HeadSpace Tips (of the iceberg)

Headspace Pro 1

1. It’s useful to focus on something when you start training your attention, but the end goal is to remain aware without crutches. At the end of every guided meditation, we have a little taste of this (Andy calls it Resting Awareness) when we let our mind wander freely (which for many people, it’s when it sits the quietest).  Headspace Pro will slowly transition to unguided Resting Awareness. Meditation makes it easier to feel present, but we want to be present during normal life too. Make a smooth transition at the end of meditation, by noting what you’re going to do next, and getting straight to it, trying to keep that sense of awareness, giving it complete focus.
2. Try other anchoring techniques besides focusing on the breath.  It’s hard to be mindful all the time. Split your day into chunks or time or activities, and choose a few that you feel you can give your complete attention to practice being mindful. Something you do as routine is easier.
3. We’re developing an effortless, joyful pace. Don’t rush, but don’t dither either.  Take a moment after your meditation to feel it, and try to keep it after transitioning to daily activities.
4. There is a risk that instead of worrying about Daily Life we will start to worry about the exercise itself:  «am I doing it right?» We don’t have to breath slow or do anything special. Just be natural and remain aware.  And when you notice you got distracted, just bring your attention back to your breath.
5. Our breath is a good barometer of the state of our mind. Take a reading several times during the day.
6. If you’re just waiting for the exercise to finish, then you’re wanting to do something else. Rather, enjoy the present, the feeling of not having to do anything else. Keep an eye for this wanting wait during your day.
7. Sitting in silence could make you feel lonely. Recall your motives to mediate and the impact it has on others. Think of all the people over the world sitting in silence with you. Notice you’re learning to understand not only your own mind, but every other mind, too. Get a meditation pal.
8. If you feel bored, you might lack curiosity. Try developing more interest, not only in your breath, but in all feelings, sensations, thoughts. Not thinking about them, just noticing them in broad awareness.  If we narrow our process to a goal, we miss the big picture, and pigeonhole ourselves into boredom. It’s easy to undervalue silence, like nothing is going on. But it is!  We’re developing awareness, and letting things go. So don’t undervalue your practice, make it a priority. You gotta meditate when you gotta meditate.
9. Now that some parts of the exercise are not guided, you might find you take too long. But with practice you’ll find a natural rythm, just keep on it, without obsessing or getting stuck in any part of the exercise. Then try to apply this sense of awareness and effort to the rest of your day. Don’t get stuck, nor rush ahead. Choose one activity to focus on for a week, then add another the next week, and you’ll be mindfull throughout your day in a few months.
10. This was perhaps the longest time you ever sat in silence. There are still sounds from outside, and inside, which might seem like obstacles. They are tools, to learn about our mind, and to hone our skill at handling them. Do so by looking for more moments of “silence” along your day.

Headspace Pro 2

1. In this level we will focus on our mind fleeing or chasing after certain things. Pay attention along the day and notice when it does this last.
2. Desire is natural: to prefer one thing over another. But intense craving causes conflict. Notice when your mind goes chasing after something to diminish the craving.
3. Every time you notice and let go the chase, you diminish the impulse to go chasing in the first place. Notice also what happens when you catch what you’re chasing (p.e. a piece of cake): does it make you really happy, or just sets you up for a new craving?
4. If we can accept the present, there’s no conflict. The mind at ease, despite fleeting feelings. Real freedom.
5. Don’t fret about your timing during the exercise, it’ll sort itself out. Just move along, don’t get stuck. Accept what you feel and think along the day to remain present and find calm (except the things you do want to change).
6. Sometimes instead of chasing, we run away from thoughts or feelings. Probably much more often than we realise. Notice the things you resist during your practice and along the day, and try to walk to the side of the road: don’t chase or control the cars, just watch them move through.
7. Notice the types of resistance you experience: is it primarily towards places, persons, feelings, emotions, thoughts, even yourself?  What happens when you realise this resistance?  Does it soften?
8. What underlies that resistance?  Craving something different? Worry about feeling/thinking something?  Does the resistance stresses or relaxes you?  And if you let the feelings or ideas arise and let go?
9. Don’t censor your mind it of this worry, it rarely brings out something out it can’t deal with.
10.  Thoughts and emotions *are* the exercise, not the enemy. We should not resist or chase after them to find calm. It’s our perception of them that we are working on.

