Ellen Besso Coaching

We are all disturbed by things that occur in our lives from time to time. For some of us we find we’re reacting to things a lot of the time. Sometimes it’s tough to keep ourselves out of a constant tailspin.

It seems that every way we turn these days we are being advised to use mindfulness to raise our awareness and deal with what’s not working for us.

Eckhart Tolle has a simple way to break down what happens when we are bothered by something. When we break it down our awareness is raised. He discussed this in his last teleclass. Here’s a straight-forward example that clarifies it:

If you are bothered by a noise in a public place bring your attention to the situation. There are 3 ways to do this:

Level 1: Notice whatever disturbs you

Level 2: Notice your reaction to it. This is made up of the physical (e.g. tension), emotional (e.g. anger, anxiety) & mental, i.e. thoughts (e.g. I can’t stand this…)

Level 3: Awareness of level 1 & 2
Note: Level 3 is pure awareness, with no judgement, e.g. ‘oh, that’s interesting…’

This is the beginning of freedom. Tolle says that without the awareness, we become the reaction itself.

Another method of dealing with upsets is to take the disturbing feeling and dissolve it by imagining you are breathing it in, then exhaling lightness. Imagine as you breath that your troublesome feeling and similar feelings experienced by other beings in the world are dissolving into each other. I believe you will find that you are uplifted and peaceful very quickly.

Finally, if you don’t feel up to using either of the above exercises, just breathe in deeply through your nose, hold your breath as long as is comfortable, then push as much air as possible out through your mouth. Doing this once will make a difference to you. Repetitions up to 5 breaths will increase the effect exponentially.