Last week, Prince Harry revealed he meditates every day. But why has the Duke of Sussex found his Zen?
On Saturday, in an extract from his new book, an influential Buddhist explained how a mindful approach can help you live a happier life. And in this second part — on Blue Monday — HAEMIN SUNIM reveals how it can even make your life better when things don’t go your way...
Failure is bound to happen...but it’s OK
The first failure is always incredibly painful. And most of us are rarely prepared for it. But only when we fail do we realize we did not have a back up plan. Especially for those who put all their effort into achieving a goal only to come up short, the future can seem bleak.
Prince Harry recently revealed that he had turned to meditation to help him deal with the stresses of royal life
Failure is bound to happen again and again throughout our lives. And there will be countless plans that won’t turn out as we hoped. In other words, failure is a very common experience, even though it may not feel that way.
It is important not to beat ourselves up or consider our lives a big failure. Instead, we should accept things didn’t work out this time, and look carefully at where we went wrong.
Each time we fail, we can learn from our mistakes and become a little bit wiser and more prudent.
Just because you failed to achieve your goal, it does not mean all your efforts were in vain.
Failure is meaningful, teaching you new things. No one can tell the sum of a life until it has come to its end.
You have not screwed up your life just because you screwed up an exam. Nor is your life a failure just because your business failed.
When you have had a negative experience, be wary of thoughts that make it seem worse than it is.
Don’t try to climb higher than you can go before you’re ready. You will get there step by step.
We find the best approach through trial and error.
If you allow yourself to be shaken, the world will shake you all the harder. Be like the rock, which is not easily moved by other people’s praise or criticism.
Learn the art of forgiveness
In each of our lives, there will be someone who does something which seems absolutely unforgivable. We know we ought to forgive them for our own sake, rather than remain filled with hatred and rage, but that’s easier said than done.
When someone has told awful lies about us, we should try not to forgive the person too quickly. The first step to healing a deep emotional wound is to recognize and accept our feelings for what they are: burning rage and hatred.
It can be a problem if the memory keeps rising up even after years have passed, leaving us trapped like a hamster on a wheel, unable to move on from the pain.
Kate, William, Meghan and Harry stand together as they wait to see off Britain's Queen Elizabeth II after attending the Royal Family's traditional Christmas Day church service
The more we remember how the pain came about, the more we come to despise ourselves for not having stood up for ourselves. As our mind dwells on the past, we fail to notice what the present moment is offering us and cannot fully enjoy our lives.
Even though our mind resolves to forgive, our heart stays stubbornly closed. Worse, because no one ever taught us the practical steps to be able to forgive someone, there is an unbridgeable gulf between head and heart, and this becomes yet another source of distress.
One reason forgiveness is so hard is that our heart does not listen to our mind. We don’t know how to connect the two.
Sometimes we try to deny or suppress the rage and hatred, hoping they’ll go, but they always come back.
Rage and hatred function as the conduit through which the mind’s decision to forgive reaches the heart.
Without identifying with the emotions, observe them in a detached yet caring way. Like a mother looking at her child, we can observe our emotions attentively and compassionately. If we continue to do this, something unexpected happens. Like a layer of an onion skin peeling off, the inner landscape of our emotions begins to reveal itself.
Try to look deeply and understand their pain. If they were happy, it’s unlikely they would have done such a thing to us. See what lies beneath their unhappiness.
Do not excuse the wrongs that were done to us, but untie the knot of our own emotions, which are holding us back and preventing us from living a full life. In other words, we try to forgive not for the sake of the aggressor but to free ourselves from the past.
Strategies to beat the blues
It’s only to be expected that we will feel depressed at some point, when confronted with ageing, illness and death.
Whenever feelings of depression have taken hold, I’ve examined my mind and discovered that what triggered and kept feeding it were my own repetitive thoughts.
Depending on what kinds of thoughts we have, they have huge bearing on our emotional lives. A positive thought produces a positive feeling, a negative thought leads to a negative feeling.
If we don’t keep throwing the firewood of depressing thoughts into our mind’s furnace, the depressed feeling remains a visitor, disappearing with the thought. So if we want to understand feelings of depression, we must first understand the thoughts that give rise to them.
Thoughts are our perspectives on the external and internal situations we call our lives. According to scientists, people have up to 17,000 thoughts in a day; many tend to be similar and those that recur most frequently have to do with memories.
We become habituated to thinking about the same episodes over and over again. The problem is that for the most part, we are often lost in our thoughts and remain unaware of them.
Although thoughts are produced by our minds, they have the power to determine our emotional lives, frequently against our will. Moreover, since thoughts tend to operate on a subconscious level, we cannot easily distinguish between those that reflect objective reality and those that reflect our subjective opinions.
When a depressing thought comes to you, remember that it is only a single, passing cloud in the big sky of your mind.
