Zen and the Art of Change
The meditation approach developed by Jon Kabat-Zinn and brought to the UK by Dr Mike Willaims at the Oxford Mindfulness Centre
“Listen–are you breathing just a little, and calling it a life?” ― Mary Oliver The core of Mindfulness meditation practice is the use of the breath, as one of the tools to bring yourself into the present moment. After all, we carry it with ourselves throughout our lives. It is always there and we, […]
Read More The essence of the Breath“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies, said Jojen. The man who never reads lives only one.” ― George R.R. Martin, A Dance with Dragons One of my life’s pleasures, perhaps an addiction, has been reading. I can remember reading from a very early age. In fact, I used to use a […]
Read More One of life’s pleasures is on the decline, Reading“Cecil Graham: What is a cynic? Lord Darlington: A man who knows the price of everything, and the value of nothing. ― Oscar Wilde, Lady Windermere’s Fan Much of the recent press coverage on Mindfulness has been overwhelmingly positive; where the benefits both to the individual, as well as to the wider community are widely […]
Read More The cynical view of Mindfulness“Life is half delicious yogurt, half crap, and your job is to keep the plastic spoon in the yogurt.” ― Scott Adams Something I have come to realize through my own practice and reading on Mindfulness is that our brains are not fixed and unchanging. Society has taught us that by the time you […]
Read More What on earth is Neuroplasticity?“Those who find ugly meanings in beautiful things are corrupt without being charming. This is a fault. Those who find beautiful meanings in beautiful things are the cultivated. For these there is hope.” ― Oscar Wilde, The Picture of Dorian Gray Achieving well-being has been the concern of philosophers since Aristotle, and is, […]
Read More The four constituents of Well-Being you can change“Unhappy childhoods will kill you as an adult.” – Anon Here is the article I promised on how to deal with Toxic Stress. The previous article described what Toxic Stress was and how you identify it. Just as a reminder. The starting point was that there was a series of research programmes that identified […]
Read More How to deal with Toxic Stress“Unhappy childhoods will kill you as an adult.” – Anon We all know that how we are treated as children has a profound effect on us as adults. If you are surrounded by people that smoke; you are more likely to smoke. Likewise with drink and drugs. We also know that unhappy experiences in […]
Read More Toxic stress and its impact on you“Whatever may be the tensions and the stresses of a particular day, there is always lurking close at hand the trailing beauty of forgotten joy or unremembered peace.” ― Howard Thurman, Meditations of the Heart I like to understand the theory and the science behind how we think, act and how our brains work. […]
Read More How your brain is affected by stress“He said that life boils down to standing in line to get shit dropped on your head. Everyone’s got a place in the queue, you can’t get out of it, and just when you start to congratulate yourself on surviving your dose of shit, you discover that the line is actually circular.” ― Scott Lynch, […]
Read More Standing in line and Mindfulness“When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous, and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has […]
Read More Kindness, Resilience and Mindfulness
Martin Summerhayes 