Being More Mindful & Home Practice – Shamash Alidina
Practical Tips On Being More Mindful & Setting Up A Home Practice
Shamash Alidina is a bestselling author, speaker and mindfulness teacher. He is the author of the international bestselling Mindfulness for Dummies series and The Mindful Way Through Stress. Shamash runs courses and workshops on mindful living and speaks on mindfulness at conferences around the world. He has been teaching the benefits of mindfulness to both adults and children since 1998 and now is also a mindfulness teacher trainer.
In this interview and meditation session with Shamash you will explore…
- How to create a strong foundation for your mindfulness practice.
- How mindfulness brings the realisation ‘you are not your mind.’
- Important attitudes to embody as you practice mindfulness.
- How letting things be as they are brings us peace and serenity.
- Advice for those who are just starting up a home meditation practice.
- How to be creative with your own mindfulness practice to see what works for you.
Show Notes
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You can find Shamash’s website here http://www.shamashalidina.com where you can find out about his books and events
Audio
Video
Transcript
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Purchase a full access pass to unlock downloads for the full interview transcripts, audio, video and separate audio meditation tracks.
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Purchase a full access pass to unlock downloads for the full interview transcripts, audio, video and separate audio meditation tracks.
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Thanks Melli, I really enjoyed listening to this one. I’ve always thought making yourself comfortable was the better option.
Lovely Shamash. To be kind with your selves and your thoughts is the key to attain inner peace through the present moment. Harshness is what you experienced in the past that gets projected in the mind as future . So the present moment is all we have which is all bliss- a place to live in called as heaven.
A very valuable talk which really helped me let go and be in the moment 🙂 thanks Shamash and Melli 🙂
Thoroughly enjoyed today’s interview. It was very relaxed and a great start to the day. Thank you to Melli and team for the summit. A lot of hard work has gone in to it.
Re the neuroscience, after doing research with experienced meditators they did some research with those who’d never previously done mindfulness along with a control group and after only a few hours of mindfulness they were starting to see changes in the brain.
Thanks for this lovely interview, perfect Sunday afternoon listening. Loved the humour and lightness….I’m still smiling 🙂
Thanks for such a positive and uplifting talk. It is a wonderful start of my Sunday. I loved all of it but most particularly the addition of a smile during the meditation. Research has shown that smiling even when you don’t fell like it has a strong positive effect.
Thanks for the invitation to smile as we settle into our breathing. Letting go the two bags seems so simple but how useful: i could just feel the load leaving my physical being.
Smiling here!
Loved today’s session with Shamash. The joy and sense of humour he irradiated was felt on my side. Thank you Melli for all of this, you truly are a beautiful soul!
Ok, I falled a sleep. Some years ago I had trouble to sleep. I went to the livingrom and watched TV when I could not sleep, and falled asleep. After a while I started to listen to radio as my sleeping medication. Then I started with meditation. So when I couldn´t sleep at night I started to meditate. Either I falled asleep or I would meditate, and it would be good for me what ever happened I thought. Now I mostly sleep good at night 🙂
Thank you Shamash! I really like the idea of readjusting your posture as needed to feel more comfortable. Why not act with kindness toward your body when you notice these sensations, rather than simply experiencing them? It simply becomes another opportunity to practice intentionally turning your attention from being to doing and back to being again. I also love your heaven on earth analogy. Thanks again Melli and the rest of the mindfulness team 🙂
Melli, This was an excellent interview. Thank you ! One technical observation for you is that your mic is scratchy when it rubs on your clothing and this can be annoying when listening to the recordings. This was very troublesome on the interview with Elisha Goldstein and was present today on the last half of the recording. Keeping the mic from rubbing will enhance the recordings. I love your interview style by the way. Very warm and engaging.
Thank you, Shamash and Melli, for this incredibly helpful interview and practice time! I absolutely adore the idea of giving ourselves the gift of adjusting our physical bodies within the first few minutes of our practice time. I love that Shamash framed that adjustment period as self-compassion, because for me, it really does enhance my ability to be with what is happening in the present moment when my physical body is as comfortable as it can be. Then, if there are strong emotions or even other physical sensations that arise, I feel better equipped to be present with them. I also really enjoyed the visualization of setting down those heavy bags of “past” and “future”! Thank you again and peace to you both.
Todays interview was really enjoyable and very interesting. What a good and enthusiastic speaker. The meditation was so relaxing. No pressure to be anything other than comfortable and present. Loved it. Thank you so much.
