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  Identify what you could do differently to free up twenty minutes each day to devote to your meditation practice. Your peace of mind will be well worth the adjustment.

  * * *

  Many of us are addicted to our gadgets. The average smartphone user checks his or her phone 150 times a day—that’s every six and a half minutes.3

  Our ego likes to pretend that we’re so important that we have to keep this connected, but for many of us, there are other factors at play. We use gadgets to stave off an inner emptiness or to fill an awkward pause, or perhaps as an emotional buffer to avoid difficult feelings such as sadness, grief, loneliness, guilt, and fear. And who wouldn’t rather be watching the world’s funniest cat videos on YouTube than feeling those emotions?

  But when we turn to our gadgets to change how we feel, we feed rather than soothe our inner restlessness.

  Pathways to Peace

  Inside myself is a place where I live all alone, and that’s where you renew your springs that never dry up.

  —PEARL S. BUCK (1892–1973), author and novelist

  There are many ways to meditate. None of them is right or wrong. They are merely different routes to the same place. There aren’t any rules other than to find a practice that works for you.

  Experiment to see which method you find most effective. Maybe you’re a member of a church, have a yoga practice, or attend a synagogue or mosque where meditation is taught. Perhaps you love movement or chanting, or would prefer a technique with strict guidelines. You may want a religious component or something entirely secular. Keep seeking until you find a method that resonates with you.

  Be open. Be curious. But don’t let seeking become a form of avoidance. This is not about perfection. It’s about action. Whichever path you choose will work if you commit to it.

  * * *

  Exercise 2: Mantra Meditation

  * * *

  This exercise introduces you to a simple and very powerful technique that is used by millions of people around the world. It uses a mantra which is a word or a sound that gives the mind a focus during meditation, and will make it easier to switch off your usual merry-go-round of thoughts.

  You may already have a mantra you like. If not, try using the Sanskrit word om. Alternatively, a word such as love or peace—that has a positive meaning—will do. Or you can find mantras online.

  Settle yourself, set your timer for five minutes, close your eyes, and take five deep breaths. Allow the mantra or word to appear in your mind. Repeat it to yourself silently.

  Imagine that the sound is a magic carpet and watch it rise and fall on your breath. Now climb onto it.

  Feel the magic carpet beneath you as you breathe and allow yourself to rest on it. You don’t have to concentrate on it. You are safe and supported. This is not about focus but about softness and ease. So just let yourself rest on the carpet as you repeat the mantra silently. It doesn’t matter whether you repeat it several times a breath or once per exhalation. Just do it with ease. Let it establish its own rhythm. You’ll find that the pace at which it comes to you tends to quicken and slow naturally. As you repeat your mantra, you may also notice that at some point it ceases to be a word that you are repeating and becomes something you are experiencing.

  If you find yourself drifting into thought (and you will), gently shift your focus back to the mantra. You may have to do this many times. Thoughts are persistent. Don’t strain, stress, or judge what’s happening.

  Be loving with your mind’s antics. Think of your mind as a puppy you are training to “stay.” You may have to put it back on its mat numerous times before it learns, and even then it will sometimes stray.4

  There is no rush, and there is no destination. When your timer goes off, don’t open your eyes right away. Respect your practice. Allow yourself to slowly and gently come back to your physical surroundings. Then say thank you to yourself and to your mantra for the experience.

  * * *

  When I started meditating, I was in so much emotional pain I couldn’t sit for longer than a couple of minutes. So I used a walking meditation. I’d walk for twenty minutes, and the movement soothed me. After that, I used to meditate during morning prayers in a nearby chapel. I couldn’t sit by myself, but I could sit when others were around. Then I went through a period of “spiritual tourism”: trying every technique that was popular until someone suggested it was time to stop searching and start doing. I decided to commit to a mantra-based technique, and it works. I now sit for twenty minutes on my own each morning. In fact, it’s the part of the day I look forward to most. I make my coffee, read a portion of a spiritual text, and then set my timer.

  Some days, it’s easier than others to find peace, but I try not to judge myself—what matters is that I’ve shown up and made myself available to the process. Often my six-year-old will come sit with me. He rarely lasts the full twenty minutes, but he finds the stillness comforting and is drawn to it instinctively.

  —JN

  Deepening Your Practice

  Surrender to what is, let go of what was, have faith in what will be.

  —SONIA RICOTTI, author of The Law of Attraction Plain and Simple: Create the Extraordinary Life That You Deserve and other books

  To start with, developing your meditation practice takes discipline. As with any form of training, you have to show up if you want to see results. But while it may feel like a chore at the beginning, it will soon become a source of joy, and you’ll wonder how you ever lived without it.

