Calmness Quotes

Stress, burnout and strain on the human heart are all increasingly taking their toll for millions of hardworking people. However, even someone who is working in a job that simply ‘pays the bills’ can turn mundane and stressful tasks into pleasant activities with a slight adjustment in attitude and by adopting a daily mindful practice.

~ Christopher Dines

Through practising body scan awareness meditation, we can greatly reduce the detrimental effects of stress and make our working lives pleasant and enjoyable.

~ Christopher Dines

The word ‘pranayama’, often referred to as alternate breathing, comes from the Sanskrit meaning ‘extension of life force’ or ‘extension of breath’. At times, we are going to have days where we are bombarded with one task after another. This simple yet effective meditation only takes a couple of minutes and its calming qualities can be felt almost immediately. It is one of the easiest meditation techniques to apply. This practice is well worth applying at least three or four times a day (somewhere private) to develop emotional balance and evenness of mind, especially in the working environment.

~ Christopher Dines

The Happiest Man in The WorldThe French interpreter for the 14th Dalai Lama, former academic and dedicated meditator Matthieu Ricard, came into the spotlight in the field of neural science after being named “the happiest man in the world”. Naturally, there are many other men and women who demonstrate such equanimity, but the studies on his brain uncovered truly astonishing results. MRI scans showed that Matthieu Ricard and other serious long-term meditators (with more than 10,000 hours of practice each) were mentally, emotionally and spiritually fulfilled and displayed an abundance of positive emotions and equanimity in the left pre-frontal cortex of the brain. When talking about his mindfulness training, Matthieu Ricard said with humility that: “Happiness is a skill. It requires effort and time”.

~ Christopher Dines

We cannot control the mind by trying to force it to be peaceful or positive. Many have attempted this using a plethora of methods throughout the ages, but it simply does not work. Trying to fight the human mind is like walking into a lion’s den empty-handed and believing that you have a realistic chance of defending yourself.

~ Christopher Dines

Mindfulness (present-moment awareness) is deliberately focusing our attention on our thoughts, emotions, feelings, sensations and mental activity without losing awareness of what is happening in the present moment. It is essentially being in a state of present-moment awareness and maintaining clarity without being swayed or distracted by mental commentary.

~ Christopher Dines

The process of applying Mindfulness Burnout Prevention (MBP) in the workplace or any environment has a much more far-reaching effect than simply accessing equanimity throughout the vicissitudes of life. Continuous learning helps us to stay youthful, sharpen our mental faculties and wire new neural connections in our brain (making us better equipped to accomplish); it is also a sign of humility.

~ Christopher Dines

Learning to practise mindfulness greatly enhances our ability to manifest emotional intelligence and equanimity under pressure and to display calmness, empathy and adaptability when communicating with others, whether it be with co-workers, clients or the board of directors. Learning to apply mindfulness on a daily basis will significantly encourage a positive, creative and enthusiastic attitude at all levels in companies large and small.

~ Christopher Dines

The incredible benefits of practising and applying mindfulness and self-compassion in the workplace are being increasingly recognised by human resource professionals as well as the medical profession, as the stresses of competing in today’s global economy take their toll on the mental health and emotional wellbeing of many otherwise talented and enthusiastic individuals in the workplace.

~ Christopher Dines

Whether someone is a CEO of a major corporation or is serving meals in a diner, failure to adopt a mindful approach will mean that mental and emotional exhaustion could become a habitual condition. Whether someone is stressed about their stocks losing value or being able to pay their bills, the internal underlying conditions of stress and pressure are essentially the same.

~ Christopher Dines

Many of us have been unconsciously programmed to treat walking as a means to an end, especially while in the workplace. Naturally, a lack of mindfulness while walking leaves one hostage to self-perpetuating stress and anxiety. We rush (often while shouting into a mobile phone), completely missing the enjoyment of walking. Walking and breathing, if practised harmoniously, can be peaceful and thoroughly enjoyable. Even walking down a corridor or into an office or wherever we are working or being of service can be a harmonious action.

