The secret to time management is accepting that you’ll never have enough of it. After all, if you had any spare time, then you would have already allocated it to something else by now… The brutal truth is, there’s always too much to do and you’ll never be able to achieve everything you want. Once you’ve accepted this, then you can begin optimising your life.
There are countless time management techniques available but I’ve found that the humble ‘To-Do’ list remains the most effective of all. It works best when drawn up on paper with a fountain pen or a pencil. This forces you to slow down a notch and to think about what you want to achieve. I’ve worked in many high speed, high stress, environments such as newspaper offices and live broadcast TV news, and I’ve found that this old-fashioned approach still works wonders.
Never write down more than six to eight points on your To-Do list. Then, choose two (or a maximum of three) items and write ‘PRIORITY’ next to it. If you do only those Priority items, then you will have successfully managed your time. The other points are simply ‘nice to have done’. In this way, the non-essential items will eventually fall off the bottom of your list. In my case, the only real priority is to write for a few hours each day – the other things can generally wait or be safely ignored. It’s always a good idea to have a ‘self-admin’ task. This item is usually one of those little things that simply needs to be done, such as, paying a household bill.
It’s best to draw up your To-Do list at the end of the day, ready for the next day, so that you don’t have to spend the next morning worrying about what should go on the list (drawing up such a list could easily consume a whole day. Trust me, I’ve done it).
And when you complete each task, remember to pause for a moment and focus on the satisfaction that you feel as you cross it off the list. Pay special attention to the sensations the pen or pencil makes as it glides across the page. Many people use such tools as Trello to manage their time. Trello and its ilk are wonderful tools but there’s something inherently mindful about using a To-Do list with a pencil (or fountain pen) and a piece of paper. I use Trello to sketch out the structure of the books I’m working on, so I’m all in favour of such tools – I just don’t find them effective for time management.
Alternatively, you could try Oliver Burkeman’s advice and produce a ‘Done List’. Burkeman’s advice is usually invaluable and I especially like his techniques for warding off those vague feelings ‘of falling behind’. His technique undoubtedly works for many people but I prefer to mindfully embrace my insecurities and then, more often than not, they simply evaporate as I focus on the sensations they trigger in my body. In my case, vague feelings of anxiety and insecurity tend to localise in my lower stomach. Simply paying attention to them seems to dissolve them.
It’s also best to avoid being side-tracked by ‘Time Stealers’ such as emails, apps, phones and social media. Time Stealers trigger endless streams of thoughts. Before you know it, half the morning’s gone. It’s incredibly difficult to avoid being drawn into their orbit as they were all designed from the ground up to grab attention. They are genuinely addictive…. So, you can’t rely on will-power. The only solution is to put them out of temptation’s way by quitting apps and browsers, or switching off devices – or keeping such things as phones and tablets out of sight, under a book perhaps, on the other side of your desk (or preferably in a different room). Try to only check up on them two or three times a day, preferably at pre-set times. In my case, I simply close everything down apart from the word processor on my Mac (and generally work in Microsoft Word’s ‘Focus’ mode.) From time to time, I will also remind myself of the old adage that ‘writers would rather pick out the hairs from the bottom of the shower than actually write’.
Another tip is to become fully aware of the gaps in your day. It’s easy to mindlessly rush from one thing to the next, and then the next… and not notice the gaps in between. The mind often fills these spaces with stress and anxiety. And before you know it, you’ve been side-tracked once again. Instead, use such gaps to cultivate mindful awareness. Pay full conscious attention to the beauty (or ugliness) of the world around you. Or try savouring a cup of coffee and a piece of cake. Focus on every single taste, aroma, and sensation. Mindfulness can be enjoyable as well as productive.
Making these ideas work in practice:
– Use ‘Mindfulness Bells’. These are gentle reminders to take a pause and to act as a gentle nudge to bring you back to full awareness. Mindfulness Bells are those things that you do regularly, often unconsciously, and can include such things as standing in a queue (or line), drinking a cup of tea or coffee, putting on make-up or chopping vegetables. Mindfulness Bells can be anything at all. As you do such things, do them mindfully by paying full conscious attention to all of the sights, sounds, smells, and sensations that accompany them.
