Free Mindfulness: An Eight-Week Plan for Finding Peace in a Frantic World by Mark Williams, Danny Penman Page B

of dealing skillfully with the frantic world in which we so often live. You’ll soon discover that although you feel time-poor, you are actually moment-rich.
     

Setting up a time and space for meditation
     
    Before you embark on the mindfulness program, spend a moment considering how to prepare yourself. The best way to approach the program is to set aside an eight-week period when you can commit yourself to spending some time each day doing the meditations and other practices. Each step of the program introduces new elements to the practice, so that over the eight weeks you are able to deepen your learning day by day.
     
    It is important to take your time with the practices, and to follow the instructions as best you can, even if it feels difficult, boring or repetitive. In much of our lives, if we do not likesomething, we are tempted to rush on to something else, but this program is suggesting a different approach: to use your restless and churning mind as an opportunity to look more deeply into it, rather than as an immediate reason to conclude that the meditation is “not working.” See if it’s possible to keep in mind that the intention is not to strive for a goal. You are not even striving to relax, strange as this may sound. Relaxation, peace and contentment are the by-products of the work you are doing, not its goal.
     
    So how can you put this time aside on a daily basis?
     
    First, look on it as a time to
be
yourself and a time
for
yourself. You may find it difficult initially to find the time for your practice. One trick is to acknowledge that, in one sense, you do
not
have the spare time for this. You won’t
find
the time, you’ll have to
make
it. If you had a spare half hour each day, you’d have allocated it by now to other obligations. For these eight weeks, the commitment to this program may take some rearranging of your life. It can be very difficult to do this, even for two months, but it
will
need to be done or the practice will tend to get squeezed out by other, seemingly higher, priorities. You may find you have to rise a little earlier in the morning and, if you do so, you may then need to go to bed earlier, so that your practice is not done at the expense of your sleep. If you still feel that meditation will take up too much time, then try it as an experiment to see if you discover what others have reported—that it frees up more time than it uses—so that you find you are unexpectedly rewarded with
more
free time.
     
    Secondly, we always remind those who participate in our classes that after they have settled on a time and a place for meditation, it’s important to be warm and comfortable, and to tell whoever needs to know what you are doing, so that
they
candeal with interruptions by visitors or by the telephone. If the telephone
should
ring and no one else is there to answer it, see if it is possible to allow it to ring, or for the call to be taken by voicemail. Similar interruptions can also arise from “the inside,” with thoughts of something you need to do—thoughts that seem to compel you to act now. If this happens, see if you can experiment with letting the ideas and plans come and go in your mind, rather than reacting instantly to them.
     
    Lastly, it is important to remember that when you practice, you do not have to find it enjoyable (although many people do find it pleasant, but not in an obvious way). Follow the practices day by day, until this becomes a routine, although what you’ll discover when you come to the practices is that they are never routine. You are only responsible for what you put into it. The outcome will be unique to you. None of us can tell in advance what there is to be discovered in the present moment, and what peace or freedom you will feel when it begins to reveal itself to you.
     

What will you need in the way of equipment?
     
    You’ll need an MP3 player, a room or place to sit where you will be undisturbed, a mat or a thick rug to lie on,