RICHARD CHAMBERS: Hi.
This is Richard with the week one feedback video.
Normally, I'd be here with Craig.
But he's travelling the planet at the moment,
spreading the mindfulness word.
So I'm by myself in the studio.
Each week, we'll be making these feedback videos based
on all of the most popular topics
that you talk about in the forums.
So we'd strongly encourage you to please
keep contributing to the forums, asking questions, sharing
your experiences, supporting the other learnings.
Remember to practise some mindful communication as you do
that.
And please also follow our mentors, Jen and Susan,
so that you can keep up to date with what's being
talked about on the forums.
There has been some really great stuff that's come up this week,
some really good reflections around mindfulness
not just being something that makes us feel good
or creating some kind of blissful experience,
but sometimes taking us into some pretty challenging
territory.
And that's why this course is actually
designed as a sort of part two.
So if you're coming into our online courses with this one,
just know that we've also got a first course called Mindfulness
for Well-Being and Peak Performance
which kind of lays some of the ground work
and you might want to go back and do that at some point
next time we run it.
So some of our learners became more aware
of discomfort and unpleasant sensations,
which is, of course, one of the first things that happens when
we start to tune in and notice what's actually
going on under the surface.
Quite often, we notice that we perhaps
have emotions that we were unaware of
or we're feeling some kind of discomfort.
And actually, quite often, the distractedness
that shows up in our lives is unconsciously
a way of trying to get away from that.
So we tune into it.
And that's a very important first step
to notice what's actually happening there.
And then, of course, we can start
practising responding in healthy ways, which
means just to stay present with whatever is happening,
not to react to it, not to judge it,
not to get caught up in stories about it,
just to be with it as it is.
And, of course, once we do that, as some of our learners
noticed, we start to realise that discomfort often gets
labelled as negative.
We just decide that it's bad and it's wrong,
and we want to get rid of it.
And then we start to resist it.
And that's where a lot of our suffering comes from.
So a lot of our learners have noticed
that it takes a lot of mental energy
to do that-- that if we're trying to get rid of thoughts
or push away emotions or if we're reacting to things
with fear and anxiety, that actually makes our suffering
and stress worse.
And so to notice these things is,
of course, a very powerful and important step.
And that's really what this course is designed to do.
And it's been great to see that happening this week.
The meditations have been really popular.
We introduced a 'comma' meditation,
which is a short practice just as an introduction,
and then a slightly longer eight-minute mindful 'listening'
practice.
There's a lot of gratitude expressed
and a lot of learners were noticing different effects--
some positive effects, like feeling relaxed or calm
afterwards, which is a common side effect
of mindfulness meditation.
And it's nice if it happens, but it doesn't always happen.
And that's what some of our other learners noticed--
that actually, they became more aware of mind wandering.
And, of course, we noticed that the minds wandered.
And then typically, what happens when people are starting
to practise mindfulness is they then judge that that's bad.
Why is my mind wandering?
It shouldn't be wandering.
What's wrong?
I'm not getting this right.
And, of course, all of that's just further mind wandering--
makes the meditation pretty unpleasant, but also
it makes it even harder
to focus on the present moment.
And so the whole point of mindfulness
is to start noticing what's actually happening.
So if we notice that our mind's wandered off,
that's just what's happened.
It's normal half the time at least the mind
is somewhere else.
But then we can just start practising bringing it back.
And we bring it back over and over again
with an attitude of patience and gentleness.
And that's really the practise.
So if you're noticing that your mind's wandering, that you're
having trouble focusing during the meditation,
if you're noticing that you're being judgmental with yourself
when the mind does wander, that you're getting caught up
in stressful thinking that's creating tension
in the body, all of that is the mindfulness doing its job.
So keep persevering with that very patiently and taking it
easy but also persevering and keeping with the meditation
practise.
One learner noted that it's difficult to observe sounds
without categorising them or searching
for particular sounds.
And again, that's the meditation doing its work.
Because we can think about meditation
like we're practicing concentration,
the ability to keep the attention in one place
and to bring it back when it wanders off.
And that's a very powerful thing to practise.
And we're also practising awareness--
our basic meta-awareness.
Where is my attention right now?
But we're also-- a meditation is an opportunity
to notice certain habits and tendencies in the mind.
And the mind does label and judge everything we experience.
In fact, before we're even consciously aware of it,
we've already decided that we like it, don't like it,
or that we don't really care about it and we ignore it.
And so we can start noticing that with a meditation like
mindful listening-- that, hang on,
am I listening to the sounds?
Or am I listening to my thoughts and evaluations
about the sounds?
And again, we just want to pay attention to that process
so that we can observe it when it's happening.
Establishing a regular meditation practise-- well,
here's where the rubber really hits the road.
And this is a challenge for anybody
who's learning mindfulness.
In fact, I've been meditating for 20 years.
And sometimes, I don't make time to meditate.
It's very rare.
You reach a tipping point after a while
where if I don't meditate, my day is not as good.
But from time to time, it just happens.
I wake up.
I think I'll do it later.
That's the classic obstacle.
And then later becomes later and later.
And then I just don't get around to it.
So I like to meditate first thing in the morning.
That really helps me.
