Chapter 9

Establishing Your Own Mindfulness Routine

In This Chapter

Discovering a clinically proven eight-week course

Tailoring the practices to meet your needs

Exploring ways to deepen your mindfulness

Learning a new language takes time, effort and patience. You need to dedicate yourself and at the same time not expect rapid progress. You try to practise regularly, preferably daily. You can learn the language by using CDs, books, television programmes, videos, websites, or in person through a teacher – whatever way best suits your lifestyle and learning methods. Learning mindfulness has some similarities. You can begin in many different ways, as long as you practise regularly and with a certain commitment and the right attitude and intention. (Refer to Chapters 4 and 5 for more about nurturing your attitudes and intention.) If you find committing yourself to a mindfulness practice difficult, you’re not alone; you can try a different approach, adjust your practice method, explore possible barriers and look for support as you discover the language of mindfulness.

Remember that when you learn a language, you can measure your progress – by, say, the number of new words you know. You can’t measure progress in mindfulness so easily, if at all, because mindfulness invites you to stop searching for progress. Mindfulness is about being exactly where you are right now and exploring the landscape, enjoying the scenery and being as you are, whatever that means for you. No matter how long you’ve been practising mindfulness, the present moment is always the same and yet always fresh, new and full of possibilities.

In this chapter I introduce the eight-week mindfulness-based stress reduction course and explore how to choose which element of mindfulness is best for you to practise. I also give you some ideas you can use if you want to take your mindfulness meditation even deeper.

Trying the Evidence-Based Mindfulness Course

Perhaps the most well-proven stress reduction course is an eight-week programme called mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR), originally developed at the stress reduction clinic at the University of Massachusetts medical school by Jon Kabat-Zinn. The course has been researched many times with thousands of people and has proved to be effective at reducing stress, so the recommended practices are certainly worth a go. If, after the eight weeks, you’ve felt no change has happened and sense that mindfulness isn’t for you, you can drop the practice. If you found the programme helpful, you can go on to develop your own practice, having experienced the range of meditative exercises.

Begin the programme by making a personal commitment to suspend your judgement and follow the recommended practices for eight weeks. After that, decide whether mindfulness is something for you. You can ask others in your life to help support you over the next eight weeks, or at least to give you some space to engage in mindfulness meditations daily for the next couple of months. Keep a journal on hand during the eight weeks to record your progress and any thoughts or emotions that arise.

Week One: Understanding automatic pilot

You operate on an automatic pilot far more than you may think you do. You may have experienced driving a car for a significant time before realising you were lost in thoughts, worries, or daydreams. This may be okay for a little while, but if your whole life is run automatically, you miss the show. Your mind thinks the same old thoughts, you may react unnecessarily when things don’t go your way, and your stress is compounded without you being fully aware of this process. Mindful awareness, as opposed to automatic pilot, allows for the possibility of responding to situations by offering you choice – a freedom from the mechanical, reactive, habitual patterns of your mind. (Refer to Chapter 5 for more about overcoming living on automatic pilot.)

This is the practice for Week One:

• Begin the week by engaging in the ‘eating a piece of fruit’ meditation described in Chapter 6. Record in your journal what effect the exercise has on you. Reflect on the effect of operating on automatic pilot in your daily life. What are you missing out on? What effect is unawareness having on your thoughts, emotions and body, as well as your relationship with yourself, others and the world?
• Practise the body scan meditation (explained in Chapter 6) daily, using the MP3 provided with this book. Play the MP3 and follow the guidance as best you can. Each day, note whether you practised and how you found the meditation. Don’t worry if you don’t enjoy it; persevere with it. Experiment with doing the body scan at different times of the day to see what works best for you.
• Choose a routine daily activity to practise mindfully. This can be brushing your teeth, showering, getting dressed, walking or driving to work, speaking with your partner, cooking, cleaning or anything you can think of. Bring a sense of curiosity to your experience. What matters is not what you choose, but your commitment to being aware of what you’re doing, as you’re doing it.

