Staying Mindful During Difficult Times

We all have voices inside our heads! ‘Who me’…. Yes you! Noticing the voice and choosing to refocus our attention is half the battle of mindfulness.

In this lesson we use a popular quote by Jon Kabat Zinn to get to the heart of what mindfulness is. If you are serious about developing a mindfulness practice you need to ensure you have the best understanding of what mindfulness is and how we can start being more mindful.

I’ve been surprised over the years to hear lots of different mindfulness myths. Sometimes those myths are from popular culture, other times they are based on our own perceptions of what it means to be mindful. In this lesson we talk about what some of those myths are and why they aren’t true.

In this article, originally published in 2016 on www.robhills.com.au, I outline some of the misconceptions and myths around mindfulness. The contents of this article is also featured in Lecture 6: What Mindfulness isn't.

There is still some confusion about the difference between mindfulness and meditation, and that even extends to the mindfulness community. So in this lesson I want to explain the difference between mindfulness and meditation and give you an example to help highlight those differences.

It seems like every day a new study is published on the benefits of mindfulness and why we should all have a mindfulness practice. In this lesson I talk about some of the scientifically proven benefits of mindfulness and how they can help you through difficult times. Not all benefits of mindfulness can be proven scientifically so we talk about some of the anecdotal evidence of how mindfulness can help as well.

Have you ever had that experience where you are walking around with so much information in your head you aren’t really paying attention to what’s happening around you. In this lesson we talk about the difference of being MindFULL and Mindful.

S.T.O.P. is a short mindfulness activity you can do when you catch yourself over thinking or struggling with something difficult. Although it’s a very simple tool, it’s also very effective in helping you stay mindful during difficult times. A lot of people report back, even after years of receiving training in this tool, how S.T.O.P. helps them stay mindful.

In this short guided meditation, we will run you a popular method of being mindful and connecting to the present moment through your senses. This is another opportunity to jump out of the theory and into a practical activity you can start integrating into your own life today.

One of the best antidotes for stress, worry and anxiety is to be grateful for what we have right now. We will talk about the power of gratitude in this lesson and I will walk you through a very simple and practical method of being more grateful every single day.

Not always a popular subject, but a lesson we all need to be reminded of. We are all guilty of juggling too many balls, and sometimes because we have too many balls in the air, we start dropping them. In this lesson we talk about how focusing our attention on one task at a time makes us more productive, happier and more mindful as well.

In this lesson I talk about my own experience with starting a meditation practice at work, so nobody knew that I was even meditating. We also look at guided meditation through apps and how they can help some people develop a meditation practice.

There are lots of ways to be more mindful and in this lesson we look at some common examples of mindfulness techniques. Based on your preference you will be able to choose different activities that you can start applying mindfulness to in your life. This course is about you, so we want you to choose activities that will work the best for you!

In this lesson I will introduce you to some research by Dr Adam Fraser called The Third Space. This research has had a dramatic effect on me and the way I transition between work and home. We will talk about what it means to rest, reset and reflect between activities and how you can develop your own third space.

We are almost at the end of the course, but before you leave, we want you to make an action plan on how you will implement mindfulness in your life. Reflecting on what you have learnt from the course so far we want you to choose a mindfulness activity to start practicing today!

You have made it to the end – Congratulations! We hope you have enjoyed the course and we hope you have found it useful. Although it’s the end of the course, it’s not the end of us – we want you to reach out with any questions you may have or any assistance we may be able to provide to help you stay mindful during difficult times.