Frequently asked questions (FAQ’s)

What can I expect from completing this course?

While to benefit fully from Mindfulness Meditation a 6-8 week period is recommended, a 4 week training is a great start to get you on your path to mindfulness.  Significant changes have been noticed in both physical and mental states. With this course you can expect to learn the following:

• Stress Reduction Techniques: Practical methods to manage and alleviate workplace stress through mindfulness practices.
• Improved Focus and Concentration: Techniques to enhance attention and concentration, leading to increased productivity and efficiency.
• Emotional Regulation: Strategies for recognising and managing emotions, fostering a more positive and balanced emotional state in the workplace.
• Enhanced Decision-Making: Mindfulness can improve cognitive abilities, aiding in clearer thinking and better decision-making.
• Effective Communication: Techniques to cultivate mindful communication, fostering better understanding and collaboration among colleagues.
• Team Building: Mindfulness can contribute to a positive team culture, promoting empathy, cooperation, and a sense of community among team members.
• Work-Life Balance: Strategies to maintain a healthy balance between work and personal life, promoting overall well-being.
• Mindful Leadership: For those in leadership roles, the course may cover how mindfulness can contribute to effective leadership, fostering a positive and inclusive organizational culture.
• Resilience: Building resilience to cope with challenges and setbacks, promoting a more adaptive and proactive mindset in the workplace.
• Daily Mindfulness Practices: Introducing practical, easily applicable mindfulness exercises that can be incorporated into your daily routine, both at work and in your personal life.

I am not sure that meditation is for me, I have tried it before, but my mind keeps wandering.

Minds will wander and it’s impossible to stop it, that is the nature of the mind. During the meditation you learn to bring your mind back to your breath and is the most important part of the practice. The whole experience including the straying mind is an essential part of the training. In time and with more practice you will find that your mind will wander less and soon, the straying mind will not trouble you.

When the mind does stray, you bring it back to your object of attention, thus strengthening your awareness muscle. It might help to realise that the only way you can know that your mind is wandering (thinking, fantasies, worries) is when you have come back into awareness of the present moment. So, see if you can shift your point of view so that every time you notice you are distracted, it is at that precise moment you are aware of the present moment, and it is actually cause for celebration, not frustration. If your mind wanders 100 times, that means it came back at least 99 times, and each of those is an awakening – 99 awakenings in a single meditation! If you were training a puppy to fetch, and if he wanders all over the yard before finally bringing the stick back, you don’t hit him when he returns with the stick, you reward him for bringing it back. Each time you are aware of your mind wandering, you are bringing the stick back.

I feel like stopping the meditation and getting up often, what do I do?

It’s not unusual to get this feeling several times, especially if you are new to meditation, and it’s OK to have these thoughts. Please be aware that this is just another thought looking for your attention and there is no need to act on it. Allow it to come in to your mind, do not attach any emotion to it and continue to focus on your object of attention.

Am I doing this right?

As long as you are focusing on your object of attention or awareness (and your breath being one of the easiest since its always available) and bringing your wandering mind back to it every time you realise it has strayed, you are doing fine. Let go of any expectations because of meditation because by doing so, you are hanging on to the result rather than the practice. Consider any ensuing conditions like clarity of mind, peace or joy or whatever as a byproduct of the actual exercise, which is focusing on your breath and bringing your mind back to it every time it strays.

Keep in mind that as a beginner, this might be the first time you are paying attention to your inner thoughts and emotions and there are possibilities that this may give rise to some uncomfortable feelings. It is completely OK and normal to have this. Just allow them to come in and settle in and bring your attention back to your breath. In a way, this is exactly what you are trying to do, get comfortable with things that you would normally walk away from. Over time, you will notice that such thoughts stop troubling you.

I find it hard to sit comfortably for a long time

The object of the meditation exercise is to keep your focus on your object of attention. How you do it is not very critical. Please find a position that you are most comfortable with. During the meditation, if you need to shift positions, it’s not a problem, but it’s a good practice in mindfulness to notice that you want to shift the position, seeing if you can delay it a little bit and then intentionally adjust it. This way, you make choices out of awareness rather than doing it unconsciously.

I keep nodding off or falling asleep:

This is not uncommon and almost all meditators do tend to nod off once a while. Do not worry much about it. It is possible that your body may need the sleep and because of your body and mind quietening during the meditation your body may “think” that it is sleep time.

Whatever the cause, see if you can get curious about what sleepiness feels like in the body and mind. Precisely how does this feel – where does the sleepiness start, how do you first notice it? Also notice, too, if you have a judgment about falling asleep (“I must not be doing this right”). Mindfulness is not actually about changing your experience, it’s about bringing full awareness to it, even if what it is you are being aware of is your sleepiness and/or judgment about it. You can also try to meditation with eyes open or partly open, in a soft gaze, while maintaining focus on inner experience. If you are doing a sitting meditation, you might try sitting up straighter so that you aren’t leaning against a backrest.

I find 30 minutes of meditation too long, can I do it in 2 sessions in a day?

For maximum benefit, please try to meditate for the entire 30 minutes without breaking it up, except during Week 1, where you are required to meditation in 2 sessions of 15 minutes each. Additionally, despite the urge to get up or if the issue is boredom, “staying with the meditation” is a key essence to the practice. You are learning to persevere despite the thoughts and emotions that pop up and that exactly is what you are learning to do. Over a period, you will see that you can easily “learn to stay” with other uncomfortable situations in your life, increasing your resilience. You can and try to do the 10 minute walking meditations as often as you can.

Do I need to continue all practices beyond the 4 week training?

The skills you are learning through this course can be beneficial in many aspects of your daily personal life and your workplace. We recommend that you continue the meditation practice and other informal practices that you learn here, regularly. Most people who have meditated for a few weeks’ notice that they find the practice so beneficial in many aspects that they make it part of their daily ritual. They also find that many of their early issues they had with meditation quickly melts away and they are able to meditate almost anywhere, even in conditions that may have disturbances. Science has now clearly demonstrated that meditating daily changes the very structure of your brain catering for a much more happier and fulfilling life.