safeeas

1. Counselling Service &
Personal Development
Certificate in Personal Development
& Emotional Awareness
Module 5: Mindfulness

2. Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Scheme Certificate In Personal Development & Emotional Intelligence
Module Number 5 of 6
Module Title Calming the Restless Mind: Mindfulness in Everyday Life
Written by John Mackessy, Counselling Service, London Metropolitan University (2016)
Study Time 3 hours
Date October 2016
Learning Objectives
1. To explore and develop an understanding of the basic principles of ‘mindfulness’.
2. To decide whether and how mindfulness might be helpful to you.
3. To use journaling and other tools to get an overview of where you are.
4. To plan and practice some helpful mindfulness-based activities.
5. To encourage you to use these tools to foster self-development and greater satisfaction.
Introduction
The aim of this module is to introduce you to mindfulness and to get
you to try it out, to see how it might support you in your life and
studies. A large body of evidence shows that mindfulness practice
contributes significantly to a person’s sense of personal well-being,
reduces stress, improves focus and mental ability and also has
physical health benefits .
Put simply, the basic practice of mindfulness is about ‘being present’
to our experience, not getting lost in it or pushing it away or trying
to change it, but simply becoming aware of what we are experiencing
here and now. This allows us to live our lives with greater awareness
and to make choices that spring from this awareness. This might
sound a bit strange. Aren’t we all aware of what we experience,
assuming, of course, that we’re not asleep? Well, an idea from
mindfulness is that we tend to get bounced around by our thoughts and feelings. Rather than staying with the experience and our
awareness of it, we become reactive and start ‘ruminating’, daydreaming, feeling pessimistic or whatever. Basically, the idea is that
we react to our experiences in ways that are automatic and often unhelpful.
It’s as if you stubbed your toe on the bed and spent the rest of the day thinking about this (rumination), or asking ‘why me?’ or
plotting revenge upon the bed. So, while mindfulness is about being present to our experience, it is also about letting go of unhelpful
reactions, or at least not clinging on to them. When the toe stops throbbing we don’t dwell on it but move on to the next experience.
Psychology makes a helpful distinction between primary and secondary pain. Primary pain and suffering are inescapable parts of
life. The stubbed toe will hurt, even if you’re a Zen master or Mr/Ms Super Chilled. That’s primary pain or suffering. Secondary
suffering comes from what we do with our primary pain. Do we nurture it, tell ourselves embittered stories about it or make a big
hoo-haa? Do we hold the pain close to us, or do we let it go?
With such ‘bad habits’ we’re often on auto-pilot, and, as we live such busy lives with our brains always on the go, there is the
tendency for us to get lost in our reactions, and to get bogged down by our habitual ways of thinking, feeling and experiencing. We
lose sight both of the ‘here and now’, but also the bigger picture beyond our immediate reactions. The aim of mindfulness therefore,
is to help us to clear the fog, to wake up and find a sense of focus in our experience that supports our lives and our sense of well-
being.

3. Activity: The Releasing Breath
This is a simple grounding and relaxation exercise (or ‘meditation’) that you can do pretty much anywhere,
any time: at the bus stop, on the train, walking down the road ... especially when you notice you are
stressed or physically tense. Take a break and try it out now.
Bring a gentle awareness to your breath. Let the in breath look after itself. Do not force the breath by
taking deep breaths. Just bring a little focus to the out breath, making sure that you allow yourself to breathe out slowly and
fully, if possible, through your nose.
I find it helpful to envisage my out breath coming from the pit of my stomach. I also allow myself to release and let go as I
breathe out. This means not tensing, not holding on.
If I'm very tense, sometimes I'll repeat a word or a phrase in my head as I breathe out. One phrase I tend to use is 'Soften.
Open.' I say this to myself a few times and then let go of this too, and simply focus on the out breath.
Just doing this for ten breaths works wonders. If your mind is jumping around like a sack of squirrels you might want to count
each out breath in your head. Once you've counted five or ten out breaths you can return to one and start over. When your
focus feels strong, you can let go of the counting and just be with the breath.