Week Two: Dealing with barriers

Daily meditation practice can be pretty challenging. Meditation provides the space for a whole range of trapped thoughts and emotions to rise to the surface, often the ones you want to avoid most. The tendency of the mind is to judge experiences as good or bad. The idea of mindfulness is to be aware of these judgements and let them go. The most important thing is to keep practising, no matter what your experience is. And try not to beat yourself up when you don’t manage to do the practices. Instead, just gently understand that, as a human being, you’re not flawless. Pick yourself up and when you’re ready, try again.

The aim of the body scan or any other meditation isn’t relaxation, so don’t worry if you don’t feel super relaxed. The aim is simply to be aware of whatever your experience is, as far as you can. The experience may be unpleasant, and you may feel more tense by the end of the session, but that’s still as good a meditation as any other; your mind may just be doing an emotional ‘detox’ – who knows? Just be patient and try not to judge the experience.

This is the practice for Week Two:

• Continue to practise the body scan daily using the MP3. You may now know the best time for you to practise meditation, and be able to stick with it. Make a short record in your journal, even just a sentence, of how the experience of the body scan is for you, on a daily basis.
• Choose another daily routine activity to do with mindfulness, in addition to the one you selected in Week One. Try pausing for a breath or two before starting the activity, and then connect with your senses, noticing the thoughts and emotions playing in your mind.
• Practise being mindful of your breath for ten minutes a day, by simply sitting comfortably straight and feeling the sensation of your breath. If your mind naturally wanders off, congratulate yourself for noticing and guide your attention kindly back to the breath sensation. Avoid paying attention to self-criticism; if criticism does arise in your awareness, note the negative thought as just another thought and turn your attention back to the breath. See Chapter 6 for how to practise mindfulness of breath in more detail.
• Start a pleasant events diary and use it to write down your thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations when you experience something pleasant, in as much detail as you can. In this way, you become more aware of how you automatically react to pleasant experiences. See Chapter 13 for details on how to do this.

Week Three: Being mindful in movement

One of the beauties of mindfulness is that you don’t have to be sitting still to be mindfully aware. This week is an opportunity to explore mindfulness in movement. This is also an opportunity to reflect on the power of focusing on the breath. The breath can act like an anchor: a place always available, right under your nose, to draw you into the present moment. Being aware of your breath while focusing on something challenging can enable you to see the difficulty from a different angle, softening the tension a little.

Try this practice for Week Three:

• On days one, three and five, practise about 30 minutes of mindful walking or stretching. Many people enjoy developing mindfulness through yoga or tai chi and find the approach very powerful. (You can refer to Yoga For Dummies by Georg Feuerstein and Larry Payne (Wiley) or Tai Chi For Dummies by Therese Iknoian (Wiley) for ways to do this.)
• On days two, four and six, practise the body scan using the MP3.
• Begin practising the mini meditation called the three-minute breathing space three times a day (explained in Chapter 7). You may be more likely to remember to do the breathing space if you decide at the beginning of the week exactly when you want to practise.
• Complete an unpleasant events diary in your journal (see Chapter 13 for details) on a daily basis. This means writing down one thing each day that was unpleasant for you, and the sensations in your body, the thoughts going through your mind at the time, and how you felt emotionally.

Week Four: Staying present

This week, focus on the present moment. Reflect on the quality of this moment now. How does it compare with thinking about the past or the future? What effect does focusing on the here and now have on your thoughts and emotions?

You react to experience in one of three ways:

• Attachment to pleasant experiences
• Aversion to unpleasant experiences
• Indifference to everyday experiences

Holding onto pleasant experiences leads to fear of what happens when you lose them. Aversion to unpleasant experiences leads to stress each time you have a bad time. Going into automatic pilot when facing a neutral event means you miss out on the mystery and wonder of being alive.

