Hot on the heels of the launch of the all party parliamentary group on Mindfulness, Kate Griffiths has written an article showing why it it is only a matter of time before mindfulness is taught in schools. Using Carl Rogers’ maxim of what is most personal is universal, the article that follows is a true story.
This week I want to share a very personal story because it is a great illustration of how mindfulness works, why it is growing in popularity and why I incorporate it into my own programmes. It will also show you the power of the work that I do and give you ideas on how you can apply mindfulness as a tool in your own life.
Let’s face it you have probably had plenty of OMG moments and one thing that is guaranteed is that you will have many more. Wouldn’t it be great to have tools in your back pocket that gave you greater resilience so that the next time you got bitten on the bum you would be able to bounce back far more quickly?
A little while ago, I found myself in a position where I needed to be away from my two young children for five days and nights. That was a long time for me as quite a hands on parent and it felt like ages to my six year old who, in Aron’s words, is a highly sensitive child. The only good thing was that I had one afternoon with them in the middle of this where I got to put them to bed then work for an evening before heading off again.
I first realised there was a problem when I picked up the girls from school. The little one seemed to be holding her shoulders at a funny angle. We went home and played and I even spent quite a while doing some healing on her as she relaxed lying down on top of me. I mentioned it to their lovely nanny, who fortunately is also a reiki master and could use her healing hands too.
Everything started to unravel a bit the following morning over breakfast in the hotel. I was talking to some of my colleagues who started discussing the pre-course videos they had watched. I had not received any. I felt my first sense of concern which increased when I discovered there was some pre-course work to do that I had not received either. As soon as I got into the training room, I mentioned it and was given the exercise to complete during registration. Then my phone rang, it was my eldest daughter. I was slightly concerned as she told me that Daddy, who was also away, had not rung and they had rung all the grandparents. What was up I thought? Taking a breath, I listened and it seemed that they just wanted to check in with folk and the other calls explained why I had not been able to get through earlier.
Time was ticking and I still had not completed the exercise I needed for the first session and the guy who had lent me his laptop to watch the accompanying video needed it back. Then the main man, the client really, decided at that moment to start a conversation with me. He was fascinating but another ten minutes disappeared. I went back to creating a piece of art, never my strong point, and one of my new colleagues popped by and said that A4 was not large enough that everyone else had done theirs on a piece of flipchart. Another breath and I started again trying to find pens that I could use on a flip that were not just black, blue and red. And then we were off into the whirl of the day.
I thought that that was it in terms of nasty surprises that day; little did I know what was going to happen later. Later than usual I called home to check on my family. My youngest answered and remembering that they had planned to spend the afternoon in the park, I asked her if she had a good time there. She burst into floods of tears and said they had not even gone to the park and that she was in so much pain she would never walk again. For a split second I felt the tug on my heartstrings and then realised I could help her feel better straight away. Fortunately I do breathing exercises with her regularly so I was able to start doing them with her over the phone. Using those types of mindfulness exercises I was able to get her to relax and within 20 minutes she was virtually asleep. Later in the week I took her to see a cranial osteopath who said she had experienced a mechanical twist that normally she would have shaken off but because she missed us so much, the power of her emotions had kept the twist trapped in her energy field, and the pain increased.
This is the kind of thing that can happen when you don’t listen to your body. Mindfulness techniques help you get out of your head and feel what’s happening in your body. Ultimately it puts you more in touch with who you are and helps strengthen your intuitive capabilities too. If you feel you could benefit from this kind of work then come and join us for the next mindfulness day on 22 May. Contact us here to book your place.
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Kate Griffiths works with individuals and business owners to create more ease and flow in their lives. Clients include conscious business owners and leaders who recognise that the old paradigm way of doing things does not work and want support in determining what the new ways of doing business look like. She is passionate about creating conversations that lead to change and has developed her own process to do that called connection through conversation. Last chance to book on the next mindfulness day on 22 May. Contact us here to book your place.
Its like you read my mind! You appear to know a lot about this, like you wrote the book in it or something.
I think that you could do with a few pics too drive
the message home a littpe bit, but instead of that, this is excellent blog.
An excellent read. I’ll definitely be back.