The mind will wander, that’s what the mind is good at. Don’t tell yourself off. Just return your focus to the breath.
The practice of mindfulness, certainly at the beginning, is not about having a laser-like focus, it is about the willingness to keep
bringing ourselves back to awareness.
When you have completed the activity, make some comments in your Journal, describing what it was like for you. You may
even wish to draw what it felt like.
Structure & Pattern
This exercise is something that I encourage you to set up as part of your daily routine and to do it at least a couple of times a day.
Start off doing it for a couple of minutes at a time and then extend it. A ten-minute mindfulness of breath in the morning will really
set you up for the day. You enter the flow of the day in a better frame of mind and will tend to be that bit more open to what
happens during the day. There is much evidence from neurological and physiological studies that mindfulness and meditation very
quickly begin to alter and improve our psycho-physical systems.
Although you can do this exercise on the move, it’s worth finding some time once a day to practise in a quiet place without
distractions. Many people do this exercise with their eyes closed, to move focus away from the visual.
This type of activity helps us to be present to our direct experience and, as I noted earlier, this is at the core of mindfulness. Another
aspect of mindfulness which is perhaps less well known is about attending to structures and patterns in our lives, helpful and
unhelpful ones. This can be uncomfortable at the start, because it involves becoming more aware of our ‘dis-ease’, stuck-ness and
bad habits.
Reflection: Becoming Aware of the Fog
We may have a vague sense of discontent or notice that our way of life is not really helping us to feel
fulfilled or to have a secure base in the midst of the trials and tribulations of day to day life.
If these senses remain vague, it’s going to be difficult to improve things and move forward. We will explore
this in more detail in module 4, where awareness and attention are looked at in greater detail.
I want to remind you to keep using your ‘journal’ and to get into the habit of jotting things down, and periodically reviewing
what you write.. A journal is a good way of exploring themes and keeping a record, which helps us to commit to our goals and
keep track of our thoughts and our development. Reviewing it at least once a week will be very helpful.
This week I’d like you to ponder what your personal goals are and what is helping or hindering you towards them. Think about
yourself and your environment. What habits, circumstances or things are helping you and what others are getting in your way. I
suggest doing this, if possible, as a ‘gentle reflection’, i.e., not as a task that needs starting and completing in the next ten minutes!
Allow yourself some quiet time during the week, like taking a walk or spending some time in the park or whatever. Allow yourself
to mull this over and jot down a few thoughts that have come up. When you’ve had some time to reflect, try filling in the following
table:

4. What I want to achieve What I wish to & can change What I need to accept or adapt to
(for now)
Next you can ask yourself some general questions:
1. Does this accurately reflect how I feel and what I want? If it doesn’t or there’s something missing from the picture, stay with
the reflecting phase a while longer until you feel comfortable with what you’ve put down. Then you can move on to ask the
following:
2. What needs to be in place for the above to happen?
3. What would I need to do? / What tasks would be involved?
Thoughts & Feelings
I guess it’s not really a revelation to learn, that our lives are made up not only of sensations but also a very large quantity of thoughts
and feelings. One analogy is that we are like ships at sea, and that the sea, the wind etc. are the experiences we encounter on our
voyage. So, we can get blown around by our experiences, but we can also learn how to set our sails and, if necessary, to batten
down the hatches and see out the storm.
Mindfulness offers a potentially liberating perspective on the nature of thoughts and feelings, which both acknowledges the
importance of experiences, while also recognising that experiences are processes that come and go, and which can be related to in
different ways. The Sufi poet Rumi, in his poem ‘The Guesthouse’, suggests that we humans are like a guesthouse, with experiences
being like our visitors and guests. Rumi asks us to welcome them all and to honour them all. My impression is that he does not ask
us to become their slaves or to offer them permanent abode. We might take a difficult guest ‘with a pinch of salt’ and maybe not
take what he or she is saying to heart.
