Articles and blog posts written by team members, tutors and supervisors of the Mindfulness Association about how they bring mindfulness into their lives.
Last week I was teaching on the MBLC teaching skills retreat. This causes a lot of our participants to go into anxiety meltdown as they have to be assessed while teaching session extracts from the MBLC 8 week course. It seems to trigger a lot of memories of being tested at school. Also, when teaching…
This week I have found myself very busy, but also still tired after my stomach bug of last week. I was leading our Joyful Club weekend and retreat at Samye Ling in Scotland, going straight from there to a two and a half day meeting of the U.K. Network of Mindfulness Teacher Training Organisations in…
Equanimity is a wonderful gift that over the years has developed from my mindfulness, compassion and insight practice. It means that when the shit hits the fan, I am less likely to panic and am more able to accept the situation as it is and see what unfolds. This contrasts sharply with my…
I was delivering the first weekend of Level 1 Teaching Skills – Introductory Teaching Skills at Samye Ling at the weekend. I found myself in the tutorial group feeling the palpable anxiety of the group who were each delivering 3 minute extracts from the Mindfulness sitting practice of settling, grounding resting and support (SGRS). Although I…
Our body is a wonderfully complex machine. We have the ability to move in so many different directions allowing a vast array of shapes, movements and postures without having to think about doing it. In specific movement classes such as yoga and pilates, we find that neural pathways need to connect automatically for these movements…
As part of my usual morning routine of practice I picked out one of the compassion cards from Pema Chodron’s compassion box. This morning it was ‘Examine the nature of unborn awareness’. I then read and reflect on the relevant part of her book ‘Start Where You Are’. After my practice on alternate days I…
One of the fundamental aspects of mindfulness is being body aware. Our mindfulness training allows us to direct our focus and our attention and in doing so we observe how we are lost one minute and present the next. Our monkey mind and our strong habit to be distracted from presence is how we exist…
It is very exciting! Our Joyful Club membership weekend (6-8th July) and retreat (6-11th July) at Samye Ling Tibetan Centre is nearly here (For more details, click here). At the Mindfulness Association our heartfelt motivation is to nurture a community of mindfulness practitioners so that we can come together and support each other in our…
I am on Holy Isle for the Year 2 & 3 year end retreat of the MSc: Studies in Mindfulness which we run in partnership with the University of Aberdeen. It has been another glorious week of sunshine and practice and we have taught two days of teaching skills and then three days finishing off…