and client-facing work.  I was lucky that I had enough autonomy to be able to do this, but many managers would be supportive if they could see how it was in the best interests of the business too.
• Practice gratitude.  Instead of thinking about all the things that are wrong with your current job, make a point of being grateful for all the good things.  Quit moaning, because it just reinforces negativity!
• Get over expecting to control the future.  You can’t – it is too complex and to unknowable.  There are always going to be surprises and you can’t always know what is around the corner. So, focus on what is front of you, do it with care and enthusiasm, take whatever reasonable precautions you can, take some risks and don’t worry so much.  This is a tough one, and I am still working on it!

These are the tips that worked for me.  They won’t necessarily work for you, because everyone’s situation is different.  I had to try quite a few different things and not all of them helped.  But the more changes you try on for size, the more likely you are to find the ones that really makes a difference.

 

 

 

Digital Meditation: Insight Timer

I have a new digital addiction in my life.  Not since I discovered Spotify has an app been so exciting!  And it is sad, I know, that the thing that is most motivating me to meditate at the moment is not my sense of well-being, calm or joy, but my attachment to my 30 day streak on Insight Timer.

Insight Timer is very clever little app.  It has a perfectly designed timer, with the option to set the length of time you want to mediate, put in interval bells, have some background sound (birdsong, deep oms or silence) and record your work.  It has thousands of guided meditations too, neatly organised into categories (secular mindfulness, Buddhist, Christian, Islamic psychology, yogic).  You can also search by the time you have available, or by the teacher you are interested in (and there are some very respected names – Jack Kornfield, Tara Brach, Thich Naht Han).

But the two things that really make Insight Timer so compelling are the social media and the statistics.  This is what keeps me coming back to the app day after day, which is both a good thing (I am meditating much more consistently) and a not-so-good thing (my sense of attachment is a bit contrary to the purpose of mindfulness practice).

When you log onto Insight Timer, the first thing you see is a map of the world with all the people meditating right now marked on it.  When you stop to think about it, that is beautiful – hundreds or thousands of people all meditating together in cyberspace.  You can send individual messages to people to say “thank-you for meditating with me” or make friends with people.  It replicates the sense of community that you might get from going to a class.  Obviously this couldn’t replace the deep connection you might find with people attending a real class or retreat, but it is motivational.

There are lots of discussion groups, all with different focuses.  People share their problems (some meditation related, others more general) and others generously share their tips, advice and reflections.  My favourite group is Beginner’s Mind, where you can ask questions about your practice. There is a lot of collective wisdom being shared and learning taking place and again, this is inspiring.

Of course, people can “like” your comments, and so there is the spiritual pitfall of judging yourself by how many people like your comments and how many friends you have. There are a certainly people on Insight Timer who seem to be gathering hundreds of friends for no particular purpose other than to bolster their ego.  My rule is only to be friends with people who I have actually exchanged some comments with, and I don’t have many friends at all, but that is fine.

Then there is the stats page. Insight Timer keeps a log of how much time you spend mediating each day (and you can add your own entries for time spent on yoga, chanting or other spiritual activities).  It awards you stars when you reach key milestones (ten consecutive days, for example). Clearly, there is a contradiction in here; on the one hand we are meditating to loosen the bonds of attachment to material rewards and superficial pleasures, and on the other hand, we are creating an attachment to that little dopamine hit that we get when the computer gives us a star.  You can switch this feature off when you are too spiritually advanced to need it any more; those mediators who are naked of stars inspire more respect that those who show off ten brightly coloured prizes.

I am not overly concerned about stars, but I must admit to really loving the stats.  I look at how many hours of meditation I have done and it feels like an achievement. In some subtle way, it has helped me to value my meditation time more. It has turned off that annoying, nagging, internal voice that said I was wasting my time just sitting (I’m obviously in the foothills of enlightenment at the moment).  Hopefully there will come a time when I don’t care about the stats any more, but right at the moment, it is getting me to sit for longer than I ever have done before.

