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…
I’ve got sunsets on my mind! Well, I’ve got the wonder and curiosity of what it might be like to approach each of my interactions/ communicative exchanges as if I were gazing on a sunset. This was the challenge we were given during the MA’s Mindfulness Teacher Supervision training session last night. Can we walk…
Today is a special day in Ireland. It is St. Brigid’s Day or Brigid’s Day, or if you go back even further it is Imbolc. And one of the overriding themes of this is that it is the first day of Spring. I can remember when I first moved to Ireland and heard and experienced…
I’m sitting in Dublin airport, about to board a flight to Scotland where I will be teaching for the weekend. I’m sipping a coconut café mocha, feeling relaxed and enjoying the pleasant feeling of being here on time, space to do some work, but also to simply rest in the knowledge that someone else is…
I have just started reading a book by Jack Kornfield titled, After the Ecstasy, The Laundry. It was recommended to me by quite a few people, and while I have owned it for the 6 months or so, I am only getting to it now. However, picking up this book in the month of January…
Happy New Year to one and all! 2018 has stopped me in my tracks- literally! I have been in bed sick with the flu for the last week. However, and thankfully, my wonderful colleague Alan Hughes has stepped up to the plate for me and has written this week’s challenge and blog post. Alan writes…