Experiences, thoughts and feelings are just that. A thought is 'just' a thought, a feeling is 'just' a feeling. They are not, in themselves,
facts about the world. Moreover, they are insubstantial - they change, like the weather. What we think and feel when we are stressed
or depressed tells us a lot about our inner 'world' at that time, but not necessarily much else. A while later we might be thinking and
feeling quite differently. As one of the ancients is supposed to have said, 'This too will pass'. It can help to be aware of this when
we're having a rough experience or a terrible week – this will pass. This can give us the freedom to change things and to avoid being
bounced around so much by the weather or bullied by our inner guests.
The Guesthouse
This human being is a guesthouse.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they're a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
Reflection: The Guesthouse, by Jalaluddin Rumi
Have a read of the poem and take some time to reflect on it. Do you agree with Rumi, or is there some
part of your world that is different or missing from this picture? Make a note of your reflections in your
Journal. You might even want to experiment with drawing what you, the ‘guest-house’ looks like.

5. Before we get completely lost in the mystical world of Rumi, here’s something a wee bit different:
Activity: Mindful Chores
Chores are great for mindfulness. They are things we have to do regularly and so we don't even need to find
extra time for our mindfulness practice. Also chores tend to be for a limited period of time, which means
that we have a start and stop point for our practice and we're not asking ourselves to focus for HOURS.
You can turn any chore or regular activity into a mindful activity, but I'll use one example here to give you an
idea of how to go about it. First of all let’s look at the basic principles:
1. Create a space. This means reminding yourself to do the chore and avoiding / cutting out distractions. So, either build this
into your daily/weekly schedule or set a reminder for yourself. When doing the chore, turn the radio off and, if necessary,
let others know not to interrupt you or speak to you while you're doing your thing.
2. Create a focus. OK, so with your chore what part of the experience to you want to be the focus for your awareness, or will
there be more than one focus?
3. Come back to the focus. Don't be discouraged, it's normal for our minds to wander. So, don't tell yourself off when this
happens. Just notice this and gently return to your point of focus.
4. How did it go? Don't expect revelations or earth shattering effects. Take a minute or so after your chore to think about what
came up for you. Was it pleasant or painful, did anything get in the way of your focus etc? The aim is not to be 'blissed out',
but to be more present to your own experience and feelings. So, if it is difficult or annoying, just notice this and return to
your point of focus.
So, to give an example:
Mindful washing up: Make a decision about doing the washing up at a specific time (rather than letting it lie there!), for instance,
immediately after a meal. Tell people not to bug you etc. while you're doing it. Avoid distractions and 'multitasking'. No
headphones etc.
You might choose to focus on any or several aspects of your experience: the physical sensations of washing up, or the wider
sense of your body, such as feeling your feet on the floor or noticing your breath. You can choose how narrow or wide to have
your focus and experiment with this. Do you want to include the sounds and smells around you or is this going to lead to
'overload'? Experiment with having a narrow focus (just doing the washing up) and a wider one (your whole body, your
environment). I suggest beginning with a fairly narrow focus.
Thoughts and feelings will come up while you’re doing it. Notice them, but don't follow them. Let them go and return to WASHING
UP. Some people find it helps, in letting something go, if they name or 'label' it as it comes into the mind. For instance, if I feel
bored or irritated. I think 'boredom', or 'irritation'. What not to do then is to start off a story in your head about WHY this is so
boring or how much I HATE the washing up. Notice it, label it, let it go and WASH UP.
Now, reflect upon this experience by making an entry in your Journal.
Helpful Habits
We become what we do. If we eat junk food every day ... We also become what we nurture and feed. So, if I spend my time
brooding on how I’ve been wronged ... If we feed our anxiety and depression they will also gain in strength.
As an alternative, I suggest that you experiment with doing a basic grounding / mindfulness exercise in the morning. See whether
this changes anything for you. Does your day feel any different? You might think of this as feeding your ability to be calm and to be
focused. At the end of the mindfulness exercise take a little time to think about your 'goals' for the day, or what you want your focus
to be. If anything new or important comes up here, jot it down in your journal or on your ‘To Do’ list.