But the most amazing thing about Insight Timer?  It is absolutely free!  I don’t know who created it or looks after it, but it is clearly a labour of love, and I thank them.

 

Meditation on Life Choices

This one is for you if you are sitting at life’s crossroads, wondering  which direction to take with your life.  Should it be the high street, the country lane or the overgrown path that few others have walked down?  Maybe you are trying to decide whether to stick out your secure job until retirement, or take a chance on a new direction.  You could retrain or do a further qualification.  Maybe you are going through a transition (leaving school, parenthood, moving house, graduation) and you are not sure what comes next.

Whatever dilemma you face, using visualisation is a great way to get in touch with your intuition and the knowledge stored in your unconscious mind, created out of all your memories and experiences.  Sometimes when we relax and empty our mind, and just stop analysing everything for a moment, an image arises which contains some kind of message about how we really feel deep down.

This happened to me recently when at at the end of a particularly busy week of working, writing, yoga, family activities and cooking for guests, I sat down and invited my unconscious mind to offer to me an image.  The image that came to mind was of a blacksmith hammering something into shape.  I knew that it was me hammering myself –  forcing myself to achieve all the things I wanted to achieve.  When I allowed the image to change to reflect how I wanted things to be, the blacksmith stood back and allowed the metal to shape itself in its own time.  This felt like a clear message that what I needed was to allow things to unfold rather than drive myself so hard.

The following visualisation is has slightly different instructions and may help you to visualise several paths or options so you can explore how you feel about them.  To get started you will need a quiet room where you won’t be interrupted for ten or fifteen minutes.

1. Lie down on your back if this is comfortable, or on your side if it is not.  You can put cushions under your knees and head if this makes you more comfortable.  If it is chilly, cover yourself with a blanket. Close your eyes.
2. Take a few deep breaths or sighs, and breath out any tension.  Tense and relax each part of your body, including your shoulders, jaw and eyes.
3. Breath into every part of your body.  If any part still feels tense, send it a gentle message to relax – “relax my shoulders, let my shoulders relax”.
4. Set the intention to allow whatever images arise to arise, and accept them just as they are, even if they seem strange.
5. Imagine yourself at a crossroads.  What kind of roads or paths are there?
6. Take the road or path that seems most inviting and walk along it.  What do you see?  How does it feel to walk this way?  What is there along the road? Is there anyone else there?  Imagine you have walked five years down this road?  Now how does it feel?  What are you doing? Has anything changed?
7. Once you have explored this road enough, go back to the crossroads and try another pathway.  What is this pathway like?  How do you feel?  Again, walk five years into the future down this pathway and see how it feels?
8. If you want to, you can come back to the crossroads and try a third road.  You could also re-visit either of the first two roads.
9. Once you have explored as many roads as you want to, allow your mind to relax again.  Take a bit of time to focus on your breath and just see if anything else emerges.  When you are ready, you can bring some movement back into your arms and legs, turn onto your side for a few minutes, and then open your eyes and get up.

You may have quite a clear sense of what each path represents, but it may not be immediately obvious.  Perhaps one path feels riskier, but it’s not clear what risk you are contemplating.  It may be that further insights come to you some days later, or they may not come at all – you can’t force them, but you can invite them in by making quiet time to contemplate.

If you would like to read more about working with images, I recommend Dr Dina Glouberman’s book, “Life Choices Life Changes” which has many more activities using visualisation to support your decision-making.

Helpful Buddhas Meditation

This mediatation is brilliant for the end of a frustrating day, and it can actually be quite entertaining as well, and reminds me of the lighter side of life. I first came across it in Jack Kornfield’s book “A Path with Heart”.

Sit quietly and tune into your breathing. Imagine that the earth is filled with Buddhas (or whatever wise guides you prefer), and every person you have met today is one of these enlightened beings, there just to teach you a lesson. Each person exists entirely for your benefit and is acting to help you learn something new.

Your task in this meditation is to discern the lessons that have been offered to you today.

