A few weeks ago I was enjoying a Sunday morning breakfast in bed. Cup of tea in hand, a great book, cat curled up on my lap, and beautiful blue sky that beckoned me for a morning walk with my wife. Idyllic… So, it was puzzling for me to be experiencing an upswell of anxiety; …
I’ve just finished a session of meditation practice. Each Friday I meet with my fellow practitioners of Vajrayana Buddhism on Zoom: In the stage of Ngondro I am currently practicing, much of the two hour session is spent in visualisation of a deity – one that is said to reflect the true nature of mind. …
I have a lifetime love of science. As a child I would spend hours outside on cold winter nights, my telescope pointed to the moon or Orion’s belt. An archetypal ‘little professor’! This love affair continued through my first career, but I underwent some kind of rebellion. As my career shifted and I explored other …
I spent last week luxuriating in writing time. I finished a first draft of my book in the autumn months, and following a period of incubation, I returned to the manuscript with the intention to “know and grow” it more fully. I enjoyed reconnecting with the text. Equally, there was also a sense of relief …
If you have explored my re-vamped website, you will know I now have a webpage dedicated to the offering I have for spiritual and psychological integration. The deeper I have taken my practice of Buddhism (and benefitted from its skilful means on the path of growth and healing), the more inspired I have been to bring …
Last week I shared a little of my yearly review experience, and in particular, how I find myself gearing up for a more open 2022. Certainly, reports and editorials in the press are encouraging us to think of a transition from pandemic to endemic (at least in the UK – spin or reality, we will …
Dare I say “Happy New Year”? Given the on-going pandemic, it is difficult to get aligned behind this traditional opening salutation of January. I, like many others perhaps, thought 2021 would bring more hope…so maybe I am a little more cautious 12 months later. However, given its the first blogpost of 2022, and in fact …
Each year on the Post-graduate diploma counselling course, my colleague Dwight and I take the trainee therapists through an exercise of reflection on self-care. Perhaps more than any other profession, self-care for therapists is a vital consideration given how ’self’ is the instrument underpinning the relationship with our clients. If the therapist is responsible for …
This past week has been one of consolidation. Mid-way through the first academic term of the New Year, it has been helpful for me to take a step back from client work and reduce my teaching-related commitments to a minimum. Having worked last weekend facilitating a gestalt training workshop, it was also important to find …
A friend and I were recently talking about our experiences of living through this pandemic, and how it increases the “driving pressure” on what are already challenging situations: I was talking about the nature of my work and the intensity of Ngöndro; she is currently going through the sale of her mother’s house and deciding …