Mindfulness

6 Secrets of the Power of Now

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The Power of Now

What is the Power of Now? It is 28 years since Eckhart Tolle published The Power of Now; a book that has sold over 16 million copies over that time. This book is a bestseller for a reason. It points to a very simple and liberating truth: that all our experience happens in the Now. … Read more

Listening To Your Inner Guide

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Inner Guide

Using the Inner Guide in Therapy One of the premises of Brief Therapy is that clients (mostly) possess their own answers to life’s problems. These answers may be hidden away in forgotten memories, unnoticed experiences or in failures of the imagination. The therapist’s job is to turn around the client’s attention from problems to possibilities … Read more

Krishnamurti on Awareness

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Awareness

Awareness is a pathless land When Jiddu Krishnamurti was 34 he gave up his position as the ‘world teacher’ his mentors had brought him up be, telling his followers that he was not a teacher, and certainly not a guru. Instead he told them a story about the Devil. “The devil and a friend of … Read more

10 easy steps to inner peace

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peace

About Inner peace

Inner peace is the real goal of life. For moments of genuine happiness come but rarely, and quickly fade. Inner peace is a state of self-acceptance in which you stay in present moment awareness, keeping your focus on what you have ready to hand. In this mindful state you remain calm and untroubled.

Here are ten easy ways to find that inner peace, based on my stay on the planet so far.

Declutter your mind

Change your relationship to the mind so that you cease to be a slave to it. Rather than your thoughts driving you, you drive them. Learn to watch as thoughts come and go, defusing from the ones that don’t serve you, and focusing instead on the ones that do. Cut down on distractions and trivial pursuits: social media, apps, newspapers etc., so that your mind remains clear. Cut out multi-tasking, for not only does it make your mind less efficient but it will leave you feeling tense and hurried.

Live in the present moment

This one goes with the one above. Do not dwell on thoughts about the past, or the future. For your memories of the past are selections created by the ego, while thoughts about the future are a worrisome fantasy. You have no power over either. All the possibilities and actions available to you exist right now, in the present moment.

Detach from the Ego

The Ego is your false self, created by conditioning. It lives in the past or the future, and is the enemy of inner peace. Inside it is a craving for things to be different from the way they are: worries, judgments and demands streaming through the mind like an endless torrent. Fuelling your anxiety, rage and self-pity. Giving you the illusion that everything that happens is all about you. Cease to identify with it, and treat it as you would an unwanted guest in your house.

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4. The power of acceptance

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Acceptance

What is acceptance?

Acceptance means, firstly to accept that you are a human being having both good and bad experiences, and both are created through the power of thought. The first step to changing from one to experience to another is to see that you can control that power.

Most types of psychological distress arise from one simple fact: sufferers want their experiences to be different from the way they are. Especially when it comes to those staples of the mental health industry: anxiety, depression and addiction. 
For example, say you have a panic attack. Tunnel vision comes on, and you can’t think or feel anything except your heart thumping, your lungs constricting, the panic rising in your chest, and your awful racing thoughts about whatever catastrophe your mind has just made up for you. If you are like most people you will just want it all to go away. But there are sound reasons why that demand might be mistaken.

Acceptance psychology teaches that you may be failing to appreciate the power of thought. The conscious power that can create a multi-sensory panic attack can just as well provide you with a sublime perspective on the dawn rising, or the love you feel when you see the face of your beloved next to you in bed. Still more amazing is that you can learn to switch between between one or the other. Our painful experiences are just as compelling as the beautiful ones. By ceasing to avoid them we can see them for what they are: as creations of our minds.

Your very own virtual reality cinema

The fact is that your mind shows you dozens of virtual reality scenes every day, decked out in 3-D multicolour, panorama sound, and an array of chemically orchestrated sensations, feelings, and emotions. In the background your brain, nervous system and endocrine networks sync to create the whole movie for you. As a finishing touch your mind plays a running commentary on the action: that is a guilty memory; this is your best friend to whom you can tell anything; that is the bad thing that’s going to happen when you get to the office; this is a fantasy about what you will do when you win the lottery.

Depressing episodes, boring experiences, angry moments, drug cravings, panic attacks and joyful memories are all created the same way. What makes it especially compelling is that you are in the middle of the whole film – walking, talking and emoting about it. This, you tell yourself is ‘reality’. Except it isn’t: what is there is not reality in the absolute sense, but a selective version of it displayed in personal consciousness.

The virtual power of your mind can show you other scenarios if you prefer. But to exercise that choice you first have to learn how to direct your mind, rather than being a slave to it. Resisting your experience keeps you in slavery.

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3. Ecstatic consciousness

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Levels of consciousness

Ed Mitchell’s journey through space

In February 1971 Ed Mitchell, a pilot on the Apollo 14 craft, flew back to Earth after a successful moon landing. He was about to have an experience of expanded consciousness that would change his life forever. Until that point there had been nothing mystical about Ed, who had been trained as an engineer. As a boy in New Mexico planes fascinated him, and he learnt to fly at 13.

After graduating from the Carnegie Institute of Technology with a science degree in 1952 he entered the Navy and became first a pilot on active service, then a flight instructor. In 1966 he was seconded to NASA and joined the moon mission, serving on the support crew for various Apollo projects, before his appointment to the Apollo 14 mission. In 1971 he had been married for 19 years and had two children. He was 40 years old.

On the way back to Earth, the beauty of the heavens struck him in a 360 degree panorama from the cockpit, in which the Earth and the Moon performed their dance around the Sun in glittering light. Because there is no atmosphere in Space, everything looked many times brighter than it did on Earth. The home planet itself appeared as a stunning blue-white globe with vast oceans and continents teeming with life.

As he stared out of the window he experienced a state of ecstasy, in which he connected to the Earth, the Sun, the Moon and the distant stars.

“It occurred to me that the molecules of my body and the molecules of the spacecraft itself were manufactured long ago in the furnace of one of the ancient stars that burned in the heavens about me.”

Each time he looked out of the window on that three-day trip back to Earth that same overwhelming feeling of wonder gripped him, as tears flowed down his cheeks.

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7 simple keys to mindfulness

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mindfulness

What is mindfulness?

Mindfulness as a word can be misleading as it does not mean a mind which is filled with thoughts. Nor does it mean a mind that is empty of thought. Instead it refers to present-moment awareness. It is a state in which you are focused on what is happening to you in the now. In open focus the practitioner trains her awareness on external sights, sounds and sensations. In closed focus he trains his awareness on a single feature: the breath, a number sequence, or a phrase repeated over and over.

Mindfulness and meditation

Mindful practice is really meditation. The only difference is that many types of meditation (but not all) come out of Hinduism, Buddhism or Christianity. Mindfulness, so-called, emphasises a secular practice. Used in the loose sense, ‘mindfulness’ (meaning present moment awareness) can also be achieved through music, yoga, tai chi, qi gong, the Feldenkrais method, and Binaural beats.

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Great binaural beats

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binaural beats

This is the second in the series on binaural beats – audio programs that change brain states. Using them we can switch off worries, create deep trance, or trigger endorphin release. Binaural beat programs work by entraining the brain to slow down brain wave frequencies. The Beta wave, associated with agitation and over-thinking. The next … Read more