Becoming more Mindful

  1. “I never came upon any of my discoveries through the process of rational thinking.” Albert Einstein
  2. “The true aim of everyone who aspires to be a teacher should be, not to impart his /her own opinion, but to kindle minds.” Frederick W Robertson
  3. Mindfulness exercise for Children: Ask the child to draw a picture of any object. Remind them that the activity is not focused on their ability to draw. The child should then spend time looking at the actual object, paying attention to smaller and smaller details. Then draw the object again. Compare the drawings and ask the child to identify the details missing from the first drawing that they remembered in the second. The second drawing will be more accurate and life like. Ask the child what they experienced when taking the time to really look at the object and all its details that otherwise would have been overlooked. (David Fontana and Ingrid Slak – Teaching Meditation to Children)
  4. “The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgement, character and will. An education which should improve this faculty would be the education par excellence. But it is easier to define this ideal than to give practical instructions for bringing it about.” William James
  5. Even if you are very busy. Stop what you are doing and look around the room. Focus on something you’ve never really noticed before for 1 minute. Consciously allow your shoulders to soften, be here now. Relax, now enjoy what you were doing before.
  6. “Mindfulness meditation, especially when it is understood as being a way of living life as if it really mattered, moment by moment, rather than merely as a technique is one powerful vehicle for realising such transformative and healing possibilities.” John Kabat-Zinn
  7. “If you try to calm the mind, it only makes it worse, but over time it does calm and when it does, there’s room to hear more subtle things – that’s when your intuition starts to blossom and you start to see things more clearly and be in the present more. Your mind just slows down and you see a tremendous expanse in the moment. You see so much more than you could see before. It’s a discipline, you have to practise it.” Steve Jobs
  8. “Mindfulness is a very simple form of meditation that was little known in the West until recently. A typical meditation consists of focusing your full attention on your breath as it flows in and out of your body. Focusing on each breath in this way allows you to observe your thoughts as they arise in your mind and little by little to let go of struggling with them.” Professor Mark Williams
  9. “Mindfulness is simply being aware of what is happening right now without wishing it were different; enjoying the pleasant without holding on when it changes (which it will) being with the unpleasant without fearing it will always be this way (which it won’t)” James Baraz