Articles and blog posts written by team members, tutors and supervisors of the Mindfulness Association about how they bring mindfulness into their lives.
Life at the moment feels a bit like a dream, with the days falling through me. I have been practicing a lot because we have been facilitating the MSc year end retreat. This is great, as Choden and Kristine are co-facilitating. This means that when I am not teaching myself I get to…
Yesterday, I taught for the second time a one-day workshop for mindfulness teachers about teaching mindfulness online. I am teaching it for the third time on Sunday 24 May. One of the issues I address on this workshop is our expectations and assumptions about teaching mindfulness online. A couple of the assumptions we explore are:…
In our mindfulness training we learn how the mind has a tendency to be negative. Rick Hanson calls this a ‘negativity bias’. He explains how negative thoughts stick to the mind like Velcro, and yet positive thoughts slide off like Teflon. Over evolution, our minds were trained to react to threats more than opportunities. Rick…
Us Brits are famous for our stiff upper lip and like many of us, I have been holding it together with as much optimism as I can muster through these weeks of lockdown. However, any emotions we are feeling need space to move through us, or else they get suppressed, they fester and then they…
My dear auntie Jean in London has been sending me photos of rainbows she encounters on her daily walks; rainbows drawn on the pavements, pinned in windows and hung on gates; a spontaneous phenomenal creative response to the personal, local, national and global crisis we find ourselves in. The images themselves appear as symbols of…
I hope that you are all faring well as we settle into our fifth week of lockdown. I am curious about how adaptable we humans are and how many of us have now settled into a new more limited routine of life, with its pleasures and hardships. I have had many unexpected lessons in impermanence…
Today is my grandson’s birthday. He is 6. This is the first birthday I haven’t been with him. Usually I stay at their house overnight and surprise him in the morning when he wakes up. I’m usually helping out at his party. A photo on Facebook reminds me of the joy we felt at his…
I am struck by contrast in my life at the moment. On a day to day basis, I experience a peaceful, retreat like existence. I practice and teach sessions of meditation; mindfulness, compassion and insight. I walk the dogs by the river in this beautiful isolated valley. I work at my computer contributing to…
Morning coffee has gradually become a slow savouring ritual for me. I am aware of my coffee urge as soon as I exit dreamworld – as soon as daily consciousness kicks in – it’s the only thing that will coax me out of my cosy brushed cotton cosy-bed-nest – it’s coffee time! I didn’t used…