This week, focus on your aversion to unpleasant experiences. You, like everyone on the planet, have to face difficulties from time to time. The question is how you meet the challenge: do you run away from, suppress, or fight the feelings? Is there another way? However you meet difficulties, by becoming more mindful of the process, your reactions begin very slowly to untangle themselves. You begin to consider the possibility of responding in a way that reduces rather than compounds your stress.

Here’s your practice for Week Four:

• On days one, three and five, practise 15 minutes of mindful movement – stretching or walking – followed by 15 minutes of mindful breathing.
• On days two, four and six, practise the 30-minute guided sitting meditation explained in Chapter 6, using the MP3 provided.
• Practise the three-minute breathing space meditation three times a day at times predetermined by you.
• Additionally, practise the three-minute breathing space when something unpleasant happens. Write in your journal what effect the meditation has on your experiences.
• Become aware of times of stress. How do you react to the stress? Do you create a block, resist or suppress the stress, or shut down? Become aware of what’s happening in your body. When you react in a certain way to the stress, what’s going on for you? What effect does staying present with a difficulty have on your response? Allow yourself to be deeply curious about your relationship to stress.

Week Five: Embracing acceptance

This week, try allowing things to be as they are, rather than immediately wanting to change them. For example, if someone irritates you, rather than reacting immediately, just stay with the feeling of irritation. Feel it in your body and notice your automatic thoughts. If you feel a headache coming on, observe what happens if you let the pain be just as it is, and watch it rise and fall. What effect does allowing, accepting and acknowledging have on unpleasant and pleasant sensations?

If you want to become more relaxed, the first step is to allow things to be as they are, however they are. If you feel frustrated, the feeling is already there, so rather than getting frustrated about that too, try to begin accepting the frustration. Notice the thoughts, feelings and bodily sensations that go along with the frustration. You can try saying to yourself, ‘It’s okay; whatever it is, it’s okay. It’s already here. Let me feel it.’

Acceptance isn’t resignation: you’re facing up to the difficulty rather than running away. Mindfulness involves accepting awareness and using it as a way to change, not resigning yourself to a situation in which change will never happen.

Try this practice for Week Five:

• Practise the guided sitting meditation using the MP3, noticing how you react to thoughts, emotions and bodily sensations. Record any observations in your journal.
• Do the three-minute breathing space meditation three times a day. Try to connect it with everyday activities at times such as meal times, after waking up and just before going to sleep.
• Practise the three-minute breathing space when you’re going through a difficulty. Use the practice to explore your thoughts and feelings rather than trying to get rid of them, if you can.
• Explore the difference in responding in a controlled way to more challenging situations, whether they occur during meditation or not, rather than reacting uncontrollably to your experience. Become more aware of your reactions and the thoughts and emotions that drive them.

Week Six: Realising that thoughts are just thoughts

Usually, when you think of something, like ‘He hates me’ or ‘I can’t do this,’ you accept it as a fact, a reality. You may believe that almost any thought that pops into your awareness is an absolute truth. If your mind habitually pops up negative or unhelpful thoughts, seeing the thoughts and images as facts has stressful consequences. However, you can free yourself of this burden. Switch things around and try seeing thoughts as automatic, conditioned reactions rather than as facts. Question the validity of thoughts and images. Step back from the thoughts, if you can and don’t take them to be you, or reality. Just watch them come and go and observe the effect of this.

Thoughts are just thoughts, not facts. Thoughts are mental events. You’re not your thoughts.

When you’re feeling challenged, read Chapter 13 and see whether you can identify what types of thoughts are taking place.

Practice for Week Six:

• Now you can begin to mix and match as you wish. Combine the sitting meditation, the body scan and mindful movement for 30–45 minutes a day. You can split the time into two or three parts, and spread them out through the day. Some days you may choose not to use the MP3.
• Practise the three-minute breathing space three times a day, and additionally practise when a difficulty or challenge arises for you. Notice any recurring patterns, notice the effect of mindful breathing on your body, and let the mindfulness spread into whatever you’re facing next.
• If you can make time, practise a day of silent mindfulness meditation. See the section ‘Setting aside a day for mindfulness’ later in this chapter for how you can plan and do this mindfulness day.