  If you liked using the mantra meditation, then try it again tomorrow in the regular time you’ve set aside. If not, use whatever technique works for you.

  Each day, set your timer for three minutes longer until you get up to twenty minutes. Then allow an extra minute at the start of the session to settle into your breathing and an extra two at the end to come back into the world. Using your timer frees your mind from needing to monitor time, making it easier to let go.

  If you can, try to meditate before your day gets under way. Set your alarm to go off early to enable you to get up before your other commitments start.

  Some people add an additional meditation time at the end of their day, but, for now, see if you can commit to the morning.

  All you need to bring about extraordinary changes in your life is twenty minutes a day. You’ll find yourself becoming calmer, less reactive, less easily hurt. Meditation creates the emotional equivalent of a moat. It’s harder for life’s arrows to penetrate when you have a spiritual buffer protecting you.

  As your practice becomes more ingrained in your daily life, you’ll find that activities and people that alienate you from your inner equilibrium become less attractive. Why would we want to do things that make us feel worse rather than better?

  Once you’ve started to taste that sense of peace, you’re likely to want more. You’ll start to prioritize it. And that will mean making different choices about how you spend your time.

  * * *

  Exercise 3: Your Inner Circle

  * * *

  This is an exercise to help you make choices that will prioritize your inner peace.

  Draw three large circles, one inside the other, on a piece of paper.

  In the outer circle, write down all the activities that almost always make you feel bad. Perhaps it’s looking at photos of an ex’s new partner on Facebook. Maybe it’s checking out a gossip column, going on a crash diet, or binge drinking. These activities manufacture pain.

  In the middle circle, write down behaviors that sometimes make you feel good and sometimes bad. For example, speaking to a close friend who is also close to your ex, surfing shopping sites, being in touch with a member of your family who causes you concern.

  In the inner circle, jot down behaviors that make you feel great. For example, spending time with a good friend, meditating, exercising, laughing, playing with a child, walking in nature, playing a sport, painting, writing, dancing, creating, sculpting, or singing. Write down as many as you can.<
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  Take a look at your map. That inner circle is where you’re happiest, safest, and most fulfilled. It’s firm ground. Your aim is to spend as much time there as possible.

  Now look at the middle circle. You can do these activities when you’re feeling emotionally robust, but they carry risks and could lead you to lose your center. When you feel emotionally vulnerable, try to avoid them as much as possible and return to the inner circle as soon as you can.

  Your goal is to stay out of the outer circle altogether.

  Your peace of mind is precious, so use this tool to foster it and keep it safe.

  * * *

  * * *

  MENTAL DETOX

  Most religious traditions insist on a day of rest from worldly engagement for good reason. The idea is that it enables us to return to center and remember what really matters in our lives. You don’t have to have a faith to benefit from the practice. Try giving yourself a day of rest each week when you decline to shop or actively consume, where you prioritize being in the life you have rather than getting or having more.

  If you enjoy it, how about taking a complete mental detox by not reading or listening to the news? Think of your mind as a glass of clear water. Every time you listen to or read a fear-driven or shocking report, it’s like injecting ink straight into it. So why not make disengagement from it a regular part of your week?

  * * *

  Letting Go of Knowing

  As you learn to detach from your thoughts, you’ll begin to notice how your mind likes to categorize your experiences as either good or bad. Whether it’s the fact that it’s raining again or that a friend failed to show up, you’ll probably discover you have a running commentary assigning value to it.

  You’ll almost certainly do the same with people: sorting them into goodies and baddies, and making all sorts of assumptions about their motives and intentions.

  The problem is that we think we know what’s going on, but actually we have no idea. We don’t have a crystal ball, nor can we read minds. Instead, our assessments are based largely on our past experiences and fear. We project what has already happened onto our present and then wonder why the same experiences keep happening to us again and again.

  * * *

  NEITHER GOOD NOR BAD

  Once upon a time, the fable goes, there was a farmer who had no ox with which to plough his field. One day he woke up and saw a horse grazing in his pasture. He was ecstatic and rushed to the wise man in the village. “Wise man, wise man, I thought we were all going to starve, as we had no ox to plough our field. But now we have a horse. This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.”

  The wise man replied, “It is neither good nor bad, it just is.”

  The farmer left, shaking his head. “What an idiot that wise man is,” he thought. “He understands nothing of value.” Then he and his only son set about ploughing the field.

  Suddenly the horse reared up, injuring the son, who broke his leg.

  The farmer rushed back to the wise man. “Wise man, wise man,” he said. “You are so wise. You were totally right. The horse was not a good thing. It has broken the leg of my only son, and now I have nobody to help me bring in the harvest.”

  The wise man shook his head and repeated, “It is neither good nor bad.”