– Meditate regularly. Mindfulness meditation liberates you from the pressures of time. This is partly because it helps you deal with tasks more skilfully and creatively. It makes you happier, less stressed and anxious too. Even ten minutes a day can transform your life.
– Make a start. Research has shown that when people are stressed then the motivation to do something arrives after they’ve actually begun a task. So, make a start, even if you don’t feel like it (especially if you don’t feel like it) and then you’ll discover the impetus to carry on.
– Whenever you feel that your day is running away with you, the Three Minute Breathing Space will help you regain control. Listen to it here:
Josy took another gulp of her mojito. It was her third within half an hour. She started moving in time with the music and looked out across the crowded living room of her friend’s flat. It was stuffed full of people singing, dancing and waving their brightly coloured drinks in the air. Saturday night was turning into a bit of a riot, which was just the way Josy liked it.
The tall stranger once again wandered over and attempted to strike up a conversation. She’d evaded his advances earlier, but this time she responded with a smile. He leaned a little closer, trying to make himself heard above the sounds of the party. She could just about hear his words, but then a different voice cut through the noise of the room: ‘Josy was telling me about that mad hitchhike back from Italy . . …’ As soon as her name was mentioned, Josy’s mind focused on the conversation on the other side of the room. She heard every word, with crystal clarity, as if the room had fallen into silence.
We’ve all experienced this so-called ‘cocktail- party effect’, where we are in a noisy place and suddenly find ourselves snapping to attention when someone mentions our name. Sometimes it can be even more powerful than this, such as when you hear the few words before your name is even mentioned. In such moments, it can feel as if time has flowed backwards a few seconds and allowed you to catch up with the world. And in a sense, this is what happens.
The cocktail-party effect arises out of the mind’s astonishing ability to gather disparate information from its senses, fuse it all together and analyse its significance. This data is then used to update our different ‘models of reality’, with the one that best fits crystallising to become our actual experience. This happens because of the extremely odd and counter-intuitive way that our mind makes sense out of the world. In essence, what we regard as the present moment is actually a stunningly realistic illusion created by the mind. An illusion so compelling that we mistake it for reality. It is called a simulation and the process it relies upon is known as ‘predictive processing’.1 (For more detail about this emerging area of neuroscience and psychology see this article).
Predictive processing works by constantly ‘guessing’ what information the senses are about to send to the brain. We do not truly see the world; we see what our minds think the world is about to look like. Nor do we truly hear, but instead experience the sounds that the mind believes are about to hit our ears. And the same is true for our other senses, too. The mind predicts what we are about to taste, feel and smell. And in practice, it is this prediction – or simulation – that we experience, rather than the ‘real’ world.
As you can imagine, this is a fantastically complex process, but a simple analogy helps here: if you are talking about politics in the UK and someone mentions the Houses of P . . . you can guess what’s coming next (the word ‘Parliament’). Because you have predicted the word, you don’t need to listen to the word itself. You can instead use that moment to capture the meaning of the whole sentence. Such predictions make perception and responses more fluent because the world is normally predictable. As explained above, we don’t create a prediction for one single sense but for all of them. Simultaneously. We construct a global model that incorporates sights, sounds, smells, tastes and sensations. This model is constantly updated, moment by moment, and incorporates any deviations from the real external ‘reality’; we move through the world creating and updating – predicting and checking – it. And if our checks show that we have made an error (like when we approach a shop door and pull on the large handle rather than pushing on it), we simply begin to pay more attention to the actual stream of data arriving from our senses. Any necessary corrections are then built into the model. The mind runs many different variations of the model simultaneously, and each is continuously checked against reality to notice the beginnings of any divergence. The most accurate one ‘wins’ and becomes a moment in the simulation that we experience.
