“The aim of meditation is to understand what we did not formerly understand, to see what we have not previously seen and to be where we have never been in relation to an object or subject. Meditation is the unfolding of what is best for each person and its results can be measured by the benefits to an individual’s self and life. Meditation is discovery” - A.G Mohan – Internationally recognised Yoga Master.

1.    Sit comfortably in an upright chair with your feet flat on the floor and your hands resting gently in your lap. Make sure you are somewhere where you will not be disturbed.

2.    Turn your attention to your body and, starting from the top, gently relax every part of it – your head, face and neck, shoulders and arms, chest and back, abdomen, pelvis, legs and feet.

3.    Take a slow, deep breath through your nose at your own pace.

4.    Exhale slowly through your nose.

5.    Continue breathing in and out through your nose at a pace that feels relaxed and natural to you.

6.    Maintain a relaxed body.

7.    Focus only on your breath, noticing how it flows in and out of your body, noticing how each breath is slightly different.

8.    When thoughts come into your mind, just let them glide gently by like clouds on the wind. Remain unattached to your thoughts and just let them come and go as you re-focus on your breath. Each time a thought arises, let it pass and return your attention to the breath.

To begin with, start by meditating only for about 10 minutes each day, or even for less than that if you find it difficult. Even just a few minutes meditation each day can be beneficial to your physical and emotional wellbeing. It can help to cultivate the habit of daily meditation if you can decide on a particular time each day in which to do it. As you become more experienced, you will find you can increase the amount of time you spend meditating to maybe 20-30 minutes. Some people prefer to sit cross legged or in a kneeling position on the floor with the support of a meditation cushion.

If you are unwell and wish to benefit from meditation, then meditating lying down can facilitate healing and bring relief from pain.

One of the prerequisites for downshifting and leading a more sustainable life is for us to slow down. According to Jonathan Porritt, “Speed is the enemy of sustainable living”. When we opt for speed, then we tend to prioritise convenience over and above sustainability and this inevitably results in our consuming more and caring less about our personal wellbeing and that of the planet. What I’m going to suggest in this article is that we also need to stop altogether from time to time. Even if ou have not yet decided to step off the treadmill, both slowing down and doing nothing are habits we can cultivate right away and from which we can very quickly start to derive benefit.

What do I mean by doing nothing? I’m talking about us finding a way to extricate ourselves from everyday activity, responsibilities, concerns and the quest for pleasure. Doing nothing means finding somewhere quiet to just “be”. It involves relaxing, quietening the mind and taking some time away from everything else in our lives.

Importance for our Wellbeing

We can improve our health and wellbeing in four main ways when we cultivate ways of doing nothing:

1. It helps us get things in perspective and focus on what’s important. It can be especially useful at those moments when we feel overwhelmed by what’s happening in our lives. So, it helps us achieve peace and clarity.

2. We gain easier access to our intuition. This is a very important and often underused faculty of the mind. To find out more about how intuition benefits us, see my article  “Intuition and Sustainablility”

3. There are many physical benefits. It can relieve the symptoms of heart disease, diabetes, chronic fatigue states, insomnia suppressed immunity, anxiety and depression.

4. It can affect our attitude to the rest of our lives in a positive way through our becoming more aware and considerate in our actions.

How do we do it?

We need to decide on a form of relaxation or spiritual practice which will cause us to stop and do nothing plus help us get in touch with our intuition, our heart and our higher selves. This can be quite a personal choice.

Here are some examples of relaxation techniques:

-  a gentle walk or sitting in nature
- meditation
- lying down somewhere quiet where we will not be disturbed (but without falling asleep!)
- visualisation, guided or self-created.

And these are examples of spiritual practices:

- yoga
- T’ai chi or Qi Gong
- meditation
- prayer

Each of us can find our own way of doing nothing and I encourage my clients to establish their own method by considering four things:

What they enjoy,
What they are motivated to continue with, whatever the pressures of everyday life,
What they find beneficial,
What they are committed to making a priority in their lives.

