This weekend I had a day trip to London on the train from Lockerbie to visit the Mind Body Soul experience at Alexandra Palace. It was an interesting day, with the train filled with thoughtful, serious and at times jolly looking people on their way to London for the People’s Vote march. Many with children…
I am excited that we now have confirmation for our 10th anniversary celebration of the Mindfulness Association. Ten years seems like a long time but seems to have passed in an instant. I vividly remember my first retreat teaching with Rob Nairn and Choden on Holy Isle in June 2009. For me this was a…
It’s already a couple of weeks ago but it feels like yesterday, when finally, the Launch of the Mindful Nation Scotland took place in Holyrood. It took many months of preparations, as this was a collaboration between most of the Scottish mindfulness teacher training organisations. We came together to devise a curriculum especially tailored to the…
You know when words slip out of your mouth and cause chaos? They cause an argument or some disruption. The words are often spoken without thinking, without consideration. You seem to hear them as if someone else said them. Then afterwards, the turmoil it has caused to yourself and others subsides. And there are no…
Yesterday I took my daughter back to University. Last night I experienced a scary and quite gruesome dream. This morning I woke up feeling sad. My body felt heavy, there was a pain in my heart and a heavy and pre-tear feeling in my eyes. So when I woke up, my inclination was to stay…
Sometimes the words flow. Sometimes they do not. They often start at a spluttering and stuttering pace before building up momentum. A sentence can take 10 mins of thinking time but within an hour you realise that you are frantically tapping away at your screen or scrawling 5 sentences a minute as the words tumble…
This week I have been reflecting on accepting myself as I am and my life as it is. As I age, I recognise how difficult this can be sometimes. This is especially so when our minds are fed with messages of non-acceptance by the media and in advertising. I remember a moment that struck me…
The mindfulness conspiracy. It condemns all mindfulness practitioners/teachers as being obsessed with happiness and acquiescence to the causes of inequality, environmental degradation and oppression. In essence the article is all conjecture – it is based on opinion and without evidence. So, I invite you to consider a few points that I think may cause more…
I’ve been asking myself that question recently. Who am I? It’s a complicated thing it seems. Last week I caused myself and others to suffer. Why? Because I forgot my practice and I forgot who I was. For a moment, I got caught up in lots of stressful human stuff and it completely took over…