Last weekend was our 10th anniversary celebration and I felt that the celebration manifested some key qualities of the Mindfulness Association: practice, presence, common humanity, compassionate messiness, kindness and joy. Qualities that Lana has captured beautifully in her documentary ‘Swimming Upstream: Ten Years of the Mindfulness Association’ that was premiered at the weekend. I am…
My heart is full. I write this in a fully mindful and awake state still feeling the buzz of the Members Weekend coursing through my body – it’s an energy thing, not from the coffee I had this morning but it feels similar! and I feel such gratitude flowing out from my lamp-lit heart; the…
Recently I have become aware of activities that I do that become a complete immersion, away from my habitual, incessant thinking patterns. Anything that is powerful enough to enable me to become totally present and not drown in my ruminations about the past, worries about the future and self-criticism comes along like a sigh of…
Life at the moment feels a bit like a dream, with the days falling through me. I have been practicing a lot because we have been facilitating the MSc year end retreat. This is great, as Choden and Kristine are co-facilitating. This means that when I am not teaching myself I get to…
Letting go, in order to let in releasing, in order to receive nature’s coded messages become clearer the less we try to see. Trying hard, trying harder and harder trying so very hard is not the way. We need commitment, yes and focus and hope and faith and trust but most of all we need…
In our mindfulness training we learn how the mind has a tendency to be negative. Rick Hanson calls this a ‘negativity bias’. He explains how negative thoughts stick to the mind like Velcro, and yet positive thoughts slide off like Teflon. Over evolution, our minds were trained to react to threats more than opportunities. Rick…
I’ve just glanced at my notes headed digging deep, everyone in the world right now is digging deep. I sit here in my snug with silence around me on a Monday afternoon, the blue tit birdsong, my cat scratching the yoga mat. Satya, she is the flighty one and senses when things are different. She’s…
My dear auntie Jean in London has been sending me photos of rainbows she encounters on her daily walks; rainbows drawn on the pavements, pinned in windows and hung on gates; a spontaneous phenomenal creative response to the personal, local, national and global crisis we find ourselves in. The images themselves appear as symbols of…
Today is my grandson’s birthday. He is 6. This is the first birthday I haven’t been with him. Usually I stay at their house overnight and surprise him in the morning when he wakes up. I’m usually helping out at his party. A photo on Facebook reminds me of the joy we felt at his…