Remember to be realistic about your goals. Do not aim to do everything on your list in one go. This makes for stress. Your list is to
help you to feel in control and to remember. Not to make you feel guilty. Find a time or times in your day to do the exercises or
activities that you've decided on. Try to make sure these will realistically fit into your existing schedule or think how you may need
to adjust the schedule.
Remember mindfulness can be practised with any task we have, by simply placing our awareness in the ‘here and now’ of what we
are doing. So, we don't always have to put separate time aside.

6. At the end of the day make sure you have 'wind down' time before going to bed, i.e. try not to overstimulate yourself via the
computer or smartphone in the hour before bedtime. This can also be a good time to have your daily review. Get out your journal
and your ‘To Do’ list and ask yourself how it all went and how you felt in the process. Does anything need tweaking to allow you to
be more mindful? This doesn’t all need to be ‘task focused’ and hard work, at the core of this process is just allowing yourself to
check in with yourself: ‘How am I doing? What am I feeling?’
Having some basic and flexible structure though will help you feel more in control. It also means that your 'project' stays on the rails
and doesn't get forgotten. It also helps us to establish positive habits, to feed your own development.
Long-term goals only happen if we also have a focus in the short and medium term, otherwise they’re just too big and overwhelming.
So, for instance, if you aim to run a marathon, you’ll need to have a weekly and longer-term training plan etc. If you find yourself
resisting this or rebelling against it, fine. I suggest you take some time to reflect on what’s going on for you. Is there something about
your plan that doesn’t fit for your or that you don’t like? When you’ve clarified this ask yourself again what you want and what you
are willing to commit to, even if it does cost you some effort.
Once you have a goal you want to commit to, it helps enormously to break down your overall goal into bits, and from this to set
short to medium term SMART goals. You may remember exploring these in Module 1: Goal Setting. You may find it helpful to revise
your learning in this module before we go ahead. These short-term goals are steps to the final goal. They are helpful in a number
of ways, in particular, they can give us a sense of control over the process and a sense of achievement that can boost our self-belief
and confidence. There are different versions of SMART that you can find on the web. The one I find most helpful is this:
Unhelpful Habits, Bad Days and Dark Clouds
If you’ve begun trying to establish some changes to your routine, i.e., helpful habits that support your well-being and development,
then it’s likely that you will have encountered some difficulty or ‘resistance’. This may not be something to just ignore and blast on
through. Our difficulties and resistances may have something important to tell us.
Reflection: On Difficulty & Resistance
1. Take some time to reflect on the past week and the things you have been trying to achieve. How has
this felt for you? Do you feel more energized and empowered or are you feeling discouraged?
2. It’s important to acknowledge your achievements and your strengths. So, take some time to do this, no
matter how small they might feel to you. In the final module (Awareness, Beginnings & Endings), we will
explore the importance of mobilizing our energy. For now, it is enough to say that it can take time for the
wheels to start rolling. A slow start is still a start and an achievement in itself.
3. Now think about what has been difficult for you and what has got in your way this week? Were these difficulties/challenges
external or were they coming from you, for instance, from your attitude, your mood or your expectations? Have you been setting
the bar too high, too low or did you leave the bar in the bar ...
4. If you discover some negativity, please don’t give yourself a hard time. That won’t help. But rather, begin to think about how
you can help yourself, how you can be a good friend to yourself. Give yourself some advice, like a friend. It can help to just
acknowledge and stay with whatever you feel is difficult. You might even ‘breathe into’ that feeling and say to yourself something
like, ‘It’s ok to feel like this. It’s just how I feel right now’.
5. Having stayed with the feeling for a while, you can ask yourself whether there are things you need to acknowledge and accept
about yourself and your situation, and/or whether you can and want to change things, adapt or work round these difficulties?
Sometimes we need to make changes to our circumstances and sometimes we just need to stop standing on our own shoelaces.
What about you?
SMART Goals
Specific: A clearly defined goal that you’ll know when you’ve achieved it.
Meaningful: Related to your overall or longer-term aim, i.e., it’ll make a difference.
Achievable: A bit of a stretch, but not too far. A small but significant step.
