Over the past weeks, for a number of reasons that are too tedious to get into, I have been grounded. And by grounded, I don’t mean in the ideal state of being grounded and stable. No, I mean that I have not been travelling very much and have been ‘stuck’ close to home. At first…
When the Mindfulness Association mentioned the possibility of running our Level 1 Mindfulness: Being Present course as an online course, I felt a bit cautious. I have done quite a bit of online teaching in different forms- the weekly sits, The Wonder of The Everyday, The Stillness of Movement (Mindfulness of Body), etc… However, running…
Last week, I stumbled upon an article that asks 9 scientists about their happiness practices. This peaked my interest- scientists with happiness practices! How wonderful! I knew some of the practices that were outlined: Loving Kindness meditation, Mindfulness of Body through exercise, gratitude, gratitude and more gratitude, meditation, etc… However, there were a few nuggets…
My grandmother lived until she was 92 years old. And not only did she live until she was 92 years old, but she lived on her own, cooking and cleaning and even shoveling the snow from her walk. I can remember flying home for the summer and dropping into her world for an afternoon or…
If you read my blog regularly, you will know that this time last week I was supping on Italian cuisine and soaking up the charm of Bologna. It was a fantastic trip filled with amazing food, historic sites and the most beautiful, creamy cappuccinos that anyone could imagine! I came home with a grin on…
After reading Heather Regan Addis’ blog post this week ‘Walk with Me’ which details the movie based on Thich Nhat Hanh’s Zen community of mindfulness practitioners, I was reminded of a wonderful gatha or the short verse that Thich Nhat Hanh uses to help us practice mindfulness in our daily activities: I have arrived, I…
I’ve been waiting for my life to slow down. In fact, it seems that as of late, my life’s one constant has been ‘full steam ahead’. I’ve had friends and colleagues marvel at how I do it all- yet, somehow there always seems to be more to do. This got me thinking of a time…
A few years ago, I was visiting my cousins in Canada and we were sitting around a camp fire discussing our social anxiety. Now, if most people saw the three of us discussing our resistance to going into a grocery store where we might bump into someone we know, they would be surprised and maybe…
I remember the first time I heard Rob Nairn exclaim that the mind is a liar- that the mind is always telling us untruths. Whether it is telling us that we are not good enough, or that we are unlovable or that we will fail, we can rest assured that these messages are simply mind…