ConnectYou can connect in so many ways. Connect with the people around you, such as your whanau/family, friends, colleagues and neighbours. Connect at home, work, school, or in your local community. Think of these relationships as the cornerstone of your life and invest time in developing them. Building these connections will support and enrich you every day.■Become involved in groups; join your local craft, sports, choir, hobby or book club and enjoying singing, sewing, playing a card game, visiting gardens or croquet on the lawn together.■Organise a baby photo competition with friends or colleagues – guess who the baby is!■Host a potluck dinner, or have a street BBQ, with neighbours or friends/family and bring kai from different cultures.■Gather some friends for a DVD evening; ask people to share a film they like.■Smile at a stranger – you may be surprised by the smile you get back!■Find more opportunities for humour in the home by starting a family joke collection.■Connect with the whenua; grab some mates and get into the great outdoors - go on a bush walk, go surfing or mountain bike riding.■Take time to read your local newspaper or newsletter – find out what’s going on in your area, such as music or cultural performances, then organise a group outing.■Have a family WIFI, TV and text free day and bring out the old board games you have – you may be surprised at how much fun they still are!Contact a friend you have not seen or spoken to for a while and talk, talk, talk!GiveDo something nice for a friend, or a stranger. Thank someone, smile, or volunteer your time by joining a community group. Seeing yourself, and your happiness, linked to the wider community can be incredibly rewarding and creates connection with the people around you. It feels good to give and everybody has something to offer. How will you play your part?■Join or start and develop a neighbourhood Time Bank.■Take opportunities to support and advocate for groups, friends, family or neighbours in need.■Give a smile away!■Organise or promote random acts of kindness days at school, work or when you're out with a group.■While driving, stop to let a car into the traffic.■Offer to mow the grass verge of your neighbour.■Join a community clean up day - could be a local stream, river, beach or park - or a tree planting project with friends or family■If you have fruit trees pop your excess fruit out on the street with a "help yourself" sign.■Donate old toys, books, sports equipment, clothes etc to a local charity.■Help with school working bees and fundraisers.■Offer to help an older neighbour with their wheelie bins on rubbish/recycling days.■Give a compliment – acknowledge what someone in your life has done well..Take NoticeBe curious and catch sight of the beautiful, remark on the unusual. Notice the changing seasons. Try savouring the moment, whether you are walking to work, eating lunch or talking to friends. Be aware of the world around you and what you are feeling. Reflecting on your experiences will help you appreciate what matters to you.■Learn useful techniques for becoming more aware of life as it is happening. Stop for a while; take 10 mindful breaths in and out, calming the body and mind, then simply rest where you are noticing everything that is going on around you. This practice incorporates four keys aspects of mindfulness training: Stopping – Calming – Resting – Noticing. Together, these four steps are innately healing. Use an everyday environmental cue (the phone ringing, email alert etc) as a reminder to pause and breathe for three breath cycles, and take notice of the world around you.■Learn yoga or meditation, or have a mirimiri (massage) to sooth and relax your body.■Be mindful of the first mouthful of food you eat. See if you can really pay attention to all the flavours and textures of the food, the act of chewing and the act of swallowing. During the following meal, see if you can be aware of the first two mouthfuls of food, and so on.■Take the opportunity to sit quietly in a busy place like an airport or a mall and notice the interactions between people.■Try to get out of your work environment during breaks. Go for a walk into a nearby park, being mindful of your breathing, your footsteps and the environment around you.■Climb your maunga, swim in your awa or moana and korero karakia with tangaroa.■Spend time gardening or create a green space in your home or office where you could grow a few small planets, such as herbs, on a windowsill.■Take notice of the night sky. Be aware of what phase the moon is in and how the visible constellations change throughout the year.■Go for a bush walk, try to identify the different animal and plant species you see and photograph them while taking the time to really notice what you are photographing.■Practise gratitude; keep a diary by writing down three things for which you are grateful on a daily or weekly basis. Take the time to give a special thank you to people who support you everyday.■At the end of the day ask friends, family or colleagues what the best thing was about their day and listen with interest when they respond.■Begin meetings with a karakia (prayer) or short reflection (eg, an inspiring quote) followed by a brief silent period, allowing people to breathe mindfully and bring their full attention into the room. End in a similar fashion.Keep learningTry something new or rediscover an old interest. Sign up for that course or take on a different responsibility at work. Learn to play an instrument or how to cook your favourite food. Set a challenge you will enjoy achieving. Learning new things will make you more confident as well as being fun. Seek out new experiences and dare yourself.■Learn something you don’t know about the area in which you live by checking out the local notice boards for interesting talks and events.■Write your bucket list – then try something you have always wanted to do but never actually done!■Start learning a musical instrument. How about the French horn or the harp?■Find and try out a new recipe for a meal, cake or dessert.■Commit to identifying a new plant every day for a year – in Maori and Latin.■Visit the local public library and see what new books, mags and talks they have.■Discover the name of the iwi, hapu, maunga and awa of the place you live.■Memorise a new word every week. Practice using it among friends and family.■Learn another language. E korero ki a koe Maori? Parlez-vous francais? Talar pu islensku?■Put your hand up for a new challenge/training in your workplace to broaden your knowledge.■Pass on any of the latest research you find that relates to your professional or sector.■Get your colleagues to bring their favourite non-fiction book to work for a book swap -learn about a new topic and your colleagues’ interests at the same time.Be activeStep outside, when was the last time you went for a bike ride, a jog or a walk in the fresh air? You could try playing a game or dancing with young ones. Check out your garden. Pulling some weeds or planting something new can help you work up a sweat. Exercising makes you feel good. Discover a physical activity you enjoy and one that suits your level of mobility and fitness. Do what you can, enjoy what you do, be active and move your mood.■Bring activity into the everyday, eg. use the stairs instead of the lift, walk to colleagues to talk with them instead of phoning, and get off the bus one stop earlier than your stop.■Try a ‘Have A Go day’ with a local sports group. Look out for what’s on offer, as often, free equipment and tuition is provided.■Take a family walk after dinner, or a longer one on the weekend. Let family members take turns to choose where to go.■Hold a family dance-off with different members picking the music.■Organise or participate in walking tours of local places of interest in your community or suburb.■Participate in a fun run/walk to raise money for charity.■Encourage senior students to put together a Top Town-style event for the junior school with wacky, fun activities that everyone can participate in.■Start or join a walking bus for school children.■Try tai chi classes for strength, balance and mental wellbeing.■Go swimming or water walking groups at your local pool.■Join a sports club to be active and meet people at the same time - tennis, bowls, touch rugby, netball, there is so much to choose from!■Find out the most popular sport among your colleagues and then organise a match or tournament for staff.

