I have stolen this (stolen, not adapted, just plain stolen) from wonderful ACT therapist Russ Harris.
It is a really nice way of incorporating mindfulness into daily life. 
The Mindful STOP 
We all know that mindfulness is ‘good for us’, just as we all know that exercise is ‘good for us’. However that doesn’t mean we need to do intensive mindfulness meditation for 40 minutes every day! In my workshops for coaches and therapists, I like to say, ‘If we want to motivate people to exercise more, we wouldn’t tell them, “You have to go to the gym for 40 minutes a day!” Rather, we’d say, “Every tiny little bit of exercise makes a difference. If you walk for five minutes at lunchtime, that’s better than not walking at all. If you walk up one flight of stairs instead of taking the lift, that’s better than not walking up any stairs. If you park your car in the parking space that’s furthest away from the supermarket, that’s better than parking in the closest one; even walking those few extra metres across the parking lot will make a difference.” ’

Sure, if you do exercise for 40 minutes a day, you’ll be healthier than if you do it for only 10 minutes a day – but even 5 minutes a day is a whole lot better than none at all! And so it is with mindfulness skills. Just like any skill we learn, the more we practice mindfulness, the better we get. So if you’re willing and able to do 30 or 40 minutes of daily mindfulness meditation (or similar formal mindfulness practices like yoga, or Tai Chi), that’s fantastic! Those are truly excellent practices for effectively developing your mindfulness skills. However, let’s be realistic here; many of us are unable or unwilling to make the time for this type of formal mindfulness practice on a daily basis. That’s just life!

However, that doesn’t mean we need to give up on the idea of regular mindfulness practice. It just means we need to find alternative ways of practicing our mindfulness skills throughout the day. That’s why in all my books you’ll find plenty of suggestions for quick, simple, easy ways to do this – e.g. having a mindful shower, mindfully brushing your teeth, mindfully patting the dog, mindfully hugging your loved ones, mindfully drinking your tea or coffee, mindfully ironing your shirts, mindfully tying your shoe laces, taking ten slow mindful breaths, etc. After all, one of the beautiful things about mindfulness is you can practice it anytime, anywhere, any activity. (To download a one-page handout/worksheet/tip-sheet on informal mindfulness practice, click here.)

Now here’s one especially useful, ultra-brief, and very simple mindfulness practice, that you can easily incorporate into your busy daily routine, no matter how pressed for time you are. I call it the mindful S.T.O.P. Here’s how it goes:

S – Slow down (slow down your breathing; or slowly press your feet into the floor; or slowly stretch your arms; or slowly press your fingertips together) 
T - Take note (with a sense of curiosity, notice your thoughts & feelings; notice what you can see and hear and touch and taste and smell; notice where you are and what you are doing) 
O - Open up (open up and make room for your thoughts & feelings, and allow them to freely flow through you; use any defusion or expansion skill you like) 
P - Pursue values (reconnect with your values, and let them guide whatever you do next)

The lovely thing about a mindful STOP is you can make it as short or as long as you like. You can zip through this in under thirty seconds – e.g. while you’re waiting at a red traffic light, or stuck in a supermarket queue, or waiting for your kids to come sit at to the dinner table – or you can stretch it out into a thirty minute formal meditation practice. I encourage you to try it out for yourself – not just once, but over and over and over again:Slow down; Take note; Open up; and Pursue your values. A regular mindful STOP works wonders.

For those who have been to my office in Wahroonga they may recognise my slight obsession with Buffy and this is one of my favourite episodes.  It also is a tentative link to my previous post.  

This post is about what to do with the feelings that come along in the journey of recovery.  To return to the picture that I have put up before..

In this post we are going to focus on this part of the picture.  It is a small but crucial part of the picture.

