Mindfulness Blog
Are you worth cooking for? Hold the meatballs!
Imagine a new romantic interest invites you to his home for dinner. You get all dressed up and over you go. Maybe you buy something for dessert to show your appreciation. When you arrive he pulls out a chair and you sit down at the table. He goes to the kitchen and...
read moreMindfulness sessions – boring for a nine year old? And a hark back to Mass in childhood
I have been asked a couple of times recently if it would be okay to bring a nine-year-old child to my two-hour mindfulness sessions. The answer I give runs along these lines: Mindfulness is a great skill for children to learn but I think the sessions need to be...
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A better moment? Could this be it?
“We have a strong need to be on the way to some better moment, some better time when it all will come together for me. We can so easily become impatient and driven. Of course, this prevents us from being where we already are.” Jon Kabat-Zinn, Mindfulness for...
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When thoughts hurt – a lesson from Ruby Wax
In mindfulness practice we are often encouraged to observe our thoughts and let them float by. It's a way of disengaging from unhelpful or hurtful thoughts. But when Ruby Wax went to Cape Town to teach mindfulness to young girls who had been badly abused, she sensed...
read moreFour exercises in self-compassion
Well-wishing Take a couple of minutes now and then, perhaps with your eyes closed, to do this exercise based on an old Buddhist practice: Observe your breathing calmly for short while. Now imagine that somebody has sat down in front of you, facing you. This is someone...
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Why I teach mindfulness but not meditation
I teach mindfulness but not meditation and usually I practise mindfulness but not meditation. I think the distinction is important. Knowing you are aware In mindfulness, you are not only aware of what is going on but you know that you are aware. It's like the...
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Starting a year of mindfulness events as our culture adopts and changes a traditional practice
My first mindfulness event of the year will be on Saturday 27th January in Wynns Hotel in Dublin. It's at 11am and runs for two hours. Most of my events are in the mornings, and I have found that this time is popular - maybe mindfulness people are larks! An intriguing...
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Well, that was fun … touring the country with mindfulness.
I’ve almost finished my autumn/first-half-of-winter mindfulness tour with two dates left close to home (Dun Laoghaire on 10th December and Dublin on 16th December. Since August I’ve been to Belfast, Cork, Dublin, Dun Laoghaire, Galway, Malahide. Mullingar, Naas, Navan, Tallaght, Tralee, Limerick, Sligo and Waterford.
It was great to see full houses at almost all of these venues (I had to put up the ‘sold out’ notice a few times).
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Mindfulness in the clatter and clang of the kitchen – a Masters programme for chefs adopts an ancient practice.
You don't expect to find mindfulness flourishing in the pressurised life of the chef. But that's exactly what an Irish college is bringing to its Masters course for chefs. (Irish Times: "Calories, nutrition, mindfulness: what Foodology students learn"). According to...
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Don’t believe everything your mind tells you
Do you believe everything your mind tells you? If so:
how many disasters has your mind warned you against that never happened?
how many things have gone wrong that your mind neglected to warn you about?
how often has your mind told you to be angry about something that really didn’t matter in the scheme of things – or to be afraid of something that turned out perfectly well?
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I have practised mindfulness for over 25 years. My aim is to make this valuable practice accessible and jargon-free.
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