Frequently Asked Questions

Mindfulness is the slowing down of your thoughts and feelings to find the quiet space in your mind.  Repetitive, worrying thoughts that constantly circle round your head can slow down or even stop entirely.

With that slowing down comes a wonderful feeling of calmness. Your mind is clearer and more in focus. Your thoughts find their natural pace rather than rushing through a constant ‘to do’ list.

In that quiet mind space you can discover yourself.  The lighter, more energised and nicer you.  The relaxed you.

With your calm and clear mind, you can refine your skill in being aware or mindful of your ‘monkey mind’ tendencies – that is your mind being filled with a whirl of thoughts and feelings, jumping around all of the time.  You can create the space for more pleasant and creative thinking.

When you clear your fog and focus, you can have little ‘realisation experiences’.  These are the ‘ah ha’ moments when you suddenly see how your attitudes, behaviour or speech can sometimes be harmful to those around you (family, friends, work colleagues) and that this affects how they treat you.  You also realise how you unintentionally harm yourself and what you can do to change it.

These experiences are the development of your Wisdom Mind.  They are nurturing your ability to act with wisdom and compassion more and more frequently.

No, it’s very simple to learn how to be mindful.  The challenge comes in remembering to apply a mindful way of thinking, being and doing to the rest of your life.  It helps you immeasurably if you reserve yourself the time for a short, ‘formal’ sitting practice on a regular basis.  This is the foundation stone of your mindfulness habit and which you work from when you are applying your mindfulness ‘informally’ to the rest of your life.

Well only if you want there to be.

The sorts of practices involved include focusing on your body sensations, on your breath, on objects like a pebble or a pine cone.  From there you can move onto visualisations of colours and shapes until you find you can look at your mind, look at your thoughts as they arise.  None of these processes are inherently religious.

When your mind starts to become quieter you can find your Heart, your True Nature and/or God.  You are on a spiritual journey with meditation but where that takes you is up to you.

Your mindfulness practice can be done in 10 minutes a day.  If you can’t do every day just do as often as feels realistic.  Many people do 4 days a week.

You will feel a sense of calmness and relaxation after doing just one mindfulness session.  As you practice and keep going with it, the skill with which you will be able to relax, slow down and drop into mindfulness will increase.

No, it’s essential for your own health and well-being.  When you are feeling well and with plenty of energy than you can cope with hassles and problems without going into meltdown and upsetting yourself and everyone around you. A 10-minute mindfulness practice enables you to make time for yourself, you relax, feel less tension, smile more, sleep better and have more energy… kill 6 birds with one stone type of idea, so actually an excellent use of time!

When you are meditating you are not doing nothing.  You are training your mind to become better at concentrating but in a relaxed way.  Meditation is mind training that is no different from going to the gym or training to run a marathon.  It is fitness training for your mind’s ‘muscles’.  Just like with physical fitness training, you start with easy work that doesn’t last too long.  Then as your mind gets fitter you can work for longer and with more challenging tasks.

Start with 10 mins a day 5 – 7 days per week – just like running, do little and often and you find it becomes less and less effort.

It can help you change if you want to. Bear in mind it takes an average of 66 days to form a new habit, but it can take as long as 8 months. Plus, any changes are usually incremental not massive overnight epiphanies!

It’s pretty hard to successfully learn mindfulness just from a book or an app.  Questions come up about whether you are doing it ‘right’.  Fears and anxieties manifest themselves in various ways and can get in your way.  Having an experienced guide will help you overcome this, so there is no reason why you will not be able to do mindfulness.

I’m here to help and support you all the way.

You won’t have to stop your thoughts.  In fact, you cannot stop your thoughts because human brains are designed for thinking!  What you can do with mindfulness is slow down your thoughts so they are not all crammed in or coming in an endless stream.

Only if you want to.  I don’t integrate chanting within my courses.