Week Seven: Taking care of yourself

The activities you choose to do, from moment to moment and from day to day, strongly influence how you feel. By becoming aware of the activities that uplift you and the activities that deplete you, you may be able to adjust the choices you make to best take care of yourself.

Here’s your practice for Week Seven:

• Choose any formal mindfulness meditations you like – such as the body scan, sitting meditation, or a combination of the meditations – and practise them daily, with or without the MP3.
• Continue to practise the three-minute breathing space three times a day and when a difficulty arises. Try making a wise choice after or during a difficulty.
• Design a stress warning system in your journal by writing down all the warning signs you have when under excessive stress, like feeling hot or behaving impatiently, and then write down an action plan you can follow to reduce the stress, such as a mini meditation, going for a walk, or talking to a friend. Refer to your action plan when you next feel overly stressed and notice what effect it has.

Week Eight: Reflection and change

Sometimes, when faced with a problem, no matter how hard you try, no matter how much effort you put into solving the problem, you’re still stuck with the difficulty. Nothing seems to work. If you keep trying, you may become more and more tired, and perhaps move farther from a solution rather than nearer. In such circumstances, stop trying to solve the issue, and accept the circumstance for now. In this act of kindness to yourself, a solution may or may not arise. However, you’re likely to feel less angry, frustrated, stressed, or depressed. The feeling of helplessness arises when you keep trying and no benefit seems to manifest itself. Acceptance is a change in itself.

You may already know the serenity prayer, which seeks:

• The serenity to accept the things I cannot change;
• The courage to change the things I can; and
• The wisdom to know the difference.

In this last week of the course, reflect on how the experience has been for you. What have you found most helpful? What aspects would you like to integrate into your daily practice? Write your thoughts in your journal.

And finally, your practice for Week Eight:

• Decide which formal mindfulness practice you want to do for the next week, and carry out your decision as best you can.
• At the end of Week Eight, reflect on how the eight weeks of the course went for you, recording your thoughts in your journal. Consider some of these questions to help with your journal entries. How did your level of stress change over the course of the eight weeks? How did you meet difficulties in your life while engaging in this course? How can you adapt the mindfulness practices to integrate them into your life?
• Congratulate yourself for reaching this point, no matter how much or how little mindfulness you actually managed to do. The practice of mindfulness on a daily basis isn’t an easy one to do: any mindfulness you managed is better than none at all.

Choosing What to Practise for Quick Stress Reduction

How do you decide what you’re going to eat for dinner tonight? Your decision probably depends on how hungry you or your family are, who’s cooking, the food in the fridge, the day of the week, the meal you ate yesterday, and so on. Many factors come into account. How do you decide which mindfulness meditation to practise today when establishing your own mindfulness routine? I give you some options in this section.

Many people come to mindfulness for stress reduction. Stress has an impact on everyone. If you’re alive, you’re going to experience stress. The question is, how do you handle the stress?

Trying to get rid of your stress by brute force can just increase it. Imagine you’re trying to pull open a door that has a sign saying push. No matter how hard you pull, the door won’t open! If you pull hard enough, the door handle may fall off, which won’t help. Stress can come from doing, doing, and more doing. You can’t use the same frantic approach for stress reduction. Stress reduction requires you to stop constantly doing – or to start non-doing. This is what mindfulness offers.

