Cultivate the skills of being present and responding wisely in daily life.

It’s normal to want to prolong our pleasant experiences and escape our unpleasant ones.  And, if that experience is in the outside world, such as delighting in our favorite food, often we can choose to have another portion or look forward to next time we’ll have some. And if we’re trying some food that we don’t like, we can easily escape the unpleasant experience by pushing the food away.

If the experience is based on our thoughts and feelings, we can’t easily discard it or produce more of it, so in mindfulness we learn to work with our experiences, exactly as they are. This allows us to uncover a paradox – the more we are able to work with our unpleasant experiences, the less they affect us; and the more we are able to simply enjoy rather than crave our pleasant experiences, the more impact they have when they are around.

The mindful meditation practices in this channel help us to work with reality rather than against it--training our mind to stay present while reducing unhelpful reactions, and increasing our insight and ability to respond wisely to whatever arises… and so enhancing our resilience and wellbeing.

Be with Open Awareness

Three-Step Being Space

Being with Sound

Be with Breath

Body Scan

Befriending and Self-Compassion

Savoring

Mark Quirk

Psychologist, Health Coach, Mindfulness

Developing an attitude of friendliness towards ourselves can help us deal more effectively and realistically with the challenges of daily life. And, if we are able to cultivate this attitude towards our self, we're much more likely to offer the same attitude to others, and in so doing improve our relationships. This practice is a great way to start the day.

Being friendly towards ourselves leads to better relationships and effective handling of daily challenges; making it a good daily practice.

Without awareness, it’s easy to spend quality time focused on the challenges of life, far more than what is good. This meditation invites us spend a few minutes with something great in our lives! In so doing, help us to improve our ability to pay attention to the pleasant moments in our day. Photo by Khadeeja Yasser on Unsplash

This meditation encourages us to focus on the good things in our lives to improve our ability to appreciate pleasant moments.

A broad awareness practice, to help us be with the whole of our present moment experience. Photo by Shea Rouda on Unsplash

We don't often deliberately pay attention to the sounds around and within us, allowing ourselves to experience the full richness of our aural environment - and so, that is the invitation for this practice.

Practice paying attention to the sounds around and within us to fully experience our aural environment.

Feeling a little overwhelmed, or stuck? Use these three steps of awareness to create just enough space to make a decision about next steps

Use three steps of awareness to create space and make decisions about next steps when feeling overwhelmed or stuck.

This calming practice helps us connect with and build awareness of our body, as well as training our attention as we continually focus and re-focus throughout the scan. This practice can be done lying down, as well as sitting or standing. Photo by Greg Rakozy on Unsplash

A body scan practice helps build body awareness and focus, and can be done lying down, sitting, or standing.

This core practice helps us to use the flow of breath and the movement of the body as we breath to maintain present moment awareness. Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

Using breath and body movements is a core practice for maintaining present moment awareness.

This calming practice helps us connect with and build awareness of our body, as well as training our attention as we continually focus and re-focus throughout the scan. This practice can be done lying down, as well as sitting or standing.

Body scan meditation is a calming practice that builds body awareness and trains attention, and can be done lying down, sitting, or standing.

The Resilience to Be