As we come closer to Christmas, I am already aware of the stress building in those with whom I am coming into contact. For each of us it is different; it may be the cost, the time and effort, the contact with family we don’t get on with or the absence of those whom we love. What began centuries ago as a time for withdrawal and reflection followed by celebration, has become a marathon of expectations which often disappoint. So, I have created my own ’12 Days of Christmas’ to offer some ways we can manage our mindfulness practice around others as well as challenging ourselves to some new behaviours to replace old habits. I hope they are helpful and please do remember to keep a sense of humour and always be kind to yourself when you make mistakes! You are only human after all. The photo which accompanies these can be printed out as a reminder if that helps. Choose whichever feel manageable and always feel free to adapt my suggestions to your preferred practice if you already have an established daily routine. Following the 12 Days of Christmas suggestions is a more in-depth description of a walking meditation on the theme of peace, together with my own reflections which some of you may like to read if you have the time. You may like to follow it as a template for your own walking meditation or simply contemplate the themes that are raised. However you are spending Christmas, may you be well, may you be happy, may you be at ease and free from suffering. I look forward to seeing many of you in the New Year.
12 days of Christmas:
12 Things to be thankful for After a particularly difficult, busy or stressful day, make a point of noting twelve things you can be thankful for. For example, it is easy to feel frustration with family creating a mess to be cleared up, but would we really want to be without them? Try practising thankfulness for things like having a warm shower, or food to eat. Sometimes it can help to feel thankful for those who are no longer with us but who brought us such joy in the past. Thankfulness has been shown to increase our happiness levels and boost our immune system, both of which are particularly important during the winter. 11 Minutes walking You could extend this to 15 minutes which is usually what we aim for, but we are only going up to twelve and I personally considered thankfulness to be top of the list. Just getting outside for a change of environment can really improve our mood and if we can use the time to do a short walking meditation, even better. Fresh air and blue light (the type we get in the morning) boost our happiness levels and the production of hormones we need for good quality sleep. 10 Mindful minutes Finding ten minutes to sit in silence can seem like a big ask over Christmas but it is possible! We may need to be more flexible, for example, choosing a selection of inspirational quotes to choose from each morning and just breathing the words in as we let the sounds around us just flow in and out of awareness. Or giving ourselves five, two-minute mindfulness breaks during the day (even if we have to escape to the loo to do this). 9 Mindful movements Try to put together a program of at least 9 movements you feel you can do fairly regularly to energise your body and help to release tension. Qigong, Tai Chi and Yoga all have a variety of easy to follow exercises online. I personally love Jeffrey Chand’s Qigong on You Tube. Mindful movement can be especially useful when we feel agitated, busy or unsettled and gives us a great way in to being present with the body. 8 Lucky breaks This is simple: just notice 8 things in the day, or over the Christmas period, which could have gone wrong but didn’t, for example, the antique gravy jug which got dropped but didn’t break, or the row that nearly broke out but didn’t. We tend to focus so much on what goes ‘wrong’ that we don’t notice the things which go ‘right’, so try to redress the balance. Research shows you will feel more positive if you do. 7 Mindful attitudes Another simple (but not easy) one: just cultivate the qualities of Patience, Letting Go, Acceptance, Non-Judging, Non-Striving, Trust and Beginners’ Mind. There, you see, simple. Just remember to bring an attitude of humour to your endeavours! 6 Awesome experiences These are available to us more often than we think. Looking at the night sky can fill us with awe if we stop to consider what it is we are actually seeing. The intricacy of a cobweb, a snail shell or a flower, the patterns on a leaf…the list goes on. When we realise that every single one of these experiences is a one-off, never to be repeated, once in a lifetime event, they start to become awesome. Spend a day collecting awesome experiences – you’ll never see things the same way again. 5 Advent candles Most of us are familiar with the candle wreath and its four advent candles around the central candle for Christmas. We use candles in our homes a lot over the winter, especially at Christmas, so every time we light a candle, or have the opportunity to observe a candle flame, we can just stop and breath. Notice the movement from darkness to light. Notice the way the flame moves and changes colour. Even one mindful, aware breath can help us re-center and return to the present moment, which may not be what we asked for, but it is usually ok and much healthier for us than travelling between the past and the future. 4 Squared breathing Simply count your breaths and keep them regular: breathe in as you count 4, hold for 4, out for 4 and pause for 4. This type of breathing helps us regulate the breath when we are feeling particularly anxious or in need of something to focus on. 3 step breathing space There are several versions of this so find one you like and practice it as often as you can throughout the day! You can also do a short version in just one breath. It’s great for traffic jams and supermarket queues. 2 Loving compliments One for me…one for you. Give yourself a loving compliment every so often, the type you would give to someone you care about. And then give someone you care about a loving compliment too. 1 One breath, one moment This is probably at the heart of all mindfulness practice, whichever method we choose to follow. Life is made up of moments, so the more we are fully aware of, the more of life we are truly living. Just breath this breath and live this moment.
