The Daily Mind

Daily Steps To Mindful Living

Inspiration

Boost your mind, body and spirit

Sometimes the pressures of life can take their toll on our minds and bodies, leaving us exhausted, depressed and lacking in energy. Here’s how to give your mind, body and spirit a lift.

Mind
Make sure you start every day on a positive note. Instead of reading the papers or watching the news which, let’s face it, generally leaves you feeling pretty miserable, read a book that inspires you instead. You can catch up on the news later in the day, but make sure the first thing you read leaves you feeling uplifted.

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Originally posted on February 17, 2012 @ 10:33 am

How to use the power of positive affirmations

Since recently coming back from my travels around south east Asia, I’ve been feeling a bit unfocused and unsure of what the future holds. In order to tackle this, I’ve started practising positive affirmations; something I’ve always found useful in focusing my mind and combating any negative thoughts that creep in. So, for this blog post, I’m going to talk about affirmations: what are they, why should we practise them and how can they help us?

A thinking Man
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Originally posted on January 18, 2012 @ 11:40 am

Giving thanks – Practising gratitude

Here’s a confession – I’m not a natural optimist. I’m not one of those people for whom the glass is always half full. I have to really train my mind not to focus on how empty it looks. It’s not easy, I can tell you.

One thing that I’ve found particularly effective in recent times is practising gratitude. At the end of every day I sit and write down a list of five things I’m grateful for. Sometimes it’s easy and I can think of more than five, whereas other times I really struggle, but I make sure I complete the list. By focusing on the good things that happened in the day, or just the positive things in my life, I find that I feel happier and more optimistic.
Shopping List
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You don’t even have to write them down – it’s the process that’s important – so instead you could list them in your head as you’re getting ready for bed. If this sounds difficult, why not enlist a friend or partner to help you? You could send each other a daily gratitude email or text.

Incidentally, there’s research to back this all up. In one 2003 study a group of individuals wrote down five things they were grateful for each week, for 10 weeks. At the end of the trial this group were 25% happier than a comparison group who just wrote down five things that happened in the week.
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Originally posted on October 7, 2011 @ 10:19 am

15 Ways to Make Someone’s Day

Undergraduate students chatting under a tree
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“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” – the Dalai Lama

Sometimes all it takes is a small gesture to totally change someone’s day. When you sense that someone cares for you or is putting your concerns ahead of their own you often have your outlook totally transformed to something more positive and warm. Here are some small ways to make someone’s day.

1. Smile
2. Open doors
3. Offer a seat at your table in a busy cafe
4. Make eye contact
5. Shout a workmate a coffee for no reason
6. Start a conversation with someone who looks lonely
7. Listen
8. Share a tip that has helped you out in your life recently
9. Give money to beggars without conditions attached
10. Don’t complain about politics or recent news
11. Try and put a positive spin on a bad situation
12. Invite someone to go jogging
13. Cook for your wife
14. Meditate so you are calmer for your family
15. Volunteer for someone who really needs it

Normally I like to rant on and write long and in depth posts about things but sometimes it is just the simplest things that help the most. There is a wonderful quote by Plato that says, “Be kind for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.” It is a wonderful thing to remember when you go about your daily business because it reminds you that other people are going through similar pains and hardships.

It also can help you deal with situations where you can’t quite understand why a person is behaving so badly – it is because they too are fighting a hard battle of their own.

I would really like to hear some comments about some small little thing that someone did that changed your day and made you feel happy and more optimistic. I don’t care how trivial or strange it might seem – please leave a comment so others can hear it and maybe use it to help someone else.

Originally posted on March 4, 2011 @ 1:34 am

3 Ways to Deal with Physical Pain and Painful Sickness

too much
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“If the problem can be solved, why worry? If the problem cannot be solved, worrying will do you no good.” – Shantideva

For the last two weeks I’ve been in bed unable to move due to a big ole stone stuck in my saliva gland. Every time I ate (or even thought about eating for that matter) the gland would swell up to golf ball size and ache like nothing I’ve ever experienced. It was the worst pain I have ever been in.

During this time laying perfectly still I really started to think about all the people out there who have it so much worse than me and my stone. And now that the stone is gone (thank you surgeon!) I wanted to write down some things that I’ve heard about in the hope that it might help you if you ever go through some horrible physical pain or sickness. I hope it helps someone out there.