At any giving time we are "stuck with" the thoughts our mind gives us.  When our mind gives us thoughts that bad things will happen ("I can't cope"; "If I eat that I'll get fat") then this is going to come with feelings.  You don't really get to choose the feelings that arise.  If you mind predicts that bad things will happen then you will experience fear and anxiety; if it tells you how bad the world is or things you have lost, you will experience sadness; if it tells you how bad you are you will experience shame.  Often the more stuck on your thoughts the stronger the feelings are, but even when you are taking a helicopter stance to your thinking the feelings may be really strong.
If you have an eating disorder you may not be very good at having emotions, they are hard to recognise and name which can make them seem even more overwhelming.  
If you are human (and I am going to make that assumption about you) then you probably don't like having really strong uncomfortable emotions.  You might have lots of ways to "get rid of" these emotions - this might be one of the reasons that the eating disorder keeps going. It may be a way of trying to avoid these feelings.  This comes at a cost - which is usually a "smaller life".
I think a really important part of recovery is accepting that these thoughts and feelings are coming along with you for the journey of having a more meaningful life.
I have never met a patient who wanted to feel terror and panic, sadness and shame.  I have however had the privilege to work with countless people who have been "willing" to have these emotions on the journey.  
Willingness is about accepting that these difficult emotions are coming along for the ride.  It is not about wanting to have them, but deciding to not try to get rid of them by engaging back in old behaviours.
These feelings need to be acknowledged, named (which can be hard at first- but a hint might be don't call them fat), and a space found for them.  I often say to patients that it is not about "sitting with" your feelings as this always conjours up images of being in a straight jacket and rocking under a table while you sit with these feelings being dominated by them.  Just know they are there and make a conscious and deliberate choice to move in a direction that moves you in the direction of a bigger life no matter what the intensity of the emotion or what your head is telling you to do.
We can talk about some ideas I have about ways to do this in a later post.
Take care of yourselves.

Sometimes when I work I think, I should write that idea down, maybe it would be helpful for another patient, or maybe I could use that in supervision or teaching.  Given that it is not thinking about something that moves you anywhere I thought I would take action and write some of the things I do here. These ideas are just ideas and are in no way a substitute for seeing a real live person to get the help you need.

I was working with a patient of mine who we can call Mary because it isn't her name.We were looking at what was making it hard to move forward in building a "bigger life" including working, compassion and giving to others rather than a "smaller life" of weight control and counting calories.

We ended up with this picture (it goes without saying that I once got kicked out of a high school art class for being an abomination to the art world - harsh but fair btw).

There are actually a lot of different concepts in this picture.  I thought that maybe I would break it down over a couple of posts.  

This one is about getting stuck on thoughts rather than stuck with thoughts.

Mary had a mind full of thoughts.  Her thoughts would both maintain the eating disorder (I cant cope, you dont need it) and more change oriented thoughts (your body is collapsing, it dosen't matter).  She could see that these thoughts would just swirl around in her head creating chaos and confusion.  She tried to challenge these thoughts but these seemed to get her more paralysed by thoughts.  Eventually she would get "stuck on" thoughts - she would act as if they were commands that had to be followed.  In the previous week she had been stuck on her eating disordered thoughts and followed them automatically.  She had followed them thoughtlessly (without thinking about them) or "mindlessly" (without being that aware that she was following thoughts).

We then drew another picture to indicate another way of 'relating' to thinking.

This represents developing a "helicopter stance" to our thoughts (sometimes called an observing mind).  We can learn to look at our thoughts, almost as if they were external to us, and see them as thoughts.  We discussed how (at least for the present moments) we are "stuck with" these thoughts.  We don't get to choose our thoughts we have in our heads, our minds just produce them. We can't not think, we can't choose to not have certain thoughts.  These thoughts are coming with us wherever we go. They are our constant companions, at least for the time being.  

The good news is that from this helicopter stance we can have a choice in where we go, rather than just following thoughts we are "stuck on".

I have found that helping people develop a helicopter stance to their thoughts be a really helpful step in moving towards creating a more meaningful life irrespective of what their head is telling them.

We can talk about the "how" to do this later.

In 2012 I was privileged to present at the Mind and its Potential Conference.  Below is the video of my presentation.  It has been on our Facebook page for a while and got shared around the viral world with really good feedback for which I am grateful.  I thought I should put it up on our webpage.