The Art of Kindfulness

So hi,

I'm Tom Evans and welcome to another Zone Show.

Now I'm thrilled today to be speaking with Shamash Aladina.

Hi,

How are you doing?

I'm very well,

Tom.

Thank you so much for having me on the show.

Now our trajectories have been,

Our timelines have been going in kind of parallel for a long time.

I've been aware of you for many,

Many years and I've been observing the stuff you're doing and I can't get over the coincidences in some of the stuff we've been working with because I wrote a book a few years back now called Mindful,

Timeful and Kindful and here are you taking mindfulness and making it into kindfulness.

That's amazing.

And making time for it.

And making the time for it too.

Yeah.

So I want to talk about kindfulness today but before I do that I want to just ask you a question.

So it's been puzzling me for a while.

On your website it says,

In big letters it says here and this is your bio,

The thing that you're most proud of is the certificate in swimming one full width from your primary school.

Why are you most proud of that over all the wonderful things you've done like writing these books for dummies and that sort of stuff?

Well,

It's funny that I actually wrote that in my website quite recently because we got an email from someone saying that,

Oh,

I'm not sure about your qualifications.

Can you tuck into this?

You know,

You may have done this,

You may have done that.

So I just decided to put a whole list of all my qualifications and I was trying to go through,

You know,

I've done all these master's degrees and I've done works towards a master's degree in mindfulness and all these other things and I was going through the whole list and then I'd done like laughter yoga and I'd got these other and then I remember my very first certificate,

My very first certificate I ever got was to swim one width when I was in primary school from one side of the swimming pool to the other and it was a great achievement and it felt really good.

I think I was just being a bit playful there but it's something that's etched in my mind after all this time.

So yeah,

I'm really proud of that.

If I wasn't able to swim then you know,

I wouldn't even be here today when I made it to the other side of that width to be able to get any of the other certificates.

All the other certificates were based on it then weren't they?

You couldn't have done them without it.

Yeah,

Exactly,

Exactly.

So what was your general journey into mindfulness space?

Because you're an engineer like me aren't you?

Yeah,

Exactly.

That's another connection that we have and I fell into engineering because I was good at science at school and I found myself getting the top grades when I was at school so I'm like wow,

This is something I find easy and other people seem to struggle with it so maybe I should just keep doing it and I'll be top of the class.

So that kind of continued through my A levels and so I actually went to my careers advisor and I said what shall I do?

And I was thinking of doing medicine because a lot of people from an Asian background like you've made it if you're a doctor and if you haven't made it as a doctor then you've been a bit of a failure but I was going to do medicine and then the careers advisor said did you know that doctors have the highest suicide rate of any profession?

I'm like oh,

Okay.

So what's the next best thing I can do after that?

And I just spotted engineering so I found myself studying engineering.

The thing was I was basing all these decisions just on salary actually in that little careers book.

There's no deeper thought than that and so when I find myself doing a job in the summer,

I worked at this job and it was so boring that we're designing an oil rig in Indonesia sitting in an office in London and the same person sitting opposite me,

The same old jokes,

Everyone moved in the same way,

Had tea at the same time.

I used to go off for these long lunch breaks for over two,

Three hours just to try and get out of the office and ended up getting a negative paycheck for one of the months in the summer.

I'm like okay,

This definitely is the wrong thing for me.

And then I saw a poster in the underground for a philosophy class and I thought okay,

Practical philosophy,

That sounds like the complete opposite of chemical engineering,

Let's give that one a go.

And it was in that class when they started talking about this concept,

This word that I'd never really heard of before called consciousness.

That didn't come up in any of my science A levels or at university but you know,

I knew what the word consciousness meant and the teachers started talking about different levels of consciousness and how if we do certain exercises our level of conscious awareness goes up.

And so logically made a lot of sense,

So I thought okay,

Let's give it a go.

