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 …
Each year for nearly a decade now, I have used my time over the Christmas and New Year break to turn inward and reflect on the year that has been. This year, that process took on new profundity as I continue to navigate my experience of living in this time of pandemic and its consequences. …