For many, meditation is an easy method to master and to fit into busy lifestyles. Also it is a technique that seems to appeal equally to those who have a religious or spiritual leaning and those who don’t. (If this is something that you’ve not tried before and you would like to learn how to meditate, contact me for an information sheet on how to start meditating.)

How do we know that it’s working?

When we achieve a state of peaceful existence, even if only for fleeting moments to begin with, this way of being begins to pervade other aspects of our lives. We know that it’s working when we:

- are more patient and tolerant with loved ones
- make smarter decisions in the workplace
- have a greater ability to listen to others
- have a greater capacity for love and compassion for others
- have a greater capacity for love and compassion for ourselves
- sleep better
- succumb to illness less frequently or recover from illness more readily

These are some of the signs that stopping and doing nothing is beginning to be of benefit to us. I hope that, if you’re not already cultivating this habit, you will be encouraged to give it a try.

Suggested Further Reading

“Peace is Every Step” – Thich Nhat Hahn (Application of stillness and awareness in everyday life).

How Meditation Heals - Eric Harrison.

The Miracle of Mindfulness – Thich Nhat Hahn.

The Power of Now – Eckhart Tolle (how to live consciously)

About 18 years ago, I consulted a Complementary Therapist for the first time.  I had decided to take a different route and try out what was for me an unknown and unexplored alternative to the conventional medicine I had always relied on in the past. Why? Because I was pregnant for the first time, suffering chronic morning sickness (of the “all day” variety) and unwilling to risk harming my baby by taking conventional drugs. This experience was to be a revelation for me and my introduction to a totally new way of viewing my own health and wellbeing, as well as that of my child.

Priorities and values

Suddenly, with the prospect of being responsible for someone else’s life, my priorities had changed. No longer did my health come second to my availability to work and earn money.  Some would say that my behaviour was a natural reaction to surging hormones – nature taking over and asserting itself. I prefer to see it, with hindsight anyway, as the start of a shift in my priorities and values.

When we choose to prioritise our quality of life above our standard of living, magical things can happen with respect to how we treat ourselves. For most who downshift, improving health and wellbeing take a driving seat, often where it has previously been denied or ignored. And for those who are forcibly downshifted through ill health, this change in circumstances can be very challenging indeed. For those who take the route of voluntary simplicity and decide of their own accord to slow down their pace of life and reduce their stress levels, miraculously, it seems, health issues suddenly seem to become less of a problem. How does this happen?

Trading money for time.

The answer is very simple. Downshifting involves deciding to accept a lower level of income in return for more time to spend as we want to spend it. In order to practice preventive medicine and optimise our health and wellbeing, time is exactly what is needed.

Spending more time on ourselves benefits our nutrition. Real food, home cooked, is higher in nutrients, lower in harmful additives and costs less than convenience food in money terms. Growing and preparing food can also be an enjoyable experience for many, rather than just a means to an end. Thus, the process of looking after ourselves in itself becomes a stress-relieving activity.

By reducing our stress levels, we strengthen our immune systems and are therefore less likely to succumb to infection or contract stress-induced chronic conditions, such as heart disease, cancer, depression, chronic fatigue states or diabetes.

When we spend more time on self-care, we are more likely to find a form of exercise that suits us and that we find enjoyable.

When we are ill, time gives us the opportunity to explore the options with respect to treating the illness.  We can choose to take a more holistic approach through diet, exercise and rest, alternative or conventional therapy or lifestyle changes.

During the pregnancy that I mentioned above, one thing I came to realise was how incompetent I was as a patient! I was so lacking in self-awareness that I didn’t have the first idea how to answer my homeopath’s questions. Ok, to be fair to me, they did seem to be rather odd questions, like “How do you feel in a thunderstorm?” What on earth did that have to do with how long I could keep a meal down?  I got impatient with her and wanted a quick fix, when really what was needed was my cooperation and thoughtfulness. Often I felt like cutting out the middle man and just throwing my carefully prepared platefuls of food straight down the toilet! I was afraid that I would not cope with the situation and that my baby would not survive. My anger soon dissipated when I realised the homeopathy was working and I was starting to benefit from giving myself time to be more self-aware rather than fighting my affliction or denying it existed.