And it was in that moment in those five or ten minutes where we did this short exercise,

It was like a mindfulness exercise,

We went through our different senses and then we stepped back from our emotions and thoughts as well.

I have this just beautiful sense of calmness and clarity and this idea that I was not my thoughts,

That I could step back from my thoughts,

My thoughts can say whatever they want,

They can say the most horrible negative or positive thing and it's just a thought.

Whereas before that I was in a different position,

I was inside those thoughts operating from within that.

So that was it from then on,

I decided that I want to teach,

I wish I'd learnt this earlier,

I was like 20 years old at the time,

I was like oh my god,

I'm so old and I've learnt this,

I wish I learnt this when I was younger.

So I wanted to teach in schools.

So I became a school teacher and started to teach meditation,

Mindfulness as well as the sciences in a school.

That's a nice mix isn't it?

Yeah,

It's a unique school which started back in 1975 where they had meditation as well and so we paused between lessons,

So the children all stopped for about half a minute or a minute,

Just paused between one lesson and the next and in the mornings there was quiet time where they could do their meditation if they wanted to but they didn't have to,

They could just do something else quietly so they weren't too forced into it because that doesn't work.

So you said when was this that you were doing this?

What year was it?

So the teaching in schools started when I was about 22 I would say and I'm almost 40 now,

So almost 20 years ago.

So 20 years ago then in this one school you were doing quiet times between lessons,

Why isn't that in every school now?

Yeah well it's starting,

The movement is definitely starting,

There's probably thousands of teachers now that have been trained in mindfulness meditation and they're doing classes in mindfulness in schools in different ways and forms and I think even after school clubs are starting to bring it in.

So and you know lots and lots of parents and adults have practiced it so they try and bring it to the children.

And what was your transition then from this sort of engineering teachery guy doing a bit of mindfulness into like this full-blown mindfulness chap that you seem to be these days?

Oh yeah so that's a funny story in that because I'm a scientist I like looking at research and so we didn't call it mindfulness at that time,

Just called it meditation or all sorts of different words but not mindfulness.

But I went to a website called Google Scholar which has lots of research papers and this is over 10 years ago and I typed in meditation and when I typed in meditation all the research papers were on this thing called mindfulness meditation and it was by mainly by a guy called John Kabat-Zinn.

I'm like wow there's lots of research on this meditation,

Does anybody actually teach this stuff?

So I kind of googled it and I found one or two teachers in London so I went to their classes and I thought wow this is a beautiful way of introducing meditation to people who are complete beginners because before that if you type if you search for a meditation teacher you can get all sorts of weird wacky stuff and it's very hit and miss as to exactly what you would get.

Whereas this was a research based approach and it's very clear about the kind of things you learn in each session.

So I thought this is a good way of doing it and so I trained it in Bangalore University in Wales.

I started doing more and more training there to teach mindfulness and then I started teaching it in my home.

I wasn't planning to charge any money for it at all.

I did this visualization where I went out into the universe,

Came back down as to my ideal life and it would be teaching people meditation in my home and within a few months I started doing that,

Started teaching these low cost or free classes and then what happened is that half the people didn't turn up and they were not as motivated as they would have liked and so then I had this weird thought in my mind.

I'm like what if I actually charged people a few pounds to come to the class,

What would happen?

And suddenly people were loving it and if they couldn't come they were apologizing,

Please can I come next week?

They were absolutely on time.

I'm like my goodness,

Okay this is interesting.

So this is kind of connected with value and motivation for people.

So I thought okay and then I started thinking hang on a minute,

Maybe I could actually do this as a job if this continues like this and so that's what happened.

Basically the funny story is that I was,

My brother was working in New York and I was with him and I was holding a book in my hand called CBT for Dummies because I've heard this type of therapy called CBT and I was a bit confused about it so I thought these dummies books,

If I can't understand that book I won't understand any book on CBT so let me get that one and let me read it.

I started reading it and it was a really really well written book by a really good therapist.

