Living in the moment has many positive aspects, but it may not be so easy to stay mindful, when life gets difficult.

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1 Living in the moment has many positive aspects, but it may not be so easy to stay mindful, when life gets difficult. Acceptance is essential to mindful practice, which means seeing things in a clear way. Mindfulness is accepting and acknowledging what is happening in each moment. Whether the moment in question is good or bad. Mindfulness is accepting yourself, as you are, with imperfections, flaws and other personal vices.

2 Here s my top ten tips to help with staying in the moment and staying mindful. Detachment. When we are in autopilot mode, when we find we begin it over analyse situations or over engage with emotions and thoughts, we are effectively disconnected from the moment and our minds start to wander and brood or fantasise about the future. Detachment doesn't mean not caring, it means to be able to engage, without emotional or mental interference. Detachment forms the core component of the mindful person, it allows the person to be at peace in themselves, accepting and acknowledging all life's trials and tribulations, without opinion, emotion and involvement.

3 Reliving an emotion Choose an event or an experience that was emotional in content rather than one driven by thought. For example; an emotional experience could be when you got mad when the driver cut you up at the lights. What did you do afterwards? How were you reacting? What thoughts did you have? Write them down and evaluate the experience, how you behaved, did the experience make you late, create frustration or upset. Write it all down until you recapture the feeling. Did you feel disappointed at being late as it would affect your professional life. Did you feel angry at yourself for waving your fist in the air. Did you feel scared, worried, annoyed? What did you do to make yourself feel better?

4 After writing the experience, are you able to notice anything, were you reacting from autopilot, was your reaction, knee jerk automatic. This helps us to identify our own behavioural and psychological patterns and enables us to make positive changes to them. There is a direct connection between releasing tension form your body and improving your concentration. The more physically calm you are, the more powerful your concentration is. Mental focus depends on physical relaxation. The more physically relaxed you are, the more you can concentrate and the more effortless you become. Physical relaxation, concentration and effortlessness go together. True concentration happens when we stop thinking. Thinking creates physical tension

5 and in the moment of concentration we cease to think for a while and just act. Stop thinking and just act, in the moment when you need to concentrate on what is before you. The true meaning of relaxation is a combination of inner calmness, complete self-expression and being present. To stop thinking doesn t mean we try to shut our thoughts away completely. We may still be thinking but we let our thoughts be in the periphery of our awareness and keep our focus on the thing we are focusing on. Why meditate On one level, meditation is a tool. It can help combat stress, enhances physical health, helps with chronic pain, can make you sleep better, feel happier, be more peaceful, as well as be more present. But on a deeper level, meditation is a doorway into the unknown. It can help us get a sense of the mystery of who we are.

6 When you start meditating, you ll notice how unruly the mind is. I remember being quite shocked by this! At first, my mind was all over the place and I couldn't get any focus. Profound thoughts about my past or future alongside mundane thoughts about what to cook for dinner or things I needed to buy. To help me focus, I would concentrate on a black space, it may be too intimidating for you (darkness and being alone) anyway, you will find some other method to help to focus. With practice and sometime afterwards, I would notice I had spent 15 minutes drifting off into my imagination or running a painful memory over and over. Sometimes, I felt like I was sitting in a crazy cinema with all these memories and scripts running amok!! So, if you re just starting out with meditation, please be gentle with yourself at first and don t beat yourself up about your wild mind. It is natural, and in time you'll learn to work out a method to help you stop all the chatter

7 and thoughts, where you will find some clarity and peacefulness. Here's a few tips to help you begin. Posture Whether you sit on a chair or cross-legged on the floor, make sure that your spine is upright with head up. If you are slumped your mind will drift. Mind and body are intertwined. If your body is well-balanced, your mind will also be in balance. To straighten up, imagine that your head is touching the sky. Eyes Try and keep your eyes open, focus on a candle flame or something else that s still, a plant even? Open eyes allows you you to be more present. Just lower your eyes and let your gaze be soft. If you close your eyes you will be more likely to drift away on thoughts and stories. However, it s important to do what is comfortable for you. Some people find closing their eyes much

8 more effective. It s good to experiment and see what feels best for you. Focus In ordinary consciousness we are hardly ever present. For example, sometimes we drive the car on autopilot while being preoccupied with thoughts. Suddenly we arrive at our destination and don t remember anything about the drive! So, meditation is a wonderful way of waking up to our life. Otherwise we miss most of our experiences because we are somewhere else in our mind! I enjoy the scenery and greenery when I m driving. Let s take a look at what focus is. In ordinary life, we tend to equate focus with concentration. That s like using the mind like a concentrated beam of light. But in meditation, that kind of mind isn t helpful. It s too sharp and edgy. To focus in meditation means to pay soft attention to whatever you place in the centre of awareness. I suggest

9 using the breath as a focus. It s like a natural door that connects inside and outside. The breath Paying attention to the breath is a great way to anchor yourself in the present moment. Notice your breath streaming in and out. There s no need to regulate the breath just let it be natural. Counting your breath If you are having difficulties settling, you can try counting the breath which is an ancient meditation practice. On your outbreath, silently count one, then two, and up to four. Then return to one. Whenever you notice your thoughts have strayed far away or you find yourself counting thirty-three, simply return to one. In this way, one is like coming home to the present moment.

