How to be happy using meditation for beginners

Making Happy Work - a beginner's guide to navigating the modern world with meditation by Mick Timpson

Are you happy?  Would you like to know how to be happy?  How to be happier?  I have suffered from anxiety and depression on and off most of my adult life, not severe like many but enough to sometimes need help, either medication or counselling.  A few years back my GP asked me if I could remember the last time I was truly happy, that question and the struggle to answer it really concerned me. 

T-Shirt is current from Zara, book details can be found below

I have so much to be happy about - a long and successful marriage, two amazing children who make me proud every single day, a beautiful home, hobbies and holidays, outings and family get-together's, good friends and not needing to worry about money.  But sometimes the modern world still brings it's challenges and although we can appear to have it all, we can still find the ultimate happy to be a bit elusive.  More recently I have found a new happy place - helped by finally finding the solution to balancing my menopausal hormones!

The modern world with it's over reliance on technology, rushing about, always trying to fulfill a self inflicted deadline - has taken a toll on own inner happiness and satisfaction with life.  We rarely stop to just be.  To be a 'human being' - and I know I am just as guilty of this as everyone else.  But stopping for a moment to at least recognise it is a good place to start.  I have spoken about this before on my blog - see my post here about Information Overload!

​I was recently gifted a copy of a new book - Making Happy Work by Mick Timpson - a beginner's guide to navigating the modern world with meditation.

Now I will be honest, I am not great at sitting still long enough to meditate.  But I have always been that way, not just because of technology and my busy modern life.  And I am one of the few people that still prefers to sit and talk to my loved ones.  I hate seeing phones out when a couple or a family group or friends are out dining.  We always made it a rule to have dinner together as a family - phone free!  But technology still takes over too often.

So I was intrigued by the title of this book.  Where the author recognises the challenges of our modern world and looks at ways to incorporate some stillness and meditation into life.  I've not had a chance to read it properly yet though - but I am keen to see what I can learn to help me with my own happy.

My jumper is from Sezane and my jewellery is from Toria Lee Accessories

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​Making Happy Work takes the reader on a meditation journey of eight parts which stage by stage build up into a simple, easy to use, powerful practice that can be incorporate into daily activities.  The key to making happy work is that it's not what you do in life that matters, but how you live through your life.

The main thesis is that we have all become disconnected from who we are and what we are  here for.  We are all living in an increasingly chaotic world, where we struggle to survive let alone thrive.  We are doing this at the expense of 'being'.  However, if we can find time to just stop, notice and learn to be, we can reconnect.  We can link our being with our doing.  We can learn to be different and do differently.

Mick Timpson is a founder and CEO of beanddo (be and do) - see his website here.  Mick is also an award-winning architect, artist and yoga teacher, the founder of The YogaLife Project that teaches yoga, meditation and delivers teacher training to future yoga teachers.  Mick has given many talks on yoga and architecture.  He has also taught countless yoga and architecture students how to practive creativity.  The origin of beanddo can be traced back to when Mick realised he had been talking about the same thing to each of his audiences - how creativity and happiness are linked, and fully experienced, when being and doing merge.

Making Happy Work by Mick Timpson is available to buy now from Amazon (paperback or ebook).

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What do you do to be happy?  Find it and make sure you do more of it.  Let me know in comments.  I love a day in London, I love the sunshine and the spring flowers, I love spending time with those I love just 'being'.

Love from
Michelle xx

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My jacket is from Mango and my scarf is from Sweet-Bea

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