Stephen Warrilow

Mindful listening is when you are not thinking and you remain fully present whilst the other person is speaking. There are many occasions in the course of daily life, at home and at work, when talking is an exchange of information, and this is entirely appropriate as is a thought-based response. But we are emotional and spiritual beings and we need to express what we are feeling as well as what we are thinking.

I am sometimes asked how to practise mindfulness when I am discussing the subject of mindfulness with people. My response is always to say that mindfulness is a spontaneous and naturally occurring state. We all experience present moment awareness in everyday life when we find ourselves in situations where we are totally focused on the activity we are engaged in.

There are a wide range of ways of practising mindfulness and I will share some of these mindfulness exercises with you, but the key thing I want you to take on board is to just do it - and keep doing it!

There are so many simple everyday tasks and activities that we do largely on "auto-pilot". Whilst we undertake these tasks our minds are "running free" with internal chatter and "mental noise". These are excellent further opportunities to learn how to practise mindfulness.

You are probably familiar with the 4 stages of learning in the model of conscious competence namely: unconscious incompetence -> conscious incompetence -> conscious competence -> unconscious competence (or "auto-pilot")? Moving through the 4 stages of learning how to practise mindfulness takes time, effort and application and is no different to learning any other new skill.

I want to introduce you to one of the very simplest yet most effective stress management techniques for tough times that I discovered some years ago, but first I want to tell you a story. There is a story about a king who sought wisdom. He searched all over his kingdom for wisdom and did not find it. Eventually he heard of a man living in a remote part of the kingdom who had a reputation for great wisdom.

There are a lot of popular misconceptions about present moment awareness, otherwise known as "enlightenment".There is something in human nature - a desire to glamorise, sanctify, objectify and idolise - that elevates people who have offered deep insights to the human race and create distance between them and the rest of us. But these great ones have the exactly the same psychological, emotional, and physiological equipment as the rest of us. If one can do it so can we all - potentially...

Mindfulness is a spontaneous and naturally occurring state. The practise of mindfulness, or present moment awareness, enables us to stop thinking and step out of the tyranny and treadmill of our thoughts, and it also shows how to think more resourcefully. Have you ever woken up in the morning...

A while ago my fortunes changed and I was not working and experiencing a very hard time financially with all the obvious pressures associated with that. I became exhausted and completely run down. I found it hard to control my thoughts. I would often wake up in the early hours of the morning with extremely negative thoughts. Here are the steps I took to overcome this...

There is a very powerful connection between "body n mind". Our minds are the repositories of all of our pre-programmed reactions and response patterns. Our bodies are the vehicles through which our emotional reactions arise and are expressed. Emotion is your body's reaction to your mind.