So, if you have just been to a job interview, and found they had a favoured internal candidate all along, perhaps there is some thing to learn about non-attachment or compassion.

If your boss has been piling the work on, the lesson could be around finding your wellspring of calm in the face of it all, or developing your assertiveness skills.

If you have been stuck in a heavy traffic jam on the way home, maybe all those drivers were there to teach you to accept your boredom and turn it to mindful acceptance.

A bullying colleague could be there to teach you to to find the inner strength to believe in yourself, ask for help or change your situation.

The more you use your imagination, the more you can see the ways all these wise beings are helping you. What I love about this meditation is that it can make difficult situations feel lighter and de-toxify difficult relationships.

If you have never meditated before, see my post onReally Simple Meditation to help you get started.

 

 

Fourteen Books That Might Change Your Life

Like Hermione Granger, if in doubt I go to the library. Many times in my life, I have been full of doubt or negativity, and the right book has come along at the right time to help me turn things around.

So, these are the books which have changed my life at different times.  I’m not saying they are the best spiritual guides out there, just that they are the books that came and spoke to me at the right time in my life.  Maybe it is a right time in your life for one of these books!

Benjamin Hoff – The Tao of Pooh

I was given this book as a teenager, by my Mum, and it was my first introduction to Eastern philosophy.  It’s a simple book, but was very comforting at the time. It makes Taoism very accessible.

Anne Dickenson – Assertiveness

I found this book as a teenager, just as I was getting into feminism and political activism.  I was a very unassertive teenager, and this book helped me claim my right to express my point of view.

Carl Rogers – Client Centred Therapy

His concept of unconditional positive regard is a beautiful one, and learning to extend acceptance and warmth to others, we inevitably learn to extend it to ourselves as well. This book changed my relationship with m,y clients, but also with myself.

Thich Nhat Hanh – Peace Is Every Step

This is a beautiful and easy introduction to mindfulness and meditation from a Vietnamese monk.  He is super practical and gives mindfulness activities that you can do while washing up, in a traffic jam or answering the phone. This book helped me appreciate the beauty in the present moment long before I did any kind of meditation course.  I have to thank my step-father for this gift.

Martin Seligman – Learned Optimism

I read this whilst the organisation I work for was going through a major restructure and redundancy exercise. This book helped me to recognise some pessimistic thought patterns that were making me feel mildly depressed, and I was able to re-write my internal script with the help of this book, and feel a lot more optimistic. Seligman is a leading expert on cognitive behavioural therapy and positive psychology, and this book is very practical.

Patanjali – Yoga Sutras

I first read the Sutras when I was doing a Yoga Mind course with my yoga teacher, Ade Belcham.  This book and the discussions we had transformed my whole understanding of yoga and changed they way I think about my practice quite profoundly.  It’s often said that the Sutras are like an onion and you need to peel away the layers with each read, and I think that is true. Definitely one to re-read.

Martha Beck – Finding Your Own North Star

This is a career development book that both annoyed and challenged me. Beck’s book is a guide to finding your true calling or dream job, and I often find these sorts of career books slightly annoying, for reasons I will explain in a future post. But this book did really challenge me to identify what I really wanted to achieve with my working life. It’s career planning with a spiritual heart, and that is much needed in the modern world.

Donna Farhi – Bringing Yoga to Life

This is a wise guide to taking the lessons of yoga off your mat and into real life. A lot of what she says about yoga at different stages of life really resonated with me and inspired me to deepen my practice.

Tara Brach – Radical Acceptance

This book takes mindfulness and meditation a bit further, and talks a lot about acceptance (as the title implies) – of difficult emotions, limitations, loss – and gives brilliant guidance on how to sit with those difficulties and just let them be.

Carol Dwek -Mindset

Dwell has researched the difference between the fixed and growth mindset and through many experiments, has shown the power of the growth mindset. This book made me very conscious of the language I use, with myself, my kids and at work. It gave me confidence that it is ok to make mistakes and more important to focus on learning and getting out of my comfort zone.

