Porthcawl

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Mindfulness for Everyday Living

Status:Active, open to new members
Leader:
When: On Tuesday afternoons 1:30 pm-3:30 pm
Weeks 1 & 3
Venue: Porthcawl YMCA

Links to discussion papers

What is Mindfulness Meditation
Resources
What is Mindfulness
9 Attitudes
Can Mindfulness help
Origins & Pioneers
Handout for new members


Mindfulness Poems

Guided Meditations

Past topics discussed

Mindful Moments Archive

About our Group

We’re a friendly, open and curious group who embrace Mindfulness Meditation as a way of nurturing our well-being and bringing greater awareness, balance and joy into our lives.

Each of us has travelled a different path through life, gathering our own experiences, insights and wisdom along the way. We come together to share what we’ve learned, explore new ideas and support one another in discovering what mindfulness can mean for each of us.

Modern life encourages us to fill our days with things competing for our time and attention. It’s easy to feel overwhelmed, caught up in endless demands and, in the process, forget to look after ourselves. Mindfulness offers us a way to pause, take a breath and reconnect with what really matters.

There’s never just one way to approach anything in life, and that’s part of what makes our group special. We share and discuss techniques drawn from a variety of sources, as well as from our own unique life experiences. We’re all learning, and we welcome different perspectives, questions and ideas in a spirit of openness and mutual support.

Mindfulness is a quality we all possess. It isn’t something we need to create or strive for perfection to achieve; it’s something we can learn to access and nurture. More than simply a meditation practice, mindfulness can become a way of living — helping us bring greater awareness to the everyday moments of our lives and reducing the stress that comes from living on autopilot.

Meditation gives us an opportunity to pause and pay attention to our bodies, our thoughts and our feelings, and to notice what’s happening in our lives. We practise approaching ourselves and our experiences with curiosity, patience and kindness, learning to be more accepting and less judgemental. These qualities are all connected, each helping us to develop the others.

We don’t practise mindfulness to become perfect, or to make life’s difficulties disappear. Instead, we bring mindfulness into everyday life, learning to recognise our automatic reactions and discover new ways of responding. Little by little, we can become more grounded, calm and present — more connected to the life we are actually living, rather than being caught up in expectations, worries or the demands of others.

Above all, our group is a place to explore mindfulness together, learn from one another and make space for ourselves. There’s no need to have previous experience or to get everything right. Just bring an open mind, a little curiosity and a willingness to discover how mindfulness might help you live your own life with greater awareness, balance and joy.

If you haven’t attended before, please wear comfortable, unrestrictive clothing and bring a wrap if you think you might get cold.

Upcoming Meetings details

3rd November

Road map - part 2

17th November

No meeting today - Christmas Celebrations

1st December

For the first three months of 2027, we will be meeting once a month as follows:

5th January

2nd February

2nd March

No need to ring beforehand, just turn up. Everyone is welcome, the group format is a 15 min meditation to settle our minds , followed by a discussion on a theme, idea or arising issues, followed by coffee, tea and a chat and ending with a meditation. 

Mindful moments

The Stories Behind October – from our youth to our golden years.

October has always seemed to me to be a month of change. The leaves turn gold and copper, the mornings become cooler, and the evenings draw in. But October has changed in other ways too. For those of us in our golden years, it can be a month filled with memories of traditions that were once simply part of everyday life.

The name October comes from the Latin octo, meaning eight. In the old Roman calendar, it was the eighth month of the year. Today, of course, it is the tenth, but the name remains—a small reminder that traditions can survive even when the world around them changes.

Think back to Octobers of our childhood. There were harvest festivals at school, conkers collected from beneath horse chestnut trees, piles of leaves to kick through and the excitement of knowing that winter was on its way. October was also the time to start thinking about Bonfire Night.

All the effort we used to put into our ‘Guy” scrounging bits and pieces for his body and clothing and collecting wood for our bonfire for weeks and weeks before, then hoping it wouldn’t rain when the big day came. Remember the jumping jacks🤣 how they used to chase poor unsuspecting people around, the joy of the bonfire, the fireworks, the smell of smoke in the cold air and if you were really lucky, a jacket potato cooked in the embers. Traditions have changed, it’s more about Halloween now, but the memories remain remarkably vivid.

And perhaps that is one of the interesting things about growing older. We have lived through enormous changes, yet the simplest memories can remain the strongest.

This is where mindfulness can quietly enter our autumn lives. Mindfulness doesn't have to mean sitting cross-legged in silence or following a complicated practice. It can simply mean being present for what is happening now.

Next time you walk through fallen leaves, listen to the sound beneath your feet. Notice the colours in the trees. Feel the coolness of the air on your face. Smell the woodsmoke or the damp earth after rain.

Instead of thinking only, “I remember when October used to be…”, perhaps ask yourself, “What is October giving me today?”

We can hold both things together: the memories of the past and an appreciation of the present.

Perhaps the greatest gift of our later years is that we have accumulated so many stories. A pocketful of conkers, a homemade Guy, a few pennies collected from neighbours, a harvest festival, a bonfire glowing against the November sky—these small memories form part of who we are.

But mindfulness reminds us that we don't have to live only in those memories. There are still new leaves to notice, new conversations to enjoy, new places to discover and new traditions to create.

So this October, perhaps we can celebrate both the October we remember and the October we are living now.

Take a moment. Look around. Listen. Breathe.

The seasons are changing, as they always have….

And so are we.

*** Our mindfulness group is a respectful, safe space for all our members,
but we are not therapists or a replacement for professional advice.
If you think you have mental health issues, please visit your GP. ***

All images used on the Mindfulness pages are either the Group Leader's photos or are AI generated.

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