Try practising the following tips daily over a period of a few weeks, and see what happens:

• For quick stress reduction, try the three-minute breathing space meditation (covered in Chapter 7 and on the MP3). This mindfulness exercise cleverly includes a little bit of all the different types of mindfulness meditation in one neat, bite-size package. How cool is that? You don’t have to use the MP3 once you’ve got the hang of it, and you don’t even have to close your eyes. If you’re at work, you can softly gaze at the bottom of the computer screen, or pop to the lavatory and practise there – why not?! It’s quiet (hopefully!), you can lock the door, lower the lid and sit down. Your boss might even wonder why you look so serene every time you step out of the toilet!
• Try ten minutes of mindful breathing, using the MP3 track or practising on your own. Ideally, do this meditation in the morning to set yourself up for the day, but if you don’t like that, do it any time of the day that suits you, or whenever you feel stressed.
• Walking meditation is a wonderful practice to integrate into your day. You’re then combining some gentle exercise with mindfulness – a powerful combination for stress reduction. Head to Chapter 6 for the walking meditation.
• Spend ten minutes or more stretching your body in a mindful way. Use any stretching movements you prefer. The stimulation of the body as you stretch draws your attention out of your mind and into the physical sensations. If you have time during the day, you can also engage in the odd gentle stretch now and then. Remember, the most important thing is to be aware of the feelings in the body and mind as you stretch, in a kind and gentle way. Keep breathing mindfully as you move – let go of any tendency to hold your breath if you can.
• Spend some time seeing a stressful situation from the other person’s perspective or just a different perspective, to help you relieve stress.
• Before you go to sleep, think of three things you’re grateful for. Doing so relieves stress and has a beneficial long-term effect. See Chapter 4 for more on gratitude.

Also, write down all the events in your day that caused you stress. What was going through your mind? What fixed ideas did you have? Do you notice any patterns? Watch out for these patterns the next time you’re in a stressful situation, and notice what effect being aware of the repeating pattern has.

Going Even Deeper

So, you’ve established a mindfulness routine. You feel you’re ready for the next step. You can progress in your practice by meditating for more extended periods of time. This section offers ways for you to step beyond your routine and find further support in your journey.

Discovering the value of silence

We live in a busy, noisy world. Just today I’ve spoken to friends and family members. I’ve exchanged messages with others. I’ve watched some YouTube videos and even created one!

Among all this noise and busyness, there’s little silence. And when you do find yourself in a quiet place, like on a beach or in a forest or meadow, you may be tempted to call a friend or capture the experience with photos. Constantly communicating can become an impulsive habit rather than a choice.

I’d like to invite you to explore something different if you haven’t already: being silent. Explore the value of being silent rather than talking or communicating with others for a period of time. This includes not watching television or surfing the net, or even reading. Just get away from the world of language. This can be for a few hours, a full day, or perhaps longer if you attend a retreat.

Most people think being silent is impossible for them. But why not give it a try? You’ve got nothing to lose and may discover a whole new way of being that you can revisit from time to time.

It’s a bit like believing the earth is flat. If you hold that belief, you won’t explore. But if you’ve got the guts to go to the edge to see what happens, you discover a whole new landscape. In the same way, if you believe that being silent won’t teach you anything new, you won’t try. But if you’re willing to give it a go, who knows what beautiful new inner landscapes you may be able to explore?

The benefits of refraining from speaking for some time include:

• A chance for the chatty mind to calm down, so that you can see clearly and observe with greater depth and clarity
• An opportunity to reflect upon your life and consider what’s going well and which direction you want to take in the future
• Time to process and let go of any pent-up emotions that you may have knowingly or unknowingly supressed
• Greater levels of creativity
• A extended period of time to de-stress, heal and find some inner peace

You don’t need to force yourself to be silent. Have a go when you feel ready to do so.

Setting aside a day for mindfulness

In this day and age, people work very hard. You’re working hard for your employers or your own business, or perhaps you’re at home, looking after your parents or children. Even looking after yourself requires time, energy and effort. Mindfulness meditation offers some respite, a chance to stop doing, to stop fulfilling your endless needs and desires to help others or yourself, and to simply be. Have you ever treated yourself to a whole day of non-doing? This doesn’t mean watching television all day, or just sleeping all day; even when you sleep, your mind can be in overdrive, going from one dream to another. By non-doing, I mean using the time to let go of excessively thinking about the past or worrying about the future – to softly reside in the here and now.

