Category: Reflections

Living with technology

Spend some time with your journal. Reflect on your own relationship with the digital. Write down your thoughts. How attached are you to your gadgets? How much of the day are they in sight, sound and reach? How often do you check them? How uncomfortable do you feel if you do not have them, or […]

Curiouser and curiouser

When you are talking with someone you know really well, that you talk to often, try each time to notice something about them that you have not noticed before: their appearance, manner of speaking, apparent state of mind, interests, anything. Talk to them about it or, if that is too much of a leap, write […]

Loving kindness

Begin as you did for the focus reflection, to the point where you are noticing the differences between one breath and the next. When you are settled, place one hand over your heart, and the other on your belly, the knuckle of your thumb just on your navel. Feel the warmth, the comfort it gives, […]

Curiosity

Spend some time with your journal. Bring to mind a conversation you have had in the past, perhaps one that did not go as well as you had hoped. Try and recall the questions you asked. Write them down. Reflect on how else you might have asked the same questions: turning why into how, and […]

RAIN

Begin as you did for the focus meditation, to the point where you are noticing the differences between one breath and the next. When you are settled, let go of the focus on your breath, and either bring to mind something that has been troubling you, or just be aware of whatever demands your conscious […]

Awareness

Begin as you did for the reflection on focus, to the point where you are noticing the differences between one breath and the next. When you are settled, let go of the focus on your breath, and just be aware of whatever comes into your consciousness. If nothing comes, silently ask yourself, ‘What next?’ If […]

Focus

Find somewhere quiet where you will not be disturbed. Apart from your (not too intrusive) timer, leave your tech out of sight, sound and reach. Make yourself comfortable. Set you timer for your chosen period, and set it going. If this is new for you, start at maybe 5 or 10 minutes a day and […]

Perspective taking

Find somewhere quiet where you will not be disturbed. Other than your (not too intrusive) timer, leave your tech out of sight, sound and reach. Make yourself comfortable for the next 25 minutes or so. Set your timer for 10 minutes. Look straight ahead. Do not focus on anything in particular. Just try and maintain […]

Confidants

Write down the names of the people in your life that you are most comfortable being around. What is it about them that makes you feel at ease around them? Who are the people in your life you are less comfortable being around? Perhaps people who criticise everything you do, or are always trying to […]

Daydreaming

Try and make time each day to let your mind just get on and do its own thing. No headphones. No phone, even on ‘vibrate’. No tablet. No PC. No TV. Just sit quietly and let your mind go. Do not focus. Do not think. Just enjoy the show. If it helps to close your […]

Mental time travel

Several times during the course of the day, take a few seconds to check in with your ‘mental TARDIS’. Are you in the here and now, observing? Or are you some time in the past, remembering? Or off in some possible future, imagining? Maybe you are somewhere that has no sense of time about it […]

Sensory awareness

Several times during the course of the day, try to make time – 30 seconds perhaps, no more than a minute – to check in with your senses. Without turning your head, what can you see? What can you hear? Smell? Taste? Feel? What sensations do you experience in your muscles? Your joints? Your bones? […]