The word tenderness is the closest translation to the Tibetan word TSEWA. Tsewa addresses self and others. Pema Chodron says it expresses itself as kindness, compassion, vicarious joy, generosity, tolerance, mental clarity, courage, resilience, unshakable cheerfulness and in many other internal ways. Tsewa is about expressing and experiencing our own tender hearts. This week I…
Wake up. Day calls you to your life: your duty. Tear your body from the black night and the shadows that covered it, this body for which light waited on tiptoe at dawn. Stand up, affirm the straight, simple will to be perfect, unbent purity. Touch the temple of your body. Is it hot? Cold?…
This week the Default-Mode Network that is my wandering mind, or undercurrent, has mainly amused itself by waiting for a strange blood clot to kill me after having the Oxford Vaccine on the 4th of April. Despite my ability to focus well on work, and to practice mindfulness – my mind is perpetually reminding me,…
February 5th It’s my turn, to lead. Later today. I notice how this thought permeated my whole day, from the moment I woke up. I notice how this thought had a sticky persistence, and its delivery somehow becoming more urgent. I really saw how “what I resist persists”. I didn’t want to be thinking about…
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?…
Jacky is away this week on the MBLC Teacher Training Retreat, which I have to say, I am relieved I’m not doing right now! And so it gives me an opportunity to cover for Jacky on the Weekly Challenge. This week – something a bit different – Mindfulness in my Dreams — how my dreamworld…
Throw the doors wide open and step into the enormous palace inside of you. Breathe. Breathe into every space. Feel every sensation. The joyful warmth of shared love and the vast emptiness that sometimes echoes around our hearts. The excited clarity of inspired thought as well as that clustered maze inside our heads. That deep…
I had a visceral response to a thought this week as I sat peacefully watching the birds over my morning coffee. The stillness of my contemplative coffeetime created the perfect stage for mindfulness to witness my unfolding experience. But the silent soliloquy hit me like an unexpected punch in the stomach. As I try to…