Hello again! I am back after my summer break, refreshed and ready for whatever new challenges emerge. Challenges are always good, an opportunity for cultivating more patience and compassion, at the very least! Challenges are hopefully an opportunity for insight, understanding and personal growth. Still I’m not asking for challenges, just welcoming them should they…
Last week I had a busy work week, lots of busyness going on at home, a wee holiday up to North Wales with family and then I had my young grandchildren to stay – they are 7 and 5… And so although I have many tales to tell about all that – it wasn’t exactly…
This week I am opinionated. “Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional”. The Buddha used an example of being struck by two arrows, I’m sure you know this – but what happened to me this week was a clear example. Pain in body or mind is the first arrow. Raw and pointed, it hurts as it…
This week has been a week of emotional extremes for me and I have watched myself surf and sink and resurface, at times mindfully aware, at times getting sucked into thinking, worrying, ruminating, celebrating – and the whole time I can honestly say I kept a mindful watch on myself as I navigated the highs…
It’s all change again, as the months of solitary lockdown in one place, give way to travel and company. The ground shifts again and we negotiate our way to a new new normal, with face masks and the opportunity for a hug within a bubble. Since the beginning of lockdown, I have been living in…
Next baby steps towards addressing unconscious racism Last week I found myself writing about the automatic denial and defensiveness I saw in myself when I was presented with an opportunity to work on discovering how racism might live in me. This response, I later discovered, is typical for a white person. Apparently, many of us…
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…