~ Christopher Dines

Acceptance brings calmness with it.

~ If I Wake

The ability to stay calm and focused in the midst of change is what distinguishes great leaders from those just collecting a paycheck.

~ Todd Stocker

...I got to love solitude - to see the Moon rise and set - I had time to watch it trace the window square across the wall in silent grace...

~ John Geddes

The only people I am aware of who don’t have troubles are gathered in peaceful, little neighborhoods. There is never a care, never a moment of stress and never an obstacle to ruin a day. All is calm. All is serene. Most towns have at least one such worry-free zone. We call them cemeteries.

~ Steve Goodier

In the moments of your deepest need, despair and desperation, what you need more than any other thing, is calm and faith.

~ Bryant Mcgill

Sometimes there is no time to wait for the sea to calm down! If you have to reach your target, let your voyage start and let the storm be your path!

~ Mehmet Murat Ildan

Inner-calm will lead you on a beautiful journey back to your original self; the perfect, beautiful you.

~ Bryant Mcgill

To persons standing alone on a hill during a clear midnight such as this, the roll of the world is almost a palpable movement. To enjoy the epic form of that gratification it is necessary to stand on a hill at a small hour of the night, and, having first expanded with a sense of difference from the mass of civilized mankind, who are diregardful of all such proceedings at this time, long and quietly watch your stately progress through the stars.

~ Thomas Hardy

On the still calm waters of surrender, the reflections of clarity appear.

~ Bryant Mcgill

In the Bay, whenever I got depressed, I always drove out to the Ocean Beach. Just to sit. And, I don't know, something about looking at water, how it just goes and goes and goes, something about that I found very soothing. As if somehow I were connected to every ripple that was sending itself out and out until it reached another shore.

~ Cisneros Sandra

She listened to the soft splashing sound when the water met the bank. It took just a few moments before she was able to completely fade out the smell of pollution and inhaled the salty air. The soft breeze mingled with the swooshing and splashing of the waves, with the rustling of grass, the tictac as long undressed twigs of the tree met each other, composing a gentle melody like wooden wind-chimes. The whole concert of nature calmed her down like nothing had ever been able to.

~ Jessica Werner

The old man knew he was going far out and he left the smell of the land behind and rowed out into the clean early morning smell of the ocean.

~ Ernest Hemingway

Claire's face looking pretty and serene, as if she were gifted with a madness that left her ignorant of worry.

~ R.j. Lawrence

Want is always hungry and searching whereas contentment is steady, calm and receiving.

~ Bryant Mcgill

How you can sit there, calmly eating muffins when we are in this horrible trouble, I can’t make out. You seem to me to be perfectly heartless.Well, I can’t eat muffins in an agitated manner. The butter would probably get on my cuffs. One should always eat muffins quite calmly. It is the only way to eat them.I say it’s perfectly heartless your eating muffins at all, under the circumstances.

~ Oscar Wilde

I am filled with wonderings, questions and doubt,but of one thing I am certain: it will always be youthat gives flight to the butterflies inside me;calm to the sea I have become and hope to the darkness all around us.It is you and it has always been you...you.

~ Tyler Knott Gregson

When the odds are hopeless, when all seems to be lost, then is the time to be calm, to make a show of authority – at least of indifference

~ Ian Fleming

He says, 'Anything could be happening down there, but up here you just wouldn't know it.'I know what he means. It could be pandemonium in all those little houses, everyone's dreams in a mess. But up here feels peaceful. Clean.

~ Jenny Downham

There are three things in life...not worrying what they are, not caring what others may think they are, and enjoying the wonder of what they might be.

~ Tom Althouse

Power is so characteristically calm, that calmness in itself has the aspect of strength.

~ Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

The opposite of anger is not calmness, its empathy.

~ Mehmet Oz