mindfulness – Lady Lavish

Book haul

I haven’t read a book for ages – not since Christmas. It seems the only time I get to do so now is on holiday, and I’m probably in a minority here, but I just don’t enjoy reading so much on my Kindle.

On my way to my Mum’s just before Easter I arrived early at Paddington so went to kill some time mooching around the bookshop. 10 minutes and £60 later, I’d bagged a haul of interesting new books to read.

I started with this biography of ‘Alexander McQueen: Blood Beneath the Skin’, which I really enjoyed. I read it pretty quickly and it stayed with me for days after, in the way that a really well-told life story can. There was so much in here that explained the complex character of the brilliant designer – drugs, abuse and sensitivity, his complex relationships and the successes of his spectacular shows. I took to YouTube to find footage of the catwalk shows referenced and I’ve now become even more of a fan of the work. The story is so sad because all the way through reading it, I already knew how it ended, and that made it more powerful in a way. Definitely recommend.

I thought I’d try something lighter next, so have started the new Jenny Éclair novel, ‘Moving’. I’ve read the first part so far, and while it was okay, it’s not really grabbed me. I found the story of ‘Edwina’ too melancholy, maybe a story about a woman on her own following some apparent tragedy (I haven’t found out what it is yet) was not the right choice after the McQueen biog. I think I was expecting the book to be funny, which was a wrong assumption to make. I’ll stick with it, hopefully it will pick up a bit.

I also started a more work-related tome, with ‘HBR’s 10 Must Reads on Teams’. I am pretty fascinated by teams – what makes them work (or not) how to improve them, the psychology and emotions of them, and how create the conditions for successful teams. This is a key part of my work, something that is essential to my role but also something I have a great interest in developing my skills in. I’m hoping this book will be good insight. The book is a collection of 10 articles previously published in the Harvard Business Review, which is perfect length for a train journey to work, and much more productive than scrolling through tweets for an hour! I’m 2 articles in and so far really enjoying it – especially as I can dip in and out easily.

Lastly, I also bought ‘F**k It – Do What You Love’ and ‘Mindfulness’. I pretty much already do a job that I love, and have a life that I love, so I’m not looking for an earth-shattering revelations in this book, but I thought there might be some interesting ideas in here. And ‘Mindfulness’, well, I’m programmed to always think in the future with my mind on the next thing – my job is entirely dependent on it and I’ve operated that way forever, so it probably wouldn’t hurt to learn some techniques to slow down a bit. Apparently I’m in for ‘ideas, tips and techniques to help you enjoy a more mindful approach to life, you’ll learn how to:

Adopt more positive ways of thinking and behaving
Become calmer and more confident
Break free from unhelpful thoughts and thinking patterns
Bring about positive changes in your relationships
Achieve a new level of self-awareness and understanding

That can’t be a bad thing, right? 🙂

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2nd April 2016

Live

Doing nothing…eek!

I love this talk and the points raised by Andy Puddicombe.

When is the last time you did absolutely nothing for 10 whole minutes? Not texting, talking or even thinking? Mindfulness expert Andy Puddicombe describes the transformative power of doing just that: Refreshing your mind for 10 minutes a day, simply by being mindful and experiencing the present moment.

I love what he says about the present moment being underrated. As he says, ‘It sounds so ordinary, and yet we spend so little time in the present moment that it’s anything but ordinary. There was a research paper that came out of Harvard, just recently, that said on average, our minds are lost in thought almost 47 percent of the time. At the same time, this sort of constant mind-wandering is also a direct cause of unhappiness. To spend almost half of our life lost in thought and potentially quite unhappy just kind of seems tragic, especially when there’s something we can do about it, when there’s a positive, practical, achievable, scientifically proven technique which allows our mind to be more healthy, to be more mindful and less distracted.’

I am certainly very, very guilty of never doing nothing (bad grammar!) and often not living in the present moment, as I’m always thinking of the next thing to do, or the next thing that needs attention. I have a job that pretty much demands I am always living in the future, planning what might happen tomorrow, next week, next month – worrying about the ‘thing’ later or the next day. Constantly on email, phone, Skype, HipChat, text, Twitter, blah blah… So, I find it really hard to even conceive of doing nothing – for me, the time when you’re not doing something is when you read a magazine or a book or look at the internet for fun or see friends. Doing nothing is a pretty scary idea actually, so for me, I think this is almost a case of brain re-training…not sure I can do it but I might try 🙂

27th May 2015