I thought this is brilliant,

This format is fantastic and then my brother suggested oh yeah,

You're always talking about mindfulness and doing mindfulness,

Is there a book on mindfulness for dummies?

And so when I googled it actually there wasn't,

So I'm like that's strange.

So then I just went to dummies.

Com,

Clicked on contact and I said why is there not a book on mindfulness for dummies,

There's all these other books for dummies and then and that's how it happened.

One thing led to the other,

We started having a meeting,

They started asking me what is mindfulness,

They said there's only about two or three books on this subject but maybe there should be more and then they told me to write a chapter which I was like wow you want me to write it,

Okay and then one thing led to the other and suddenly I got a phone call and said write this book and so when that book got published,

Which was the whole journey in story in itself,

Once that got published I decided to just take the plunge and say okay let me see if I can do this full time.

And you got three in the series now I noticed.

Yes,

Three or four yeah,

Mindfulness,

Relaxation,

Mindfulness workbook and mindfulness at work,

So four in the series.

But what's this thing called kindfulness and I know it's on your logo there's a formula and as an engineer I like a formula,

It says mindfulness plus kindness equals kindfulness.

Can you become kind first and then get into mindfulness or do you got to do mindfulness first and then discover this kind of life?

You know what I've discovered that the two go hand in hand and it's very hard,

You obviously mindfulness,

If we think of mindfulness as just a present moment awareness,

Obviously you need to have a little bit of awareness about being kind to yourself or kind to others.

But it's very important that they go hand in hand and there's a little story about how I discovered this so I could just share that briefly.

So a couple of years ago I was travelling a lot,

I was giving talks in different countries and stuff and had lots and lots of other work going on so I was rushing around working hard and then I came back to London and as expected you know when you've been travelling a lot,

Anyway for me anyway I know you start helping people to cope with managing different time zones and stuff but I was tired,

I was a little bit worn out,

I was expecting to be tired for at least a week or so and then I had this whole list of emails and things to do and I thought okay maybe next week but the next week came and still I felt sleepy during the day,

I woke up feeling lethargic and this went on for about three weeks so I thought okay and it really looks bad if meditation teachers burnt out.

I better just go to bed every time I feel tired and let's see if that works.

So I went to bed because the meditations that I was doing at the time,

The mindfulness didn't really seem to be helping.

So I went to bed and I just casually happened to be using the YouTube on my phone and I typed in meditation or letting go or something,

I found a teacher called Ajahn Brahm,

He had almost a million hits.

So he gave a talk on letting go which was fantastic and entertaining but as YouTube works it starts suggesting different things for you and it suggested day one of a retreat and then I realised that he had a whole 10 day retreat right there on YouTube so I could just do the whole thing from bed.

So I thought wow,

This is going to be fantastic,

Something for me to do.

So I started day one of this retreat and the way he taught meditation is very different to kind of the approach that I've been learning and practising.

It had much more of this element of letting go and it had the element of being kind to yourself to the extent that it almost makes you feel like you're being lazy or you're just kind of snoozing,

You're almost not meditating at all.

But the first thing he suggested that most people are so tired,

Just spend the first two or three days of the retreat just in bed,

Just catch up with your sleep and then once you've caught up with your sleep then let's talk about doing some meditation.

So it's a real sense of letting go and he gave this example of a business woman who had come to his retreat and she'd been really,

Really working hard and he ordered her,

Like do not come to the meditations,

Like have breakfast,

Go to bed,

Come back for lunch if you want and then go back to bed and she did that.

And all the other people in the retreat were like giving her evil eyes because they thought she was being very lazy and not working hard enough.

But by the end of the retreat she was getting much more beautiful,

Enjoyable meditations compared to the other people who were putting in a lot of effort.

So I tried this kind of approach and within a few days I found my meditation whilst I was lying down in bed,

You know,

My head on my pillow having this very blissful,

Re-energising experience and I felt very re-energised and refreshed actually.

