“If you can’t control your mouth, there’s no way you can hope to control your mind.”

- Buddhist Teaching

Is being mindful of your speech simply a means to appear more attractive or become a more likable, friendly character, or does the way we speak reflect certain things about our mental activity? Can this also be used, just as we use the breath in meditation, as a tool to realign and sharpen our mind? Careless chatter may be less harmless than you think and improving it may add significantly more to your interactions and your life than you know.

In practicing mindfulness of speech there are four major categories of verbal interaction that are generally aimed to be avoided: misrepresentation of the truth, intent of creating rifts between people, intent of inflicting harm on another’s feelings, and purposeless or idle chatter.

The focus in all of the above is the intent of the speech, the motivation and reason for saying what you say, as words are only a means of transferring an idea and if we wish to use speech as a tool to sharpen the mind then we need to get to the root of ill-intended speech, the intent behind it. We need to assess why we say what we say. Being aware of the intent of our speech is how we better connect with the activity of our mind, another gateway to allows us to remove the impurities that lie deep within our egotistical mind

Not only does this practice obviously contribute immediately to your understanding and awareness of yourself but your speech will also become aligned with positive intent. This positive intent will produce far more harmonious and purposeful speech which immediately contributes to the experience of those around you with whom you interact. Your words inevitably become a gift to others and you will soon see the immense power that lies within them. This is a huge part of how we are constantly shaping our experience and an opportunity to free our actions in the present from pain and confusion in the past.

Within every one of our interactions, actions, words and thoughts lies infinite potential and opportunity. Every moment can be spent shaping a brighter experience for us and all those around us.

Let us not wait any longer.

May everyone find more of the happiness that lies within them each day,
Craig

The Huffington Post article, entitled "Why Generation Y Yuppies are Unhappy", which is certainly worth a read, irked me in a way that took a couple of days to figure out. If you haven't read it, do so now, because there is a ton of food-for-thought within. It has done the rounds, and seems to have grabbed the attention of us Generation Y'ers. 

The article paints the picture of a disillusioned Generation Y Lucy, who has, essentially due to the environment she grew up in, developed an unjustified sense of self-importance and uniqueness, and has expectations for her life that are beyond reasonable. This is, on the whole, a fair concept and most likely applies to a large enough portion of Gen-Y to warrant an article like this. 

Two things, in particular, struck me from this article - firstly, it served as a reminder that 90% of Gen-Y are concerned with their own 'unicorn-on-top-of-the-lush-grass', and that their sense of self-worth and success are dependent on outward (predominantly materialistic) success... but that is another blog post in the making. I'd rather discuss the second highlight - that we aren't as unique as we think we are. In this, I fully agree with HuffPost.

Until we actually take the steps to separate ourselves from the pack, we are merely another head in the herd, moving in the general direction that our path takes us. In our quest for Mindfulness, we are quite literally trying to be instruments of a better world. Catalysts for positive change. Is anything achieved by saying this? Of course not - it only applies when we take these philosophies into the real world, practice them daily, perfect them. We speak of being more absorbent of negativity, more resilient, more focused and simply more present in each aspect of our lives. Unlike our outward circumstance, occupation, family and so on, these are things that we can actually control to a large extent. While all of life is dependent on many factors, the way we conduct ourselves is by far our greatest sphere of influence.

Being the best version of ourselves is what we owe to ourselves, whether that be in a Steve Jobs-like CEO position, fireman, teacher, student or advocate. I believe that we all have the power to be completely special, unique and dynamic within any role in society, not just as the world-beaters that the HuffPost assumes Gen-Y'ers are constantly aiming to be, yet failing to become. Simple choices,enabling us to be more mindful of our desires and actions, can make us twice the person with twice the impact we usually have. The HuffPost article speaks of expectations and happiness, and they really have something there.

Expectations and comparisons are always tearing us from the present moment - stripping us of the joy that we could be experiencing, blinding us to the opportunities that present themselves and stealing our energy that should be used in present moment tasks. This applies not only to moment-to-moment interactions, but also to the general life feeling that we carry around with us day to day. Too much attention on our future, or our past, and we are unhappy either way - always hoping for something more or wishing something had been different. 

Personally, I believe a life lived only to lay in lush grass with flowers and unicorns is missing an element of human compassion and understanding. I think that this expectation is flawed form the start, as Gen-Y'ers have no excuse for ignorance, no let-off for extravagance. Moving through this world mindfully means acknowledging the pain and suffering of those around you, and acknowledging where you tend to brush it aside. Many of the articles on success and 'bettering oneself' appear to merely be focused on the garnering of material comfort, and not necessarily on the impact one might have on society. 
 
This is by no means a memo against ambition - merely a reminder that happiness should come from more than just your surroundings and situations. It should come from a sense of purpose and strength that you carry with you, inside of you. We can all plan and aim for great things - indeed, things greater than the world has yet known - but to really enjoy the benefits of the life that we currently lead, we need to set our eyes on the now and put our hearts into what we do. Doing one or two things for the benefit of others alone wouldn't hurt either!

Mindful practice of positive characteristics, in each and every circumstance, is the key to present-moment happiness and is a sure-fire way to separate yourself from the pack. While the rest will be eyeballing each-other's Facebook profiles, comparing lives and living in a faint shadow of their expectations, you will be content in your reality, building the path forward piece by piece while being a light of compassion and joy for all those around you. 

Plan for the future, live in the now and separate yourself from the norm in all that you do. You'll feel as unique and special as you are meant to feel in no time! And it will be because of YOU, not what happens around you. 

Much love
Dean

Getting things done and doing what we say we'll do is a well known confidence booster. The feeling of success that it brings kicks off further victories, and sometimes we seem to just be on a roll. Sometimes though, when this train is derailed, its really hard to get it back on track.

