This post is by Justine Bloome of JusBeing.

Think back on the day you’ve just had. What percentage of it were you “doing” something, versus just “being” in the moment?

Last weekend I attended an incredible retreat in the Yarra Valley; wine country in the State of Victoria in Australia. It was a meditation retreat, run by The Gawler Foundation.

The Foundation is perhaps best known for its founder, Ian Gawler, a decathlete and veterinary surgeon who conquered aggressive bone cancer by way of many intense hours of meditation. Until his recent retirement, Ian traveled the world sharing his insights about nutrition, meditation and self-help healing techniques to those suffering with cancer and multiple sclerosis.

The Gawler Foundation continues his work and also offers a health and wellness-based program for people who would like to simply foster a life of wellbeing, or perhaps continue their journey after recovering from cancer.
The weekend retreat I attended was especially geared to busy individuals who are seeking a short break from the rapid pace of their hectic lives; to take some time to press pause, learn the art of meditation, put the theories into intensive practice and ideally take away mindfulness techniques for daily life.

Circuit Breakers

A little tangent: in my career, I have spent some time creating brand experiences for clients. Some of those were internal brand experiences with staff, who can be a cynical audience to engage with.

I would often research this internal audience to test the level of cynicism and gauge what kind of “circuit breaker” would be required at the beginning of an internal brand experience. A circuit breaker is essentially a device to make people sit up and listen. It forces a kind of “A-ha!” moment, and it establishes a perspective in the audience from the outset that they actually do need to listen to what follows. It’s an incredible technique for anyone trying to communicate with an ambivalent, cynical or skeptical audience.

Human being… or human doing?

Paul and Maia Bedson, the husband-and-wife team hosting the meditation retreat, presented an excellent circuit breaker at the opening of the retreat. Each of the 30 people in the room had to introduce themselves by name and also give themselves a score on the scale below.

I watched expressions change and some of the cynicism drain from the faces of many of the people in the room identified immediately with the red side of the scale:

The doing trap

There is so much written today about productivity, and a lot of it’s focused on how much more we can fit into our busy schedules—it focuses on “doing” more in the same amount of time.

I read a report recently that said that Australians spend a total of 37.5 hours a day doing various activities. Did anyone notice that’s 13.5 hours more than there actually are in a day? And that’s not even counting the 6-10 hours some of us spend sleeping! (The same report gave a figure of 43.4 hours for the average person in the USA!)

So how are we managing to “do” so much in any given day? Well if you consider that 8.7 hours of those hours are spent with media and 5.5 of those hours are spent with technology, you’ve probably worked out the answer is multi-tasking.

With so much “doing” crammed into one day, is it any wonder we never find anytime to just be?

Just being

Meditation comes in many forms, but all types of meditation are all based in the notion of being present, being mindful, being still in mind, being a witness—just being.

A myth I often hear is that meditation is all about having a completely blank mind. This is usually the first question I get asked when I talk about meditation: “How do you manage to get your mind to be completely empty?”

Thinking is not “the enemy” of meditation; rather, meditation is more about stepping outside of your “thinking mind” and becoming an observer, a witness to what’s going on in the here and now.

Being Right Now

If you’ve never tried meditation and would like to experience it for yourself, here are three simple steps you can do now to practice “being”.

Step one

Sitting in an upright position in a comfortable chair, close your eyes and breathe into your belly (not your chest). Relax all your muscles on the out breath and now rest your attention on the blank space behind your eyelids. It might even feel like this dark, blank space actually wraps right around your head.

Just notice that space for a moment. If a thought enters your mind, just watch it from afar, like it was scrolling across the back of your eyelids. Then watch that thought go, without giving it any attention or judgment and rest your attention back on the space in front of your closed eyes.

Step two

Now expand your awareness to also include the sounds around you: those coming into the room from elsewhere, and those coming from you. The sound of your breath, the gurgle of your stomach, the rain outside, the birds chirping, the cars moving down the street—just notice those sounds. Don’t judge them, or think about where they are coming from. Try not to even label them. Just listen and rest your attention on these sounds as you continue to rest your attention on the back of your eyelids.

Step three

Now open your awareness one step further to feel your breath moving into your belly, and feel your belly push the air back out again. Notice the pause in your breathing at the top of the exhalation, before you inhale again and fill your belly with nourishing air. You are still aware of the space in front of your closed eyes and the sounds in the room and those coming into it from afar.

Continue to do this, without judgment, no goal or benchmark you’ve set for yourself. Just make a choice to be present and to truly feel the expansiveness of the space in front of your closed eyes, feel the sounds as they rest upon your ears, and feel the in breath bringing oxygen and nutrients to every cell in your body.

No goals, just a choice

The most important thing to remember as you start to try meditation is that there is no goal. Unlike the “doing” part of your brain which is constantly seeking to achieve, check things off a task list and attain new goals, meditation has no goals. It also has no judgmen—there is no right or wrong way of trying meditation.

Try not to tell yourself that you can’t do it, because the truth is, everyone has this capability in them. It is simply the ability to step back from your thinking mind and observe using your “aware mind” for a while.