Sheryl Sandberg – Lean In

Sandberg’s book was quite controversial when it was published, but it gave me  the professional kick up the backside I needed, at a time of self-doubt.  It’s a call to professional women to stretch themselves at work rather than hideout in the shadows.

Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Seagal and Jon Kabat-Zinn – The Mindful Way Through Depression

This was my introduction to structured mindfulness and I first did the eight week mindfulness programme from this book.  There is a great CD of guided meditations that comes with it, which I still go back to if I need some focus. Karat-Zinn has a lovely voice that instantly makes me feel peaceful. It’s also a very clear explanation of the theory of mindfulness, and you definitely don’t need to be depressed to read it.

The Charisma Myth – Olivia Fox Cabane

This sounds like it is going to be an awful book for people who want to make it in sales or as the next CEO, but it is actually a rather lovely book that is very rooted in mindfulness and body awareness.   She talks a lot about the power of “presence” and developing real listening skills, about developing more positive mental dialogue and being more aware of body language and how that both influences your own mental state and how others respond to you.  It’s more a book about how to be your best authentic self than how to perform for others. Great if you are training, chairing meetings, networking, or influencing people.

Eastern Body Western Mind – Anodea Judith

This is my current read. It’s a fascinating guide to the chakras, explaining them using concepts from Western psychology. The chakras are linked to life stages and developmental tasks as well as energy flows, and this book explains how childhood experiences can impact on the energy balance we experience as adults, and the behaviour and thought patterns we enact.

I hope one of these books speaks to you as well, at a time you need it.

Which books have changed your life? You are welcome to add to this list in the comments.

Really Simple Meditation

 I talk a lot about meditation in my posts because it has transformed my life in numerous ways. I’m not particularly good at meditation – I often get bored or distracted – but that’s not the point. I do stick at it, and one thing I know for sure is that the more I meditate, the better my life gets. It’s not that bad things don’t happen, but I navigate them so much better.

When I meditate, I feel happier and find more joy in my daily activities. I walk around smiling for no particular reason. I connect better with other people and find myself starting conversations with strangers instead of being in my own world. I’m less irritable and more compassionate. And more good things happen!

Meditation can be really simple. Anyone can do it. You don’t any special equipment or a guru (although a teacher can really help). You just need a bit of quiet.

So, here is my simple guide to getting started:

1. Find somewhere quiet to sit and turn off your phone. Ask people not to disturb you. You can sit in a straight back chair or on a cushion, but be comfortable.

2. If you are in a chair sit up straight with your feet flat on the floor. If you are on a cushion, sit cross legged or kneel. Sit up nice and straight, so you feel alert rather than slouchy.

3. Start by focusing on your breath. Just notice it to begin with, and see if it is deep or shallow, fast or slow, even or irregular. Then start to lengthen your breath by counting slowly to 3,4 or 6 on the in breath and the same number on the out breath. Just keep going like this, staying focused on your breath.

4. Your mind will inevitably wonder because this is what minds do. They are very busy! When you mind does wonder, just notice what has happened, and take your focus back to the breath. Don’t criticise yourself, you are not doing anything wrong.

5. After a while you can let go of the counting and just notice your breath. Notice how it feels as it comes in and out, around your nostrils, chest, rib cage and stomach

6. Carry on for five, ten or fifteen minutes. It is helpful to set a timer, so you don’t have to keep looking at a clock. Or, if you don’t want to use a timer you could try this: the first time you a have a strong urge to stop, notice the impulse and come back to your breath, the second time you have an urge to stop, come back to the breath again, and the third time you have the urge to stop, then finish for the day.

7. Try to meditate every day to see the real benefits.

When you are are getting started, it can be really helpful to use a sound file to guide you through.  My favourites are the Danny Penman Frantic World files and they are freely available on his website.

Even better, try an eight week mindfulness course. You will need to commit to meditating every day, and you will get lots of support from the teacher and your group. It helps to keep you motivated and deal with any difficulties that arise. I did mine with Sue Weston but there are courses all over the place.

