I recently purchased the Flow Mindfulness Workbook and it's really helped me learn how to be a bit calmer and quieten my mind down. Flow is a magazine that I really love and it always comes with some sort of paper "goodies" as extras. This one came with a free mini journal, poster, precious moments keepsake cards, post-it notes and a bookmark.
Its full of articles on aspects of mindfulness and how writers for the magazine learnt to become more mindful and lessons they have learnt.
My favourite thing in it is the three minute breathing space. Its really quick and simple to do and as it's only three minutes, you really can do it anywhere when you just need that bit of time out and to calm down. I find that taking a few minutes out if somethings got a bit much really helps me get enough distance to start to see things in a different light and allows me distance I need to not follow my brain down whatever (usually batshit crazy and completely OTT) path it wants to go down in response to a situation.
Heres what you do:-
1. Imagine an hourglass. You are at the top of this and scan your body and thoughts to have an awareness of how you think and feel right now. Are there any parts of you that are holding tension? What are you thinking about? Don't go into the thoughts, just acknowledge that the thought it there and that't it.
2. You are now going down to the thinnest part of your hourglass. Breathe in deeply and feel how the breath feels throughout your whole body. Feel your chest expand upwards an outwards and your shoulders rise and then fall with each breath in and out. If you like, direct the breath to any parts you saw tension when you did your body scan before.
3. Once you have taken a few deep breaths, travel down to the bottom of the hourglass and widen out your awareness to the environment around you. Feel your clothes on your skin, the place you are sat and hear the sounds around you. When you are ready open your eyes and carry on with your day.
The Flow Mindfulness Workbook is available for £14.95 here.