And so this approach of kind form,

Which includes lots of different elements,

One of them is being kind to yourself,

Is something I thought okay,

This is what I would need to share with people now because this is working so well for myself and hopefully for others.

So I've been going to this teacher's retreats and reading his books and studying him pretty much every day for the last two or three years and created a whole programme around it and share it with other people.

So that's what I'm really passionate about.

If it's important then you're kind to yourself first,

It all starts with that premise.

Yes,

Yes,

I absolutely agree because I think the way we treat other people is the way we treat ourselves and the way we treat ourselves is the way we treat other people.

So if we are to be able to give and help and support and be kind to others,

If we're coming from a place of being kind to ourselves,

Then it's going to work a lot better.

The interesting thing in research though on self-compassion is they find that some people are able to be kind to others while being extremely harsh to themselves,

But what they find is that when people do that,

It leads to burnout very easily.

So people like nurses,

Doctors,

Teachers,

People in the helping professions,

They have the tendency,

It's very easy for them to be nice and kind to other people,

It comes naturally to them,

They feel great.

But if they don't force themselves to stop,

Relax,

Regenerate and actually be kind to themselves and give themselves a break,

Then they're going to find themselves getting tired and burnout very easily.

So it's that balance,

Very important.

So it's interesting how people find mindfulness in meditation,

Isn't it?

So mine was that classic burnout in a corporate job where I was a bit stressed and someone said,

You look really haggard,

You should learn to meditate.

And I said,

I haven't got any time,

I'm too busy,

And all of those manifestations.

And recently,

I've been working on this thesis on timefulness,

Where,

You know,

Get into it because you get more things done in less time,

And that gives people a different motivation.

But do you think for people like,

Especially people in these caring professions,

That if they find kindness first,

It could be their entree into this whole world?

Yeah,

I think so.

Because the thing about mindfulness is that if you practice mindfulness without the element of kindness to yourself,

You're going to go off it very quickly.

Things of mindfulness is about cultivating a present moment awareness,

And you start by turning your attention maybe to your breathing or the outside world,

But you're going to start becoming more aware of your emotions and your thoughts.

Now,

If you have a negative reaction to those emotions,

Emotions are just emotions,

But if you connect to them in a negative way,

Or I don't like them,

And also with your thoughts,

Like,

Oh,

Why am I having so many negative thoughts?

How can I get rid of this thought or that thought?

And you create this kind of relationship,

Then it's actually going to make it even worse in a way.

And so there have been a few reports,

And you see it sometimes in the newspapers,

And it kind of catches headlines about how mindfulness is causing issues or problems for people.

And I think it's because it's not the mindfulness itself,

But it isn't including the kindness and compassion element.

Now,

The reason why I think it's a good idea to call it kindfulness rather than mindfulness is because mindfulness originally comes mainly from Eastern traditions,

A lot of it comes from Buddhist influences,

Mindfulness.

But it's just one element of the Buddhist philosophy.

And if you're looking at the heart of what it means to practice these approaches and techniques,

The kindness and the compassion is really,

Really important and emphasized throughout.

And that's kind of been,

People kind of just bolt it on a little bit onto the mindfulness,

But the word says it,

Like,

If you say mindfulness,

It feels like it's very much about focusing about from your from your mind and really concentrating,

Doesn't feel like a practice of the heart.

If it was a practice of the heart,

You would call it heartfulness,

Right.

But it's kind of quite attractive to the Western society because it doesn't have that emotional element.

And we tend to like to analyze things and be very left brained.

So without this kindfulness element,

The relationship to what you're aware of has the tendency to be,

They call it non judgmental,

Sometimes they've got non judgmental,

But that doesn't have that sense of warmth and compassion about it.

And so that's what can cause the issues.

That's why it's very important.

I think if anyone's learning meditation,

I'd tell them,

You know,

Turn your attention into as you know,

Become aware of your breathing or your body or your thoughts or emotions.