Above all, just keep practicing every day, even if it is boring and uncomfortable, and you feel too busy! It will start to make a difference.

Intuitive Decision Making

Career decisions can be tough decisions. We are often choosing between two or more options, with incomplete information; we may not know exactly what each option will really be like once we are immersed in it or how we will handle the challenges. We may have two or more good options, and we have to decide what kind of person we want to be – a freewheeling creative or a steady organiser, for example. On the other hand, we might be choosing between a rock and a hard place, and not be sure which option will best allow us to survive today and thrive tomorrow.

A logical way to make a decision is to list the pros and cons of each option and then analyse which option has the most weight on the benefits side. Most of us have probably done this at some point! It may or may not have helped.

A more sophisticated version of this would be to create a table, and list the main options in each row, and then have a series of columns to represent the main factors that you want to take into account (for example, pay, location, creativity, values). You can then score each option against each factor and add up the total score for each option.

Now, both these exercises can be useful thought experiments, but the latest research on how we make decisions suggests that we shouldn’t expect to make a good decision immediately after doing an exercise like this. (Blink by Malcom Gladwell is a great read on this subject).

The rational, logical parts of our brain can only analyse up to seven factors at a time, according to research, whereas most career decisions involve many more than seven factors (will I like the people? can I dress how I like? is there flexitime? what aspects might be boring but necessary? what will be challenging? what will my boss be like? is there a direct bus?), all of which will be differently weighted for us depending on our priorities.

For complex decisions, we generally make better decisions when we access our intuitive brains, which are able to sift through hundreds of factors, checking how they relate to our previous experiences, and then coming up with an answer which is signaled to us as an emotional reaction or physical sensation, our gut feeling. Logical processes can actually lure us into paying too much attention to certain factors, while missing out the more subtle factors and the weight we attach to each factor. For example, we might start to focus too much on pay, and ignore the impact that a tedious commute would have on us.

So after doing any kind of logical analysis of the options, we should put it away for at least a week, forget about it and allow our subconscious time to mull things over while we get on with our daily business.  Good tasks that allow the subconscious to get to work include complex puzzles, running, walking, yoga and meditation.

Liane Hambly introduced me to an exercise which is designed to help us access our intuitive decision making abilities. It can be done as a solo meditation, or a practitioner can guide a client through the process. The client does need to be willing, as this may be rather unexpected!

To work through the exercise, the decision-maker needs to close their eyes, and visualise one of their options. To make the vision seem more real, they can be guided to add a lot of detail – background noise, smells, how they are dressed, who is with them, colours, what exactly they are doing, how their whole day has been, what they have liked, what they have not liked, what family and friends are saying about it.

Once they have created this strong image of themselves inhabiting one of their options, they can be guided to take note of any physical sensations or emotional reactions. For example, they may notice a churning in their stomach, which could be anxiety or excitement or both. They may notice a light feeling of relief at being in the right place. There may be tension in the jaw, shoulders or face, suggesting some aversion to the situation.

The exercise can be repeated for a second option, again taking time to build up a strong sensory picture of what it would be like to inhabit the option, and taking note of the reactions.

Regular meditators will be used to concentrating and noticing their physical reactions, whilst other people may find it a bit more difficult and need more guidance. Before using this exercise with a client it’s important to get comfortable with it as a solo exercise.

Once you or client have noticed intuitive reactions to each option, the next stage is to explore their meaning. Fear of the unknown does not necessarily mean this is the wrong option. What would happen if the fear was overcome? How would that feel? Excitement does not necessarily mean something is the right option. Is there enough excitement to create the motivation to overcome practical difficulties or limited opportunities? More research may be needed.

Sometimes a strong intuitive sense of the right decision will emerge, and you or your client will be able to move forward confidently. Sometimes the choices are harder, perhaps because there are there are two equally good options. The intuitive voice may be more of a whisper, harder to hear in the chatter of daily life.  It’s important to create the quiet mental space to hear the intuitive whisper.