A day of mindfulness is a beautiful gift you can give yourself. The idea is to spend a whole day in mindful awareness, ideally being silent. Here are some instructions on practising this exercise:

1. The evening before, place a reminder next to your bed and around the house that you’re going to spend the day mindfully. Be clear in your mind that you’re going to keep the phone, computer, television and other electronics switched off. Drift off into sleep by feeling your breathing as you lie in bed.
2. When you wake up on your day of mindfulness, begin the day with some mindful breathing as you lie in bed. Feel each in-breath and each out-breath mindfully. If you like, smile gently. Spend some time reflecting on what you’re grateful for: your home, your relationships, your income, your family, your body, your senses, or whatever you feel you have that perhaps others don’t.
3. Slowly and mindfully step out of bed. If you have a pleasant view from your window, spend some time looking outside. Enjoy looking at the trees, or grass, or the people walking purposefully to fulfil their needs. Look, if you can, without encouraging judgements and reactions. Your mind is bound to wander off into other thoughts and worries – just gently bring your attention back as soon as you realise.
4. Practise some formal mindfulness meditation. You can do the body scan meditation, for example.
5. Have a bath or shower. Do this at a leisurely pace. Take your time, even if you feel like rushing for no apparent reason. Feel the sensations of the water on your body – in many places throughout the world people have to walk for hours to collect water, so be grateful for the easy access you have to water.
6. Take your time making your breakfast. Connect with your senses and keep bringing your attention into the here and now. Pause for a few moments before you start eating your breakfast. Ensure that you’ve tasted and fully chewed each mouthful before you start the next one. This is mindful eating.
7. You may choose to spend the mid-morning going for some walking meditation or doing some mindful yoga or perhaps a little gardening. Whatever you choose to do, do it with a gentle, kindly awareness. Avoid spending more than a few minutes reading a book or a magazine. The idea is to connect with your senses rather than encourage the mind to think too much.
8. Spend some time preparing and eating lunch. Again, allow the process to unfold in a leisurely way. You don’t need to rush. If feelings of boredom, restlessness, or frustration arise, see whether you can offer them the space to come to pass – to surface and diminish again. Eat your meal with gratitude and attention; chew each morsel unhurriedly.
9. Engage in gentle physical activity after lunch, or perhaps have a siesta. Why not? Connect your senses with another hobby of your choice. Every now and then, practise the breathing space meditation for a few minutes to help bring you into the present moment. You may even choose to do another extended meditative practice, such as a sitting meditation or some mindful yoga or tai chi. Don’t be surprised if you begin to find the whole process challenging or emotional. You may not be used to giving yourself so much room to simply be present, and this can allow unprocessed thoughts and emotions to release themselves into your consciousness. Be as kind and patient with yourself as you’re able to be.
10. Continue to allow the day to unfold in this way, eating, resting, walking and practising meditation. If you can’t help cleaning out a cupboard or organising your paperwork, really take your time with the actions, doing things one step at a time.
11. Having prepared and eaten your evening meal, which is ideally the lightest of the meals you’ve had during the day, you can rest and relax before going to bed. Lie in bed and ride on the waves of your own breathing, allowing yourself to doze naturally into a slumber.

Joining a group

Meditation is often spent sitting down with your eyes closed, in silence. Not much banter goes on; nobody’s cracking open the beers. So, why on earth would you need to bother joining a mindfulness meditation group? Here are some reasons:

• By attending a regular group, you commit to practising frequently. Without such a commitment, you may lose momentum and end up not meditating, even though you really want to and find it valuable.
• Your meditation is deeper when practising in a group. Many of my clients say this when they attend a class. You’re less likely to fidget unnecessarily when sitting with others; if the body remains relatively still, the mind also calms down. You’re also more likely to make a little more effort in your sitting posture, sitting straighter and with dignity. People who are spiritually inclined believe that by meditating together, you create a certain positive energy in the room that generates a favourable atmosphere, intensifying the quality of the meditation.
• You often end up making friends with people who enjoy meditation. This can create a ‘positive feedback’ system within your social circle, because the more time you spend with other fellow meditators, the more you think about mindfulness and remember to practise and the more you’re likely to hear about the latest and greatest book, teacher, or retreat. You begin to support each other in other areas of life too, which is always nice.