Sleep~ the best meditation ~ warm thoughts ~
Wonderful talk, it´s nice to see how simple and warm hearted these persons are!
This is my favorite talk so far. I thoroughly enjoyed the guided meditation and the metaphors used.
Being friendly with a wandering mind is wonderful advice. Too often we are led to believe that we have to control our mind in meditation and yet this attempt to control can cause stress. Really like Shamash’s advice about letting the mind be your best friend. Letting it be. Another wonderful interview. Thank you Melli for creating this fabulous learning experience.
Thank you for the advice in this interview. Makes me look forward to more of my ‘formal sessions’, which will hopefully be much less rigid and more enjoyable.
Yes, lovely Shamash. His warmth, compassion, kindness and humour shine a true Mindful path, his talk has brightened my Sunday! I really felt I was able to put down those two heavy bags of Past and Future and be here in the sunshine.
Thank you Melli and Shamash
What a fortunate and special individual to realize mindfulness at such an early age.
I felt your warmth and happiness Shamash (love the tee shirt). What a prefect way to start the day.
Thank you!
“Just as someone obsessed with becoming a millionaire focuses on gaining riches and can miss out on living a fun, balanced life, so someone obsessed with being enlightened or being totally free of all difficulties can also miss out on life. Far healthier to just live a mindful, balanced life and fully participate in what life has to offer.”
“In mindfulness, acceptance always comes first, change comes after.”
― Shamash Alidina
The Past: From my life-perch, I’ve learned we’re somewhat hard-wired for survival. Living in Survival Mode, keeps us from Living & Being in the Here-And-Now. A symptom of PTSD (Primal Survival Mode Thinking) is the invasion of ‘Intrusive Memories of Past Trauma.’ Mindfulness practice is really the most quality tool taught to us to help us to end the physiological triggering of these memories. Memories of past hurt or threat do keep us obsessively reflecting on the past, immediately with painful thoughts, until we learn differently how to let the thoughts come up, and go by, the body follows the thought, and triggers Fight-or-Flight. This is the most extreme manifestation of what was shared today. Mindfulness practice can help us to calm this worst-case inner-scenario, relative to memory. If Mindfulness can help us to rectify this issue, at this level, more typical thought patterns to will respond well to consistent, daily practice.
Thoughts of the Future: For us, do come from the past memories. For us (Trauma Survivors) much of future imaginings are about needing to create a sense of control. Knowing the future, or planning incessantly tricks us into an illusion of control of our future, that proves itself, time-and-again, to be uncontrollable. There is surprise around every one of life’s corners. Trying to hold onto control may prepare us for the worst of surprises, but robs us too often of the full-experience of the more welcome surprises that come along.
We can end up so internally driven with our thinking to solve past problems, or to paint an illusion for our future that we do miss-out on the here-and-now. Auto-Pilot. Unconsciousness. It’s like driving for miles with a wandering mind, only to ‘come-to’ and realize how much of the road you’ve missed out on.
Again, if Mindfulness can do such a helpful job of teaching PTSD Survivors how to be more observant of even our own thinking, against the extreme emotional puppeteer of a condition like PTSD, for daily living generally Mindfulness can only serve to help improve our inner-life, improving then our outer-life, over-all improving our experience of living a quality life.
Thank you, so much for the Summit. I found out yesterday that myself and at least one other person out here in the world is taking in the Summit, while working through what’s proving itself to be a ‘Mindfulness-Based’ leadership course. Serendipity Strikes with Quality Blessings this month.
Be Well.
Thank you for sharing this. Would you mind if I shared this with clients?
Beautifully said, Darren. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and insight.
Wow!! I really enjoyed listening to Shamash today. I felt a strong connection to his way of being mindful—-Thank you…..I’m smiling.
I really enjoyed today’s speaker
One of my favorite talk so far. So much enthusiasm and optimism. It was refreshing to hear about an informal practice too. Thank you both for inspiring me to live more mindfully. Very much appreciate this summit.
This is wonderful! I love how he brought the idea of acceptance to the environment. Being compassionate as a whole involves taking care of the environment too. Sustainability is another key aspect to focus on. Thank you for the great talk, Melli and Shamash! 🙂
What a beautiful work you do! Success to you.
Excelente! Loved it!
Happiness is the new rich! Loved it all!! 🙂
I, too, felt Shamash’s sense of happiness and lively energy. I really enjoyed that. He gave some new and interesting insights into meditation and mindfulness. He did a great job in emphasizing the importance of self-kindness and of letting go when meditating. Others have said it too, but it really hit home with Shamash’s interview.
