Articles and blog posts written by team members, tutors and supervisors of the Mindfulness Association about how they bring mindfulness into their lives.
I have been beset by feelings of anxiety over the last few weeks. My recent blogs have described how my mindfulness and compassion meditation practice have helped me. They have enabled me to turn towards and experience the anxiety. They have enabled me to look after myself, in my meditation practice and in my daily…
On a recent retreat a well-intentioned participant informed me that my drive system was overactive. She was referring to the three-circle model of Prof. Paul Gilbert which is part of our Level 2 Compassion training. This model postulates three psychological systems: a threat system, which triggers the fight, flight, freeze response when we feel threatened;…
It is very early in the morning and I am struggling to sleep. I woke up with feelings of fear and overwhelm and have spent the last hour or so lying in bed practicing. Part of me wishes the feelings would go away and part of me is curious about what can be learned. I…
Reflections on hearing that Mary Oliver has died The poet Ezra Pound once said that “literature is news that stays news”. How true – and yet I sometimes notice how quickly significant events can drop out of what we agree to call the daily news. The poet Mary Oliver died on 17th January 2019 aged…
The transformative power of the compassion training never ceases to amaze me – in my own life and in the lives of those I teach
I have found myself travelling a lot over this past few weeks. Some of my journeys have been challenging, in various ways. During these challenging times I have been very grateful for my mindfulness practice. Interesting I have found that my practice has not only for my own wellbeing but, inadvertently, benefited others too. In…
Today I am traveling from Lockerbie to Newcastle to have lunch with my friend Barbara, who is traveling from Peterborough. We do this several times a year to stay in touch. Barbara is my oldest Mindfulness friend. We met in 2008, in Bangor, Wales on the Foundation module of the MSc in Mindfulness Based Approaches. The…
Some weeks my blog just falls out of my mind, through my finger tips and onto the paper. Other weeks, it is a bit more tricky and this week is one of them.
It is early Sunday morning and I am awake early in my cozy room at Samye Ling Tibetan centre. It is before the start of our second day of this MSc Studies in Mindfulness weekend. The first year students are beginning their Compassion training. The second year students are learning research skills as well as…