Mindfulness and meditation have been a central part of my life for over thirty years. Most of what I've learned has been in a Zen Buddhist context, but I'm not particularly religious and get just as much inspiration from modern secular writers and, lately, Stoicism.
I trained as a mindfulness teacher a few years ago, but decided to drop it in order to focus on my music. During that time I put together a free email course which you're welcome to try: Mindfulness Without Meditation.
Why 'without meditation'? I'm not for a minute suggesting meditation isn't a good thing to practise - I really believe it is and I can't imagine my life without it. But it's not the only way and it's not something that everyone will want to do or be able to do.
I think mindfulness is nothing mystical, it's simply about learning to manage your attention. And your attention is the one thing in this life where you have a chance of influencing how you feel, how you behave and - consequently - the impact you have in the world. You just need to begin to notice when you lose control of your attention and how to reclaim it.
Mindfulness Without Meditation - free email course
There are nine emails in the course. You'll get one every few days, which gives you a chance to spend a couple of days putting it into practice. Each tip is something you can do anywhere at any time. It's completely free and there's no sell-on to anything else, I promise! Once the course is complete you won't receive any more emails.
Light Touch Mindfulness - ebook
Easy, non-mystical ways to bring the quality of mindfulness into everyday life, with or without meditation.
"With humour and humanity he ranges from comics to photography to show that mindfulness isn't a 'state' - it's just a quality you bring to the things you were doing anyway."