Getting on top of the worry

If you talk to my friends and family they will probably tell you that I am a big worrier. I seem to make things out to be worse than they are and I worry intensely about things that haven’t happened yet. This is a very bad thing as it makes many a mole hill into a mountain.

Worry seems to make any pain that is there seem a lot worse than it is and this leads to a lot more suffering for you and your family. I think that if you can tackle the worrying you are halfway there as most physical pain is somewhat manageable.

A best friend with cancer

Some of my long time readers might remember that my best mate had cancer a few years ago. It was a pretty tough time for everyone involved (mostly him) and we all spent a lot of effort looking into ways to deal with the physical and emotional pain that was going on. I remember one night sitting with him whilst he was in unbearable pain and wishing there was more I could do. I also had the thought that one day it might be myself in that bed and that I should prepare my mind now and not wait for it to happen.

So even if you are not in pain now I hope that you will take some time to research some techniques as it seems that those who have trained their mind and bodies are able to cope with the bad times much better than those who start training when the problems occur. Of course I don’t want you to worry about getting sick, that’s not the point. I just hope that you might do a little preparation in case it ever happens.

Dealing with physical pain and painful sickness

saliva gland stone removed
There it is – the stone once removed from the saliva duct. Painless operation but a very painful few weeks before hand. All that trouble over a tiny little calcification!

Like I said, most of these ideas are things that I used when I was in bed with the saliva gland stone and when my best friend was dealing with cancer. They worked for me but there is no guarantee that they will work for everyone. If you yourself have any advice for people going through something painful then please leave a comment as it might really help someone out there.

1. Compassion – think about others more than yourself
More than anything else I am thankful for compassion. My mother and all my loving Buddhist teachers have constantly tried to teach me to make other people more important than myself. And while I have absolutely no real understanding of this, it did become very important when I was in pain.

It actually sounds quite selfish now, thinking about compassion in order to make your pain better. But as I was laying there unable to move I naturally started to think about all the other living beings out there who are in much worse pain than I am. All those people who are suffering terminal illnesses or have just had their arm blown off in Iraq. My pain, by comparison, is fairly minute.

I realized after a few days of being sick that I had a choice. I could panic and worry about whether I would ever get better or start thinking about others. Shifting my mind away from myself seemed to give me some strength and a will to endure and be brave and get back on my feet because there are a lot of people out there who can’t.

2. Giving and taking meditation – take on the suffering
In Tibetan Buddhism there is a tradition of meditation called Tong Len or giving and taking. It is basically an aid that helps you develop compassion and weaken your self clinging by imagining that you are taking on all the sickness of other sentient beings by using the breath. I am obviously not qualified to teach this so head over to this website for a nice teaching by a western nun called Pema Chodron.

Basically what I would do while I was sick was imagine that I was taking on all sentient beings suffering when I breathed in, and when I breathed out I would give them all my happiness. I imaged that my pain was me taking on the illness of everyone else. Again, this practiced seemed to help me because it made the experience meaningful. It gave me a chance to practice. Other than that all I could do was lie still and worry about whether the surgeon would accidentally cut an artery in my neck and kill me!

3. Accept help – don’t be ashamed
When my best mate was in hospital one of the doctors mentioned how important it was to be honest and open about how you are feeling because if you’re not two things happen. Firstly, the doctors have trouble diagnosing you because they aren’t sure what your true symptoms are. Secondly, your pain doesn’t get managed properly because no body knows how much pain you really are in.

For the first month of my illness I didn’t really talk about how much it hurt. Because of this the doctors just sort of plodded along not really thinking it was a huge problem. Finally the pain got so bad that I rang my GP desperate and begging him for a referral for a specialist. Within an hour I was talking to a surgeon who said he could operate in two weeks. Had I not opened up about the pain I would probably still be laying in my bed in agony, unable to eat or drink.

During that time I also asked my teachers to do prayers for me and my friends and family to help me with things like DVDs or just someone to chat to when I needed a distraction. Unless you open up and accept the help it is really hard for anyone to know what to do for you. Without the kindness of my doctors, teachers, relatives and friends I don’t know what I would have done.

Conclusion

I would love to hear about what has helped you or a family member deal with some pain or illness that has happened. It can be a very lonely and frightening time and it would be nice to use this post as a tiny bit of support for anyone who might stumble upon it one day when they really need somewhere to turn. If it is you that is going through something painful I hope you get better really soon.

Originally posted on October 8, 2010 @ 1:45 am