What if there is no need to change? No need to transform yourself Into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving, or wise? How would this affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better, or different? What if the task is simply to unfold To become…
This is a poem for someone who is juggling her life. Be still sometimes. Be still sometimes. It needs repeating over and over to catch her attention over and over, as someone who is juggling her life finds it difficult to hear. Be still sometimes. Be still sometimes. Let it all fall sometimes. by Rose…
Over the last few weeks every day feels like groundhog day (Actually, I recommend this as a great movie with Bill Murray for cheering yourself up!). I wake up, turn the electric heater on, press the snooze button on my phone three times to give the room time to warm up, get up, put something…
Do you think peace requires an end to war? Or tigers eating only vegetables? Does peace require an absence from your boss, your spouse, yourself? … Do you think peace will come some other place than here? Some other time than Now? In some other heart than yours? Peace is this moment without judgment. That…
We have had a lot of snow and ice in January and more snow and ice so far in February and for at least the next week. Thankfully my MAHQ friends bought me some snow boots for my birthday at New Year. They have been well used! However, I have caught myself moaning quite a…
Fear and Butterflies 5 Minutes before peer group zoom teaching session where I will teach Recognising the Unsettled Mind – I realise I have an Unsettled Mind. Body jittery. Heart, announcing its presence and power by thumping. Hard. I can’t focus. Do I really want to do this? What have I let myself in for?…
I led the free daily sit on Friday evening and we did a practice using a mantra of ‘Body like a mountain, breath like the wind, heart of compassion like sunshine and mind like the sky’. At the end of the practice an interesting discussion ensued about anger and fear. A first participant shared their…
‘The only way to take care of the future is to be present now.’ This year has been a year of solitude and of connection for me. In January I moved into a remote cottage, on my own, after 20 years of living a happy family life. Then lockdown arrived in March. And I…
I spent some of my weekend writing about the three emotional system model, based in the Compassion Focussed Therapy work of Prof. Paul Gilbert. According to this model there are three emotional systems, threat, drive and soothe and they tend to be out of balance for most of us, due to our evolved brain, our…