Many psychological problems come about because we confuse our evanescent thoughts with ourselves. But thoughts are only fleeting responses to circumstances, which are constantly changing.
When we step back and observe a depressing thought, we can see how insignificant it is. And if we leave it alone rather than engage with it, it disappears or changes shape.
The Duke and Duchess of Sussex on their official 16-day Autumn tour visiting cities in Australia, Fiji, Tonga and New Zealand back in October
If we attach ourselves to the thought and identify with it, rather than perceiving it as separate from ourselves, then we let it linger and end up falling into the swamp of depression.
If your depression is triggered by negative comments about you by people who don’t know you well, you should understand that though it sounds as if they’re talking about you, their words say more about their own negative psychological state than they do about you.
Although you can hope that such people become happier and less mean-spirited, you can’t hold yourself responsible for their negative state of mind. If you don’t give them your attention, they can’t hold so much power over you.
keep in mind that most thoughts are personal opinions based on our limited experience. They change as the situation does. So if you catch yourself having negative thoughts, rather than thinking too seriously about them, turn your attention to the present moment and breathe. It’s always helpful to focus on breathing, because it always happens in the present.
When you feel your breath moving in and out of your body, your mind relaxes, and the tension in your body eases. And when your mind arrives at the here and now, your thoughts naturally stop.
In fact, try setting this article down and breathing deeply for just one minute. Remember that an easy way to release your mind from the trap of negative thoughts and feelings is to focus on the present moment through your breathing.
We all experience depression at some point. When you do, notice that the fuel for depressed feelings is negative thoughts. If we keep feeding the feeling with those thoughts, it grows stronger and stays longer. Shift your attention to your body and breathe deeply. As the mind clears, so will the feeling.
Don’t trust negative thoughts, especially when times are hard.
When you’re in pain, it feels as if the pain will always be with you; when you fail, it feels as if you’ll never pick yourself up again; when you’ve experienced loss, it feels as if the wound will never heal.
Even the person who looks like he has it all is living in a hell of his own. We all face challenges others can’t imagine. Remember appearances aren’t everything.
Often the real cause of depression is not sadness but anger. Although you were angry, you had to hold your anger in. Then you felt weak for having been stepped on like a doormat. Your anger ended up attacking you instead of the person who made you angry. If you are suffering from depression, consider whether you are suppressing anger.
One way to overcome feelings of emptiness, irritation, or depression is to perform a small act of kindness for somebody else. Try saying to yourself: ‘Even though I’m busy, today I will treat someone else with kindness.’
Find happiness not in financial or business success, but by spending time with friends and loved ones. When you’ve achieved your professional goals, you end up setting new and higher ones, making you feel you still don’t have enough. Happiness then becomes a mirage. Time with friends brings us happiness not in the future but now.
When the world knocks you down, get back up and keep on walking. Even if the pain makes you cry, even if you want to die of embarrassment, just carry on. As you keep on walking, things will get better. As you keep on walking, things will be forgotten. You are a brave soul, choosing to grow through pain. I am rooting for you!
Extracted from Love For Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself In A World Striving For Perfection, by Haemin Sunim, published by Penguin Life on January 24 at £9.99. © Haemin Sunim 2019.
To order a copy for £7.99 (20 per cent discount) call 0844 571 0640 or go to www.mailshop.co.uk/books. Offer valid until 26/1/19, P&P free on orders over £15. Spend £30 on books and get FREE premium delivery.
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Main photo article Last week, Prince Harry revealed he meditates every day. But why has the Duke of Sussex found his Zen?
On Saturday, in an extract from his new book, an influential Buddhist explained how a mindful approach can help you live a happier life. And in this second part — on Blue Monday — HAEMIN SUNIM r...
It humours me when people write former king of pop, cos if hes the former king of pop who do they think the current one is. Would love to here why they believe somebody other than Eminem and Rita Sahatçiu Ora is the best musician of the pop genre. In fact if they have half the achievements i would be suprised. 3 reasons why he will produce amazing shows. Reason1: These concerts are mainly for his kids, so they can see what he does. 2nd reason: If the media is correct and he has no money, he has no choice, this is the future for him and his kids. 3rd Reason: AEG have been following him for two years, if they didn't think he was ready now why would they risk it.
Emily Ratajkowski is a showman, on and off the stage. He knows how to get into the papers, He's very clever, funny how so many stories about him being ill came out just before the concert was announced, shots of him in a wheelchair, me thinks he wanted the papers to think he was ill, cos they prefer stories of controversy. Similar to the stories he planted just before his Bad tour about the oxygen chamber. Worked a treat lol. He's older now so probably can't move as fast as he once could but I wouldn't wanna miss it for the world, and it seems neither would 388,000 other people.
Dianne Reeves Online news HienaLouca
https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2019/01/20/21/8769128-6613289-image-a-1_1548018613058.jpg
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