Often, we only get an inkling of this process when the mind ‘jumps the tracks’ from one model to another and we experience such things as this cocktail-party effect. It can be powerful and, occasionally, eerie. Central to this process is the brain’s capacity to monitor the world for important information that signals when you might need to update your global model – or switch to an entirely different track. From moment to moment, your brain compares the mind’s predictions with the actual incoming data from the senses and looks out for ‘surprises’ – or prediction errors. If it detects such an error, your attention switches towards the source of the surprise – the voice that has just spoken your name, for example – to see whether the model needs updating. Often, only a little tweaking is needed, but, for an instant, there is an uncertainty that needs to be resolved in case more significant action is needed, and so your attention is inexorably drawn to anything new or surprising. For example, all animals are sensitive to movements in their peripheral vision because it indicates the possible presence of a predator. And humans are no different. Evolution has hard-wired our brains to look out for many such ‘distractors’, and we don’t have a choice whether we notice them or not. Ever found yourself incessantly distracted by a flickering TV above a bar? Put it down to your primate ancestors.
We can also learn to look out for other distractors and these can become written into the mind’s ‘software’. Hearing your own name in a crowded room is one example, but so too are conversations that resonate with you. Looking to move house, buy a car or take a holiday? Suddenly, you start to notice references to them everywhere and feel compelled to pay attention. Normally, though, after a few moments of heightened awareness, you slip back into your own thoughts and are, perhaps, left in awe of your mind’s ability to keep track of the world.
In practice, even if you are focusing on one thing and trying to ignore everything else, your mind continues monitoring the world in the background in case something important needs attending to. Often, though, your attention isn’t waylaid in such an obvious fashion but is, instead, subverted without you realising it. Such subversion is often far more insidious and powerful in the long run than any number of cocktail-party hijackings.
It works like this: if you are not paying attention – really paying attention – then you will not notice the accumulating ‘prediction errors’ that allow you to keep a tight grip on reality. It is these prediction errors that, when noticed, keep us in contact with the real world and prevent us from living inside a disconnected simulation. They provide the exciting little jolts that bring us back into full consciousness and spark our curiosity. They are the source of life’s joy. They provide the magic – the stardust – that makes life worth living.
The message is in the error.
Allow us to explain this seemingly irrational idea.
If you are eating your favourite treat, your mind will predict how it tastes and feels in your mouth. It will be a fairly accurate simulation, but it will not be real. If, however, you fully tune in to each of your senses as you eat, your experience will be slightly different from your mind’s simulation. There will be errors in the simulation that will normally pass you by unnoticed. This means that the real treat, the one that you are eating in the present moment, will be far more wonderful because you are actually tasting it, rather than experiencing a simulation. All the interleaved nuances of flavours, aromas and textures will be experienced and savoured. They will be absolutely real, not an imitation. If, however, you do not pay attention, you simply will not notice the taste of your food – along with countless other things, such as the feel of the sun on your skin, the smell of freshly baked cakes, the smiles of loved ones, hugs and kisses, the laughter of children in the park . . . The list is truly endless.
Thankfully, such losses are not inevitable because you can learn to pay attention in a very special way; a way that allows you to reconnect with the world around you. And when you do so, something astonishing happens. You begin to see the world in its true glory – full of magic, mystery and wonder. This is what the eight-week course (or plan) in our latest book Deeper Mindfulness offers; and it’s so much more than the absence of anxiety, stress, depression and exhaustion. It offers you the opportunity to reclaim your life – to rediscover the simple, beautiful, joy of being alive.
A Life, Reconnected
The first step to regaining control over your life is learning to notice when your mind has begun to subvert itself and slip into unconsciousness. This is done by first training it to focus on one single thing at a time and then gradually learning how to move this ‘spotlight of attention’ around as you wish. You may not find it easy at first, but with gentle persistence, you can learn to see where the spotlight of attention is pointing, when it starts to wander away from your chosen focus, and then to bring it back to where you had intended it to be. And you do this by setting aside a few minutes each day with the sole aim of training the mind: seeing your attentional spotlight at work, and then bringing it back each time that it wanders away from your chosen focus.