This is particularly true of our meditation practice. When things get too much for us, we often think 'it isn't too bad if I skip this morning's session, right?'. Correct - missing a session or two will not make the world crumble around you, or throw you into a pit of uncontrollable thoughts. What it will do, however, is break your stride. Missing sessions weakens the resolve to get back into the swing of things, and just gets added to that pile of stress that made you miss in the first place! 

I don't think anyone has ever really regretted sitting down for a session of meditation. The relaxed, rejuvenated and confident feeling that one gets from sitting quietly and watching one's thoughts is intoxicating. We almost always rise stronger, more focused and with a more effective mindset. Although there are most certainly 'big' things and 'small' things, important victories and ones a little less so, a part of your mind can't tell the difference - it simply has a win/loss column. That's why seemingly tiny things build up and make us flip our lids, even when the big things are going well. So, admittedly, I would put meditation into the 'small' things category (dynamite in small packages, perhaps?), at least when compared to making rent, getting the kids to school on time, securing that deal etc. This makes it so very easy for most people, especially early in their practice, to let it come and go without really becoming a set part of their lives. 

The fact that it is small, however, can be used to your advantage. Thinking again of that win/loss column, you can easily chalk up two victories by penciling-in two 20 minute meditations a day. The commitment you need to stick with them, at first, may be a 'just get it done' mentality. Soon though, sticking to your word regarding your meditation practice will be second nature. As success breeds success, so do these feelings of self-efficacy flow into other parts of your life. Structure, commitment, and effectiveness grow as a habit, and also proportionately to how much you feed them. 

Choose a window for your practice, to give yourself some leeway, but then stick to it relentlessly for a week. Commit yourself, for example, to 10 minutes a day between 7-8 AM. No matter what, make that happen. Firstly, you'll have your first win for the day in the bag, and secondly you'll reap the benefits of a still, calm and energized mind! You'll find that once you get that train on track, it gets harder and harder to derail it.

Good luck and much love everyone!
Dean

What are emotions? Where do they come from? And why do we have them? These are necessary questions to ask if we wish to understand that space that is our consciousness any better. We have come to see that intelligence, or intellect, is only a part of the machine that is our mind and can actually account for very little when feelings hold sway. In this article I have drawn most of the information from the opening chapters of Emotional Intelligence by Daniel Goleman, and I highly recommend reading the book for anyone who wishes to understand this concept and many others that are related.

Emotions are believed to have become a part of our genetic blue print as a result of the long period of our history in which we were exposed to life threatening dangers on a constant basis, and the automatic reactions that accompany emotion would have meant the difference between survival and death. Of course this major aspect of the brain and mind did not simply dissolve once our environment began rapidly changing through the advancements of civilisation. The result is,

“…we too often confront postmodern dilemmas with an emotional repertoire tailored to the urgencies of the Pleistocene.”

Anger, fear, happiness, love, surprise, disgust and sadness all play a particular role and drive us to act and behave in certain ways. It is the combination of this emotional mind and the rational, logical mind that results in our thoughts and actions. There is a very definite relationship between the intensity of the feelings we experience and the magnitude of influence this emotional mind has. Over time reason and memory have developed to improve the way these emotions affect us, from being able to learn and adapt through to planning for future encounters. These developments allow for a vastly improved and broader range of possible actions to be driven by our feelings of affection or aversion.

An interesting finding over the past two decades is the power the amygdala has to take control over what we do before our thinking brain, the neocortex, arrives at a decision. This ‘hijacking’ has occurred to all of us and is responsible for those times we respond to a situation completely impulsively and later have a sense of having lost control over what we were doing and possibly even regret what we did. Our thinking brain was ‘overridden’ and rationality was momentarily inaccessible. This is largely possible due to the privileged position the amygdala holds regarding incoming information to the thalamus. Some information is conveyed directly to the amygdala over a single synapse whilst all necessary information is transmitted through several levels of brain circuits to the sensory processing areas of the neocortex for integration and perception. This is a part of the ‘sentinal’ role that the amygdala plays allowing the amygdala to receive some direct inputs from the senses and start a response before they are even fully registered by the neocortex. This gatekeeper role ensures that at the first hint of a threat, the mind and body are primed for an immediate and intense response. As in a life threatening situation those milliseconds could make all the difference.

The amygdala is constantly scanning our current experience, associatively comparing it to memories of similar experiences. Unfortunately what the amygdala considers to be a match may only have a very slight resemblance to a past experience.

“Thus a former army nurse, traumatized by the relentless flood of ghastly wounds she once tended in wartime, is suddenly swept with a mix of dread, loathing and panic - a repeat of her battlefield reaction triggered once again, years later, by the stench when she opens a closet door to find her toddler had stashed a stinking diaper there.”

Sometimes only a few very arbitrarily related elements are all that is necessary to drive the amygdala to signal a state of emergency. This imprecision is compounded by the fact that many very potent emotional memories date from the first few years of life, before the neocortex has even fully developed.

It would appear that the brain’s damper switch for the amygdala lies within the prefrontal cortex for all but the most intense emotional signals from the amygdala. The right prefrontal lobe is the seat of negative feelings with the left regulating those feelings through inhibition. Problems with either of the structures as well as their communicating fibres, due to anything from developmental issues to trauma, will result in the associated impairment of regulation and function.

It is thus clear that it is impossible to guarantee full control over the way we feel or respond to certain circumstances. Many feelings we experience and many reactions that we elicit are a result of processes that have little relevance to our current situation and override our ability to rationalise. Information like this makes it clear that no amount of determination is enough to change the way we interact with the world around us, many hours have to be spent rewiring the way the brain processes incoming information. In the future I will go into the effects of meditation on these emotional processes so stay tuned.