Last weekend I thought I’d brave a trip 500kms away by myself. Very few Chinese people are confident enough to say they speak English (even if just a little) as they are afraid of being judged. So I knew this venture was going to be a challenge.

I had a little panic attack on my way to the bullet train. How would I find the departure gate?, How long was the queue to board the train? Did I leave enough time? How could I collect my ticket from the station? How was I going to manage a whole 3 days by myself??

I won’t say I arrived in plenty of time, but I did have 20 minutes before the train left. I was already feeling frazzled. So I did the best most productive thing I could. I meditated for 13 minutes (I still had to find the right carriage and the right seat!)

So as you can probably guess I got my train and everything went well. It is wonderful for me to recognize time and time again how such a little amount of time can do such a big amount of good especially when you need it. Ideally one ought to strive for 30 minutes a day meditating but even just a few minutes can be a great help.

So whenever you’re feeling a bit frazzled even if you can only manage a couple of minutes, try and have a meditation. Good luck!

It”s all about being in the present moment.You know,” he said “like us sitting here talking about it now. I figured I knew what it was, my mother is always going on about it…. until one day ages later when I couldn’t sleep…my mind was going…so I started  concentrating on being in the moment – everything around me, the blanket on me and the smells in the room. I don’t know how long I did it before I realized my mind had stopped and I was TOTALLY IN THE PRESENT MOMENT!”

To me this young man had an “ah hah” moment where the words he had heard many times turned into the experience they represented.  It felt so good to hear him move beyond a cognitive understanding into an experiential learning of a life long skill.

Let’s hope we can all stop long enough to move beyond words and enjoy more of life in the moment.

We both agreed that grief is lurking around both of us at the moment for different reasons and that we must allow for it to come, as it inevitably will, when it is ready – NOT necessarily when we make time and space for it to come. Another thing we agreed upon is that we are not the kind of people to reach out to another person for support when we are feeling low.

This can be a problem for us and many other people who are the same.  Really we NEED people around us (some of the time) to try and lift us out of the fug.  We are doing ourselves no favours by not seeking help and support from friends and family.

So we agreed that we will send each other a sad face emoji at the end of an email or sms to let each other know, without words, that we need help/contact/ a visit.

So I encourage you to have a similar conversation with your friends and family as a way of helping yourselves and your community when times are tough. All it has to be is a little sad face.

Save

A few minutes ago I rang a friend to thank her for some jam she had given me as a Christmas present. I asked her how did she come to know that apricot jam was my favorite. To which she replied “I didn’t, but as it’s one of my favorites I know many people like it too. And I will continue to make it as long as that I am able.”

The phrase ‘as long as I am able’ struck a chord – she is 88 this year and realizes that her time for making jam is running out – and so is her time for living. As she wished me a happy new year I really wondered whether offering her the same greeting was appropriate. Can she really be hopeful of a happier, more prosperous and healthy year?

Perhaps a more suitable wish is one that involves the wellbeing of the whole family, the whole community or everyone on the planet.

We all have that certain someone in our life who manages to push our buttons when we are with them. They get us worked up. They know the right things to say to do this.

If you reread that last paragraph your get the impression that this person is doing something to us. There seems to be an intention behind what they say and do to us. They are purposefully winding us up.

In class last week one of my students told me how she deals with such situations. She takes a psychological step back and recognises that the person she is talking to may have a different value system to hers. She sees that she is in fact trying to push her value system on to them.  This awareness  then changes the whole dynamic between them.

What she is doing is creating space between the comments and actions of the person she is dealing with. Most likely this is by taking in a deep breath.  This breath allows her to reassess the situation and act less reactively.

So in the heat of the moment it is a prudent thing to stop and take in a deep breath (or two)!! Then hopefully the outcome will be much improved on what it could have been.

Save

Save

Save

Save

Assured by several people that the drive here would be pretty  straightforward I headed off with my car heaving (piled high with creature comforts).  It was a beautiful, sunny, crisp, late winters morning when I left. I was relaxed and happy. I was being paid to travel and stay and work in a new place, how lucky was I?

I had been given clear directions on the route to take and at first I was feeling confident.After awhile there was a slight edge of uncertainty rising within me as I was traveling  a long way alone, to a place I have never been to on a road I have never been on.

Then as I got to the half way mark I decided to admit to myself that I was getting a little more anxious. Even though I KNEW where I was going, it wouldn’t hurt to put the sat nav on. And then I could relax again.

Another 25kms later there was still no road sign to Hamilton.  Surely the sat nav knew the way?  It must. So I decided to enjoy the scenery as I drove (there weren’t many cars on this road so it didn’t seem to be too risky doing this). The scenery was beautiful  – lush green hills,  rich blue sky and lambs in the fields.  How lucky was I?

Another 25kms and still no sign…perhaps the sat nav was taking me the scenic route..beautiful cumulus clouds and a mountain range peeking between rolling green hills. I was traveling deeper and deeper into unknown territory.  Worried thoughts kept creeping into my mind but I would obliterate them with a whiff of fresh country air and good look at the shape of that cloud ahead.