But straight away right from the beginning,

I would also emphasize,

See if you can lean it towards kindness and care.

I mean,

One way I do it is like,

Imagine like,

If you find little puppies or little kittens cute,

Just imagine that kind of animal and people visualize it and you can kind of see them smiling with this kind of the sense of love and warmth towards it.

And I say,

Just try and bring that attitude to what we're paying attention to,

Whether it's your breathing or yourself or your body.

And then it becomes more of a pleasure and then people are looking forward to it.

So it's not like a discipline that you have to do,

But it's a joyful experience for you.

And does it scale?

I would say when you become individually kind,

Do you find that people are kind to other people that they're sort of either kind back to you or kind to other people in return?

And then from a societal point of view,

Could we end up then if kindness kind of spreads across the planet,

Just living on a better planet?

Absolutely.

Yeah,

We've come to discuss this briefly before we side.

Yeah,

It's kindness to ourselves,

Kindness to the people around us.

And then we kind of we all live in these kind of small bubbles of relationships.

And one way for me to imagine all the people on earth is like everyone's in these tiny bubbles and those bubbles kind of connect with each other in weird and wonderful ways.

But we spend most of the time with a few people and those people spend a few times with a few people.

So these ripples,

Although it's hard for us to almost see or visualize or imagine,

We can trust that they are like ripples and they ripple out throughout all the relationships in the world.

And it is a much smaller world than we first imagine or think the connections.

They say there's like six connections,

I think,

Between everyone in the planet.

So if there really is,

Then,

You know,

Being kind and caring towards other people,

Starting with ourselves before long,

It's bound to have a positive impact on the people around us.

So yeah,

I think so.

And I think there's a lot of really,

Really good kind acts happening that don't get reported.

We see a lot of the worst things on the planet happening on the news.

But I find more and more people are spending less time watching the news and concentrating on these more positive things and making doing more positive acts.

And now it's time to see more and more newspapers and magazines that focus on that as well.

And podcasts as well.

So in the spirit of that,

Then,

Shall we do a kind and positive act?

And right now,

You very kindly said you'd lead us through a guided meditation.

Could you take us through a guided meditation that leads us to that personal,

Kind,

Full space?

Sure,

Sure,

Sure.

So first thing about kindfulness is about starting in a posture that feels comfortable to you.

So rather than thinking you have to sit with an erect back or you have to sit in a certain way,

Sit in a way that feels comfortable and right for you.

So you're going to lean back against the chair.

That's fine.

If you're listening to this podcast and you're in bed or close to your bed and you want to lie down,

Then feel free to do that.

So that's the first thing.

So find the posture that's right for you.

And then in this meditation,

Just allow your eyes to gently close if that feels okay for you.

I like to start my meditations by taking a few deep breaths.

So take a nice deep breath in and slow,

Smooth breath out.

And as you breathe out,

Just feel any sense of relaxation that may be happening in the body.

This engages the relaxation response.

So nice deep breath in and this time as you breathe out,

Having a little smile on your face.

And now your third deep breath in.

If you're struggling to smile,

Just use the two fingers and just lift the corners of your mouth to force a little smile.

Good.

And that can all engage a sense of positivity and relaxation as we start this meditation.

So just begin by checking in with your body.

And as you've had your eyes closed for a few moments now,

Your attention naturally starts to turn inwards and you start to notice your bodily sensations.

So just notice how your body is feeling right now and use mindfulness to become aware of the sensations there.

Maybe there's some tension in your shoulders or neck,

Your back,

Your arms or legs.

And now what I'd like you to do is just adjust your posture so you're more comfortable.

So everyone can adjust their posture a little bit to make them more comfortable,

Even if it's just 1% more comfortable.

And you'll find that you become a little bit more relaxed and at ease.

So for this little short meditation or exercise that we're doing together,

I'd like you to imagine that you're carrying two heavy bags in your hands,

Two carrier bags.

Maybe you've just been shopping.