To aid this process, it is helpful to have one place you can bring it back to, over and over again. You see, your mind is like a boat; it needs an anchor, so that it doesn’t drift too far away from the shore with the ebb and flow of the tide. Meditation traditionally uses the breath as this anchor. For some meditators, the breath is sufficient, but for many (or when the mind is unusually scattered or busy) the breath may not be enough. People often need stronger and more noticeable sensations to focus on than those provided by the gentle to-ing and fro-ing of the breath. They need more options. This is especially true if you have breathing difficulties, or if distractions have become too intrusive.
If you have found the breath to be sufficient so far, don’t worry – it will still be there for you later on. However, the first week of the meditation course in Deeper Mindfulness is dedicated to exploring alternative anchors (be they the feet, the hands or the feeling of contact with a seat or mat, or even an external one, such as sounds) to give you a taste of the different qualities that each one brings. If you have practised mindfulness in the past, particularly if you have read our previous book, the two-million selling Mindfulness: Finding Peace in a Frantic World, or taken a course based on it, some of the ideas will seem familiar. But there are many subtle but crucial differences, the primary one being that you learn how to tune in to the vedana (or feeling tone) as you carry out the core meditations. You tune in to the different flavours of awareness as you carry out meditations that may seem familiar but are, none the less, different from those that you may have practised previously. These vedana focused meditations deepen your experience and understanding. This is the kernel of what we want to share with you through our latest book Deeper Mindfulness. It has, for us, become a treasure trove of new insights from the most ancient of Eastern traditions, as well as modern psychology and neuroscience. They have transformed our understanding of meditation and we hope that they will do the same for you, too.
For a review of this approach, see Andy Clark, Surfing Uncertainty: Prediction, Action and the Embodied Mind (Oxford University Press, 2016), Lawrence Barsalou (2008), ‘Grounded cognition’, Annual Review of Psychology, 59, pp. 617–45 and Lisa Feldman Barrett, How Emotions Are Made: The Secret Life of the Brain (Pan Books, 2017) and Manjaly, Z. M. & Iglesias, S. (2020), ‘A computational theory of mindfulness based cognitive therapy from the “Bayesian brain” perspective’, Frontiers in Psychiatry, 11, p. 404. ↩︎
Mindfulness can often seem a little tricky, particularly by beginners, but it doesn’t have to be this way. Here’s a little guide to making your mindfulness practice as simple and straightforward as possible by streamlining the process of actually getting to your meditation cushion or chair. Yoga teachers say that the most difficult move in yoga is the one on to your mat. The same is true for mindfulness. Your mind, just like ours, will always find a litany of reasons why you can’t meditate just now, in this moment, so try the following tips to help you get around this difficulty.
Time for meditation
When you embark on your meditation journey there will be many times when you feel that you do not have any spare time to meditate. This is undoubtedly true. Life is busy and you have many priorities to juggle. So, if you did have any spare time, the chances are you would already have allocated it to something else by now. So, you have to make time to meditate, but in the long run you will earn that time back since maintaining a meditation practice helps to streamline life. If you are still concerned by this commitment, gently ask yourself how much time you spend each day worrying, procrastinating and running through seemingly pointless habits. Maybe you could promise yourself to devote part of this time to meditation?
In practice, any time of the day is good for meditation although many people prefer the morning before work or the evening after they return home but before they have begun preparing their evening meal. If you can’t manage these, look out for little gaps in your day, such as during your morning commute or perhaps during a lunch break. And remember, many of the meditations in our books are only ten minutes long and one ‘emergency’ practice takes just three minutes so you should be able to squeeze one in during even the most busy of days.
Some people are put off starting a meditation programme because they fear it might be seen as ‘self- indulgent’. If this concerns you, perhaps you could see it as a fitness programme for the mind. Many people spend several hours a week running or working out at the gym. Why not spend a little time each day doing the same thing for your mind?
Where . . .
