This time I thought I would write about some of the themes that have been present with both myself and those I have been working with as we have travelled that path to Christmas and midwinter once again. If you want to skip ahead to the top tips for keeping your practice going over the festive season, and some meditations for winter, then scroll down to the last section.
So how do we avoid being dragged into a frenzy we may not want or enjoy? Historically, midwinter was a time of going within, a quiet, contemplative time of year when the earth rested and we took advantage of the darker days to rest and recover; to take stock of the year and plan ahead. Spiritually it was a chance to re-connect with the soul and our ancestors.
It could hardly be further from the experience most of us have encountered over the last few weeks and will do for the next week at least.
Maybe the January blues is less to do with the weather and due more to the sudden lack of distraction, noise and driven-doing we’ve all been involved in. When it all stops, what is left?
One of the themes I have been working with lately is boredom. Boredom comes along with frustration, pointlessness and annoyance but it is incredibly useful. I believe we all need to be bored more often. Boredom is what prompts us to be creative, how many parents bemoan the fact that children no longer play the imaginary games of previous generations because they are constantly distracted? We complain that children don’t get the chance to get bored. But maybe we don’t give ourselves that chance either? Maybe we have mastered the art of keeping busy, distracting ourselves, so that we don’t have to stop and think, recognise, ponder. But do we also lose the chance to stop and wonder? Jon Kabat-Zinn says “When you pay attention to boredom it gets unbelievably interesting.”
A study by Killingsworth and Gilbert (2010) used a quarter of a million samples taken from 5000 people in 83 countries to study happiness and found that we are most happy when our minds are not wandering, when we are fully focused on whatever we are engaged in in the present moment. Bockarova (2016) also found that the more we distract ourselves with technology for example (constantly moving our attention from one distracting stimulus to another) the more likely the mind is to wander. To quote Killingsworth and Gilbert, ‘a wandering mind is an unhappy mind’.
Maybe we need to allow ourselves the chance to get bored, to notice the mundane and how unbelievably interesting it actually is. To take a few moments to stop every now and then so that when all the fuss dies down we don’t experience a sudden sea change that we aren’t prepared for. So that we can truly live each moment over the festive season; and in so doing, truly live our life as it really is.
Top tips:
Remember to be patient with yourself, if you have to miss or shorten a meditation then so be it. If you truly want to develop your meditation practice you will get back to it when you can.
Use regular mindful moments as often as you can – notice what your body is experiencing with beginner’s mind.
Treat everything as if you have never seen, heard, tasted, smelled it before and see what you notice.
Spend time with young children and learn from them how to notice things, let them dawdle on a walk and ask them what they can show you that you may have missed otherwise.
Get fresh air and try some walking meditations – repeating a simple mantra as you walk for 10 minutes or so is a wonderful form of meditation.
As we give and receive gifts maybe we can give ourselves and those we care about the best present, which is actually the present. Being fully present with ourselves and those we love.
Here are some short practices that you may find useful over the next week or so
Receiving meditations:
Just a few minutes each day noticing what you have received without asking and allowing a sense of gratitude (maybe that warm shower, a cup of tea, a smile or a treat). Our ears, eyes, mouth and skin are receiving daily so just allowing ourselves to receive with open awareness can help develop a sense of grace and gratitude so that we appreciate those many small things we take for granted whilst obsessing about the one thing we didn’t get that we wanted.
Giving meditations:
Loving Kindness is an obvious place to start; we can give this to others and to ourselves, but it’s not always easy. If you are finding it hard to practice compassion just start with the intention of being kind to yourself and others. This can be as simple as breathing in with the intention of kindness, and then adding the thought ‘may I be well and happy’. You can then try breathing out ‘may you be well and happy’. This is a powerful meditation to use when we are struggling with a difficult relationship (or relation); one of those things we find we can’t avoid over Christmas. It is sometimes easier to practise with a small child in mind, or a pet, wherever we start we practice with patience for ourselves.
Candle meditations:
Again, this is about intention. We are surrounded by candles so just take a mindful moment when lighting one: notice the absence of light and then the light arriving, the shape of the flame and the brightness. You can try a deep breath as you light the candle while thinking of a word that describes what you need as you breathe out (for example, peace or calm). Just thinking the word as you breathe out has a noticeable effect and can be just the break we need to prevent a difficult thought becoming a difficult emotion.
Mindful eating and drinking:
We may be doing a lot of this so we may as well make the most of it and use it as part of our practice! Before eating we can take a breath, it doesn’t need to be anything different or special, but just one that we notice. We then look at our food and appreciate its appearance, the time someone took to create it or serve it, and then try and use all our senses one by one to really engage in that mouthful. It may be a bit over ambitious to try more than one mouthful per meal but that one moment can be life changing.
Remember every time we stop and bring awareness to what we are doing we are truly present, we are less likely to experience wandering and more likely to experience happiness and empathy, which brings its own form of joy even when we enter someone else’s sadness with them as they feel the loss of loved ones more keenly.
So however, wherever and with whomever you spend the festive period I wish you a time of joy, and the chance to truly live as many of those moments as you can. May you be well, may you be happy, may all good things come to you.
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