What other aspects of downshifting are beneficial to our health and wellbeing?

Trading an unhealthy environment for a healthier one.

One of the parts of our lives that we attempt to optimise when downshifting is the way in which we earn a living. Hopefully we will take steps to modify our employment to suit our values and minimise stress levels. Looking at our working environment can be part of this. What effect does working in an air conditioned office have on our well-being? What about fluorescent lighting, noise levels, access to sunlight, fresh air and water? Trading an unhealthy environment for a healthier one can benefit our wellbeing by reducing the physicals stresses we have to endure and by bringing us into contact with fewer infections.

Reclaiming the responsibility.

In my experience, many downshifters discover during the process of changing their lifestyle that they feel more able to accept responsibility for their own health and wellbeing. They learn to face up to the challenges of making self-care a priority

One of the advantages of working from home (and home educating) that I’m personally very grateful for is that when I or my sons are ill, there’s no one putting pressure on us to return to work or school. When we need to rest, wrap up warm, take extra fluids or get more fresh air, we can adapt our day to incorporate this and recuperate in our own time.

Ultimately, it’s not up to our GPs, our bosses, our family or anyone else to keep us well. It’s up to us.

When you talk to a sustainable living enthusiasts, one of the areas your conversation may well turn to is alternative, renewable energy sources – solar, wind and wave power rather than using fossil fuels which we know can have seriously negative consequences. What happens when instead we focus on our own personal energy and think about what’s fuelling us as human beings? Of course we all need energy to live day to day. Energy helps us to get motivated, to concentrate, to act consistently and live our lives to the full. But where do we each get this energy from? What fuels our minds, bodies and spirits?

As human beings living in our physical forms we have a wide choice of fuels available to us. From the wellbeing point of view, some fuels are better than others. We can choose to derive our personal energy from those fuels that support our long term health in a positive way such as exercise, nutritious food, the love and support of our friends and families, soul food such as music, art, being in nature. Or we can choose other less sustainable energy sources such as adrenaline, nicotine, caffeine, junk food and anxiety. These may fuel us in intense bursts but ultimately put our health at risk. Like fossil fuels and solar power, both types of energy can get jobs done, but only one supports our longer term physical, emotional and spiritual health.

Have you ever wondered what it is that makes it so challenging to live with less of the consumer lifestyle and more of the sustainable lifestyle? I would venture to suggest that a major culprit is our addiction to adrenaline as a source of energy. Our culture promotes speed and as a result we live in a frenzied, frantic world. Faster is better apparently. We are seen as successful and important if we are busy, if there are overwhelming demands on our time, if we are so engrossed in our human “doings” that we have no time left to be human “beings.”

How on earth did we get to this state of affairs? For many of us, this is the way we were raised and so this has become a comfort zone – living our lives in a hurry, fuelled by adrenaline.

Adrenaline was never designed to be a major fuel. Our flight or fight response is supposed to be a mechanism used as a last resort for getting us out of danger, or the rocket fuel firing us to achieve exceptional feats. Over use puts our human systems under stress. According to BUPA, 80% of Doctor’s referrals are for stress-related illnesses. We have a tendency to engage in activities that cause an adrenaline rush because it gives us a sense of excitement. For example, working to short deadlines (ever wondered why they’re called deadlines, by the way?), driving at speed, eating on the fly, multitasking. It makes us feel useful, successful, validated, and indispensable. It gives us instant gratification. But frequent use of adrenaline causes a crash in blood sugar levels and depletion of our nutritional reserves. Over time this can lead to heart disease, diabetes, chronic fatigue states, insomnia, suppressed immunity, anxiety and depression.