Result-focused: Having either a measurable result or a clear completion point.
Time-bound: Build in reviews and a completion date.

7. The ‘Here & Now’
The reflection above is very similar to a SWOT analysis (you can google this if you’d like more info). Sometimes the solutions to our
challenges are straightforward and sometimes we might need some external help to get things in perspective and to get a sense of
what we can realistically achieve. It can sometimes be helpful to ‘reality check’ things with someone else.
Mindfulness can help us greatly in a process like this, in recognizing that
our feelings and ‘felt sense’ are very important – for instance, they can
tell us what we are motivated to do, what we like and dislike etc. Feelings
and ‘felt-sense’ are not the whole story - there are times when other
things may frame our decisions. Mindfulness can help us to become
aware of our ‘attachments’ and try to tread a more balanced path that
engages with all of the feelings and other information that may be
helpful to us.
I’m reminded of the now hugely esteemed opera singer Joyce DiDonato,
who was close to giving up her career, following rejection after rejection.
She had an important decision to make, because maybe she just didn’t
have a good enough voice to be a professional lead singer. No amount of
determination and wanting, would get her there if she had a voice like
mine! So, she took stock of herself and her situation, she spoke with her
vocal coach to see how realistic was her goal, and she then spent a lot of
time reconstructing her vocal technique.
Interestingly, when I heard her recently on ‘Desert Island Discs’, she was clear about how much time and effort went into her training
and technique, but she also spoke about the need to be completely ‘in the moment’, to truly be in and with her voice when she
performs.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b07w5zs0#play
If I remember rightly, she described her voice as a powerful creature. In performing, she needs to be aware of and fully engaged
with this creature, but neither to let it run amok nor to suppress or deaden it. Tricky! But this stands, for me, as a perfect example
of mindfulness in action. She engages with her own process vibrantly in the ‘here and now’ and she makes decisions about how to
use and direct this energy.
‘Hell is Other People’ – Jean Paul Sartre
The French philosopher, Jean Paul Sartre, is famous for having said that ‘Hell is other people.’ Or to put it another way, living life
crammed into spaces with other humans, their needs, foibles and egos; well, it can be a real pain in the neck. Whereas we ourselves
are, of course, all sweetness and light - delightful to get on with ... always switched on and aware of the others we share this planet
with. We never rub anyone up the wrong way, leave the dishes unwashed. So, maybe we might also say, ‘Hell is also my ego, my
stubbornness, my inflexibility ... etc.’
One of the core ideas of mindfulness is that nothing exists in isolation. So, our thinking and feeling come about in relationship with
our environment and other people. When we are stressed, anxious or down, however, we tend to focus more upon ourselves and
ruminate more on ‘my feelings’ and ‘my problems’. This isn’t ‘wrong’ in itself, but can lead us into a negative, self-reinforcing cycle.
To give an example, you’re feeling pretty rubbish and you arrive at college and don’t say ‘hi’ to people or even make eye-contact
with anyone. Where’s this going to go? Alternatively, it’s a beautiful summer’s day and you’re full of the joys of life. You help the
old guy hoist his bag onto the bus and smile at people when you arrive at college. Reflect on this for a moment.
If this sounds patronizing, I apologise. I should add that I’m not trying to sign you up to the ‘Happy Clappy Club’ of people who smile
through their tears. What mindfulness does encourage though, is that we bring our attention to these patterns and relationships,
so that we don’t just get swept along with the tide, but are able to make some choices – choices that might take things in a new and
different direction. It also means that just as we live in an environment, we also create the environment for other people. We can
choose whether to be like a bad smell in the room, or to be disengaged or to engage with others as if they actually mattered.
All of these ways of being tend to create a ‘positive feedback loop’, where one thing feeds and amplifies the other. So, there’s the
potential that each person’s actions can make others feel better/worse, which leads them to behave in a more positive/negative
and helpful/unhelpful way. This is also called a virtuous or vicious circle.
