if you’d like to listen to what’s on this page, here’s the audio version:
why bother with this?
Hi, I’m Tom, and I work as a meditation and mindfulness teacher in Braunton.
I stumbled across meditation and mindfulness when looking for ways to help me cope with severe anxiety, depression, addiction, and loneliness; it ended up helping so much that I decided to start teaching others.
Practising meditation and mindfulness has taught me that it’s possible to do some pretty incredible things: it’s possible to notice an anxious thought and not become lost in it, avoiding the “it’s the end of the world” spiral; it’s possible to notice some sadness and to simply experience it, rather than it growing into a belief that things are never going to be ok; it’s possible to notice anger and to allow it to pass through without smashing things up or turning it inwards; and it’s possible to let an intense craving for pizza come and go without driving to the nearest pizza place and bingeing in the car.
We’re all dealing with pain: emotional, physical, or both. In varying amounts, from varying sources, but all of us, whether we’re aware of it or not, are dealing with pain, and that pain has to be managed in some way. Meditation and mindfulness can teach us a way to deal with this pain by simply being with it: acknowledging that it’s there and allowing it to come and go. The more we can manage our pain in this way, the less likely we are to try and bury it with alcohol, drugs, food, obsessive thoughts, gambling, porn, TikTok, or a host of other things.
Pain, whether it’s emotional or physical, is inevitable; there is simply no way to go through life without experiencing some kind of pain. But the additional suffering that often comes with it is avoidable. If you’d like to learn how to make friends with your pain, to see what it can teach you and to let go of the suffering, meditation and mindfulness might be what you’re looking for.
what is mindfulness?
Imagine you’re sat in the middle of a roundabout, watching the vehicles around you as they come and go. Suddenly, you hear a vehicle making a noise you don’t like, so you run out into the road to try and stop it. Horns start blaring, people start shouting, and the situation is now a lot more stressful!
Eventually, you make your way back to the middle of the roundabout and begin watching the traffic again. A vehicle drives past that you really like the look of, and the next thing you know, you’re racing after it to get a better look and shouting for it to come back. Once again, the horns and the shouting start up and stress levels rise.
Returning to the middle of the roundabout, you notice a vehicle speed past and cut someone up. You think to yourself, how dare they! What sort of a person drives like that! A few minutes later, you realise that you’ve been lost in concocting a story and judging a person you don’t even know, and you’ve missed everything that’s been happening in front of you.
Once more, you come back to the middle of the roundabout, and you start to realise something: when you try and stop things you don’t like, it creates more stress; when you try and chase after things you don’t want to let go of, it creates more stress; and when you get lost in thought or you’re judgemental, it creates more stress and you miss what’s happening in the present moment.
This is the essence of mindfulness: paying attention to what is happening right now, on purpose, without being judgemental. Thoughts and feelings, just like the vehicles, will come and go in their own time, and there may be some that you don’t like or want to chase after. It’s completely natural to become distracted and to get involved; cultivating mindfulness isn’t about controlling the mind or clearing it of all thoughts, it’s about training our awareness so we can more easily recognise when we’ve become distracted. We can then gently return our attention to the present moment.
how can we develop mindfulness?
Picture the following scenario: three people are trying to get stronger by lifting weights in a gym. The first person says, “All I’m going to do is read books, listen to podcasts, and talk about lifting weights”. The second person says, “I’m not going to bother with any of that, all I’m going to do is lift weights and ignore what anyone else has to say”. The third person says, “I’m going to spend time lifting weights, but I’m also going to do some reading and talk to people who are more experienced than me, and then try to apply what I’ve learned”. Which of the three people do you think is most likely to enjoy the process and make the most progress? It’s the same with mindfulness. Think of it as a muscle: it requires consistent training to develop and maintain. Going it completely alone might sound noble, but practising without any guidance or direction can be extremely frustrating and limiting. Reading and listening to hundreds of books and podcasts might be interesting and increase your knowledge, but on its own it won’t do anything to grow your mindfulness muscle – it may even end up stressing you out as it keeps giving you more stuff to think about! Everyone’s sweet spot will be different based on their experience and circumstances, but it is always a balance of practise, study, and guidance.
There are two ways we can train mindfulness: formally, through meditation, and informally, by finding opportunities to practise throughout the day such as brushing our teeth, washing the dishes, or listening during a conversation. We’ll get to the informal stuff a little later; for now, let’s take a look at what meditation is (and what it isn’t).
what is meditation?
To help illustrate what meditation is, we’re going to debunk five common meditation myths; I tend to laugh when I think about them now as I used to believe all of these were true!
Myth #1: you’ve got to wear a robe and sit cross-legged on the floor
If you own a robe and find it comfortable, by all means wear it, but meditation doesn’t require any specific clothing, so wear whatever you like. The same goes for sitting cross-legged on the floor: if you are used to it and find it comfortable, go for it. However, if you spend a lot of time sitting in chairs, it’s unlikely you’ll have the strength and flexibility to sit comfortably on the floor. It’s perfectly fine to meditate sat in a chair or lying down (that’s what I do), so find a position that’s comfortable for you. If you want a bit more information about meditation positions, I really like this article (and I’m a big fan of headspace in general) https://www.headspace.com/meditation/positions.
Myth #2: meditation is about controlling, emptying, or clearing the mind
Think back to the roundabout analogy in the previous section: the more we try and control the vehicles, either trying to stop the ones we don’t like or chase after the ones we do, the more tension and stress we create; it’s the same with our minds. One of the most important lessons we can learn through meditation is this:
We cannot control what thoughts and feelings come up.