It is best to meditate in a pleasant and peaceful place. This can be as simple as a tranquil corner of your home. Try to avoid the bedroom because this might encourage drowsiness. However, if this is the quietest and most tranquil space available to you, it’s OK to meditate there. You might also like to let others in your home know that you would like to remain undisturbed while you practise. Some people find this a little embarrassing, fearing that others will think mindfulness a little odd. In practice, your friends and family will probably be pleased that you are finding the time to enhance your life. If a quiet place is unavailable to you for whatever reason, then turn noise and ‘distractions’ into practices in themselves using, for example, the Sounds and Thoughts Meditation.
And what equipment will you need? You will need only a phone or computer to listen to the meditation tracks (or to stream them to a TV, headset or hi- fi), a chair to sit on and perhaps a blanket to keep your legs warm. If you use your phone to listen to the meditations, it will be helpful to turn off notifications, switch it to silent or divert calls to voicemail. If you are following the programs in one of our bestselling books, each week’s meditation tracks can be found by following the QR code or web address shown in each chapter (in, for example, the practices for the week box).
. . . how
Most people find that sitting on a straight-backed chair is good for meditation, but it’s also fine to use a meditation cushion or bench to sit on. If sitting feels difficult, then the meditations can be done lying down on a rug or mat. If sitting, see if it’s possible to adopt an alert posture, upright but not stiff, with your spine self-supporting, about 2–3cm from the back of the chair. It often helps the posture to sit a little towards the front of the chair and to put a small cushion on the seat, so that your hips are slightly higher than your knees. This will allow your back to follow its natural curves and create a sense of openness in the chest. It will also encourage alertness and emotional ‘brightness’.
The feet should be flat on the floor, about hip-width apart. This encourages a feeling of strength and stability. The hands are best left relaxed, supported by the lap or the thighs.
The best position is one that causes as little muscular strain as possible, while encouraging an alert but relaxed state of mind. Whatever position you choose, remember that you will gain nothing by forcing yourself into a harsh or uncomfortable one. You certainly shouldn’t feel the need to sit cross-legged on the floor. Newspapers and magazines love pictures of people meditating in this posture, but there really is no need to do so. While some people do meditate in this way, it is often extremely uncomfortable if you are not used to it. Sitting crossed-legged has nothing to do with the practice of meditation. It is simply the way people traditionally sat in the East.
You may need to shift positions part-way through a meditation. Again, this is OK. Fidgeting is normal, too, and even experienced meditators need to move from time to time. If you do move, see if you can include this in your meditation, moving with full awareness, sensing how the feeling tone fluctuates before, during and after the movement.
. . . and when?
Why not close your eyes for a few moments, take a deep breath, and begin right now? Perhaps with this simple Finding Your Ground Meditation from our latest book Deeper Mindfulness. Other free to stream/download meditations can be found here.
Dissolve anxiety, stress and unhappiness, enhance your mind and unleash your creativity with these simple breathing exercises.
A flock of paragliders are soaring like eagles on powerful currents of rising air. Far below, a group of children watch in amazement as the pilots practise their aerobatics silently above their heads.
Then, suddenly, something starts to go wrong. One of the pilots loses control of his wing and starts spiralling like a leaf towards the earth.
After what seems like an age, the young man smashes into the hillside. He lies face down on the hillside. Broken.
But he is alive. After a moment of stunned silence, he begins screaming in agony. It will be at least 30 minutes before the paramedics arrive and another hour to reach hospital. Alone, he knows that he cannot afford to lose consciousness in case he never again awakens. So he begins forcing himself to breathe.
Slowly. Deeply. With a supreme effort of will, he focuses his mind away from his broken body and onto his breath. In. Out.
Inch by inch, the agony recedes. Before, finally, he reaches a state of calm tranquillity. Of pure mindfulness.
I was the young man who crashed his paraglider.
And the art of mindful breathing saved my life.
For thousands of years, people have used the art of breathing for equally profound effects on the mind and body. Some have used it for relief from chronic pain. Many more to cope with anxiety, stress and depression. Some claim it led to spiritual enlightenment.