Headspace Pro 3

1. Our mind switches between agitation and sleepiness during the day(s).  Notice these states, so later you know when to press or ease on the gas to achieve effortless effort.
2. If you suffer from sleepiness, do your meditation earlier, freshen up in the bathroom, drink some water, watch for patterns, like what you eat before.
3. Notice any sleepiness along the exercise, and your day, and see what changes when you do (without thinking about it, but being present).
4. Boredom can cause sleepiness. It can be countered with curiosity. Breath varies slightly, if you pay attention. Like the wonder of watching a baby breath. Not two things or persons are ever the same. You can be more curious everywhere in your life.
5. Without prompts you can fall into a stable dullness: calm but daydreamy, even indifferent.  Notice the quality of your calm and the clarity of your awareness in such a moment, see what happens.
6. If instead you become restless, remind yourself the blue sky is up there. Don’t assume beforehand you’ll be anxious. Instead, apply curiosity: «will it be busy? Is it? How?» to create more space along your day (checkpoints can help).
7. Breaking the exercise (or any activity, really) in smaller parts helps avoid rushing forward and being anxious. Like, think of a single breath as a whole exercise (or ten breaths, or five minutes?).  Notice how many times we anticipate things that never happen, so we worry for nothing.
8. Restless is not always negative. An excited mind can be like a puppy: be patient with it, bring it gently back to focus. Rate your restlessness from one to ten a few times today, take a couple of breaths afterwards.
9. Restlessness can be caused by our previous emotional state, or by the exercise itself. Notice expectation, resistance and other reactions, in the exercise and along your day, and step back.
10. We are developing a sweet spot between sleepy and restless. Apply effortless effort in your practice, transition smoothly to daily life afterwards.

Headspace Pro 4 – Doubt

1. Doubt is just another kind of thinking. Treat and label it as so. Evaluate your level of doubt along the day in a scale of 1 to 10.
2. Do be sceptical to ask the right questions, to learn from curiosity, but not to close your mind. Buddhist meditation has been around for millenia, but there’s plenty of modern research on its benefits. Do you have any doubt about your practice?  What’s the root of it?  Fear, high expectations, lack of control?
3. Doubt is a thought, so we can observe it without engaging in it. Let the thought pass, and focus more on the feeling. Or analyze doubt itself: what is it? Thought, feeling? Where is it?
4. Some times we doubt the exercise. More often, we doubt our ability of performing it correctly. We forget that what we are looking for is already here. Let the cloud of doubt pass to uncover the blue sky. Recognising the patterns of self doubt is the first step for meaningful change. Be aware of it along the day, rate it from 1 to 10.
5. Doubts pertain mostly to ideas; our experience of the present, on the other hand, has a certainty of the here and now. There’s nothing to doubt when we focus on our breath, so that’s all we have to do to let doubt pass. Return to this awareness when you get distracted along the day.
6. If doubt persists, lightly trace its source: do you feel it on your body? An emotion or thought? Several?  Be curious.  This will provide a new perspective, even if you can’t find it. And if you can’t, why should it bother you?
7. If you remember doubt is fleeting, it will subside more easily. Doubt (and everything) comes and goes, like clouds in the sky.What is your motivation for training your mind?
8. A clear motivation, a strong purpose, is the best antidote against doubt. Reflect again on your motivation.
9. Altruism is one of the most inspiring sources of montivation. Appeal to it, during your motivation moments of doubt, and daily life. Think of friends and family. After the exercise, think back to the times in which you have stepped back instead of reacting impulsively.
10. Meditation has developed over thousands of years. Science confirms some of its benefits. But in the end, it’s your experience that matters. Don’t mind what others say. Notice the changes in your feelings, awareness and body. Remember the blue sky is always there whenever doubt passes by.

Headspace Pro 5 – Perception

1. Perception is habit: we get used to seeing things in one way. Even when things change. Our perception can change too: one day we might be bothered by one thing during our practice, but not the next. In this level we’ll develop a lighter, more dreamlike perspective of life. Imagine you’re in a holiday in a new place when you go through your routine, to develop new, dreamy eyes.
2. When you realise you have been dreaming, you immediately let go. Thoughts and emotions are transient and intangible, like dreams. Today, imagine them coming and going in a movie screen. Observe the difference in the way you observer your mind during the exercise, and during daily life.
3. If you still don’t have a good feeling of how mindfulness feels, mindful walking is a good way to practice. Everything feels more intense, but also distant –dreamlike. And even though life feels real, ask yourself a few times during the day, what if it was a dream?
4. Our perception of mind, body, emotions, people, places defines our experience: the same situation can make us react in different ways in different times. In the dreamlike perception, things are not so solid, we don’t take ourselves so seriously.
5. We can take a dream very seriously when we are not aware we’re dreaming. But lucidity allows us to let go. Remind yourself how do you feel when you realise it was only a dream.
6. When we are lost in thought, a strange memory or feeling can jolt us back to awareness (or wakefulness, if we’re in a dream).  Take such oportunities to remain present.
7. Serious things are challenging enough, being impulsive or thiking non stop on them only makes it worse. Tools like a dreamy perspective helps us train the mind to be more sober and clear.
8. Memories of the past, and projections from the future are not that different from a dream. Anything that isn’t the present is just an idea. How often do you get lost in memories or projections?  Which one happens more often?  Do you feel they are real?
9. Meditation changes our perspective (and hence, our experience) from seeing everything as solid to a more fluid view: everything is in change.

