Listen and Learn

Ruby Wax – comedian, writer and mental health campaigner – shows us how our minds can jeopardize our sanity. With her own periods of depression and now a Masters from Oxford in Mindfulness-based Cognitive Therapy to draw from, she explains how our busy, chattering self-critical thoughts drive us to anxiety and stress. Helping you become the master, not the slave, of your mind, Ruby provides a manual on how to break the cycle in her new book Sane New World. Ruby is in conversation with Tom Dunne of Newstalk and the podcast was recorded in the Pavilion Theatre on Friday 7th June.

Note: We apologise for the fact that due to some technical difficulties, the first few minutes of the recording are missing.

Ruby Wax at the Pavilion Theatre, Dun Laoghaire - June 7th, 2013

In every moment there is the opportunity to see that your true nature is happiness. There is no need to seek for what is already yours. The treasure is within you.

Spend quiet time alone contemplating nothingness
See that you are perfect in this moment
Accept things as they are and be gracious
Change is a constant
Thoughts will come and go
You are much bigger than you know
Practice being still
The felling you have that everything is OK is not wishful thinking
In the morning be aware of the morning Grinch telling you that everything is miserable, you are miserable, it’s all miserable.
Who or what is that voice inside you?
Enquire, be curious and know your true Self

Happiness Now

Social psychologist Ellen Langer's unconventional studies have long suggested what brain science is now revealing: our experiences are formed by the words and ideas we attach to them. Naming something play rather than work, or exercise rather than labor, can mean the difference between delight and drudgery, fatigue or weight loss. One of the earliest pioneers in drawing a connection between mindlessness and unhappiness, and between mindfulness and health — along with figures like Jon Kabat-Zinn and Herbert Benson — she describes mindfulness as achievable without meditation or yoga — as “the simple act of actively noticing things.”

Learn more at http://www.onbeing.org/program/ellen-langer-the-simple-act-of-noticing/6332.

Ellen Langer — Science of Mindlessness and Mindfulness

"No one knows what life has in store for us.  When we have pain that doesn’t go away, how do we cope with the new life that now confronts us? Our guest, Toni Bernhard became ill with an acute viral infection and has never recovered.  We will delve into Toni’s experiences, and explore how we can awaken in ourselves that new potential that makes life worth living." 

Aches-And-Gains-093-Buddhist-Secrets-ChronicPain-14.6

Listen to an excerpt of Vidyamala Burch and Danny Penman's YOU ARE NOT YOUR PAIN audiobook, read by Burch.

Pain, suffering, and stress can be intolerable, but it doesn't have to be this way. YOU ARE NOT YOUR PAIN reveals a simple set of mindfulness-based practices that you can incorporate into your daily life to relieve chronic pain and the suffering and stress of illness. Clinical trials show that mindfulness meditation can be as effective as prescription painkillers and can enhance the body's natural healing systems, while also significantly reducing anxiety, depression, irritability, exhaustion, and insomnia—all symptoms that can arise from chronic pain and illness.

Developed by two authors who themselves have struggled with severe pain due to serious injuries, this accessible book reveals the eight-week program that will quickly melt away your suffering and help you cope with your pain. Taking up just 10-20 minutes per day, this is a simple yet effective way to soothe some of the common causes of pain like back problems, arthritis, migraine, and diabetes, but can also be effective for people undergoing chemotherapy, people with heart disease, fibromyalgia, celiac disease, and much more. 

Accompanied by a CD with 8 meditations, listeners will be able to identify and focus on secondary suffering which is brought about when the mind becomes fixated on the anxiety of pain, and begins to anticipate it, thereby making suffering worse. Using the meditations and techniques within the book, readers will learn to breathe in to their pain and  dissolve suffering by soothing the brain's pain networks and leaving you able to live life fully again.

Buy the audiobook

You Are Not Your Pain audiobook - Chapter 1

Once upon a time we assumed the brain stops developing when we're young. Neuroscientist Richard Davidson helped overturn this idea by studying the brains of meditating Buddhist monks. Now he's working on conditions like ADHD and autism. He focuses not on fixing what is wrong, but on rewiring our minds with life-enriching behaviors.

Investigating Healthy Minds with Richard Davidson (June 23, 2011)

Artist. Art historian. Natural redhead. Feminist. Fellow human being. ME patient. Book lover.

Meditating her butt off >wink<, while struggling with Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (M.E.).

Dares to doubt her own assumptions.

Listen and Learn

Fleurtje Eliza Duivis