Comfort zones such as this one are not generally areas of personal development and learning. The reason they are comfortable is because they are familiar, not because they are necessarily what’s best for us. We are too rushed to cook a meal, so we eat processed, over packaged food, high in calories, low in nutrients. We are late for an appointment, so we take the car rather than using public transport, cycling, walking, or sharing a lift. Personal growth involves summoning the courage to step outside and be challenged. To live sustainably, we need to remember to slow down and give ourselves time to be true to our values. We can only live sustainably if we are mindful of how our everyday actions affect our planet.

One way of slowing down, then, involves acknowledging that we are using unhealthy sources of personal energy and deciding to change. It involves recognising when we are operating within our comfort zones and how we need to be challenged in order to grow. Then it becomes much easier to live a more sustainable lifestyle.

There’s a problem isn’t there with being a bit of a “greenie” and wanting to cultivate the love of one’s life? No, take that back – there are several problems!

For a start, those of us who value people and planet above profit still, woefully, seem to be in the minority. We have begun viewing relationships as arrangements that are based no longer on materialistic values such as social status, money-earning potential, or political gain but rather on sustainable values such as mutual interest, understanding and love.

Secondly, most of us are not truly honest with ourselves about who we really are and what we expect from a relationship.

And thirdly, once we have discovered who we really are and what we expect from relationships, we forget to apply those things in the turmoil of everyday situations.

If you are single and dating or thinking of doing so, what’s the best way to approach it if you’re looking for a long-term, committed, fulfilling, relationship?

If you are currently in a relationship, how do you review your situation and inject a new lease of life into your connection with your beloved?

Let’s assume that the first step one needs to take before beginning any new journey is to know where you’re starting from. In relationship terms, this means fully accepting who you are and what your life situation is now. Be honest with yourself and, without wishing it were any different, just spend some time taking stock.

Knowing what you know about yourself, what are your answers to the following questions?:

Are you really ready for a new relationship?
Do you have the time and the energy to commit to it?
Do your work and family circumstances allow for it?
How emotionally prepared are you for a new relationship?
Have you come to terms with painful experiences from the past?
Are you really ready to be emotionally and physically intimate with someone else and accept the risks that that involves, or are you still feeling hurt due to resentment, anger or bitterness from previous experiences?

What is open-heartedness?

If we think of our hearts as the seat of our love, for ourselves, our planet, other people, then we can maybe imagine a hard protective shell that encases it. Metaphorically speaking, we all have this. It’s the result of years of conditioning from our childhood and from previous relationship experiences. It is a form of identity that we have constructed for ourselves as a secure way of operating in the world. In order to relate successfully with another in a romantic capacity, though, we will need to allow this shell to crack open to reveal who we really are. We will also need to allow the space for our romantic partner to do the same, to cultivate a state of presence that is grounded in the heart. This involves accepting our partner for who they are, their “being,” rather than viewing them as a means to fill a gap in our lives. That’s what I mean by being open-hearted. It’s about being authentic, complete in ourselves, genuine, sincere, honest and giving.

Approaching relationships with an open-heart has some wonderful advantages. When you know you’re being open-hearted, you allow the possibility of being accepted for who you are, not who you would like others to believe you might be. This is far easier and less stressful than keeping up appearances! It gives you some simple principles to guide you in communicating with others, whether in writing, by phone or in person. You can ask yourself: “What is the most open-hearted way for me to respond in this situation?” “How do I let this person know that I’d really like to spend more time with them, whilst accepting the risk of rejection?” “What am I expecting from/assuming about this person that’s preventing us connecting in a meaningful way?”

An open heart is:

Courageous – It accepts the risk of failure knowing that each mistake made is a learning opportunity.

Compassionate – It considers the other person’s needs and points of view.

Linked to the mind - through self-awareness and the ability to feel and express emotions. It knows what it feels and is able to communicate this.

Sustainable relationships are formed and maintained by supporting and encouraging each other’s personal growth through openness, honesty, love and compassion. I would suggest that this is our greatest hope for forming long-term, committed and fulfilling relationships. Let’s take time each day to remind ourselves of this and to approach each of our relationships with an open-heart.