Whether you managed five minutes or 15 minutes of taking these three simple steps, you have just experienced “being” through a simplistic form of meditation.

Open your focus

Once you’ve opened your eyes, instead of jumping straight back into “doing,” just notice the differences in yourself. Are your shoulders sitting lower? Do you feel more relaxed? Like you have created some “space” in your mind? Do you notice more of what is around you? Do you feel lightheaded?

The latter symptom may arise because meditation is medically proven to reduce your blood pressure radically and in a very short period of time. This is just one of many health benefits from incorporating a regular 20 minutes of meditation practice into your day.

What will you choose to be today? A human doing? Or a human being?

Justine Bloome, also known as “Jus”, blogs about her quest to be a mindful human being over at JusBeing. Follow her @inbloome on Twitter.

This guest post is by Tara Gentile of Scoutie Girl

Ignoring your creativity can have serious consequences. You feel stuck—even depressed. You start heading down a spiral of inaction. It gets harder & harder to make things happen in your life.

Reclaiming your creativity (yes, I know you’ve got some!) can jump start your life in startling ways. Finding your own creative spark will help you set your dreams in motion and push ahead when the going gets tough.

My senior year of college was a real creative peak for me. I was writing daily, blogging on Xanga, and reading like a fiend. I earned a full scholarship to my graduate program of choice with the intent to study postmodern Christian theology.

I was poised to be another small success story of academia.

But while I was working my summer job, I got bit by the conventional life bug. My forward momentum ceased.

I took a full time job at one of the bookstore chains, slinging coffee and steaming milk. I was passionate about coffee and books. Turns out I was also passionate about business. But Fortune 500 retail management doesn’t leave a lot of room for creativity in the workplace.

My independent successes were often overruled by overlords—I mean, middle managers—who preached conformity.

My mood ebbed and flowed with the decisions that those above me made. I rose in the ranks and found that the higher I went, the less creativity I was allowed.

In a lifetime of run-ins with depression, I battled the worst bout while working there. With no time or energy for self-expression, I couldn’t act on my usual creative self remedies. I quickly spiraled out of control, losing about 30lbs as my body shut down. I drove to work wanting to die. I drove home from work wanting to die.

Luckily, I met my husband and recovered. If only it was as quickly and easily as writing that sentence. With his accountability, I made time for me and my mood improved.

Now I realize that period in my life was a direct consequence of inaction. With no creative outlet, I lost touch with my own life.

It turned out that the conventional life I desired wasn’t what I thought it would be. Working my butt off for mediocre-at-best pay didn’t mean I could live on my own, purchase the things I needed, or keep up with any sort of social life outside of the occasional glass of wine with my coworkers, who I already saw too often thankyouverymuch.

On top of this, I realized that when you settle for inaction and the conventional, it’s that much harder to create and act on unconventional circumstances.

It’s that much harder to create the action you need to fulfill your goals.

Settling for inaction doesn’t just delay your satisfaction—it makes it harder to achieve!

Reclaiming my creativity and my own lust for action took a complete break from my circumstances: the birth of my daughter.

While the shift from dreaming to doing wasn’t immediate, I reconnected with my capacity for learning new things and achieving my goals. It was a process—one that was punctuated with reading, writing, and experimentation. Within a few months, I was able to act.

It was like drawing my pistol from its holster on my hip, still plump with post-pregnancy weight.

While my first shot may not have hit true, shot after shot, action after action, my aim and my circumstances improved.

People now ask me how I turn ideas into reality so quickly, how I can generate so much forward progress from a schedule that all to easily gets bogged down in the day to day. Very simply, it’s the cycle of action. The consequence of inaction is more—paralyzing—inaction.

The consequence of action is more—energizing—action.

If you’re feeling bogged down by the day-to-day, unsure of where the energy to achieve your dreams will come from, or simply stuck, here are some ideas for helping you break free.

1. Find your breaking point.

Not where you break, but where you can break the cycle of inaction. What fundamental change can you make in your life to produce an environment where your creativity can thrive? Your solution might be a change of routine or schedule, a change in location, or a break from a toxic friendship. In general, I don’t recommend having a baby for this purpose.

Your breaking point is a change that will allow you to fundamentally shift your perspective on your day to day tasks. Inevitably, these kinds of changes don’t happen overnight, they’re part of a process of change. But working words a single action that has the capacity to renew your energy and restart your forward progress can be motivation in and of itself.

2. Accept that not every idea is a good one.

While you’re recovering from inaction, it’s easy to get discouraged when you discover your new idea isn’t feasible or when your project just doesn’t turn out well. Part of creating your forward progress is failing, learning, and acting again. By accepting that a great many of your ideas won’t turn out, you’ll leave yourself open for even better ideas.

Failure is an integral part of creating more action in your life. It’s not a stumbling block; it’s an opportunity. People who produce a lot of good stuff produce a lot more bad stuff. But they use their failures to propel them forward not hold them back.

3. Don’t hold on to the things that hold you back.

While it sounds simple, many people I know hold on to habits that stop them from making progress: TV, naps, household expectations, shopping… Most of these things don’t have the ROT—return on your time—that exercising your creativity and action on your ideas can.