One bag in your left hand and the other in your right hand.

The bag in your left hand says the word passed on it,

P-A-S-T.

And the bag in your right hand says future,

F-U-T-U-R-E,

Future.

So imagine you've been carrying these heavy bags,

Not just today,

But in a way metaphorically your whole life.

And they're heavy,

They're weighty.

And so just for the next few minutes,

We're going to be gradually putting these bags down to rest in the present moment.

So just begin with the bag in your left hand,

The past,

Which contains all your mistakes,

All the experiences and memories,

Both the good and the bad.

And just allow yourself to gently imagine you're lowering that bag down,

Down to the ground until eventually that bag makes contact with the earth,

The ground.

And you just gently let go of that bag of the past.

And as you open your hands,

You release the weight of the past and your arm becomes free.

And it's just that sense of relief and relaxation.

You can maybe even gently smile as you just feel that sense of letting go.

Just letting it go for a few minutes.

And the other hand is the bag of the future,

Representing your hopes and your dreams,

Things you're excited about.

So your worries and concerns about the future,

All those goals that you're not sure if you'll be able to achieve or not.

And again,

Just for the time being,

Lowering that bag down,

Down to the ground until it eventually makes contact with the earth again.

And it can completely support the weight of the future as you transfer it from your hands to the ground.

And again,

You just gently smile as you open up your hands and release it.

And you find yourself standing between the past and the future in the present moment,

The now.

So noticing what it feels like to be in the here and now,

The present moment.

And now cultivating not just a present moment experience,

But a pleasant moment experience by being in the here and now,

But also bringing a sense of kindness and care towards your body.

And so one way of doing this is just scanning your body,

Starting from the tips of your toes,

Gradually going up your body and noticing where there's any tension or tightness.

You can just scan it from your feet,

Up your lower legs and upper legs,

Up through your torso,

Through your shoulders and arms,

All the way through to your fingers and through your neck and throw it up to your face and all the way up around your ears to your brain.

Just feeling your whole body,

Using the mindfulness to give you feedback and just noticing where you feel some tension or tightness.

So I can feel a little bit in my shoulders and then see if you can sense some kindness there,

Some care,

A sense of affection.

Allow the sensations to just be there,

Be curious and caring towards it.

Looking at that tension like you would a beautiful young baby or a little kitten or dog or a beautiful flower,

You know that beautiful sense of affection.

Some people like to imagine a kind of like a golden light going to that part of your body.

You can even try smiling towards that tension.

So you're not trying to get rid of it,

But you're trying to relate to it,

Almost as if you're hugging it.

You can even gently place your hand on that part of your body,

Imagining or feeling your breath going into that part of your body.

And noticing if any relaxation or letting go just naturally happens.

And you can continue this process with different parts of your body,

Meeting it with mindfulness and kindness.

And gradually with time as you get good at this,

Eventually your whole body feels very soft and tingly and relaxed and almost fuzzy.

You can allow yourself to just enjoy that experience and rest in that.

That feeling of kindness towards your own body.

And then with practice,

You can also do the same process to your mind,

Becoming mindful of the thoughts and emotions and being kind to them,

Just letting them be.

Smiling towards them.

And then when you're ready,

Just noticing how you're feeling towards the end of this little exercise,

So you're feeling more centered,

Relaxed,

Grounded.

You're so well done.

This is the effect of this little meditation,

And if not,

Then maybe just takes a little bit more time and practice and less control and more being kind.

So when you're ready,

You just allow your eyes to gently open,

Coming back to your surroundings,

Going back to our conversation there.

Lovely.

Thank you for sharing that so kindfully.

That was wonderful.

You're welcome.

And I noticed then that that is also part of the spirit of the course.

You've got the eight week Kindfulness online course,

But also you've got a free Kindfulness seven day course as an introduction to it,

Which I think is very generous.

Yes.

Yeah.

So they can try it out for free for seven days and see if people like it.

