Developing mindfulness is, in reality, the only option. The alternative, though inadmissable, is the norm. A quick look around you - wherever you are - will reveal the mindlessness of everyday ordinary behaviour and life. That's why we're focused, in this series, on being mindful - the polar opposite of the ordinary.

Over the course of this series of videos and ezines, you can refer back to the previous steps we have taken to get to the current edition... just use the link for each preceding week:

Stop what you're doing and notice where you are - what you see, what you hear and what you smell and taste. Get a feel for your surroundings - run your hand along the nearest surface, feel the breeze, the cool, the warmth on your face or skin.

Just be where you are. Break the cycle of adding a thought - even a positive one - to what you are experiencing. Just observe each sight and sound, feeling, smell and taste as it arises and then passes.

The essence of mindfulness.

Our internal world creates the external. How we feel about ourselves, what we think of our capabilities, our strengths or weakness, our shortcomings, filters from the inside out into the experience that we call reality. Or, if I can put it another way, in order to make sense of what's "outside" we have to filter everything through what's already "inside". And what's already inside has been lurking there for a very long time - in fact, since our earliest formative experiences in this life.

Worry, frustration, anger, anxiety and stress - and all the physical illnesses that go with this constant inner war of attrition - all come from the inside. The outside is benign until we think it malevolent, it is neutral until we make it positive or negative, it is colourless until we paint it in our own likeness or, more to the point, the flawed self-likeness that flows from the inner world of make-believe.

How we behave, react towards others, grasp or squander our opportunities (and they're just the ones that our closed minds can see!) depends on our inner world. Not act or omission that you have ever initiated has been breathed life without reference to your inner world for, without your inner world, you are not you.

But your inner world - all your baggage but also all your experience, expertise and knowledge - must be put in its proper perspective. Instead of being the "source of all wisdom" that "enables" you make sense of the moment, it needs to be one of a number of inputs into you outputing the kind of behaviour and life that you want - otherwise, nonsense, borne of nonsense, will simply create more nonsense.

You tame your inner world, you put it in its place (its proper place) by developing the innate skill that you have for experiencing the outer world. Training is required because you're brain is structured to filter every moment through your inner reference library. Meditation is the foundational training - if you don't meditate every day you cannot experience the outer world as it is. But meditation is done in the peace and quiet of the moment, eyes closed. Life is lived in a not-so-quiet cut and thrust environment. You've got to learn to see, feel, hear, smell and taste that environment too. Hence today's Quick Tip.