MEDITATION
Mindfulness: 5 steps to emotional freedom
Mindfulness is a practice that supports the capacity to stay focussed on what you are doing as you are doing it – a powerful antidote to the distractible nature of the mind and information overload.
by Elise Bialylew
M
indfulness is an effective mental technique, originating from the 2,500-year-old
Buddhist contemplative practices and adapted to suit non-religious contexts, including board rooms, corporations, hospitals, schools and sports teams. It is a practice that supports the
capacity to stay focussed on what you are doing as you are doing it; a powerful antidote to the distractible nature of the mind and the information overload in our digital world. When practised regularly, it can bring more calm and effectiveness into everyday life, reducing stress and enhancing mental capacity.
I’ve been meditating for many years but there are still days when I feel like it’s something I need to tick of the to do list. On some days particularly when I’m in the middle of a big project, it can feel hard to put even ten minutes aside for meditation practice. The driven voice in my head tries to convince me that this practice of pausing and connecting with presence, is a waste of time. It’s a compelling voice particularly on days when it feels like there are so many urgent things to do. But it’s especially on those days, when I manage to recognise those sabotaging thoughts for what they are, that I find so much benefit from meditating.
supports the capacity to stay focussed on
what you are doing as you are doing it.
It is a practice that
When I sit to meditate on these days, I immediately notice the tightness in my chest and throat and the underlying agitation of my stress. I notice my mind is spewing out to do lists in a way that makes it nearly impossible to resist getting up and just doing it all. Then I see what is happening. Ah, agitation is here. It’s through making room for meditation, that I get to more consciously connect with myself and my state of being and realise that my sense of urgency and drivenness is actually being fuelled from a physical state of tension and stress. By the end of my meditation session, I feel the chest open up, the breath become more unimpeded, my belly soften, and my whole being settle back into a feeling of calm presence. I’m grateful that I have this practice in my life and that it has taught me how to discern between thoughts that are worth listening to versus thoughts that are psychic garbage which need to be discarded. The gift of meditation is that it has
taught me how to relate to my thoughts in a completely revolutionary way. I can’t believe this education isn’t mandatory from primary school. I wonder how my life may have been different with this discerning lens on my inner experience. Through the practice of meditation I have come to realise and understand that thoughts can be likened to having a radio on in the background of your mind, and sometimes the channels that you’re tuned into are full of rubbish. The difference is that when you’re listening to a radio if there’s a channel you don’t like, you can easily fix it by changing the station. However, for many of us, when it comes to our thought stream, we sit there tuned in and immersed in a toxic running commentary without changing the station. Until I learned the practice of
mindfulness meditation I was a prisoner of my own thoughts. When you believe that all the thoughts you have are the truth of the matter, your possibilities can be very limited by limiting beliefs and self-stories. If we take all our thoughts as authorities on the matter, we stay trapped in pre-existing beliefs that could be obstructing our full potential.
6 APRIL 2017
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