Tuesday 26 May 2015

A Mindful Post

I assume that a lot of people will not have heard of this concept, of being mindful or partaking in mindfulness. I must say I was unaware of it until very recently until it was suggested to me, as a tool to keep your mind calm or to help calm it down. In retrospect, looking at it from the outside, the concept and practice of it can seem pretty strange. It is defined as "a mental state achieved by focusing one's awareness on the present moment, while calmly acknowledging and accepting one's feelings, thoughts, and bodily sensations, used as a therapeutic technique."

What I have mainly partaken in myself so far, is the meditation side of things. You ideally locate yourself in a quiet place, and then depending on what is comfortable for you, sit or lay with your eyes open or closed - once again whichever is more comfortable - and listen to a recording. Sometimes. These recordings act as a guide through the session to assist with clearing your mind and then recognising the sensations you are currently feeling at that point in time. This helps you to just calm down and forget what else you have going on. You can do this without a recording as well, just quietly identify these things yourself. I have also tried an active one, where you follow through some stretches and feel the different pulls and tweaks - this was much more comfortable to do as a group with your eyes closed.. It is very strange though.

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Here's a little picture which I think is nice..


I think this picture sums it up, because it is identifying the importance of living in the moment and highlights what the idea of mindfulness is about.

The first time I ever did this, I remember leaving the session feeling quite spaced out and I got outside and everything seemed brighter, louder and smelled ever so vibrant. Where you are sort of training yourself to switch off, when you walk outside I guess it is sort of like a sensory overload. Sort of like confining yourself
to a dark empty room, but in your mind. Another occasion when I have done it, my mind did the opposite of what you are "supposed" to be doing. By that I mean, the idea is to clear your mind, but unless you have had a lot of practice or are naturally gifted with it, is near on impossible. The idea is you recognise what is in your head, as a thought and then move it aside to come back into that moment, what you are doing and feeling at that point in time. For some reason, my mind just went into overload, and I was picturing these vivid images and basically animating what the gent on the recording was saying, and I was trying to pull away from it but just couldn't and it kept on coming. If I was a good enough artist or was able to print out the pictures in my head, you'd have thought I was a bit strange but.. I guess when you let the mind run free, you see your creative side afresh.

One of the reasons I am talking about mindfulness now is I haven't really done a lot of research about it, I have just done the sessions with the people I know who have apps and downloaded recordings ready. I thought I would have a look - and I was quite disappointed. The first things I saw was actually news articles bashing the concept. I know that everyone has their own opinion, is entitled to it; but at the same time I find it disappointing to see the negative nellies of the world get the top hits on a Google search.


This one here is from the Telegraph and quotes an Oxford academic, Theodore Zeldin, stating that people are "wasting valuable thinking time on meditation and mindfulness." Like I said, he is completely free to have his own opinion - which of course I am also perfectly obliged to have my own opinion on what he said. Which is I think he is abusing his status as an academic to try and push people away from something which might be truly beneficial to them. It is something that the NHS are also recommending. He is also quoted to say "It's important to not think just about yourself" which I personally agree with, but at the same time - that is kind of the point for me. I have always found myself conflicted with personal decisions because I am the type of person who constantly thinks of others. I have found that mindfulness has helped me calm my minding thinking of other peoples problems to let me think about my own. I am not saying that mindfulness is for everyone, because different things will work for different people, we don't just give everyone penicillin when they are sick. I am going to stop the rant train here because it is chugging along and I have other things to share.. Hurrah!

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So, we had a bank holiday weekend - and I hope you were aware otherwise you may have missed out on some Monday events. So let us step it back to Saturday, had an early morning so we get some shopping done. A little bit of food shopping, a bit of clothes shopping - which I actually partook in for once, I was as surprised as you - and also some shoe hunting which is still ongoing.. It appears that my feet have devolved into this non human size which means no shoes fit.. It is quite a pain in the rear to be honest. In the clothes shopping.. I did buy this rather dashing shirt.


 I was planning to get a new Hawaiian shirt but there weren't any in my size.. Maybe I am just an odd size.. Shoes and shirts.. Anyway, this one however, obviously did. I am now covered in turtles which I find really exciting, now I just need to get them all named - please do go ahead as long as you can pinpoint the exact one.. Might take a while but you get me. I found it really strange as this was from H&M and is a large, but the extra large was like a tent, but then an extra large of a Hawaiian looking shirt that I was interested in was far too small. Where is the consistency!?

