A mindful Valentine’s Day Valentine's day is a celebration of love, relationships and connection. Mindfulness is training in paying attention, in the words of Simone Weil ‘Attention is the Rarest and Purest form of Generosity’ Mindfulness, paying attention , on purpose, in the present moment can help strengthen our relationships. The following tips can [...]
Connecting this Christmas. Our theme of the month for December is connection. Last year, the ‘Connection at Christmas’ post told the story of my mum and the Liverpool shoebox appeal. Last year my mum, Sandra, and the school where she worked helped to collect 95 shoeboxes filled with goodies to send to children in [...]
An ordinary day or a perfect day? At 11:15pm on Saturday 21st September I was driving home, I was feeling good and realised that the day that had just been may well have been a perfect day. I was however also struck by the realisation that from a different perspective, it was an average [...]
Connection at Christmas by Rachel and her mum 'A donated bear wearing our school neckerchief. He was given by the children to accompany the shoeboxes to Romania and hopefully find a new home with a child there.' The theme of the month for December is connection, which is somewhat appropriate for December, [...]
My mindfulness journey. I’ve taken a while to decide where to start this story. Breaking with tradition I’m beginning in the middle when I went along to an introduction to meditation at Newcastle Buddhist Centre in 2001. I’d just broken up with my partner and had moved back to Tyneside. I was ready for [...]
Trust The best way to find out if you can trust somebody is to trust them. ― Ernest Hemingway Honour your own feelings and intuition without discounting them or writing them off because some authority or some group of people think or say differently. Practice taking responsibility for being yourself and learn to listen [...]
Generosity Attention is the rarest and purest form of generosity.” — Simone Weil True generosity also requires non-attachment to outcome. We give freely, without conditions on how gifts are used or whether something is received in return. This sort of giving has nothing to do with I, me or mine – it is free [...]