Articles and blog posts written by team members, tutors and supervisors of the Mindfulness Association about how they bring mindfulness into their lives.
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…
This week I have been swamped with work, or so I thought, and an uneasy feeling of creeping overwhelm has threatened to flood me. Lockdown had provided me with what felt like a dreamy safe haven, some of my freelance work had been on hold and I think I liked that a bit too much!…
“I am no longer waiting for a special occasion; I burn the best candles on ordinary days. I am no longer waiting for the house to be clean; I fill it with people who understand that even dust is Sacred. I am no longer waiting for everyone to understand me; It’s just not their task I…
Mindfulness with support on sound has been my go-to practice these past couple of weeks. I admit to a preference here – I find it so soothing, and find myself using sound at times rather than breath to bring myself back to present awareness in my daily life when I find my mind has wandered…
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…
I have been questioned by some colleagues and criticised by some readers of my blog about promoting a vegan diet on the retreat I am leading this week and in my blog. When I was discussing this with colleagues last week, the view I arrived at was that within the Mindfulness Association ‘Compassion is at…
This weekend I have been off! I have been doing a lucid dreaming retreat with the amazing Charlie Morley. I am keen to develop my skills to become lucid in my dreams, which means to know I am dreaming while I am dreaming, so that I can continue my practice while I dream. Charlie teaches…
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…
This last week I have been working with Choden and Alan from the MA and Graeme and Liz from the University of Aberdeen on the Year 2 and 3 year end retreats. The Year 2s do a couple of days of teaching skills and then complete the insight module and the Year 3s do a…