And if you're having trouble establishing a routine,
try not to get too discouraged by it.
It's hard.
It's normal to have trouble in the beginning.
The trick is to persevere, to keep
trying to do small amounts of meditation every day
5, 10 minutes every day, and to know what's getting in the way.
What are the obstacles?
If you think, I'm lazy, this is too hard, I suck at this--
they're just judgments.
If you look a little bit deeper, what's getting in the way?
For me, it's usually prioritising other things
and putting it off.
Maybe you're forgetting.
Maybe you're-- who knows?
Just see what happens when you pay attention
without judgement so that you can
see what's getting in the way.
Of course, as some learners noticed,
it's harder in difficult times to meditate.
Well, I think that happens for a range of reasons.
We all probably have realised that when we get stressed when
things are hard, we tend to get caught up in distractions
and judgments.
And, of course, the prefrontal cortex turns off.
And we start getting run by the emotional part of the brain.
And actually, they're the times that we really
need to meditate.
So if you're finding that it's hard when you're stressed,
when you're busy, perhaps realising that's maybe a time
that you want to be training your brain.
As Gandhi said-- one of our learners shared a Gandhi quote,
which I love--
I have so much to accomplish today
that I must meditate for two hours instead of one.
You don't need to do two hours of meditation.
But particularly, when we're stressed, when we're busy,
doing some meditation is really important--
starting the day with that, perhaps.
The more meditation I do, the more
I get done according to one of our learners.
And I think that's important to notice as well--
that if we do meditate, if we do practise,
are we more productive?
Are we less stressed, less reactive?
Are we even just more aware of when
we get distracted so we spend less time in that default mode?
All of these, if we're paying attention,
can motivate us to meditate.
And then there was communication,
which is such a powerful application of mindfulness.
And again, learners giving themselves
a hard time seems to be a bit of a theme this week--
learners noticing how unmindful they are of their communication
or when they're meditating and giving themselves
grief about it.
And just remember this.
Mindfulness is about paying attention
in a non-judgmental way.
And that's a really important thing.
And quite often, the awareness comes a little bit
before the non-judgement.
So perhaps you're starting to notice how busy your mind is
or how unmindful you are in your communication habits.
And then that judgement kicks in.
Oh, I'm doing this badly.
I'm such a bad listener, et cetera.
See if you can start to really cultivate
that attitude of acceptance and non-judgement.
It's great that you notice that you're not really listening,
that you're waiting for your turn to speak,
that you're offering advice or judgments.
That's good to notice that because that
is the default setting for a lot of us.
And for most people, they're just doing that
without any realisation.
So may you be happy that you noticed it.
And then just start to practise non-judgement around that.
This is just what's happening.
But, of course, if you're aware of it,
you don't just have to keep autopiloting through that.
You could start to pause, really listen.
You could notice that advice coming up
or that judgement coming up and just
hold it back and bring your attention back to listening--
so awareness and then acceptance.
What does it mean to listen to meaning and emotion?
Isn't that just interpretation?
Well, I guess that's a fine line, really.
We listen to the words, and that's often where most of us
are doing our listening.
But then there's all that non-verbal stuff.
So what happens when we pay attention
to people's facial expression, to the tone of their voice,
the rate of their speech?
We start to pick up on other things.
And I don't think that's necessarily interpretation.
We might want to just suspend any judgement about what
it is that they're saying.
But we want to listen really deeply to the words,
to the non-verbals, get a felt sense of what
people are talking about.
That's when we're really communicating mindfully.
So listening-- the meditation helps us to just listen.
And then we can apply that in communication.
Of course, someone asked, what if you're
a good listener and then somebody else
is taking advantage of that by maybe talking too much?
And that's interesting, actually.
What do we do when that's happening
where we're listening intently and someone's just
talking and talking and talking or giving us advice
that we're not asking for or communicating unmindfully?
That's a time to perhaps just be aware of our reactions to that.
We might want to pause and see if they notice
that we're not responding.
We might actually want to just maybe interject.
Or we can even stop them and say, hey.
I notice that you're doing a lot of talking here.
And I'd like to sort of--
there are few things I'd like to say.
We can always, I guess, call that out.
And I'm a clinical psychologist.
And one of the big principals in therapy
are that if my clients are just talking,
and I'm feeling disconnected from the conversation,
It's not a particularly therapeutic conversation.
No therapy is happening in that moment
if I'm not feeling connected.
And I think it's the same with mindful communication.
Communication is really about a relationship
and about connection.
And if we're feeling disconnected,
maybe we're not actually practising
mindful communication.
We might want to be aware of that.
And how could we change things?
What kind of meta-conversation could we
have with the person about that?
Of course, it's harder to speak than listen mindfully.
Well, I think that's true, right?
Often, there are judgments and evaluations and self-criticism
woven into our speech.
So to slow down and be aware of our motive and intention
behind what we're saying, to say things, and then
pause and notice, is that really what I wanted to say--
these are all ways of practising mindful communication.
So anyway, there are just some basic tips
based on all of the things that you've been
talking about on the forums.
So as I said at the start, please keep sharing.
Please keep supporting one another.
Please keep asking questions.
Follow the mentors.
And we'll see you each week for one of these feedback videos.
So until then, happy practising.
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