We cannot control how intense they are.
We cannot control how long they stick around for.
All we can control is how we respond to them once we notice they are there.
This is why meditation is about training our awareness; we can’t respond to thoughts and feelings that we don’t notice (we wouldn’t rush to bring the washing in unless we realised it was raining!).
Myth #3: meditation is a relaxation exercise
Whilst meditation can have a relaxing effect, this isn’t always the case – let’s look at why this is:
When we meditate, we’re showing up to observe the mind; we choose something to focus our attention on, we try to allow thoughts and feelings to come and go, and we try to gently return our attention to the focus as soon as we realise our minds have wandered. Sometimes, this feels like a very smooth process and the mind seems to settle down – this is where we’re likely to experience a calming effect.
Other times, it feels anything but smooth! The mind may feel like it’s all over the place, and we might become aware of unpleasant thoughts and feelings that we just can’t seem to let go of. This is ok; it’s completely natural to experience this and it’s a very important part of the process. Thoughts such as, “what shall I have for dinner tonight?” tend to be easier to let go of compared to thoughts like, “will this loneliness ever go away?”, but the more we practise, the more unpleasantness we’ll be able to handle.
Myth #4: meditation is a religious practice
Whilst it has its roots in eastern Buddhist tradition, meditation can be practised without any religious belief. Here’s a summary of the first two meditation techniques that we’ll look at in my free guide to getting started; they’re called focused attention and loving kindness.
When practising the focused attention technique, we start by focusing our attention on the tips of our nostrils and try to notice the sensations that we feel when we breathe in and out. As soon as we realise that we’ve become distracted, we congratulate ourselves for noticing that our minds have wandered, and then we gently bring our attention back to the breath; no religious belief required.
When practising the loving kindness technique, we bring to mind a person and silently offer them phrases of well-wishing; my current go-to is, “may you be happy, may you be healthy, may you be free from harm, may you love and be loved”. As soon as we realise that we’ve become distracted, we congratulate ourselves for noticing that our minds have wandered, and then we gently come back to visualising a person and offering them the phrases of kindness; no religious belief required.
You get to personalise your meditation however you like. If you are religious, you can absolutely bring a religious element to your practice; if you’re not religious, you won’t miss out on anything. The meditations that I practise and teach are non-religious, so they work for anyone: religious or not.
Myth #5: you’ve got to meditate for hours a day
Like any skill, the more time we spend practising in a helpful way, the more we develop it. Someone practising tennis serves for an hour a day is likely to have a stronger serve than someone who practises for ten minutes a day. So, how long should we meditate for each day? Well, I don’t really like the word “should”; I think it implies that there is one correct thing that must be done, and everything else is wrong. How long would I recommend you meditate for each day? However long you enjoy! If you enjoy doing five-minute guided meditations, brilliant. If you enjoy doing one-hour silent meditations, brilliant. The goal here isn’t to reach a thousand hours of meditation as fast as you can, burnout, and then never meditate again; the goal is to develop a long-lasting healthy habit that you look forward to each day. To go back to the tennis example, the person who practises an hour a day may well have the better serve, but if they’re forcing themselves to practise that long because they feel they should, rather than because they genuinely enjoy it, how long will they keep playing? So, if anyone ever tells you that you’re not meditating for long enough, my advice is to smile and thank them for their opinion, and then carry on meditating for however long you enjoy.
mindfulness in daily life
Picture someone who is learning to drive. They’re likely to begin in a quiet area on wide roads to get used to the car and practise the basics. As they become more comfortable and confident, the difficulty is gradually increased: busier roads, roundabouts, driving at night, and so on. It’s a two-part process of building a foundation in a safe environment, and then applying those foundational skills in more challenging areas.
It’s the same with mindfulness. Meditating every day helps us to develop and maintain the foundational skills of awareness and kindness, and then we can begin applying these skills to our daily life. I used to get really mad if someone cut me up whilst I was driving; I’d grip the steering wheel as hard as I could, clench my jaw, and growl with rage. I’d then continue to add more and more layers of anger long after the incident had happened, with thoughts like, “how dare they do that to me!” or judgements such as, “that person is so horrible!” Over time, through practising awareness and kindness, I was able to notice the initial bit of anger, but instead of responding with more anger, I could smile and observe it as it passed through me. Does this mean I’m perfect at it? Absolutely not, but I’m not trying to be perfect; I’m interested in gradual progress, and I trust that, by showing up to practise each day, this progress will take care of itself.
Perhaps your mind tends to wander all over the place when you brush your teeth, bouncing from worry to worry and getting your morning off to a stressful start; training in mindfulness may be able to help you smile as you notice your mind wandering, congratulate yourself for realising, and then gently bring your attention back to brushing your teeth. However, just as you wouldn’t expect a new driver to handle a busy city or a motorway for a while, try not to put pressure on yourself to respond to every situation with mindfulness; if you’ve been meditating for a week, is it realistic to expect that you’ll remain aware and kind in a heated argument with a loved one, or an incredibly stressful situation at work? Skills take time to develop; all that is required is to keep showing up.
how to get started for free
As helpful as I think it is to work with a teacher, I appreciate that not everyone can afford to pay for individual sessions. There are also so many books and programmes out there that it can be hard to know where to begin. If you’d like to get started and want some sort of roadmap, you might like to check out my free guide to getting started, where I've done my best to explain what to do and why to do it. If you are interested in working with me one-to-one, please click here.
I wish you all the best on your mindfulness journey - happy practising!
Tom