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 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 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…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 5.

Day 5 -

In the Letting-Go-of-Thought meditation, the instruction is to use the word “breath” every time you feel focused on the breath, and the word “not-breath” every time that the attention drifts to thoughts.  I reread this section, and the FAQ in chapter 1 today before sitting.  It was a beautiful sit.  But that was not because I didn’t have rapid darting thoughts, it was because I have shifted my reaction to them.  In the last few months, I had been feeling haunted and hunted by thoughts in my meditation, by their the content, speed and intensity and then spiralled into frustrated from that reaction. (more…)

28-Day Programme for Real Happiness with Mollie: Day 4.

Day 4 -

I am finding that the suggestions in this section of the book are affecting my practice in many ways, during my ‘meditation practice,’ “yoga practice” and in daily life. Since I started working with the notion that it’s not that the thoughts don’t matter, I am just not addressing them right now; I have noticed the way my attention has changed. It has given me a space to acknowledge their presence and still focus on something else.  I have remembered again how slippery and fast thoughts can arise. I also realise I am very addicted to them. (more…)