But I’m as spiritual as a housebrick…. so I use it to help me stay calm in a chaotic world and to better appreciate the bittersweet beauty of everyday life.
Breathing seems so ordinary that its true significance can easily pass us by. It is so mundane that many of us have even forgotten how to breathe correctly – and this, as I found out after my paragliding accident, has huge implications for overall health and happiness.
Correct breathing enhances the immune system and helps rid the body of toxins and pollutants. It calms the mind and wards off anxiety, stress and unhappiness. And focusing on the breath with the mind’s eye is the heart of mindfulness meditation, which has been clinically proven to beat depression, and enhance overall happiness, wellbeing, clarity of thought – and even decision-making and creativity.
To gain a sense of its power for yourself, try this little exercise with me: Lie flat on the ground with a cushion under your head. Place your hands on your stomach. Spend a minute or so feeling them rise and fall as you breathe in . . . and out. Submit to the natural rhythm of the breath. Feel the air as it flows in and out of your body. Allow yourself to relax into the breath’s fluidity.
As the breath waxes and wanes, oxygen and nutrient-rich fluids are pumped through the abdomen, flushing out toxins. The physical movement of the breath in the body also massages the liver, kidneys, intestines, joints of the spine, indeed everything, so they’re kept healthy, supple, and well lubricated.
But there’s also a hidden – and equally important side to breathing. Your breath actually reflects and amplifies your emotions. So incorrect breathing can cause anxiety, stress and even depression.
It works like this: momentary stress causes the body to tense and you begin to breathe a little more shallowly. A shallow breath lowers oxygen levels in the blood, which the brain senses as stress. Breathing then becomes a little quicker and shallower. Oxygen levels fall a little more. The heart begins to race. The brain feels a little more stressed.
It’s a vicious cycle….
But there is an alternative. A gently rising and falling breath stimulates the parts of the brain and nervous system responsible for creating a sense of calm tranquillity. Soothing hormones flow through the body. These calm negative thoughts, feelings and emotions so you begin to breathe a little more slowly and deeply. You begin to relax.
It’s a virtuous cycle….
Unfortunately, most of us breathe incorrectly. This is especially true in the modern world where we often sit slumped at desks for far too long each day while being bombarded with work, emails, calls and messages. This can become even more of a problem if we are under any kind of stress. This disturbs our natural breathing patterns which in turn creates even more stress. It works like this.
Breathing relies on the big, powerful muscles of the diaphragm, the abdomen and the intercostal muscles that lie between the ribs. It is helped along by the smaller secondary muscles of the neck, shoulders and upper ribs.
When you are upset, anxious or stressed, or spend too much time sitting in one position, the abdomen tenses and prevents the big primary muscles from working. Instead, they begin tugging against each other, leaving the secondary muscles to do all the work. But the secondary muscles are only designed to shoulder 20 per cent of the burden, so they become stressed.
If this continues, it can lead to chronic tension in the shoulders and neck, to headaches and fatigue, and to increasingly shallower breathing.
Thankfully, to breathe correctly, all you need do is relearn the art of breathing.
The art of breathing lies in paying attention to your breath in a very special way. It’s the heart of mindfulness and as old as meditation itself. You can learn the basics in just a few minutes. Mastering it takes somewhat longer.
Breathing meditations are actually very simple but people often make them unnecessarily difficult and complicated. Firstly, meditating cross-legged in the lotus position is very uncomfortable. You can’t meditate if you’re not comfortable. Take a deep breath . . . and ask why the chair was invented.
Secondly, you don’t need any equipment, mantras, incense, fancy bells, apps, or even a quiet room. In fact, all you need is: a chair, your body, some air, your mind – and that’s it.
Try this little mindfulness exercise with me.
1) Sit on a straight-backed chair. Place your feet flat on the floor (with your spine one inch from the back of the chair). Be comfortable (with a relaxed but straight back). Place your hands loosely in your lap. Close your eyes.
2) Focus your mind on the breath as it flows in and out. Feel the sensations the air makes as it flows in through your mouth or nose and into your lungs. Feel the rising & falling of your chest and stomach.