I am really enjoying and benefiting a lot from this summit. Thanks so much!
Day 11 : Some learnings I want to share ：
1. Bag exercise is inspiring : Putting down the bag of the past and the bag of the future.
2. Sleep is one of the best meditation.
3. Mindful attitude in addition to present moment awareness ie. friendly, kindness, warm etc.
I also hope that mindfulness practices can bring us to a less violent and more sustainable world.
Thank you !
I really enjoy reading your notes throughout the summit. You summarize the key points and it makes it clear and easy to remember. Thanks.
I have to say that I agree with everyone else – the best, most engaging, interview so far. I particularly enjoyed the image of being the observer to your thoughts and the degree of separation that gives. I have read many times that we are not our thoughts, but it wasn’t until today that I actually got it. Thanks Shamash – what an excellent interview. Btw,I fell asleep during the meditation. Also, thanks Melli for organising this.
What a guy! Shamash is truly a light in the world. I am walking away from this conversation with a feeling of kindness towards myself and others. I am so looking forward to reading his book.
Totally enjoyed today’s presentation looking forward to making my Sunday more enjoyable and friendlier thank you.
Brilliant talk, thank you Shamash for the insights, I liked your humour and what you said about letting it be, so grounding. Many thanks.
What an amazing person.
Love Shamash. Don’t miss this interview.
From El Salvador,
María
Wonderful experience. Thankyou Samash….I love your smile….it is infectious!
I continue to be amazed by these sessions, gleaning so much more from each speaker than I was expecting – and also from Melli. Thank you thank you thank you! stilling the glass of water, setting down the past/future bags, cloud watching as practice – all such wonderful take-always from just this one hour. Wow
I feel the same. Every speaker has been my favourite speaker. I really can’t choose or pick, and I won’t. This has been a wonderful, mysterious and adventurous summit.
Oh and present moment/pleasant moment – brilliant!
This was an especially effective meditation for me today. I like the interview format you are using Melli, and Shamash is so approachable, making mindfulness fun. I have been listening and watching the audio and video opportunities that can be found as you link through all the websites you’ve listed. There’s so much out there to support an interest in mindfulness. It’s wonderful. Thank you again for the gift of this summit.
Great interview, one of my favorite talks so far! Thanks!
I still have a smile on my face and a sense of gratitude!
Really Beautiful! Is the first time I listen so clearly stated the importance of kindness and friendliness in the practice of Mindfulness. I really like the idea of befriending the mind and stay with it, observing, without trying to take it where I want to. Thank you very much Shamash and thank you again Melli for this incredible summit
Relevant; accessible; authentic. I especially appreciate the idea that I can just let my mind be, that there’s nothing inherently wrong with it or with my relationship to it. Deep thanks.
I loved the talk. Such a relief to stop stressing about are you doing this right or wrong. Great insights that encourage kindness. Loved the practice of a little smile – makes a difference! Thank you !!!
Shamash,, you are my favorite human being in this moment!
Had a fantastic experience with this one as it felt so much more present and contagiously joyful even. The bag exercise was fun and interesting. I imagined myself at a train station and when I put the right hand bag down, I shot into the air like a super hero and flew through space. Then I found myself revisiting past selves and even bringing one along for the ride. This may be because I saw the Matt Damon movie (The Martian) last night. ;P Cool and healing.
I appreciate this Summit so much. Many, many thanks!
Also, I envisioned a Halloween meditation in costumes. I hope this happens somewhere. Shamash took away all of the pretentiousness that I think keeps mindfulness from spreading. Thanks again!
Truly enjoyed Shamash’s talk. Great interview and thoroughly enjoyed the mindfulness practice he lead us through. I am new to all this but deep down have always felt a connection to nature and needing “quiet time” away from all the goings on in today’s society. It is never too late to learn this practice to truly experience one’s life. Loved the dropping of the bags of “past” and “present”. And to be kind an embrace our thoughts no matter what they be rather than try and quell them from arising. So much valuable information for a “newbie”. Keep it coming! and a big THANK YOU!
Excellent talk, beautiful practice, thank you Shamash Alidina
Great. Love his perspective.
So wonderful. And happy is the new rich… that’s the best!
His smile lights up the world! Maybe mine can, too.
That was just great! I can relate to Shamash. Being a nurse I found his reference to the monks in the ED so humorous, yet so true. So often there is a lot of tension, but calmness can also have that ripple effect. This Summit has many different clever people. We can connect with some more than others. I have found them all illuminating. Thank you Melli. Peace and good health to you all.