Category: Foundations of mindfulness
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The balance of mindfulness
You sit down, get comfortable, straighten your back, allow the attention to rest on the breath and within five seconds bang! away goes the mind. Normally you might either fight these thoughts and feelings or get washed downstream with them. In mindfulness though, the invitation is to notice this pulling away from the present moment…
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Now is enough
“I had a great mindfulness practice this morning, I felt really calm afterwards…….” (2 days later….) “My mindfulness practice was awful today. I had no calm or peace at all and was just away with the fairies. I wish I had a quieter room to sit in” Expectation is a sneaky feeling: the expectation that…
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A mindfulness practice for our Coronavirus times
The recent big changes in all our circumstances has brought uncertainty and anxiety for everyone. More than usual maybe, our thoughts and emotions may run away with us and leave us confused and upset. This brief mindfulness practice is offered as a way of dropping in to the present moment; noticing our fears and concerns…
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The First Free Women
I’ve never reviewed a book of poems before, let alone one that is ‘the world’s oldest collection of women’s literature’. But as soon as this was delivered I was picking it up daily to read or reread or re-reread a poem. This is without doubt an inspiring collection, oozing with both courage and compassion. These…
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No definitions
Mindfulness can help us live better lives both for ourselves and for others. So a definition of what it is is not nearly as useful as what it does how it functions. Mindfulness “helps us develop a capacity for flexibility rather than rigidity, responsiveness rather than reactivity” Feldman and Kuyken in “Mindfulness: ancient wisdom, modern…
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Slow walking, Mindful walking
We all have those times, the times when the busy-ness envelops and fills us and there seems to be no time to take even a single breath. This has happened to me recently. So waking on Saturday morning I decided to be in NO RUSH AT ALL. Instead of my usual sitting meditation, I opted…
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7 Attitudes to Mindfulness
“Full Catastrophic Living” by Jon Kabat Zinn is so frequently described as landmark or classic or masterpiece that there is almost an obligation to have it on your shelf if you are at all interested in secular mindfulness. But then it’s size at 600+ pages means it can be left untouched. So maybe, like a…
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When things don’t go well
Why is there suffering? Why is life so crap? Why is it such a cruel world? I just want to be happy. Years ago, so the story goes, a woman hears of a wise old guru in a far off foreign land. So she travels many, many days to see the teacher. When she reaches…
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What does mindfulness actually do for you?
My own practice has always influenced the attitude I try to bring to my teaching. Mindfulness gives me a context within which all parts of my job can fit. No matter how awful the day, or the year, or the pressure, or the exhaustion, there is an option to be aware of the wider context…
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