Mr Mat M Ward

The books I write will not take away anyone's problems, or change the fact that life is challenging on occasion. More often than not for many of us daily life presents a persistent challenge, through hardship and difficulty, or health complications, as well as the effects of managing our emotions, expectations, ambitions and the outcomes of our interactions with others. Life's events are infinite, and our frames of mind and emotional states can vary greatly from moment to moment because of this. Becoming more aware of and open to this fact helps us manage being who we are, and not focus effort and attention on aspects of life outside of our control. Working with the mind publishing provides some insight into opening up to, and thinking about what challenges are specific to us, and perhaps how to engage with these a little more mindfully. There's lots about life we cannot change, or influence control over, but our self is something we can ultimately have great control of.

There are so many aspects to life that can be difficult, and we are so often engaged in life automatically without greater self-awareness- that it can be rare to truly reflect on and the present with ourselves. This often means we do not deal with challenges and conflict particularly well, and cannot seem to move past points in life that are difficult to those that are positive. It also results in an unhelpful desire to be rid of what troubles us in favour of always expecting to feel great, which is a dangerous state of mind to nurture.

Being more able to notice ourselves and our mindset, our thinking and habits, is an invaluable tool in today's hectic world. All the titles in the Working With the Mind Series help us notice that it's our response to what happens, rather than simply what happens to us in life, that ultimately determines who we are. Unfortunately for us all we're hardwired to react in self-limiting ways to lots of situations in life that present a challenge to us. It's also incredibly easy to get wrapped up in the stuff that does happen, which are the things that we largely have little control over, rather than direct attention towards the mind and how we think and feel about what occurs. Now, the mind is infinitely complex - so it does not serve us merely to chase our self around in cognitive circles, trying to understand the entire complexities of mind, the human psyche and any 'Ultimate Purpose'. There has to be a practical approach, that suits our particular situation and needs as individuals, families and communities. Allowing the experience of life to unfold uninterrupted is a wise idea, however a conundrum then arises - how to make the most of our difficulties, challenges and suffering that naturally occur during our experience? I argue that some level of working with the mind is vital to life, because oftentimes we don't realise that our minds are engaged in the subconscious, unaware cycling of unhelpful thought. We speak and act in ways that are unhelpful to ourselves and others, then as we bring an awareness to this we can perhaps catch ourselves through paying attention as these states of mind arise. After surprisingly little time and experience familiarising with the 'steps' of working with the mind, we punctuate this autopilot mind, and fracture this subconscious thinking and conditioning - finding our own balance using these skills and tools as they fit our routines and needs.

It's important to note the value of the personal understanding and experience, because no book, program, teacher or course can 'do the work for us', and it's our desires and needs we must be familiar with in coming to work with the mind. I do not see myself as a spiritual guide, or guru of any sort, and my own journey into greater awareness arose naturally out of my own needs and desires. I am not always a 'good person', and don't always deal with my life well, but I learn to progressively deal with this fact in more helpful ways. These books arose out of my experience developing and delivering community programmes using mindful principles, and these books fund such programmes.

In coming to our own understanding and experience, and to continue to develop this, it can help to think of the mind as a box. Firstly, without awareness of the box there is little we can hope to do about its contents; and long will they remain jumbled and gathering dust in the absence of deliberate attention. So without opening our minds and looking in a bit, there's not much we can do about it's contents whether generally positive and helpful, or otherwise. This enables the possibility of transformation; of working with what may be negative or unhelpful, towards a more positive, helpful outcome. Through this we ultimately see that what is there, these mind contents, are exactly as they need to be - simply to be the fertilizer for the positive change of helpful growth after we open the lid and let in some light. If the mind is full of negativity this really is irrelevant, as the process of working with the mind does not require any specific baseline, or for us to already be a great and positive person. We are not trying to empty out the box completely, and to get rid of the contents that we don't like, simply to change the way that it may affect us, those around us and how we are inclined to respond to what is there. With practice we change the way we put things into the box, so that we can add in more of what may be helpful to us individually in our endeavours in life and change the way we react to what's there and the outcomes this has for us. We see through this introspection and self-awareness that what we continually add to this box further conditions our habitual self, so lifting the lid is key in life!

In fact, understanding and experience of the mind has pivotal effects in our daily lives - yet we give this little attention as we go about the day. For most of us the days energy is spent balancing our duties and responsibilities, whether to work, family, or the unique challenges we face as individuals. So how do we free our time and efforts to take account of how to manage this for more powerful and positive outcomes? Without a greater awareness our attention is squandered, and our states of mind inhibit us and those around us, limiting our potential. Clearer insight, skills and tools for creating helpful opportunity in our own individual circumstances are vital - whether we seek better family outcomes, greater energy and healing, business prowess or success in other areas of life - in the age of information it is clarity that's key. Effectively working with the mind involves avoiding the sham and the pretence, and requires us to find the principles and simple steps that work for us; because everyone can experience profound benefit from this. I've seen this from my own training and practices, and through experience teaching others in different and difficult situations; in life it's fundamental to find what works for us.

As our understanding and experience grows allocating time, resources and effort for working with the mind becomes simpler. We no longer have to practice mindfulness outside of normal life and routines, but we integrate our learning and development into daily life. These books can help: and where we become stuck remember this is only momentary, like the breeze, the trees it sways and even ourselves as the observer of this.