Hi, it's Vidyamala here and I've been

asked to answer the question, how

do I find inner peace with a very

demanding schedule and a stressful life?

Great question.

And I can totally relate to this as it's

been a question for me for a long time.

And I'm guessing it probably is for

you too, if you're taking the time

to listen to what I've got to say.

I'll try and keep this answer

quite brief, because if you've

got a busy, stressful life, you're

probably quite time pressured.

And yeah, I'm just aware how

many of us lead really busy,

stressful lives these days.

And how many of us have

got really big challenges.

Lots of pressures, financial health,

big responsibilities, and so on.

Many of us live a very fast

pace, and inner peace can

seem like a far off fantasy.

So I'm hoping to give you hope today,

give you something quite optimistic.

And that is that inner peace is always

available to us in this very moment.

It's not some far away goal of a perfect

life, but every moment that we use our

awareness to step out off the hamster in

the wheel, even for just a moment, come

into the body, come into the breath,

rest the body in gravity, settle, we

have a little taste of inner peace.

So the main message in this

particular talk is to take a break.

Take regular breaks.

And I'm not talking about, you know,

going and sitting down for half an hour.

I'm talking about taking a break

for one minute, two minutes, three

minutes, regularly, throughout the day.

Maybe even just 30 seconds, just hitting

the pause button when we're getting

really overwhelmed and stopping and

settling and resting and breathing.

That in itself can be really helpful.

A little saying that I sometimes

use in my teaching is, take

a break before you break.

Or take a break before you need it.

So you're not always functioning

at the very end of your resources,

see if you can leave a little bit

of juice in the tank and have these

regular breaks throughout the day.

And during the breaks, what can

be really helpful is to move from

conceptual mode to experiential mode.

Most of us are very caught up with

thinking dominance during the day.

We're very heady.

And we're not so aware of our senses,

but we've got the five physical senses

always available to us, seeing, hearing,

tasting, touching, and smelling.

And if we drop our awareness inside

our senses, then that lessens the

tendency for conceptual dominance.

There's been some studies with

very advanced Tibetan meditators.

They're called the Olympic

athletes of meditation.

And they've all got at least 10,000

hours under their belts as it were.

And their brains have been scanned and

their brains are really quite profoundly

different through the training that

they've engaged in, in meditation and

awareness and compassion training.

And one of the main differences or one of

the profound differences is they've moved

from evaluation mode to experiential mode.

Which means they've moved from a

conceptual thinking dominance to

a direct experience dominance.

So they're in their experience as

it happens rather than ruminating

and worrying about their experience.

So the tip today or the practice

today is to simply take these regular

breaks, drop into your senses.

And that might mean going to

the window and looking at the

sky for 30 seconds, one minute.

It might mean stopping and

smelling a flower in the garden.

It might mean really

tasting your cup of coffee.

That will be an amazing practice.

When you're having a cup of tea, you're

having a cup of coffee, just have the

cup of tea, just have the cup of coffee.

Put your phone down.

Pause, rest, settle.

So that's the main tip I'm offering today.

Take a break before you break

and drop into your senses.

And this can be really quite profound

in terms of accessing more stillness

and more inner peace, even if you live a

very demanding, hectic, stressful life.

I think your brain, your nervous system,

your heart, your mind, your soul will be

grateful if you introduce this idea of

regular sense-based breaks into your day.

So, thanks so much for giving me the

gift of your attention to listen to

this talk, especially if taking five

minutes out to listen to this is actually

quite a significant step for you.

I hope you found it helpful and please

know that I'm walking beside you.

So when you're having your breaks,

even if it can be so hard to stop,

just know that I'm trying to do the

same thing as well and my own life and

there'll be many other people who've

listened to this talk who will also

be trying to introduce these present

moment sens-based breaks into their day.

So I wish you all the very, very

best and thanks again for listening.