Me and Mindfulness

Two weeks ago I started an eight week Mindfulness course. Mindfulness, as the quote suggests, is all about living for the here and now, and 'showing up' for your life rather than hankering after, or mourning the past or living your life in a future that hasn't even happened yet.

I can confidently say that much of my life for the last two years, at least, has been spent worrying about the future and my uncertain fertility issues and working so hard at work that my life just 'happened' and I didn't even notice it pass me by.

It wasn't until September 2013 that I took a step back and reassessed my working life. I was trying to do so much at work and take on so many different responsibilities, and all the time I said 'yes' the boss just kept piling on the work. I was trying to prove something to myself. I had told myself that as a 30-something successful female, I needed to work hard and do as much as I could in my career simply because I didn't have a family of my own. I felt that because I didn't have a family yet I had no right to work less or take time out from my career.

I watched countless amounts of female colleagues leave their jobs to have their families or cut their working hours and the resentment I felt towards them was eating me up. I hated that feeling. It took months of counselling to realise that the only person who could change anything was...ME. So, I finally wrote a letter to my boss, resigning from all my positions of responsibilities and I decided from that day that I would look after ME. I realised that my mental and physical health was important enough to be put first over the demands of my job, of any job in fact. Of course, it meant a pay cut and an adjustment in other areas of my life but it was certainly the best decision I have ever made.

So back to Mindfulness; I suppose my real interest in Mindfulness does stem from the day that I made the decision to put myself first. Furthermore, the heartache, uncertainty and stress of infertility led me also to realise that actually, in life, there will always be difficult situations to deal with and that I needed to develop better coping mechanisms.

I started to think that I could use my mind in a more positive way. I know that my mind has been used to create the most terrifying scenarios and has made me feel so rubbish, that surely these powerful, negative thoughts could, with training and practice, be turned into powerful positive thoughts?

With this is mind I started to meditate, downloading as many free apps as I could, and started to read about Mindfulness. Finally in January, after receiving news from the fertility clinic that IVF was the recommended route for us, I decided to fully learn about the practice of Mindfulness and invest in this eight-week course.

Every day we are expected to undertake a body scan meditation, which takes 40 minutes, as well as other smaller practices. I am also reading Mindfulness: a practical guide to finding peace in a frantic world by Mark Williams and Danny Penman. Once I've finished I aim to write a review and also I am looking forward to sharing some of my experiences from the daily meditations.

But until then, keep mindful everyone and I hope you will consider the wonders of Mindfulness if you haven't already xx