“You’ve made your bed and now you must lie in it.” This is one of the most un-compassionate phrases we can use to ourselves or to others. Usually it means it’s time to pay for your choices and you can […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
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 […]
from The Irish Times 11th May 1996[Items in square brackets have been added since publication] When Eileen discovered she was pregnant she was terrified of telling her mother. “I would have had that baby in a shed or a ditch. […]
from The Irish Times 11th May 1996[Items in square brackets have been added since publication] Ann’s son is 34 and lives somewhere in the United States. She last saw him when she handed the 18-month-old baby to a nun at […]
by Padraig O’Morain, The Irish Times, Thursday 5th June, 1997 This book would make your blood boil. It tells the story of the ruthless determination of the Catholic Church in this country to export “illegitimate” babies to the United States […]
It is hard to believe that in the 1960s, seen now as the era of flower power and of the claiming of personal freedom, women who became pregnant outside marriage in Ireland could disappear into institutions run by religious orders, be […]
Few people understand today the irresistible pressure that was put on pregnant single Irish women and girls to have their babies adopted up to and often including the 1970s. In particular the adult children of these women simply don’t understand […]
