I’ve just got back from a 9 day retreat out in the US at a beautiful conference centre near Maine, New England located right on the Atlantic Ocean. When I say ‘right’, the ocean lapped to the shore just 50m from the meditation hall. An amazing and consistent reminder to awareness to rest and come …
It has been a few weeks since writing. It wasn’t my intention to take this break, it just happened: the inevitable consequence of finding myself squeezed and stretched by life ‘happening’; a combination of things across personal and professional. Helping my parents move from their flat, the end of the academic year, the marking of …
When I go out on my bike at the weekends, I often take a podcast for company. I have a few podcasts of which I am a regular listener – and one is Dan Harris’ “10% happier”. This week he interviewed Brene Brown: a researcher in vulnerability, authenticity and shame who came to public awareness …
As I walked to the train station the other day after work, I was passed by a man on a bike towing a small girl. It was one of those arched tow bars that allows the child to pedal away on hers and therefore contribute to the forward movement of the bikes…if so inclined…this young girl …
Just before sitting down to write this post, I sat quietly in order to re-connect with my experience on ‘writing retreat’. It has been 10 days since I returned home from Normandy. The space between the return and writing this blog has been intentional – a period of ‘incubation’; letting my ideas and experience in …
The main intention behind writing this blog and committing to that practice weekly was and still is to forge a writing habit as grounding for a book. Hand on heart, the motivation to blog has waned: not because I don’t enjoy it – I very much do; but rather because time and space to write …
A few things have been coming together in the past week that have moved my book project back to the foreground of my awareness: the reading of a new text on Buddhist psychology and the gestalt therapy approach, and a few conversations with supervisees and students to name but two. It feels timely that I …
Did you know this week is sleep awareness week? It’s the Sleep Foundation’s annual initiative aiming to highlight the importance of good sleep health for “individuals to best achieve their personal, family, and professional goals”. This year’s theme is “Begin with Sleep”, and I cannot help but see the irony (or synchronicity perhaps) that I …
I’m currently studying an online course with the Buddhist teacher Reggie Ray – the course is “the somatic practice of pure awareness”. Over the 10 weeks, we (there are some 200 participants) are being offered meditation practices, teachings and reading that deepen the awareness of the body as the prime gateway for “awakening”. I am …
Read more “The challenge and opportunity of unstructured time”
You might notice I do this a lot – looking back to what I was doing at a certain time. I imagine this process helps me evaluate the journey so far; a way to see how far I have come, from where I have come. In part its a recognition and a gratitude for how …