Easter, and Spring more generally, is a time of renewal and beginnings. As I sit here in my beloved Normandy overlooking the crabapple and magnolia blossom, I see life coming back to life. Five years ago, pretty much to the day, I drafted a table of contents for my first book; a year ago, pretty …
The first Friday of the New Year, and true to my intentions I am sat at my desk ensuring I commit to my Friday writing practice! Since the Twixmas* of 2012, I have undertaken the same “end of year review” process inspired by Buddhist teacher, Susan Piver. The same set of questions to reflect upon …
Acknowledging that I have not written for a while, for all sorts of reasons…and I carry an underlying sense of time moving so quickly. It now strikes me – with some irony – that I chose my upcoming “big birthday” as a writing prompt to get my blogging habit back under way. Time IS passing …
Last week, the morning I was pressing “send” to launch an email with my final book submission in tow, I paused…I had forgotten something. As I walked back home after a celebratory breakfast I settled in my mind on one last amendment that was needed: to the acknowledgments. Writing the acknowledgements section was one of …
I recently returned from a long weekend in my beloved Normandy, my home away from home. A much needed break, and one that carried a sense of threshold, one of emergence – for nature, and for me. Spring is enticing me out into the world once more. As well as a heart space and retreat …
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 …
This past week I have recognised a sense that the summer is here. Not just because of the warm weather, not just because evenings are punctuated by my beloved Tour de France on TV but rather because work has slowed to a pace that suggests “summer holidays”. And whilst my partner bemoaned the arrival of …
Last week I shared how I had taken the Bodhisattva Vow while on retreat. It is the second vow on the Buddhist path, one that takes a practitioner in to a second ‘vehicle’ (or ‘yana’) and switches focus from working on self to working on self-in-relation-to-others. As a relational therapist, this is in so many …
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 …