A Walking Meditation on the Theme of Finding Peace This is a reflective account of a meditation I practiced a few weeks ago as we entered the season of winter, or Samhain (pronounced Sow’en) as the Irish Celts called it. I was feeling a little unsettled and so decided on an outdoor walking meditation, beginning with bringing awareness to feet and legs and then to the whole body. This was very grounding and I began to notice the difference in experience as I became more present in the moment as I walked. After some time, I moved away from the physical sensation of walking, and began to recite the Thich Nhat Hanh mantra, ‘Peace is every step’. At first this was enjoyable; I was aware of each footstep and was timing the breath to both the words and my walking pace so was very focused and felt my body really relaxing into the walk. After a while I noticed thinking, and although I noticed it, I discovered after a few more minutes that I hadn’t let go of the thoughts, they were still there with the mantra having moved to the background of awareness. I was still repeating the words of the mantra, still breathing and aware of walking but the thinking was now taking over. The relaxation left as I became tense, my pace increased and then I suddenly stopped. I was catastrophising and I felt physically and emotionally stuck. I was amazed at the cleverness and complexity of my mind; I could fool myself into believing that I was practicing a walking meditation and repeating a mantra, while all the time I was actually stuck in a catastrophising thought loop. Incredible, and yet we do it all the time. So I took a breath and began again, and as I did so I realised the truth of the teaching that peace begins within. Only when there is peace in the mind and the heart can it be experienced in the world. The world was just as I had left it a few moments ago but in that short time I had moved from experiencing it as a very beautiful, peaceful place, to a scary, hard place, and then back to calm and peaceful, surrounded by beauty once more. I wondered what I had missed on my walk during those minutes where I lost myself and was reminded of the poem Lost, by David Wagoner: you can never be lost when you are present in the moment because you are always here. But you are always lost when you are not fully here. It is true that we perceive the world around us through the veil of our own perceptions and even the briefest period of disruptive thinking, just a few minutes, can change the way we relate to everything and everyone around us. I finished with an open awareness exercises, mostly focused on sounds as the sound of water moved from my right to my left, the sounds of birds wheeling in the sky above, the soft flutter of a leaf and more distant human noises of a car, a door closing, a voice, footsteps. It was like a symphony and once again I was aware that had I still felt agitated those human noises would have disturbed or annoyed me, interrupting my peaceful walk. I smiled to myself as I learnt the same lesson again, peace is within, and I wondered how many more times would I need reminding? But, of course, that is the practice, the constant returning to that place of calm equanimity from the strong undercurrents of thinking which drag us away for a while. I had stopped by the brook for a few moments to contemplate letting go, watching the leaves float down and into the fast moving water, and when I reached my house I noticed that two of the leaves had stuck to me and I had walked the last few hundred yards carrying one on my glove and one on my shoe. How easy it is to carry burdens without realising. I dropped them into the garden with thanks for another lesson well taught.
And remember:
Christmas is a time when everybody wants his past forgotten and his present remembered. ~ Phyllis Diller
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