Being kind to yourself- a story

 This month I have been receiving a daily email from Shamash Alidina (here ) and it has been a great point of focus during the working week to read the email and take a few moments.  

Moving forward this is something that I may do on the blog- a weekly update perhaps with a meditation. I will work on that idea...

In the meantime, I would like to share the story that Shamash sent out last week as it's been one that has resonated particularly well for me trying not to let the old impersonator syndrome come to the surface as a newbie at work.

Enjoy

***

Once upon a time there was a water bearer who carried two pots of water to his teacher each day.

Each day he would walk to the nearest stream, fill both pots with water, and walk back, one pot on each side of a pole he carried across his neck.

One pot was cracked, and so by the time the water bearer reached his teacher, it was only half full.

This continued for two years, with the water bearer only bringing one and a half pots of water.

The perfect pot was proud of its achievements.

The cracked pot was sad that it could only do half the job it was supposed to do.

One day, the cracked pot said to the water bearer, ‘I feel so upset and ashamed. I’m imperfect and I can’t hold a full pot of water. What use am I to anyone?’

The water bearer told the cracked pot to look on the ground as he carried it.

The cracked pot noticed the most beautiful wild flowers and plants on its side of the path.

The water bearer explained, ‘When I realised you were cracked, I decided to plant seeds on one side of the path, and every day, as you leak, you water that side of the path.

If you weren’t cracked, these gorgeous flowers wouldn’t be here for all to enjoy.’

Moral of the Story: Sometimes you may think you’re not perfect, or your mindfulness practise is not perfect, but how do you know?

This story goes to show that even a cracked pot can be seen as perfect just as it is.

In the same way, you’re perfect just the way you are, with all your imperfections – they’re what make you unique.

So, thank you for being a cracked pot!

***

How to be mindful in three steps

 

©  Charlie Mackesy

I love this quote from The boy, The mole,The fox and the horse . So much so that I have a T shirt with this on. 

Three steps to mindfulness:

1) Be kind 

2) Be kind 

3) Be kind 

By being kind to our friends and family (quite easy); to ourselves (harder) and to strangers,the wider world and even those who may have wronged us (harder still) we are recognising that observed, considered  responses can bring calm, peace, joy; they can de-escalate a situation; they're the antithesis to drama .

And it can be contagious. 

Discovering there's more than I realised to mindfulness

 'Mindfulness? That's just colouring and switching off your mind isn't it?'

'Like counselling but without any actual science or research-based practise isn't it?'

'Bit modern and really not my thing at all.'

A few things that I have heard. 

It's hard to sum up mindfulness in a way that doesn't diminish it. Yes it is about being present, yes it is about being tuned into feelings. Yes to being empathetic, kind and listening. Yes to being non-judgemental.

All these and so much more.  Being kind, showing empathy, being authentic being curious, appreciating life, self, others. Being kind.  These are some of the underpinning aspects. 

Being kind to oneself, showing self-compassion. Bit of a game changer in many ways. SO easy to blame oneself, berate oneself, criticise oneself.  

It's ok to big yourself up- to take a look in the mirror and tell yourself that you are going to have a fab day, and when the day doesn't go so well say that you gave it a good go.

So much more than 'put on a brave face' , 'chin-up' and other often less than helpful phrases.

Acknowledgement goes a lot lot further. Today has been pretty shocking. I am not feeling great about it. I could just not bother tomorrow. All these are totally valid thoughts. Naming, recognising and noticing them. Taking time to process, talk them through or go for a walk, listen to music, make a noise, sing, go for a run.  We all have different ways to redirect energy. 

It's not about parking thoughts, ignoring them or forgetting the past. It's about riding it out. 

I love the film 'Parenthood' and especially this gem from the Grandma:

Grandma's thoughts on life

Ups and downs, highs and lows, happy and sad. All part of life. But I know which parts  I want to focus on. 

Tiny steps on a mindful journey

 Compassionate mindfulness

This was the name of the course that we had all been signed up to take part in. I am not going to go through each stage of it here because that would be disrrespectful to the course leaders, but I will attempt to give a flavour of the first session.

**Breathing exercise to focus the group**

**Some background to what mindfulness is- there are a LOT of definitions and different teachers have their favourites. Suffice to say it is a lot more than 'living in the moment' . It certainly is NOT about 'emptying the mind' and it's not a religion.**  This particular course was mostly based on the work of John Kabat-Zinn

Check this webpage for bios of some other leading mindfulness gurus https://themindfulsteward.com/mindfulness/16-of-the-most-respected-mindfulness-teachers-of-modern-day/ 

**some background to research and how brain activity can be positively affected by regular mindfulness practises**

**A guided meditation**

And before you knew it the time had passed.  

Did it feel strange being in my workplace, with colleagues trying to be relaxed. Yes of course, but very quickly the whole point of just accepting that each feeling came and went, each thought came and went and actually allowing oneself to just have some quiet time was pretty fabulous in itself.  

The big takeaway from the first session was to allow yourself to take some time for yourself. I can hear you shouting at the screen right now, but please bear with.  Just a couple of minutes to stop, take a deep breath, let it out. Repeat. And then move back to whatever it was you were doing.

STOP- stop, take a breath, observe and proceed.

OK that wasn't too bad, still had a list of things to do but went home at the end of the day feeling far more energised than I had been at the start of the day.

Next post will explore the next part of the journey on self compassion. If you would like to read up on this before I post I have recently read this and found it to resonate with me. Check it out https://www.mindful.org/the-transformative-effects-of-mindful-self-compassion/ 

Mindfulness? Isn't that just a bit trendy and 'pop-sciencey'?

 If you had asked me what my opinions and thoughts were around mindfulness a few years ago I would have come up with a list something along the lines of:

trendy

a bit like yoga without the moving

colouring

emptying the mind

not for me

another passing fad

You get the idea. To be perfectly honest it wasn't something that I had given a huge amount of thought to. It wasn't something that came up in my family or social circles, it wasn't something that was considered to be especially relevant at work. In a nutshell it wasn't something that I thought would be for me.

My work situation changed and I started to consider alternative career paths. After various conversations, I started an introduction to counselling course.  At the same time it was suggested at work that we would devote a big chunk of our allocated CPD time to a mindfulness course. To give a little context to this - the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns had just come to an end (the lockdowns anyway had ended) and awareness of mental health , wellbeing across the world was pretty much at the forefront of everyone's thoughts.

I was feeling fairly uninspired by the idea of having to spend a day followed by a series of after work sessions on mindfulness; I found it hard at this point to see beyond the irony of mindfulness and being at work. However, it was certainly something that sounded more interesting than some of the 57,000 slide presentations that one has to sit through sometimes ( sorry, I am prone to exaggeration at times but you get the idea)

The dates were set. Compassionate mindfulness. Here goes...

My next post will continue the journey. I am not going to get all evangelical about things, that's not my style (not even sure that I have a style!) but it's a journey that I am so happy to have started and three years down the line feel that it's one to keep on exploring and learning from.

KINDNESS

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I often talk to my class about the importance of being kind to each other- as Year 6s they are super confident being the oldest in the school, but before long they will be the little ones again in the secondary school where the friendships made at primary school are so important for those first few days in particular.

There are so many things we have to teach to our children, but in my opinion kindness is one of the most important. What a wonderful world we would live in if everyone was kind :)