How do you go about choosing a group? You may be able to find a mindfulness meditation group in your area by searching on the Internet. You don’t have to join a mindfulness group, however. You can join any type of meditation group and, through trial and error, find one you feel comfortable with. Most Buddhist organisations practise some form of mindfulness meditation. And increasingly, yoga centers offer mindfulness groups or classes.

If you can’t find a group for you, consider setting up one yourself. I know one couple who started a weekly group that grew naturally by itself, just by word of mouth, until they had about 15 regular members. In each session, you just need a period of silence for meditation – perhaps 30 minutes or so – and then a period to explore and share how the practice and week have gone. You may want to read a paragraph of text from a book on mindfulness. After that, I suggest some time simply to socialise over a cup of tea and a few delicious biscuits. In the summer, I organise mindful walks and picnics in parks or by the river – perhaps these are the kind of events you too can set up.

Finding an appropriate retreat

When you’ve been practising mindfulness for at least a few months, you may be ready to attend a meditation retreat. This is a magnificent opportunity for you to develop your meditation practice and discover more about yourself. Retreats can be any length from one day to several years! I strongly recommend you begin with the one-day retreat, then gradually extend to a weekend, then a week, and if you’re very serious in your practice, you can go for even longer.

Retreats cost between £20 and £200 for a day, or £150 and £2,000 for a week, which includes all food and accommodation. Buddhist retreats usually invite an additional donation for the teachers and organisers, who sometimes work voluntarily.

Some of the questions to ask before booking yourself on a meditation retreat include:

• Is the retreat in silence? Silence offers a powerful way of intensifying your meditative discipline, as explained earlier. If you feel that going on a silent retreat is a little too much, especially to begin with, you can try and find a mindfulness holiday, combining meditation with free time to relax and socialise too. Then try a silent retreat at a future date, when you feel ready.
• Is the teacher experienced? In most retreats, the person leading is normally quite experienced, but this is worth checking, especially if you’re attending for an extended period.
• What’s a typical schedule for the day? Find out the time at which you’re expected to wake up, so you know what you’re letting yourself in for. And check how much time is spent in the day meditating too. Waking up at 4 a.m. and meditating in two-hour stretches throughout the day may be too much for you, and may put you off meditation altogether. You can find many retreats with far gentler schedules if you look around.
• Is it a cult? If the organisation says things like ‘Our way is the best/only way’ or ‘If you stop following us, you’ll derail/die/suffer/never be happy,’ then say thank you and walk away. Many wise organisations run meditation retreats but, as with everything, a few suspect ones do too. If the organisation says ‘You’re free to walk away at any time’ or ‘Our way is one way of practising meditation, but there are many other ways that you’re welcome to investigate if you wish’ or ‘Ultimately, only you can discover what is the best way for you to meditate, through your own observation and experience,’ you’re probably with a good organisation. Good luck with the search.

The best way to find a retreat is to get a recommendation. If you don’t know who to ask, try searching online. Some are Buddhist, or some other religion, and others are purely secular. Most retreats welcome people of all faiths, or no faith. Even if the retreats aren’t in your area, they may lead you to find a suitable retreat within easy reach. Some are silent retreats. Others combine mindfulness with a holiday, so you can do some mindfulness together with a group and have some time to relax and unwind in your own way too, exploring your surroundings – these can be great fun. I taught such a retreat just last month in Morocco, near the Atlas mountains – a real joy. My next project is to offer a mindfulness coaching and art retreat together with an artist in Berlin.