Whether you goal is to start a business, take up an exercise routine, or write the great American novel, you’ll find your time is better spent working towards your goals. Once you’re in the cycle of action, there will be plenty of time for obligations and mindless activities.

Inaction has serious consequences.

While you may not see its effects today or tomorrow, it’s wearing away at your productivity, tearing apart your creativity. Finding your way back to a cycle of action, progress, and momentum will help you deal with these consequences, reverse them, and find real energy in your life, no matter your goals.

Breaking the cycle of inaction requires a choice: to make your own needs a priority. Allow yourself to examine what kind of action you need to move forward with your goals. Allow yourself to consider what you’ve been missing as a result of your inaction.

Then, little by little or full steam ahead, embrace new choices that require your action.

Tara Gentile empowers people to live more creatively and change the world with their money on Scoutie Girl. Learn more about moving from inaction to accomplishment with her free Creating Action ecourse.

This guest post is by Mike Reeves-McMillan of Living Skillfully: Change Your Life.

As a hypnotherapist and health coach, I get three main kinds of clients.

1. People who want to change their behavior, their thoughts and feelings, so that they can be healthier. They want to lose weight, or exercise more, or (very commonly) stop smoking.
2. People who want to overcome emotional issues such as phobias, anxiety, stress or depression.
3. People who want to deal with physical symptoms such as skin problems, pain or irritable bowel syndrome.

At first, you’d wonder what these three types of people have in common.

What I’ve come to realize is that what they have in common is a determination to improve their lives. What they’re all looking for, whether they know it or not when they come in my door, is personal development.

For example, my stop-smoking clients. I had a lovely lady in the other day who’s turning 74 next year. She’s smoked since she trained as a nurse in the 1960s. Now she’s decided it’s time to stop. She’s over it.

That, my friends, is personal development. Because what happens when you make that kind of change in your life is that you gain a new confidence in yourself. You gain a new sense of control, a new perspective.

Another stop-smoking client of mine, a divorced mother of two in her late 30s, was smoking, in part, as an act of self-harm. Stopping involved changing how she thought and felt about herself. It was part of a global change in her life, from the dark place she’d been in since her childhood to a new and more powerful way of being in the world and being true to herself. Becoming a non-smoker, for her, was not just getting rid of a bad habit or an addiction, but getting rid of a negative mindset.

And the same is true of my other clients. Overcoming fear, sadness or that helpless feeling you get in the midst of overwhelming stress makes you a very powerful person. If you can do that, you can do all kinds of scary things.

What about changing your body’s responses by changing how you think? A lot of illnesses (more than we usually realize) are stress-related or at least made worse by stress. When we shift out of a stress mindset and when we reconnect to our own bodies and stop dividing them from our minds, it’s like pushing in an electric plug. Power starts flowing.

Health is not just medicine

I have immense respect for conventional scientific medicine. I always make sure that any client with a physical symptom has had it checked by a doctor before I’ll work with them, not just for my own protection and theirs but because I simply don’t have the diagnostic resources that are available to a medical professional. But where Western medicine, as it’s often practiced, falls down is that it treats a biosystem, not a person.

In its place, medicine is wonderful and does things that no other treatment can do. But a while ago, out of interest, I looked at the 20 most commonly prescribed drugs and asked how many of them treated symptoms that can also be addressed by better stress management, good nutrition and exercise. The answer? At least 19.

There are three things that a pill will give you that stress management, nutrition and exercise won’t:

1. (Usually) more rapid results.
2. Undesired side effects.
3. Reliance on the doctor and the pharmaceutical companies for your health.

And it’s the third one that I want to focus on here. If you improve your own health (in the very broadest sense, the functioning of your mind-and-body in the world) through your personal participation in a process that requires effort and attention, that cost in effort and attention is repaid many times over by the increased sense of agency you get. It doesn’t matter if you had a coach help you with information and planning and motivation; clearly, you did it. You made the change. But taking a pill is an inescapably passive act.

Sadly, all too often it’s only when there’s no viable medical alternative that we look to what we can achieve for ourselves. My mother farms dairy goats, and she used to sell milk to a man who had been diagnosed with terminal cancer some years before and given 6 months to live. He had done his research and found a diet that claimed to help in reversing cancer (the goat’s milk was part of it). I have no idea whether it was what he ate or how he thought that cured him. All I know is that he rode a big BMW motorcycle, had a handshake like the bite of a mule and was the healthiest-looking 70-year-old I’d ever seen. Cancer survivors in general tend to love life, but he had an additional reason: he’d taken responsibility for his own cure when the doctors couldn’t do anything for him.

Health is a personal development issue, because to take action for our own health we have to believe in ourselves and our own ability to change. And once we start taking that action, not only will we feel better than we’ve ever felt before, but we’ll have the inner strength to achieve more in every area of life.

So: what health action have you been thinking about taking? What healthy change might you make in your life? And how can you apply personal development principles to bring that change into reality?

Mike Reeves-McMillan is a hypnotherapist and health coach who blogs at Living Skillfully: Change Your Life. His themes for 2011 include connecting to your body and challenging yourself.