This evening I am sitting in my big green chair preparing to teach the first session of the Mindfulness Association’s latest Level1: Being Present online course. I feel excited and inspired. This is the online course’s second run, and as I look over my notes from its maiden voyage, I am shifting things, making changes and…
Peace is Flowing: A Mindfulness Meditation. Life has been feeling a bit uphill these days… well, these months. There has been a litany of struggles over the past year, and without listing them all here and risking this post becoming one big moan, I will sum up my year by saying ‘I’m tired’. This became…
I have this fond memory of the first time I was introduced to the mindfulness exercise called ‘Resting in the Midst of it All’. My colleague Choden was teaching on the MSc: Studies in Mindfulness, where he had all of the students turn towards the window, face the expansive landscape and rest with a mind…
If you were asked to pick your mindfulness curriculum for the day, what would it be? If your job was to choose a practice or create a module to work through, based on your needs, what would be included? No need to follow any rules, no timetables, no prescriptive manual. What would it be? Maybe…
When it comes to Mindful Eating, my cousin paves the way. I am sure if she reads this, she will contest; however, she consistently and diligently tries her hardest to stick to the 100- mile diet (only eating foods grown within 100 miles of where she lives). This means she eats seasonally as much as…
Last week, as I was scrolling through my Facebook feed, I stumbled upon this quotation from the Irish poet and philosopher John O’Donohue, which I feel really emphasizes the benefits of mindfulness: It is far more creative to work with the idea of mindfulness rather than with the idea of will. Too often people try…
Whenever I am moving about the world and meeting new people, I often get asked the question “What do you do?” This question mostly refers to what I do to financially support myself. Though, I am tempted to list off all of the things that I do in a day. There is often a small…
Last week, we were lucky enough to have Choden, co-author of the book Mindful Compassion, and the upcoming book From Mindfulness to Insight, stop by the membership to answer the question: ‘What is Meditation?’ Well, that is a wee bit misleading- he was actually delivering an online teaching to our members on Deepening Insight, and…
At the Mindfulness Association, and as part of our mindfulness curriculum, we teach a session on Mindfulness Skills for Times of Difficulty. This session offers some invaluable advice for times when the practice can feel too much or for when we feel overwhelmed by bereavement, illness, redundancy, relationship endings or divorce, overwork and other life…