Isn't that cute?

That's fantastic.

And that's part of the spirit of all this,

Isn't it?

You find that that works as a sort of as a marketing tool in this sort of world these days?

Yeah,

I think I mean,

I know that if I wanted to try it,

If I was going to purchase something,

I would like to try it if possible.

So yeah,

We've something that we introduced a couple of months ago.

We spent a long time designing it actually spent about a year recording it in London in different forests in London.

And then also we were in Oslo and we interviewed different teachers.

So we wanted to give people a taste of it.

So we're trying to share as much of it as we can.

Fantastic.

That's great.

And what's next for you?

What's your take on all this because it strikes me that you do practitioner training courses,

Don't you?

For mindfulness,

You're going to do practitioner training courses for kindness,

Too.

Well,

Actually,

Although I call it mindfulness teacher training involves a lot of kindness and compassion in it.

So it's almost like a kindness teacher training.

So yeah,

I may I may do something specifically on that.

But yeah,

I do a lot of training.

That's the main thing I spend a lot of my time doing actually training mindfulness teachers and helping them to teach in the workplace as well.

And what would you say then is the opportunity for somebody that then wants to get into this world?

When you approach this stuff and there might be some resistance at first,

As you say,

But as you as you embrace it and step forward,

Where do you end up on the other side?

So for the person,

The average person who's just coming up to approach meditation and mindfulness and they want to try it,

There's also all sorts of different ways and approaches they can do that.

But I think it's really important to find the teacher that's right for you.

I know at school,

For example,

I love the subjects where I connected well with the teacher.

So I think it's very important for people to try this.

It's been my own experience with yoga.

I mean,

Most yoga teachers haven't really get on well with two or three of them.

When I practice with them,

I really enjoyed it.

So it wasn't the yoga,

But it was the way it was being taught.

And so it's the same with teacher training programs.

Actually,

There's there is actually a whole variety of them.

And you have to see is it is a style approach.

And I've actually done trainings myself to learn to become a teacher of mindfulness.

And some of the programs I did,

I didn't really enjoy.

There were actually arguments in the classes and stuff.

I was fighting a mindfulness teacher training program.

So that was a complete opposite approach to what I was hoping.

So it's really important to actually have a good positive connection with the main person behind it.

I remember as a school teacher,

Again,

As the headteacher had such a big impact on on this and the well-being of not just the pupils,

But the teachers and even the parents,

You can see it filtering all the way down.

So it's really important that whoever's in charge at the top is someone that you feel comfortable with when you when you're selecting one that's right for you.

As a teacher,

Do you find it's really important that you're always in learning mode?

Absolutely.

Yeah.

In fact,

I don't like to plan sessions as much as possible.

I know,

Like,

For example,

In this podcast,

I think you did send some questions or some possible things we could do.

And when I give talks and lectures and stuff,

I think it's really important not to have so much of a plan and just to go in fresh because then there's a sense of learning about it rather than planning,

Planning,

Planning and having almost like a script that you're going to go through.

And this is why I emphasize in my teacher training program,

I offer this kind of outline for how you're going to teach it.

But then really kind of let that go and allow your creative juices to flow and listen to the questions.

So the very act of teaching is a learning process,

Because every group is different.

Every conversation is going to be different.

And if you've got this set plan of what you're going to do,

Then it becomes very boring.

And I'm sure you understand that,

Like,

From your perspective,

Like you get to talk to all these different people during this podcast.

And if every conversation was the same,

It would be very boring.

So it's a learning process for you as well as it is for me.

Absolutely.

I only like having the opening question and that's about it,

Which is why I love that qualification of yours for doing the breath in school.

I thought that's it.

Once we get that out of the way,

Then we're away.

So what's coming up for you next then,

Shemesh?

What's the next one?

Well,

Like I mentioned,

I've been creating this training program to take help people to teach mindfulness.

But I've been also teaching it in workplaces for the last few years.