Went to a cheeky little BBQ - and I keep saying cheeky little followed by something since reading this article about a cheeky Nando's. American's don't understand it and everyone on the internet decided unanimously to not tell them what it really meant. It is on the lad bible somewhere. It was a great day for it, looked a bit dull as of the morning but really brightened up towards the afternoon. Had a couple of burgers, some chicken, a touch of salad. We then watched some of Eurovision which we all know if a giant political event rather than a singing competition which I think may be why the United Kingdom thinks it is a great idea to send an absolutely horrific entry. To me it was anyway.. I quite enjoyed the song from Belgium despite the singer looking a bit off his rocker, the winner, Sweden's entry was also pretty good. The animation they used on stage to piece it all together was pretty awesome as well. We then caught some fireworks on the way home thanks to Prom in the Park - nice end to it all.

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Moving on over to Sunday, spent a good portion of the day at home because my parents had popped out to a boot fair so we could have the cats all to ourselves! And upon walking in, this is how we found them..


 Bella on the left in my Dad's spot and Gracey on the right in my Mum's. We don't have a problem with them being on the sofas because they only tend to moult when you give them a good fuss or use a brush on them so it's not so bad. Plus you can't really stop them all that well - they are cats. They'll find a way. We bought them a cat arch which is a brush in the shape of an arch so they can use it for self grooming; and you can put catnip in the base and on the stand so they get excitable and have a good old rub. Well - supposedly. At the moment they haven't shown a lot of interest in the arch nor the catnip so maybe it is a subjective thing or they have given us a big of seeds and sand which isn't actually catnip.. But it was all good fun, they appear to separate and go to whoever they fancy and stick with them for a while.

After this we headed over to a friends house for the evening, and we watched a film called The Princess Bride. I had heard of it before, from this friend as I got a pack of cards in one of my loot crates with art work based on this film. I had literally not heard of it before this, and they had on an old DVD - it was double sided for different screen sizes - didn't even know that was a thing. It was really funny, and I was recognising some actors who are now a bit older like the main man from Columbo and also Andre the Giant. I also like watching old films where they had to make the SFX themselves rather than using CGI for everything. I love the original Thing film, whilst I appreciate the new one, it doesn't have that same feel to it, if you know what I mean. I easily prefer the original War of the Worlds film in comparison to the old one. I guess it all comes down to a matter of preference.

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And talking of films - look what came out yesterday!


None other than Big Hero 6 which I have to say must be one of my favourite Disney films of all time. They just make you so involved with the story, you get the full emotions of the characters whilst laughing and enjoying the action all at the same time! Not very often you get that I don't think but this one definitely delivered. We got it on Bluray which looks amazing on the TV and we watched it with another couple. Had a little Maccy D's as the shops were shut due to it being a bank holiday - I tried their current taste of America burger which was the Arizona nacho burger - which was okay.. Nothing to get excited about. The bun itself was quite light and fluffy, the burger was.. A burger.. The cheese was mainly a sauce which had made the nacho soft where I assume it was supposed to add a different element being crunchy - I don't know. Maybe I am reading into this too much and it is just a burger. Well it is.. But you get what I mean.

Day 693
Last and not least, brings us around to today. Now, we really like BGT, and have found many like us enjoy the initial stage where they are just normal performances without all the staging and what not.. The semi finals where they are planned end up being over produced sometimes and makes it a tad annoying - so what we do is record it and then skip about 80% of it. We definitely did not skip this dog and trainer as they were amazing!


I remember the previous dog act that one and honestly - for me - this act here is so much better. There are no prompts for the dogs, they do everything themselves it does appear, I guess that comes down to the training and what not. This woman has about five dogs, they're all on her Twitter. If they are all trained as well as these two little ones here then she should open a school and become rich - because she would. Just saying.

I shall leave it there for now my fellows and lasses, I hope you have enjoyed this mix of real life and rant. I would recommend trying the mindfulness if you tend to find you have an over active mind and want to try and calm it, once you get a lot of practice, you can use to stop a situation in it's tracks and get level headed. You'll be surprised the difference it makes! Blog you later.

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