The varying styles of mindfulness
​
I’ve been practising mindfulness meditation for about 30 years. In that time, I’ve come across so many different, flavours, styles and nuances. 
 
Read on to discover 3 different approaches; the mindfulness marathon, the mindfulness jog and the mindfulness stroll.

Edition on Mindfulness
The August issue of Current Opinion in Psychology is dedicated to mindfulness and is a resource worth having. The downloads are free till 30th October.  There is a zip file of the entire issue at the top of the page so you can avoid downloading each file separately 

Fun Fact
There is an ongoing experiment where people are phoned at random times and asked 3 questions. What are you doing? How immersed are you in what you are doing? How satisfied are you? Consistent results show that those people who are fully engaged in present moment experience are generally more satisfied than those who are distracted, regardless of what they are doing. 
​
This means that someone who is mindfully washing the dishes is more likely to say they are happy than someone on a cruise in the Caribbean but distracted. Or someone dealing with a difficult situation may be more satisfied than someone having a day off work but thinking about the past or the future.

I've just had what feels like a mindfulness sabbatical. After 6 years of teaching MBSR I've had  2 terms off.  While taking a break, I've been immersing myself in the wonderful world of mindfulness podcasts.

I have listened to some wonderful talks and have been refining my thoughts on teaching MBSR in Sydney, Australia in 2019.  Most of the presenters talk about the overlap between contemplative buddhist informed ideas, western psychology and neuroscience.

​Many of these podcasts have been thought provoking and I thought I'd share some of my favourites with you.

"Even before smartphones and the Internet, we had many ways to distract our selves. Now that's compounded by a factor of trillions."  Jon Kabbat-Zinn

Thich Nhat Thahn says, "We are very good at preparing to live, but not very good at living. We know how to sacrifice ten years for a diploma, and we are willing to work very hard to get a job, a car, a house, and so on. But we have difficulty remembering that we are alive in the present moment, the only moment there is for us to be alive".

I’m always struck by how our devices have somehow crept in and often taken the place that should be held by an intimate other in our lives. Our phones live right next to our beds at night,get checked in with many, many times a day, and we miss them, sometimes desperately when they are not there.