I kind of enjoy that.

But I even more I enjoy training people to be able to take it into the workplace themselves.

So I'm doing that quite a bit.

We also started to have talked about the Museum of Happiness,

But that's something that I started as a project over a year ago.

And that's growing from strength to strength.

So we've got these wonderful classes called Pay It Forward classes.

So the teachers give their time and then the people come along and they enjoy the experience,

Whether it's things like art therapy or meditation or self-compassion,

Meditation or could be all sorts of laughter yoga.

So people come along and then we invite them to pay it forward.

So it could be a donation or it could be helping someone else out.

So these positive kindness ripples,

The idea to try and spread them out as much as possible.

And people we've had such heartwarming responses from that people,

I don't understand.

It's like you don't want anything from us.

It just warms people's hearts so much that we can offer that.

So that's been a real pleasure.

And we actually taking that into company.

So one way we're trying to make become sustainable as an organization is to teach happiness classes in companies.

And we've done it in like banks like GE Capital,

We've done it in Google and other corporates.

So it's quite nice to know that even these organizations are open to doing things like meditation,

Yoga,

Laughter yoga,

And a bit of singing and dancing to actually help to people,

Lift people's mood and be in the present moment in a kind of a fun way.

Yeah,

I think actually Google have got ahead of mindfulness,

Haven't they?

Which is just sounds marvelous.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Yeah.

And it's happening more and more and more and more companies are starting to get that role.

Chief mindful officer.

And Chief Kindful Officer,

CKO as well.

We need more of those around,

Don't we?

Yeah.

So are you the CTO at the moment?

That's the Chief Timeful Officer?

Timeful Officer,

I must be.

I'm glad we had time to talk.

Well,

My view is there's enough time.

There was just enough time is where your attention is really.

And most people are naturally inefficient because as you say,

They're wandering to that bag of the past and the bag of the future and the focus leaves the now and you lose efficiency just by the very nature of the wandering human mind.

It's very simple,

Isn't it?

Yeah.

I know sometimes like in the past,

So you get this sentence that you keep saying like,

Oh,

I'm too busy or I don't have enough time.

And it's almost like we sentence ourselves in it through this thought or this sentence in our minds.

And that in itself can cause so much anxiety.

I think that's one of the key causes of a lot of anxiety at the moment.

Time strap.

Absolutely.

Well,

There's two meanings of the word sentence,

Isn't there?

Yeah,

Exactly.

We sentence ourselves literally.

The prison of our own minds with the sentences that we say to ourselves.

You got it.

I see another guided meditation coming on that theme as we speak.

Step out of the sentences of our minds.

Well,

It's been a delight and a pleasure to talk to you.

I hope this is the first of many conversations actually.

And you're all over the web.

So where's the best place for people to find you initially and then to dive into your books,

Into the Kindfulness courses?

Yeah.

My main website is shamashaladena.

Com and I blog on there every week now.

I've been doing that since January.

So I did have a podcast there a while back.

So I've got 30 or 40 podcast episodes,

But most recently been blogging every week.

So if you want to see what I'm thinking about most recently,

You can have a look in that blog and sign up to all sorts of different things there.

If you start from shamashaladena.

Com,

If you can't spell that,

I'm sure Google could work it out if you just try and type it in.

Or just put the word Kindfulness in,

You'll probably be up there somewhere,

I should imagine.

Yeah,

Exactly.

Fantastic.

Well,

It's been a real joy and a pleasure.

I'm glad that our timelines have crossed at last and I hope and pray that this will be not the last time that we speak.

So come back,

Come back soon.

Definitely.

I've really,

Really enjoyed it.

Definitely want to come back.

Fantastic.

Take care now.

Cheers.

Bye.

I've been Tom Evans and thanks for listening to this show.

And for books,

Resources,

Loads of practical examples of how you can use mindfulness to achieve real world outcomes,

Come over to my website,

Www.

Tomevans.

Co.