Meditation and Mindfullness

Meditation

~ claire ballardie

Meditation

I offer mediation sessions at my practice in Market Lavington, near Devizes, Wiltshire.

What is meditation?

Meditation  helps you to recognise your own thoughts and anxiety , and enables you to deal with adverse feelings earlier, building self-confidence and self-esteem, and ability to cope with stressful situations. Meditation is about enjoying the moment and to see yourself in a kind and positive way.

Learning techniques that can be used for a short time each day can help to introduce calmness into your life, reducing the body’s signs of stress such as high blood pressure, feelings of panic, shortness of breathe and so on. Meditation promotes a holistic feeling of well-being for both mind and body.

What happens in a session?

We will check your posture and focus on your breath to start with to calm your mind- and to slow down a ‘busy’ brain. We will work through the body releasing tension, aiming for a deep sense of peace and relaxation. We will spend some tome on relaxing each part of the body in turn, focusing on breathing techniques. You will be guided through a meditation, such as walking through a garden to help you to mentally relax and to bring about a sense of calm, like a daydream. We all have a special place to remember where we felt happy and relaxed.

Meditation can help to:
  • Reduce anxiety
  • Balance mind, body and soul
  • Promote self-healing

Stressful situations such as a visit to the dentist, sitting in traffic jams etc can be managed in a calmer way with meditation techniques, enabling you to keep your cool when under pressure! Performance anxiety, such as making a speech or taking part in a competition can be significantly reduced with meditative techniques.

Sessions cost £40 (50 minutes) individual, or share with a friend.

claire@wiltshire-wellbeing.co.uk

What is Anxiety?

~ claire ballardie

Anxiety

What is Anxiety? 

Anxiety can be caused by feeling helpless, having too little information, or feeling overwhelmed with too much too much information to process, to make sense of.

Feeling overwhelmed, daunted by what would normally be simple daily activities? Confused, and unable to make decisions? Anxiety can manifest as thoughts jumbling in your head, worries going around and around in your mind. Sleep may be restless and intermittent. You may feel tense, or ‘on edge’, irritable, or be unable to relax.

 

NHS Definition of Anxiety

Counselling provides a safe place to explore what the cause of your anxiety is, and help you to devise strategies for coping with it. Levels of anxiety dramatically reduce, or disappear altogether, once you understand how and why you become stressed. Planning life changes, or different ways of seeing problems can dramatically alter confidence levels and self-worth.

Meditation and mindfulness are also great ways to calm a busy mind and to give space for rational thought.

 

 

Mindfulness

~ claire ballardie
Mindfulness in Market Lavington
I offer mindfulness in Market Lavington. 
What is Mindfulness?

Mindfulness is about being able to

stay ‘in the moment’- to still a busy mind. It promotes calmness and concentration either with calming exercise, or being still. It is about being present with what is going right now for you- being aware of your surroundings, how you are feeling, focusing on yourself. It could be as simple as making a cup of tea, and focusing calmly on what you are doing right now rather than thinking about what you will do next, your shopping list, where you have to go in a while, and so on.

Mindfulness session

In a session, we will focus on your self-awareness- noticing your posture, breathing, and what your thoughts are. We will gradually focus on the present, what is happening right now, using mindfulness techniques.

Here is a short video about mindfulness in schools from the BBC London Facebook page.

Continue reading →

Mindfulness Example

~ claire ballardie
Mindfulness Example

Find a quiet moment, and take a look at this sunset. Notice if you are in a hurry, impatient, just have a quick look and think there are better ways to fill your time.

Look again, sitting comfortable, breathing calmly, and give yourself a couple of minutes to take in what you see- the colours and shapes of the clouds, the trees in shadow, the last glow of the sun, for example.  Focus on calmly breathing, relaxing, calming your mind.

After a couple of minutes, stretch and move, look away from the photo and notice your own world with fresh eyes. Notice how you feel now- hopefully calm and relaxed!

sunset-melksham

Art Therapy

~ claire ballardie

Do you like drawing or painting? maybe you have never tried. Putting pen/paint to paper can be very therapeutic. No special paper or paint is needed- you could doodle on a scrap of paper, or try a colouring book. becoming engrossed in what you are doing can be very relaxing. Concentrating on something totally different can switch off a ‘busy brain’ and give you time out of your day to just be with yourself. here is a painting I did recently on an off-cut of wood from the garage, It took about an hour to do, and I thoroughly enjoyed examining the shape off different pictures of mushrooms.You can out your own interpretation on what you see- your painting does not have to be an accurate representation, but use your imagination!

mushrooms-painting

 

Here are some more mushrooms carved out of wood I took a liking to at a horse show.

badminton mushrooms.JPG