Quotes from Mark Williams

now is the future that you promised yourself last year, last month, last week. Now is the only moment you'll ever really have. Mindfulness is about waking up to this.

Tiny actions can fundamentally alter your relationship to the world for the better.

Gradually, moment by moment, you may have come to realize that although you can't stop the unsettling thoughts from arising in your mind, you can stop what happens next. You can stop the vicious circle from feeding off itself. The

Once again, it is important to keep in mind that there isn't necessarily a connection between how much you are enjoying the practice and its longer-term benefits. It can take time for the mind to reconnect fully with the body as countless networks in the brain have to rewire and strengthen themselves.

Our emotional reactions depend on the story we tell ourselves, the running commentary in the mind that interprets the data we receive through our senses.

the anatomy of depression and of its four key dimensions: feelings, thoughts, body sensations, and behaviors

We are capable of directly sensing things like the sounds of birds, the scent of beautiful flowers and the sight of a loved one's smile. And we know with the heart as well as the head. Thinking is not all there is to conscious experience. The mind is bigger and more encompassing than thought alone.

If you simply accept life as it is, you will be a lot more fulfilled and increasingly worry free.

Usually, in daily life, we are motivated to do something, then we do it. But when mood is low, we have to do something before the motivation comes.

See our thoughts as mental events that come and go in the mind like clouds across the sky

You'll soon discover that although you feel time-poor, you are actually moment-rich.

We often have very little empathy for our own thoughts and feelings and frequently try to suppress them by dismissing them as weaknesses.

It turns out that every time a person gets depressed, the connections in the brain between mood, thoughts, the body, and behavior get stronger, making it easier for depression to be triggered again.

There is no need to compare your life (or standard of living) with either a fictitious life in the future or some rose-tinted view of the past. You

it's difficult to be curious and unhappy at the same time. Re-igniting

in some cultures, doctors don't ask, "When did you start to feel depressed?" but, "When did you stop dancing?

come to realise that thoughts come and go of their own accord; that you are not your thoughts. You can watch as they appear in your mind, seemingly from thin air, and watch again as they disappear, like a soap bubble bursting. You come to the profound understanding that thoughts and feelings (including negative ones) are transient. They come and they go, and ultimately, you have a choice about whether to act on them or not.

Pure awareness transcends thinking.

Doing mode is not an enemy to be defeated, but is often an ally. Doing mode only becomes a "problem" when it volunteers for a task that it cannot do, such as "solving" a troubling emotion. When this happens, it pays to "shift gear" into "Being" mode. This is what mindfulness gives us: the ability to shift gears as we need to, rather than being permanently stuck in the same one.

When mood is low, motivation follows action, rather than the other way around. When you put the action first, motivation follows.

Depression may be exacting a staggering toll, but its cousin—chronic anxiety—is becoming disturbingly common too, with average levels of anxiety in children and young people now at a point that would have been judged to be "clinical" in the 1950s.4 It's not a great stretch of the imagination to assume that in a few decades unhappiness, depression and anxiety will have become the normal human condition, rather than happiness and contentment.

the act of smiling can itself make you happy. It

For maybe the first time in years, you're noticing in real time how the mind creates tension in the body. Soon you'll notice that the body also creates tension in the mind in a self-sustaining loop.

What's become of my life? Why do I feel so burned out? I should be happy. I used to be happy. Where did it all go?