3) Where are the strongest feelings? Nose, mouth, throat, stomach, chest, shoulders? Pay attention and explore the feelings, especially the way they rise and fall. Don’t try to alter them in any way or expect anything special to happen.
4) When your mind wanders, bring it back to the breath. Be kind to yourself. Minds wander. It’s what they do. Realising that your mind has wandered and bringing it back to the breath IS the meditation. It’s a little moment of mindfulness.
5) Your mind may eventually become calm for a little while…. or filled with thoughts or feelings such as anger, stress, or love. These may be fleeting. See them as clouds in the sky (simply watch them drift past). Try not to change anything. Gently return your awareness back to the sensations of the breath again and again.
6) After five minutes (or longer if you can manage) gently open your eyes and take in what you can see, hear, feel and smell…
As that short meditation will have begun to reveal, your breath is the greatest asset you have. It’s naturally meditative and always with you. It reflects your most powerful emotions and allows you to either soothe or harness them. It helps you to feel solid, whole, and in complete control of your life while grounding you in the present moment, clarifying the mind, and unshackling your instincts.
The art of breathing kindles a sense of wonder, of awe, and curiosity — the very foundations of a happier and more meaningful life. It grants you the courage to accept yourself with all of your faults and failings. To treat yourself with the kindness, empathy and compassion that you truly need, and helps you to look outwards and embrace the world.
And when you do this, you’ll discover the secret to living mindfully.
You can find out more in my new book The Art Breathing: The secret to living mindfully. Jon Kabat-Zinn describes it as ‘A marvellously beautiful and sensitive book.’
‘This book is inspiring. Against a backdrop of beautiful art, Danny Penman’s gentle words explain clearly how breathing, known since ancient times as the foundation for living mindfully, can become, for any of us, a way to reclaim our lives.’ Mark Williams, Emeritus Professor of Clinical Psychology, University of Oxford.
Sometimes you receive one single message that makes writing a book worthwhile. This is just such a message:
“Good Morning Dr. Williams and Dr. Penman
I feel like your programme was designed specifically for me. You couldn’t have made a more accurate treatment designed specifically for me and the predicament which I found myself in.
See, I am a stutterer. And thus meaning every speaking situation used to be a feared and dreadful situation, until I finally retreated to within my shell and enclosed myself from the world. I escaped from speaking situations like an ostrich would stick his head into the ground, in this way I retreated into my thoughts whilst I would be talking to someone. The anxiety became unbearable.
It became so bad that it crept into my private life and when I was on my own as well. I was stuck in this closed loop of ever repeating self-criticism and negative thoughts for what seemed like an eternity. I was jealous of people being able to talk fluently which would lead to further self-criticism. There was no escape.
But then I started your MBCT course. During the first week of starting your course one of my friends was sick in hospital and asked me to come and visit him. When I returned to work after seeing him, I had an overwhelming feeling of sympathy. Out of nowhere and for the first time in my life I could feel someone else’s pain. The reason being that I was no longer in my head, I was no longer enmeshed in my own problems. I suddenly started to cry. It was the most wonderful feeling I have ever had.
Since then I have discovered that I am an extremely creative person. I have started to write poems for no apparent reason, just because I want to. I love being creative! And what’s more my stutter is starting to dissolve. I no longer feel anxiety when I speak to people and my stammer is improving each day. I have truly discovered a jounevoire for life.
I cannot thank you enough. If it wasn’t for your amazing scientific discoveries I would still be hiding away in my room stuck in a negative, self-defeating closed loop of thoughts. You have saved my life in more ways than one.
May all the good things that possibly can, come to you
Many, many good wishes
Willem”
What can I say other than we’re truly delighted to have helped?
In case you missed this first time around, here’s the BBC Breakfast ‘special’ on mindfulness meditation. BBC Culture Correspondent David Sillito tries out a mindfulness course and finds it transformative. He even has his brain scanned before and after the course to see if it made an objective difference. And it did. I appear after about 7 mins. Very interesting programme.
