Use STOP to Start being mindful

STOP practice

This is a really useful technique and one I regularly pass onto my clients. It’s doable and can help break those patterns of thinking that just grow and grow into mythical places which just pull us down. Mythical places as we have just created them using our minds. Again I urge you to take back choice and realise you have choice to choose where you want your mind to reside in a mythical, worry, downer place or just in the now, what’s here now, free of all attachments and if, buts, maybes, etc. What serves you best, I wonder?

STOP is a reminder so you can use this regardless of where you are and who you are with, at any time it’s free for you. To stop and choose.

S is for just stop whenever you find, notice, become aware you are feeling uncomfortable, rushed, stressed, irritated, frustrated all those or just one of those feelings that just build and build.

Take an even deep breath in notice your breath going in through your nose and then out through your nose.

O observe that breath going in through your nose and out through your nose.

P is for pause, just for a moment and notice your feelings and/or thoughts. Just notice then and imagine you are separate.

Mindfulness Daily Practice

Using STOP is an excellent way to start your daily mindfulness practice habit.

I belong to a mindfulness group and one thing you can be sure of everyone is struggling to keep up a mindfulness meditation practice. However, myself and my clients all find it much, much easier to build in mindfulness based moments, minutes to enable the benefit of mindfulness into our life. I do practice meditation and am definitely not against it. At the very least a session will allow me to practice how to ‘sit with’ discomfort. So even if you are fearful or resistant to meditation just try a few moments or minutes and build up from there.

A One Minute Mindful Meditation for you

It is very, very easy, I promise. It’s about sitting, and following the movement of your breath in and out of your body through your nose. Every time your mind wonders, which it will, just notice and direct it back. That’s it! Try it for a few breaths now, this minute. At the very least you’ll practice directing your mind back to the breath at least once or twice even during a one minute meditation. The power is in the noticing and directing of your mind. Forget this idea you clear your mind, remember if your mind is blank, you’re dead, brutal but true.