As it turned out the sat nav did in fact take me on a scenic route and I did an extra 60 km beyond the estimated distance.  Although I was actually lost, I managed not to get too frightened or worried by keeping myself grounded in the moment and allowing all my senses to enjoy the experience I was having as I was driving.

I am very grateful to my mindfulness practice for giving me the tools to help myself stay calm in times that previously would’ve had me very worried.

As I discovered there are many Buddhists in China I thought it would be relatively easy to introduce a component of mindfulness into my teaching. The students’ level of English was fairly lowsh but  I guessed that they would probably understand where I was coming from with my meditation!! Although it was not part of the curriculum I could not help my enthusiasm but to try and involved it somehow in the classroom.

The students loved the singing bowl I used to start off, it brought a big smile to their faces. And after the four minute meditation they seemed to be somewhat relaxed…lowered heads, heads resting on desks etc so I proposed to do it again the next day (and the next, and the next…).

However, after speaking to  students afterwards I decided not to as they were not that keen.  It made them sleepy.   I was so disappointed. I couldn’t understand why they weren’t completely enthusiastic about it as I was. Surely half of them were Buddhists! They were probably doing it all the time weren’t they?

I had gone to great pains to explain the definition of the words I was going to use and I think they understood.  But then again they were there to study and not to do anything else. Perhaps this was ingrained so deeply into them that they could not find any way of breaking through this.

Days later I went walking with one of my students and I decided to give her a guided walking meditation. She absolutely adored it and said how wonderful she felt afterwards. It was then I explained to her this was the outcome I was trying to achieve by bringing my meditation into the classroom.

So if I go back to China I will try again and see if I can bring mindfulness back into the classroom. But I will spend more time explaining the benefits and hopefully they will take some time to stop and smell the roses.

For me with a background in marketing,  promoting it won’t be hard.  I do it all the time anyway! The other part ought to be easy too, after all  it’s only for 10 minutes in a day of 24 hours. Ah haa but herein lies a problem for many people….finding that ten minutes – any ten minutes to do ‘that thing’ you’ve been meaning to get around to for way too long!!.

Sometimes it just won’t be found because we don’t consciously set aside that time. Perhaps because we don’t really WANT to do ‘that thing’ or it doesn’t feel important enough. But the fact that there seems to be something that reminds us that we ought to do it can”t be ignored. It will keep coming back to remind us years after it first entered our heads.

So I believe that the trick is to accept that 1) you don’t really want to do it OR to just do it (as they say.) Since returning from a 5 week stint in Europe last week, I have absolutely AMAZED myself by the amount of those nagging ten minute things that have been haunting me for ages that I have done.  And it feels sooo good!!

I think a combination of jet lag and readjusting back to a different time zone has opened up a new way of being for me and I have been making the most of it. You may not be able to travel to the other side of the world for 5 weeks but you may be able to experience a different way of being that will open up new opportunities and makes you feel good….it’s called meditating and you can do it right now if you click onto Need a Hint’s Resources Page.!! Have fun!

I admitted to being nervous, and said how I could feel my heart pounding away in my chest.  By practicing mindfulness then, I  was able to get back in touch with being grounded in the moment, to slow down my breathing and become less anxious.

Towards the end of the webinar I asked for any questions. Seconds passed. They seemed like hours (especially as there were no visual clues to go on) and then a question came in. Hooray!! Unfortunately the question was inappropriate. It was addressing me assuming I was a human resources professional (I was delivering the webinar for a National Human Resources Body). The question was written in HR speak and covered a number of complex issues.

My reaction at first was annoyance as it felt like the question was posed to unnerve me. Had they really been listening to the content delivery? Then I realized that they were quite likely feeling under pressure somehow. Perhaps they had been told they must attend the webinar but they didn’t want to.  Perhaps they were stressed or tired…. I had no way of knowing.

I told them the question was too complex to answer in the remaining time, and if they would like to email it to me I could address it later. I guess that what I am saying is that rather than being angry with them as I was to start off with, I stopped, took a moment, and thought ‘this person is desperately trying to find a quick fix to a problem and they see the possibility that I might have the answer.

At any rate I am still waiting for their email. I actually think it will not happen. That their anxious state of mind will have dissipated. All I can hope is that they take on board some of the information I provided in the webinar and start taking meditation classes and practicing mindfulness. That’s the best thing I can offer them!

Most of us are brought up with the idea that we will spend most of our physically and mentally productive years at work. Work has been defined as “activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve an outcome.”

I’m just wondering about the concept of something other than ‘work’ which involves voluntary mental and or physical application and is not necessarily aimed at achieving a particular outcome.  (I often hear it’s more the journey to the destination not the outcome at the end.) That sounds like more fun to me. Perhaps, in this case,  we could change the word ‘work’ to ‘purpose’.

Maybe having a particular ‘purpose’ is similar to finding one’s calling where someone has a strong urge towards a particular way of life or career. In such cases I’m sure that financial reward is not at the top of the list, as it often is for the majority of working people. Also, the notion of effort would be much different too. It would not seem so much of a chore but more a pleasure.

Coming from a place of doing what we actually would like to do seems like a much better option.  Our determination and enthusiasm and self-belief may be all we need to sustain us and from that the rest will come…