There's an old traditional story, from Japan I think, about two meals; one in Heaven and the other in Hell. Interestingly, in the story,
Heaven and Hell are identical and the situation of the diners too is the same. We find the guests at both meals made to eat with
cutlery (or chopsticks) that are longer than their arms.
http://www.wisdomcommons.org/wisbits/3241-in-heaven-we-feed-each-other

8. In my adaptation, all hell breaks loose in hell because of the diners' anger and frustration that they cannot get any food into their
mouths. They curse each other; they rant about the evil plot against them and they plan revenge against their host. They nurture
their sense of resentment and having been 'done wrong'.
In heaven, the guests think "What an odd party game! This host is a bit of a prankster!" and proceed to feed each other with their
long spoons, taking great pleasure in asking each other what they want and trying to find the choicest morsels to feed each other.
Maybe, again, the point here might feel a bit patronizing, but there's a lot of psychological evidence that it is a valid one; that
frequently it is our frame of mind and the nature of our intentions that determine whether we are happy or sad; living in heaven or
hell.
Activity: A Meal in Heaven or Hell
Think of something you can do regularly, for a period of time, in your interactions with others - your
family, friends, loved ones or even people who don't really matter to you. It needs to be something that
'feeds' or nurtures the other person. Something, however small, that comes from a place within you of
generosity and care. It could be as small as saying 'good morning' to someone you habitually ignore or
trying to do something considerate every day/week for your partner. A recent one for me was noticing
that my wife's Saturday morning was a bit too busy with chores. So, I made some time when I'm at home on a Friday to get as
many of these done as I can. One final thing on this task - if possible, don't tell anyone what you are doing.
I ask this because I want you to record in your Journal how this task went for you, how you felt and whether it had any effect on
you, the other person or the 'atmosphere' between you. Did the other person notice? What was their reaction?
I used to run a small private counselling practice from my mother's house (already an act of generosity on her part). However,
without ever mentioning it she bought fresh flowers for my counselling room every week. The impact of this gesture on me, my
clients and the atmosphere in that room was tremendous. It made me and my clients feel cared for and valued. She was a bit of
a natural at this stuff. I'd like to become more spontaneously like this myself. This task is a way of beginning to develop this
sense of loving-kindness in ourselves.
Conclusion
There’s probably quite a lot of information covered in this module for you to take in and mull over. What I’d encourage you to do,
to begin with, is to make some regular time for the activities we’ve covered and just give them a go and have a play with them. I
also recommend getting into the habit of using your journal and having weekly reviews.
I’ve also listed some additional resources below, which may help you take the next steps in the journey of living a more fulfilled and
mindful life. Good luck with it! Be well!
Thank you for taking the time to complete this module. We hope you enjoyed it and found it both challenging and thought-
provoking. Please ensure that your Journal entries have been completed and also to give your feedback at the end of the
programme, as your thoughts and comments are very important to us.

9. Additional Resources
Books Maitreyabandhu. (2009). Life with Full Attention: A
Practical Course in Mindfulness. Windhorse
Publications.
Mindfulness has its origins in Buddhism. While this
isn’t a ‘religious’ book it is written by a Buddhist and
refers to many ideas in Buddhist psychology.
Chaskalson, M. (2014). Mindfulness in Eight Weeks:
The revolutionary 8 week plan to clear your mind and
calm your life. Harper Thorsons.
This book combines mindfulness with ideas in current
cognitive psychology.
Apps
top, Breathe and Think:
www.stopbreathethink.org/
It offers guided meditations and other mindfulness
tools on Android, Apple and PC platforms.
Meditation Timer for Android:
http://dhintz.weebly.com/meditation-timer.html
Yes, it is a timer of meditations.
Meditation Timer for iPhone:
https://itunes.apple.com/app/id1079884675
Ditto
Contacting The University Counselling Service
As this document indicates, the University Counselling Service works with students who are experiencing difficulties and also
with students who want to develop their potential and achieve their goals. You can contact the service to arrange a
conversation.
Holloway Road - Learning Centre: 020 7133 2094
Email: counselling.studentservices@londonmet.ac.uk
Web : londonmet.ac.uk/counselling