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At The Happy Starfish we are dedicated to providing a wealth of information, products, workshops and articles all aimed at celebrating health, happiness and peaceful living. We believe that life should be an awesome adventure filled with love; love life and life will love you back. Are you willing to surrender what you think you are for what you could become? Are you ready?

Monday 28 April 2014

Interview with Sandy Newbigging


When I first met Sandy a few years ago he had given a talk on health and happiness.  Talking to him afterwards I asked him how it was possible to apply the techniques he spoke about, in a situation such as mine when I am in constant physical pain.  He told me the pain wasn’t my main problem but the fact that I was resisting it.  At the time I thought, to be blunt, it was a stupid thing to say, how could pain not be my main problem?  However after getting to know Sandy, undertaking his workshops, his teacher training programmes and fully understanding his philosophy I am a full advocate of his methods which have greatly helped me on a personal level.  It was a pleasure, therefore, to interview him regarding the meditation he teaches, through which, Yoga Magazine given the accolade of branding him “one of the best meditation teachers around”. Sandy currently has a new book available "Mind Calm" published by Hay House and I am proud to be a qualified Mind Calm coach, as well as a Mind Detox Practitioner.

Sandy, you help people eradicated their unhealthy beliefs through your Mind Detox Method to enable them to feel at peace, why do you recommend meditating too?

Therapy works on changing the mind, meditation works on changing the relationship with the mind.  It is very powerful to combine a good form of therapy with a good form of meditation that can help you to reconnect with the permanent, on-going experience of life.

In your opinion, is therapy not enough on its own?

It can be but there is a very high chance that when the client goes home they are going to find a new problem because that's what the mind does.  Often that person then thinks it’s because that therapy didn’t work but the therapy did work, but the real ultimate problem is thinking so much.

So if you don’t think so much you don’t keep coming up with new problems?

Exactly.  When you stop thinking so much you get present and start to experience the perfection of life and more peace, happiness, more love and contentment.

So we can use meditation as a tool to keep us in the present moment?

Yes.

Why do we find this so difficult to do naturally?

The mind by its very nature is very judgemental and wants to put everything in a box, whether good, bad, right, wrong, better or worse and as long as we are in that cycle and constantly thinking then we can not only feel that something is lacking in our life but we can be missing the present moment because thoughts are always taking us to the past or the future.

Ah, I can totally relate to that because I was forever thinking about the past wishing I was healthy again. You always seem so relaxed.  How would you sum up living in the present?

You can’t help but rediscover the permanent aspect of you, the underlying nature of you and all reality which we suggest is still, silent space or consciousness and if someone is exploring consciousness then they are exploring peace and love and contentment.

You make it sound very beautiful and you clearly love teaching?

I want to share the experience of peace with others, it is not an intellectual, conceptual belief, meditation is freeing and liberating and helps you reconnect with your inner experience of peace.

And I can vouch for the fact it really does work. Thanks Sandy, as always, it has been a pleasure.

You can check out Sandy's website here.

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