28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 28

Day 28 -

I will close this blog with some observations over the last week.  Through going through the process in the last 6 weeks, I have felt my commitment to my practice increase.  I feel steady in it, I feel supported in it.  And that has been a great gift.  I have felt in many ways my relationship to my own states of being changing.  The way I react to difficult moments, troubling emotions, my own energy and exhaustion and even more so to my own thoughts.  (more…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 27

Day 27 -

The other morning during my sit, my mind was full of thoughts.  At one point I had a moment of frustration about the state of incessant thinking.  But after that moment, I started to realize that the process of thinking was not a state itself, but was arising from a state of fear.  At the moment, the fear comes from watching how my life is changing, both quickly and drastically.  In that fear, I feel that I have to hold onto “what I am” , or ‘who I am”.  Why?  Because I think I am “some one,” Mollie who does this, or doesn’t do that.  I hold onto the ideas of who i think this person to be, from the outside.  The process of thinking keeps building up that false sense of who I think I am, this ego identification. In the midst of change, I feel myself clinging to identifications trying to keep safe where I know, where I am comfortable. (more…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 26

Day 26 -

I am nearing the end of the 28-day programme (ok, so it has been a few more days than that).  I have done my meditation every day, and it has definitely deepened and shifted in that time.

This morning, my practice was filled with a sense of open heartedness – I have been noticing this energy of heart expression inside me that seeks expression in the world.  It comes out in my work, it comes out in my relations.  (more…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 22/23

Day 22/23 -

This is a different kind of reflection on the meditation.  The last chapter of the book for me is a different type of meditation.   More based on life, being in life and engagement with other people.

I had this experience the other day where someone was speaking to me about something that she wanted, but she kept saying you – something that makes you feel a certain way.  (more…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 16

Day 16 –

Today’s experience is an extension of yesterday.  I did my morning sit.  Nothing remarkable to report.  But later, I went to teach my class, and was surprised to find that my usually full class had been moved to a smaller studio, where all the students would not easily fit.  It felt strange.  Then a teacher friend remarked to me that her class had been cancelled that morning, but she had not been told. She had come expecting to teach and get paid, and there was no one there.  She then said, “It’s ok, its cool.  I’m over it.”  (more…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 14

Day 14 – End of Week 2

It is amazing how the perception of experiences changes the experience.  I was filled today with a kind of vibrant energy, the kind that loves to do and get things done.  To write and create, tidy and organise, move and do.  And so when I sat, I was filled with a kind of vibrancy of thoughts.  The mind wanted to think through the events of the day, to plan and anticipate and all of those delightful things. (more…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 9/10

Day 9/10 -

I was away this weekend from home, which always provides a little extra challenge to the practice.  I practiced outside, in the mornings, and it was a really interesting opportunity to feel how the meditation has progressed.

Because of the landscape and environment, the Body Sensation Meditation was the perfect practice.  I love this one because it dovetails the concentration on the breath with awareness of sensations elsewhere in the body.  It feels to me to be a way to integrate the deep focus and presence with a kind of acceptance of what is arising and dissipating. (more…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 8

Day 8 -

This week starts a new phase of the practice – turning the concentration to the sensations in the body: moving sequentially through the body and feeling deeply each area in succession.  The suggestion today is to do the practice lying down. It used to be that when I lay on my back, in savasana after the practice or otherwise, I would quickly drift off into a kind of semi-consciousness/semi-sleep.  Recently, that has not been the case, although I am aware that meditating lying down is definitely less alert and clear than seated meditation.  Today was not dreamy at all. (more…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 7.

Day 7 -

Last night was a fitful night of sleeping.  One of the observations I have had in the last few months is that I hold some anxiety inside, which underlies many of the outward difficulties that arise in my life.  It is like worries about particular circumstances: finances, my future, etc. show up when the underlying anxiety inside flares up.  So with a bit of insecurity and social unrest in the air, I did not sleep well. (more…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 6.

Day 6 -

Up until today, I had not used the audio guided meditation to guide the practice.  Today felt like the right time to try, even though I already feel clear and steady this morning.  What I appreciate most about the guidance, like the writing, is that it is very accepting, and very spacious.  Sometimes, in the deep concentration on the breath, an audio cue is not necessary.   (more…)