One Minute Meditation

Written by on November 22, 2011

Even if you have have a regular meditation practice (and if you don’t, I highly recommend that you cultivate one), you will find at times, in the hustle and bustle of life, yourself being swept away, distracted, harassed and flustered.

At times like this I have developed a “one minute meditation” (although, in reality it can be anything from 10 seconds to five minutes or more depending on time available and your needs), to ground myself back in the present moment and stop being swept away by it.

It is the psychic equivalent of “switching it off and switching back on again” that you do with your PC when it gets all clogged up and grinds to a halt or develops glitches.

Here it is in simple steps for you to follow if you find yourself being swept away:

(Read through it and practice it a few times when you have some time to focus and concentrate on it, before you do it out in the “real world”)

1. Stand or sit up straight, imagine a thread running from the crown of your head, holding you up like a marionette.

2. Scan your body for any areas of tension, and consciously relax them, if you want wiggle and shake out the areas, shrug your shoulders, etc. Pay particularly attention to your jaw and shoulders. This is where we tend to hold most tension.

3. If standing, soften your knees, so they are not locked. If sat in a chair, move forward so your back is not supported. Roll your hips forward slightly so that you have a slight, natural arch in your lower back.

4. Move your focus of attention to your centre (approximately your belly button), and sink into your hips. Rock your hips back and forth if you need to balance them.

5. Move the place you are watching the world from to the centre of your brain, away from your forebrain where all the chatter goes on. Look through your eyes as if you are looking out of windows.

6. Take a full breath, imagining you are breathing in and out through your centre. As you breath out make the effort to breath out any lingering tension in your body.

7. If appropriate and useful, as you breath in focus on a word or image that illustrates, to you, the mental and emotional state you want to be in at this moment in time. It could be simply “Grace”, or “Calm”, or a more vivid and complex image.

Warning: This can be quite a powerful process if you do it right and it is not uncommon for people to feel a little “odd” and dizzy when they get it right, so I suggest, for the first few times at least, that you are sitting down.

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The Eye of the Storm: Remaining Calm in a Hectic Environment

Written by on December 7, 2010

The Christmas festive period is upon us, which means that suddenly people appear from everywhere and clutter the shops, roads malls and town centres, making even a simple errand 10 times more difficult and time consuming.

It is easy being “tortoise-minded” and embrace the slow philosophy, psychology and lifestyle if you stay out of the way and live like a hermit. But that isn’t really what Slow is about, if you cannot be slow in a hectic environment then you are not really being “Slow” you are just avoiding.

So, how can you remain calm centred and unflustered in a hectic, busy and chaotic environment? Try this simple, on the fly mediation that you can do anywhere at any time (just try not to get in anyone’s way, you have to stand still for about 30 seconds!).

Centre yourself in your body, sink into your hips, lengthen your spine and stand up straight (imagine you are being pulled up by a thread attached to the crown of your head), focus on your breathing and make the conscious effort to relax on the out breath. This step only needs to take five seconds.

Now imagine you are watching yourself out of the top of your head (so you are looking down on yourself, go as high as you need to get the right perspective), see yourself as the centre of the storm of people around you. You are still, grounded and calm, everyone else is spinning round you at high speed, hectic and flustered.

Once you have spent a few moments doing that (you can do it with your eyes open or closed, depends on the situation), come back into your body, re-centre and focus on the sense of serene calm that you have created. Look around and allow yourself to smile at the throng of people around you. Repeat the mantra (in your head) “I am the calm centre of the storm raging around me” (or something similar).

Now when you start moving through the crowd, rather than getting sucked into the melee, you are the calm centre and that storm is rage around you.

With a bit of practice you will be able to hold this state for as long as you need, and the odd thing I have found is, when I am in the push and shove of the crowd, if I remain in the calm centred state, people seem to move out of my way!

I wish you all the best in remaining calm and unflustered in this hectic season!

Matt

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How to be Slow in a Fast Environment

Written by on November 25, 2008

crowded-train-strange-picturesGood morning,

Well, last week was all very hectic.

The weekend before I had spent in London, we had gone down to see “Monkey: Journey to the West”.

London really is the antithesis a Cittaslow (a Cittaslow is a Slow Town or City), it is all hustle and bustle, rush and non-stop, crowded and selfish. Everyone looks through you.

After about 5 minutes in that place I can find myself getting all agitated! I can see why people act like zombies, it’s defence mechanism, they cannot cope with the speed and the pace of the place.

So, what can you do? Can you be Slow in a fast environment?

Well, remember Slow isn’t actually about being slow, as in crawling around and being dim witted. Slow is a first and foremost a mindset, a philosophy, an attitude.  This then leads to a method of slowing your life down and practical ways to do that (which is often unique to the individual, even though many of the principles are the same…).

So, as long as you have the mindset in place you can be Slow pretty much anywhere. Almost. No one is perfect (I admit to a minor rant whilst driving the day – it’s cathartic alright?!).

The mindset can be defined as being mindful (paying attention), unflustered and unhurried, centred.

I am going to focus, on this post on being centred. As I think it really is the key to managing your “slowness” when all around you in speeding along.

It is something that I have learned through martial arts and meditations. Particularly the Taoist style. Itr is used a lot in Tai Chi (the slowest martial art of them all…!).

It is very easy to do and practice, and will improve your state of mind, focus and posture.

So, what you do is this: You centre. Easy huh? How do you find your centre? It is 2 finger widths below and in from your belly button. Get two fingers of one of your hands and hold them width wise below your belly button, take one finger from your other hand and press gently. That is your centre.

If you focus on it, breath from it (imagine your nose is at that point if it helps – breathing is very important, so I will come back to that in a later post) and move from it, you will find that you will be less flustered by the rush going on outside (and inside your head too – it slows down those anxious “what if?” panicky thoughts…)

For best results. Aim to make all your moves and thoughts from this point. Start simply by focusing on it whenever you can, after a while you will just start to naturally work form there as a starting point. Then, when you find yourself getting flustered you can just gently move your attention there…

Incidentally, the new slowplanet.com is up and is an excellent place to mean other slow-minded people and learn more about Slow in all it’s forms(I have no affiliation!)

SC  

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