10 It s good to return without a backward glance. Thoughts When you notice thoughts, gently let them go by returning your focus to the breath. Don t try to stop thoughts; this will just make you feel agitated. Imagine that they are unwelcome visitors at your door: acknowledge their presence and politely ask them to leave. Then shine the soft light of your attention on your breath. Emotions It s difficult to settle into meditation if you are struggling with strong emotions. This is because some emotions tend to breed stories in the mind. Especially anger, shame and fear create stories that repeat over and over in the mind. Anger and shame make us keep looking at past events of the past. Fear looks at the future with stories that start with, What if

11 The way to deal with strong emotions in meditation is to focus on the body feelings that accompany the emotion. For example, this could be the tight band of fear around the chest or the hot roiling of anger in the belly. Let go of the stories and refocus on your body. In this way you are honouring your emotions but not becoming entangled in stories. Silence Silence is healing. I know that there are is a lot of meditation music around, but nothing beats simple silence. Otherwise the music or sounds on the tape just drown out the chatter in your mind. When we sit in silence we actually get to experience what our mind is doing. There is steadiness and calmness that comes from sitting in silence. In time outer and inner silence meet and you come to rest in the moment.

12 Length Start with 10 minutes and only sit longer if you feel the length is too short. Don t force yourself to meditate longer if you are not ready to do that. In time you might like to extend your meditation to 25 minutes. That s a length that allows you to settle your mind without causing too much stress on your body. Most importantly, shrug off any should s. Some people enjoy sitting for an hour at a time. Others find that they can t sit longer than 10 minutes. Do what feels right for you! Place It s lovely to create a special place to sit. You can even make a shrine or an altar that you can face when you sit in meditation. You might like to place a candle on your altar and objects that have meaning to you. It s lovely to find objects for your altar as you walk. Maybe you find stones, or seashells, or flowers that speak to you.

13 Enjoyment Most of all, it s important to enjoy meditation. You might like to try sitting with a hint of a smile. Be kind to yourself. Start sitting just a little each day and build it around what makes you feel good, calm and most of all, giving kindness and compassion, to YOU. Learnt to control your emotions and you will have full control over who can and who cannot abuse your emotions! Stop caring for the abuser who takes great pleasure in watching you go crazy, trying to prove you love them - They don't love themselves, so how can they love you!!! Secondly, narcissism is a reflection - a mirror of the other. And as opposites attract, the Narcissist needs YOU to FEEL what they cannot FEEL FOR THEMSELF. Just as you want to love and nurture the narcissist,

14 the lesson - he/she is teaching you to LOVE YOURSELF. You have to develop a psychological stance that empowers you, rather than one that disempowers you. Uncovering childhood and subconscious wounds reveals false beliefs and patterns that you now, as an adult, have the capacity to change. You have to FACE your own NARCISSISM too! E.g, How dare you speak to me like that! I beg your pardon, who do you think you're speaking to, I AM your SUPERIOR! Father, Mother, guru, mentor, etc... Life is about BALANCE - a balance of the two opposites - narcissism and empathy! Upper and Lower chakra's! Shadow/Subconscious Work The human shadow is nothing more than inner negativity resulting from a lifetime of

15 conscious and subconscious programming. We engage the inner negativity of the subconscious human mind because processing the human shadow is the fastest way to make progress. The bitchy tongue, the gossiping, waspish cutting remark, rumours begin from envy off the bitter or jealous person, that's THEIR shadow behaviour revealing itself. Another way you may want to see your shadow, tell your friends to retell your behaviour to you, when your drunk - drunk words are sober thoughts! As this behaviour reveals all your darker, hidden inhibited persona! The inhibited reveals the truth of what you repress when in you're in control. Lose control and your shadow will step forward - to take over. Dreams and nightmares offer you such a powerful tool to look inside the real world of your emotions, fears and traps that lay ahead in the waking/physical world!

16 Life is a reflection of your inner feelings. Negative inner feelings generate negative outer conditions. Inner darkness eventually manifests into the physical body as disease. Transform negative inner attitudes transform negative inner ways of thinking and you transform your life. Shadow Personality - unconsciousness Believe it or not, but the narcissist, the coldhearted romantic relationship or even psychopathic, or any other negative person - is your greatest ally. As the encounter you have with them will force you to uncover the hidden well of strength and knowledge you have within yourself. What repulsed you is repulsive in yourself, and the narcissist is the teacher, who teaches you that you don t LOVE YOURSELF! (read between the lines) It's all about the mirrors!

17 Philosophical Work Healing is a process of transformation that brings you into a deeper understanding of your existence and reality. Healing is a process of changing the behavioural patterns of your actions, attitudes, inner feelings, and inner ways of thinking. Behaviour determines reality and Philosophy guides behaviour. To have good Health is to have a liberating philosophy that works an understanding of the relation between all things. Real Understanding can heal just about anything. Then there is Energy Work Etheric Healing The human energy field is a holographic system of flowing etheric tubes and fractal codes a system of flowing geometries of light and information. Some call this the aura, others can see the energy. The human etheric life force is a circuit of energy. The quality of your life comes down

18 to the quality of your etheric life force your energy. The quality of your energy comes down to the symmetry of your codes, the vibrancy of your light, and the quality of your own vibrational speed. Energy work and etheric healing techniques involve clearing etheric blocks and binds, enhancing one s vibrancy, and speeding up the vibrational rate of a person s energy. Energy is the power of your life force, your physical body is the vehicle or house and engine. Keep the oil clean, fuel tank full, with the battery fully charged and the vehicle in what you exist will thrive along to life's bumps and trials as easily and smoothly as you desire. It all begins and end, inside!