  Exasperated, the farmer returned to care for his son and do what he could with his crop before the rain came.

  The next day, an army marched into the village and rounded up every able-bodied young man to help fight in the war. They were taken off to the front, and before long, word came back that they had all died.5 When the horse broke the son’s leg, it inadvertently saved the farmer’s life.

  How often do we, like the old farmer, think we know what is good and bad in our lives? And how much time do we waste trying to puzzle it out? While we’re busy trying to get more of what we think is good and avoid what we think of as bad, we miss out on what happens in between—which is actually the vast majority of our lives.

  * * *

  Living Consciously, Mindfully

  What would happen if instead of waiting for the “good” moments to arrive, we remained present for all of life—including the parts we often dismiss as boring and unimportant?

  The peace we can find when we meditate at the start of each morning is actually available throughout our day if we open ourselves to it.

  * * *

  Exercise 4: The Miraculous Mundane

  * * *

  This exercise will help you transform your present—no matter what is going on.

  Pick one of the activities listed below that you find really boring; perhaps something you barely notice yourself doing:

  • Brushing your teeth

  • Putting on your clothes

  • Getting to or from work/school

  • Eating lunch

  • Making your bed

  • Washing your face

  • Doing the dishes

  Now, for the next week, do that activity mindfully—in other words, be really conscious of every aspect of it.

  Be aware how extraordinary the mundane action you’ve chosen really is, and how amazing it is that you, with the unique emotional and psychological makeup and genes that you have, came into existence, and are using the instruments that you’re using. How many hands have been involved in gathering the raw materials, manufacturing, selling, and delivering them? How many different sensations can you feel in your body as you use them?

  Imagine how you’d feel and how your life would change if you lost the physical ability to do these things again. If you are eating, take time to be aware of every single taste and sensation. Chew your food properly. Marvel at the miracle of how the body digests sustenance and converts it into energy.

  Say a silent thank-you for the experience, for the growers and the harvesters and the distributors and the makers: “Thank you for nourishing my body so that I may be alive today.” Try to imagine that you’re from another land or universe and see everything anew, as if for the first time. Connect with the awe and wonder how you’d feel if you’d never tasted food or drunk a glass of water before.

  * * *

  These “normal” tasks can be stress busters. They can be like a church bell or a call to prayer that reminds us to return to the present so that we can encounter the sacred.

  When you bring attention to the wonder of the small things in your life, the details of the bigger issues start to assume less importance. And miraculously, when you loosen your focus on them, they often somehow start to slip into place.

  I don’t know how many times a week I arrive at my destination on autopilot with little or no memory of my journey. The days of my life that I remember the most, even though side by side they appear the same—same bus, train, route to work and home—are the days I was present in my life. When I chose not to multitask—not to be on my phone, listen to music, read a book, think about the weekend—but instead was there on that train and looked around and noticed the woman next to me, who was heavily pregnant; and the man with the handlebar moustache; and the saxophonist busking in front of the coffee shop. When I stopped and was grateful for the moment: for the gift of his music, her smile, my life. That, I’ve learned, is peace.

  —GA

  The more practiced you become at switching your focus from your thoughts to where you actually are, the greater the sense of freedom and joy you experience. You no longer rush to get things done. Instead, you get lost in the detail and the glory of them and wonder how you could have missed out for so long.

  Consciousness transforms life. Whatever you’re doing—making a cup of tea, waiting for a bus, or getting dressed—use it as an opportunity to connect with what is. Decline your mind’s invitation to worry and instead focus on the task at hand.

  Presence of mind is peace of mind.

  The Power of Pausing

  Give your morning to God, and he will give you your day.

  —CARMEL MURPHY

  Life will present c
ountless challenges to your practice of peace. They’ll come in the form of relationships, traffic, grocery store checkout lines, and so on. You’ll be triggered because you’re human. Any strong emotion, such as jealousy, anger, or fear, can catapult you back into anxiety and negative projection.

  When this happens, see it as an opportunity to practice. Hit the pause button, fast. Focus on your breath. You have one goal: to preserve your peace of mind while not robbing other people of theirs.

  Your mind may tell you you’ve been offended. It will almost certainly want you to dive into the future or rake through the past. Refuse its pull to rope you into a story and instead stay present.

  Notice what you’re experiencing and then name, feel, and release it. If you’re struggling to stay in the moment, excuse yourself from the room or go to the nearest ladies’ room to realign yourself and calm down.

  Pausing buys you vital time. It enables you to respond with kindness and curiosity rather than fear. As you do so, how others respond to you will in turn shift miraculously.

  If you feel your mind flooding with attack thoughts, wait until you’re centered and then wait some more.