DOING

I have just come back from this beautiful sailing trip where I was literally away from the world. On the wide blue ocean deep in the South Pacific, no internet, no wifi, just the wind, the blue ocean and my own thoughts. It always fascinates me that every time I go sailing it takes me a couple of days to truly relax and let my thoughts go and just to be able to be truly in the moment and just “be”.

The mind is like a needy friend most of the time. It tells you constantly what to do, how to react, where to go, what you did wrong and what the other person is most probably thinking of you too. It needs reassurance all the time. The mind is always on full speed mode, on the auto pilot mode most of the time too. We are mostly not aware of what’s going on. We have an overflow of information that comes to our mind that we have to make sense off. That not easy for our mind so the way we react is often on the automatic pilot like how we used to respond to these thoughts in the past based on past experiences.

So here I am on this sailing boat, floating over the ocean, in the most beautiful surroundings, just sound of the wind and the sounds in my mind of my ongoing thoughts. I struggle to let them go at first. I am here with my new partner. I am thinking what he might be thinking of. I am thinking about my work, my children. I am thinking about what I need to do when I am back home again. I try to stop my thinking but I struggle. My mind, my needy friend, that constantly needs to process my thoughts and ideas and tells me all the time what I think and cant leave me alone sometimes.

Although I need my thoughts and ideas as it helps me navigate through life in the person that I am now and the person I want to be. But it also reminds me where I fall short off. And that is sometimes draining and can create unhappiness. So it really refreshing to leave the DOING mode of my mind and I can just be and for me the best way to be free from my needy friend sometime is to go sailing, feel the wind, have no internet and l just feel the wind, see the ocean and nothing else then that.

BEING

Being is for me like a way to be out of my ‘head’ and actually experience what is going on here in the moment, on the sailing boat and nothing else then that feeling. It always brings me back to my childhood, where I was sailing with my parents and all I had to do was hold the rope and feel the wind. I had no problems, I had this freedom feeling that made me so happy, feeling the wind in my hair. When you are young you have most of the time no worries yet, you enjoy the experience really so much more then when you are grown up. We, as adult connect fear of what can go wrong in the experience a lot and the needy friend (doing mode of the mind) is back again. That innocent feeling when I was young is so refreshing to experience again when sailing. It doesn’t come quickly but when it is there I can fully engage in the elements and in the now and not constantly thinking about it. When I just feel and experience that moment I don’t focus on what I need to change about myself or the situation or what I am doing wrong. It kind of that total acceptance feeling. I can feel my body relaxing more too. It always surprises me how physically I am so relaxed after a few days sailing while I am not sitting still on the boat. The being in the moment and not thinking all the time has clearly an impact on my physical wellbeing too.

So when I am there slowly relaxing in my head and body on this wide open blue ocean in the deep South pacific, I begin to realise that I am more accepting of myself and can let myself slowly go. I can feel that just the experience of being on the boat makes me happy and brings happiness. It is not my thoughts attached to that experience that influences and dominates my mood but my being mode of mind.

MINDFULNESS

I slowly enter the mindfulness mode of my mind. My best buddy once I can reconnect to this mode. The friend that unlocks my mind that is usually driven by my needy friend-the doing mode where I think in overdrive really. Mindfulness is for me an awareness of my thoughts and emotions, kind of accepting my doing mode with being mode of my mind and not connecting judgements to these thoughts and feelings but just letting them be in the moment. Not always easy though.

But if I can pay attention to my thoughts and feelings without any labelling it allows me to see things clearly in my life. It also allows me being mindful of the experience, like in the sensations of my body: the smell of the ocean, the sound of the wind, the touch of my partners arm around me. The more I can connect to this mode of my mind the more I am more accepting of who I am. I have become more compassionate to myself and the people around me. It makes me a happier person really. It doesn’t mean all my worries are solved and I have no more stress in life. Stress and worries are part of life. But I am more accepting of them and don’t fight them anymore. I embrace my thoughts and my feelings. I accept them. I try to be mindful of them and at the same time try to free my mind and be mind-less. Mindfulness brings in a way a new way of knowing: knowing what we are experiencing as we are experiencing it. A way of doing this is through meditation. For me meditating is something I can do on any spot, now on the boat I sit and watch the blue ocean, feel the wind and focus just on that. It clears my mind, my thoughts, and shifts me into my being mode and slowly enters my mindfulness mode of acceptance of that. It brings compassion for my life and the people around me. It gives me the freedom to choose how I want to shape my life.

My life that I want to shape not according the way we should live but how I truly want to live. An exciting journey is starting and I embrace it with all my heart.

xxx

Fantastic project i am involved in too!! #wellnesstvonline

Scary but so exciting!! Still working on the content. So keep you posted!

Lots of love, Ines

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