Mindfulness works is what promises Beatriz Muñoz in his book and what speaks to us in this guest article plenacción. Drawing header is my niece, Lucy Montesinos she did when she was just 3 years.

Disconnecting and reduce stress is what invites us to the author in his book “Mindfulness works” .

Against those who speak of competition to overcome the crisis by promoting competitiveness, I like more the term coopetition to manage life in and out of stiffer and content than a rose crisis, stiff, happy.

So clear. If I devote myself to this, I want you to know who are also engaged in this, because as we said our guest today, mindfulness works’ and go if it works !!

I like getting lost in bookstores (In Granada I always do in Babel) and touch, browse and browse just because always learning and discovering something. And that’s what happened with our guest today. He poked his book, interested me the cover and … chance !! someone hooked to mindfulness, with a good book and living in Granada ‘I’ll take it !! and after reading it, I could not help but invite you to the Plenacción house to tell us … and here it is. ‘A lesson in what it is and means mindfulness !!. And is that …. Mindfulness works.

Mindfulness and roller coasters.

Last Sunday I was at home eating with my daughters and I felt great. These were my thoughts: “Oh how comfortable I am with my girls. I enjoy spending Sunday with them, cooking, eating together … I love the family atmosphere, the warmth. “Meanwhile, Simon’s cat my oldest daughter, purring in a corner of the room, put the icing on the image of domestic happiness.

The following Sunday, this morning, I woke up in the same house with the same daughters and the same cat. These were my thoughts as I was torn between getting up to prepare food or watch on-line one more chapter of “Carlos King Emperor” lying on the sofa series: “Go papelón this” women-carers “; This role we play the matriarchs of cooking for others and care for all is a scam and a roll … me who cares for me? No … “I felt overwhelmed and listless as she stared in disgust at poor cat was digging in one of the pots on the terrace, throwing out all the land.

Two years ago my daughters went to study in another country, so we spent most of the year living alone. Most days I felt very happy. And he had these thoughts: “Oh, how I like to be alone, living on my own without bothering anyone. I just put washing machines, the house is always tidy, as I find in the fridge when I have … I’m hungry libreeee “. Suddenly, a few days amid this complete ecstasy appeared these thoughts in my mind: “Oh, how much solitude weighs heavily me. What a big displacement. I drop the house up, without father or mother or me perrico barking. How I miss my daughters and the warmth of a family! “

 Like me about married life and perhaps some other situation. I could not tell if they’d rather live with someone or alone … I think alone, but I might both options. In both I can feel very happy and both I can feel very unhappy, longing for the benefits of the situation in which I’m not at that time.

 And now comes the big question: Which of the two states is real ?, The happiness I feel or overwhelmed? What should I do if thoughts? To those who tell me how great is my situation or that remind me what I’m missing?

This is the big question for which I have found an answer in the practice of mindfulness (mindfulness in English). Without discussing whether these statements are true or not, not get caught up in philosophical disquisitions, which will establish itself without hesitation I am that I have seen with scientific precision that all are passengers. They come and go this supposed happiness and misery, come and go those thoughts that feed the one or the other. Regardless of what I do, how to live, what you have or get, sometimes I feel happier, sometimes less. Sometimes they appear doubts, sometimes I see everything very clear. Sometimes shines a bright sun in my life, little clouds sometimes appear, sometimes gray clouds. I have also seen that it is useless to dedicate myself to pursuing happy times or try to keep in time. Not much use wallow in my miserable moments, feed them or give them wings. Not up to me to shine the sun or clouds appear. But there is something that depends on me. This is also practicing mindfulness and have learned is what I think has been my salvation.

 Before knowing the practice of mindfulness I was a little boat adrift. In the hands of the circumstances, my life unfolded between the fullness of happy times and the black hole of the unfortunate. When falling into a black hole, I felt horrible and tangled that was closer to my discomfort. Completely he is forgetting that this same situation that he believed the cause of my misfortune had been shortly before the alleged cause of my happiness. When I was happy thought (and wished with all my soul) that this situation last forever. My whole life was a pre-mindfulness ride a roller coaster built in the air. With the practice of mindfulness I discovered a place that it is stable and that I can access whenever I want. Regardless of thoughts or emotions that pass me ahead at all times, whether I feel happy or unhappy exists in me a quiet place that knows everything that happens and is able to wait it out. That place recalls the good times when misery takes center stage and do not forget the bad when happiness is what prevails. Not lose perspective, not altered, does not believe that anything happens is personal, not overflowing … That place is inside me and simultaneously envelops me. And growing every time I see what happens (thoughts, emotions, feelings …) without identifying with it. Whenever a potato hair knowing that, whatever the state of my mind at that time without it aside or ignore, most importantly, at the right time, is the potato.

 Read this article now living has emerged after intense morning clouds I told you at the beginning of it, peeling potatoes with all my soul put into them. Using as an anchor feelings that have emerged to peel a humble potatoes have been present in my clouds without dragged me; letting there were no feed, no barging, not avoid them, until, again, has returned to the sun.

PS: Tonight we have a crisis cabinet meeting with my daughters to decide who has to sweep the earth this morning the cat has taken out of the pot and who will prepare food next Sunday.

“Keep sadness and pain of samsara in your heart and at the same time, power and vision of the Great Eastern Sun. Thus the warrior can make a good cup of tea. ” Trungpa Rinpoche

Beatriz Muñoz of www.mindfulnessgranada.es

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