Headspace Pro 6 – The Self: Me, myself and I

1.  Me, myself and I tend to feel separate from the world, wanting some things “for myself”, disliking others. Every moment, my, myself and I create stories that define our experience. The more contrived they are, the more confuse we feel. Notice how often those words appear in your stories along the day. It’s this struggle to separate itself from the world that makes the mind succed only in blinding itself to it.
2. There’s only this, the present. But if we feel some discomfort, our mind will make up stories: “ow, my leg hurts…” “Will it last much longer?” “What if…” And we get distracted. So try to remember, there’s only this.  Come back to the actual experience of the moment, whether it is a sensation or a single thought.
3. The mind wants to get involved with this, associating it to past events and future worries. But anything that is not this is just an idea.
4. If there’s no I, there’s no you. “Just the one of us”, just this… this moment, this experience. If something bad happened (or good), well, it’s already gone, so se can just let go of it; it’s not this, but just a story in our mind. Come back to the present when you feel like judging or blaming, take a pause instead of boosting the impulse.
5. When we say we want to get rid of the ego… who’s saying that?  The ego can’t get rid of itself. But we can take it less seriously, and we can also go beyond it, to the present, when we take a breath from the daily chores. We are not suppressing the ego, just letting go off it.
6. Our mind chases (I want…) and flees (that bothers me).   Try switching the I-me-my for just this, the present.
7. This loosens our perspective from a lone individual to a collective feeling.
8. When we come back to this, there’s no I, just the moment. It’s a big idea, takes time, curiosity and interest to become an experience. To free yourself from the self, to change where was I or where am I going, not for where I am, but where this is. What if becoming the certainty of being present.
9. When we observe something, we perceive those three things as separate: the observer, the action, and the object(person, emotion, thought…) As we learn to attend to the present, they will fuse in this.  Then, instead of the isolated I, we feel part of the experience, of something bigger.

Headspace: Productivity

1. We’ve grown accustomed to short bursts of intense focus. We’re now trying to exercise longer periods of gentle focus. To help:
   1. Clean your desktop of distractions –we have many open programs and tabs.
   2. Ease your attention to the breath: let’s say some 25% to start with;  make it 50% when you start to notice the differences between each breath, and up to 75% when you count them.
   3. Take 4 moments to focus for 4 breaths during the day.
2. Productivity can be applied to anything.
   1. Begin an activity with the intention of realising it.
   2. Focus with full attention, prevent distractions.
   3. Sustainable effort allows flow, ease, enjoyment.
   4. Divide your day in activities, and plan to take a focusing breath after each.
3. Sleep is vital.  Do what you need to get a good night’s. A warm shower, meditation, hide your phone. Use your breathing breaks to check if you need to sleep.
4. Body and mind work as one. Exercise both whichever way works for you. Use your breathing breaks to check for stiffness or stress in the body, and try to relax.
5. Eat what makes you feel good. Go easy on the sugar.  Think about what do you eat, how, and where. Notice how do you feel, before and after eating.
6. As long as you bring a clear intention, apply sustained effort with a gentle focus and enjoy yourself, productivity is guaranteed. Or your money back.
   

Headspace: Priorization

1. If this was your last day, what would you do? Try for a few days.
2. Don’t take the exercise too literally, focus on the feeling. What is more important, what can I strike off the list? Understand your motivation from the beginning. It’s much easier to complete something with a clear and strong intention.
3. We are exercising a greater sense of focus —to prevent being distracted from the present, but also of calm and clarity, to realize what’s important. Using modern apps to help prioritize forces us to use gadgets designed to distract us. Good old paper and pen have no such temptations.
4. Have a goal for the day, or the year, but being realistic, with oneself and others. Communicate your intentions to sync what you want to do and what others expect of you.
5. It’s easy to start things; we should also analice how they end. Pause at the end of the day and take a look: what worked, what didn’t, what could improve?  Do we need to find a new approach, to split it in parts?
6. The nature of the distraction is not important, just noticing it. Productivity starts with a clear intention. Then, gentle focus brings us to flow: efficiency, enjoyment and a sense of purpose. Keep an eye on your life’s mission if you want to realise it. Redo the Priorization pack a few times to get the most of it.