Evidence that change is afoot in how we live and work is the fact that Google are inviting business leaders, neuroscientists, tech entrepreneurs, and others to explore how to live wisely in the digital age. (more…)
Mindfulness has become an effective and an accepted tool for dealing with anxiety and stress. Generally, the workplace is a minefield of stress causing health conditions from headaches to heart attacks. (more…)
Compassion is the most transforming energy in the universe with everything we all long for; kindness, caring, loving. It is a courageous state of mind and heart, with far-reaching consequences in terms of how we experience ourselves and reality…
Click to read the full article in The Journal : What is Compassion and can it actually be taught
Mindfulness is really about being present for your life. When you’re mindful you know what’s actually happening right now without getting lost in the stories and drama our mind is continually creating. (more…)
You and me? We can contribute to a more awake, or enlightened, society on a day-to-day level, using mindfulness as a way to become more … (more…)
I would imagine that yesterday’s article in the Sunday Independent about Mindfulness entitled: ‘The Revolution in your head’ which highlighted Emily Hourican’s worry about her diminishing concentration span and her ability to slow down and focus her mind resonated with a lot of people. (more…)
Recent Mindfulness Articles in today’s Irish Independent: How to get some mindfulness in your life and yesterday’s Guardian: Do you practice Mindfulness at work show how Mindfulness has become ‘all the rage’ (as Catriona Edwards says)! (more…)
It’s all the rage. Goldie Hawn has set up The Hawn Foundation to teach mindfulness and emotional intelligence to children across six countries; Arianna Huffington – from The Huffington Post – is advocating the use of mindfulness in the workplace; our own Sr Stanislaus Kennedy has written extensively about it, (more…)
Walking meditation is one of my favorite practices.
Sometimes, when I am agitated or anxious and I would find sitting difficult I choose to start with 10 or 15 minutes of mindful walking. The movement is soothing and calms me (more…)
Tech giant Intel and Google have both bought into mindfulness, opening up opportunities for their employees to learn the practice. Intel has set up a program for its 100,000 global workforce to learn mindfulness to support them in dealing with challenges and Google use Mindfulness to enable their staff remain creative and fresh (more…)
The first episode of the new RTÉ Radio 1 science show ‘What’s it all about?’ was broadcast last night with an exploration of the brain. How it works? What happens when it doesn’t? And lots more including how science and neuroimaging technology detects the brain changes that result from mindfulness meditation. (more…)
Spring has sprung… My favourite season!
Everywhere I look there are daffodils, crocuses, camellia, snowdrops, budding trees, pastels, and the light and warmth from that glorious sunshine. New growth coming out of the darkness of winter, reminding us of the cyclical and miraculous nature of life renewing itself. (more…)
1) I walk down the street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I fall in.
I am lost… I am hopeless.
It isn’t my fault.
It takes forever to find a way out.
2) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I pretend I don’t see it.
I fall in again.
I can’t believe I’m in the same place.
But it isn’t my fault.
It still takes a long time to get out.
3) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I see it is there.
I still fall in… it’s a habit.
My eyes are open.
I know where I am.
It is my fault.
I get out immediately.
4) I walk down the same street.
There is a deep hole in the sidewalk.
I walk around it.
5. I walk down another street
- Portia Nelson
Your great mistake is to act the drama
as if you were alone. As if life
were a progressive and cunning crime
with no witness to the tiny hidden
transgressions. To feel abandoned is to deny
the intimacy of your surroundings. Surely,
even you, at times, have felt the grand array;
the swelling presence, and the chorus, crowding
out your solo voice You must note
the way the soap dish enables you,
or the window latch grants you freedom.
Alertness is the hidden discipline of familiarity.
The stairs are your mentor of things
to come, the doors have always been there
to frighten you and invite you,
and the tiny speaker in the phone
is your dream-ladder to divinity.
Put down the weight of your aloneness and ease into
the conversation. The kettle is singing
even as it pours you a drink, the cooking pots
have left their arrogant aloofness and
seen the good in you at last. All the birds
and creatures of the world are unutterably
themselves. Everything is waiting for you.
– David Whyte
Always we hope
Someone else has the answer
Some other place will be better,
Some other time it will all turn out.
This is it.
No one else has the answer
No other place will be better,
And it has already turned out.
At the center of your being
You have the answer,
You know who you are
And you know what you want.
There is no need
To run outside
For better seeing.
Nor to peer from a window.
Rather abide at the center of your being;
For the more you leave it, the less you learn.
Search your heart
And see
The way to do
Is to be.
How surely gravity’s law,
strong as an ocean current,
takes hold of even the strongest thing
and pulls it toward the heart of the world.
Each thing -
each stone, blossom, child -
is held in place.
Only we, in our arrogance,
push out beyond what we belong to
for some empty freedom.
If we surrendered
to earth’s intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.
Instead we entangle ourselves
in knots of our own making
and struggle, lonely and confused.
So, like children, we begin again
to learn from the things,
because they are in God’s heart;
they have never left him.
This is what the things can teach us:
to fall,
patiently to trust our heaviness.
Even a bird has to do that
before he can fly.
~ Rainer Maria Rilke ~
This being human is a guest house.
Every morning a new arrival.
A joy, a depression, a meanness,
some momentary awareness comes
as an unexpected visitor.
Welcome and entertain them all!
Even if they’re a crowd of sorrows,
who violently sweep your house
empty of its furniture,
still, treat each guest honorably.
He may be clearing you out
for some new delight.
The dark thought, the shame, the malice,
meet them at the door laughing,
and invite them in.
Be grateful for whoever comes,
because each has been sent
as a guide from beyond.
What if there is no need to change?
No need to transform yourself
Into someone who is more compassionate, more present, more loving, or wise?
How would this affect all the places in your life where you are endlessly trying to be better, or different?
What if the task is simply to unfold
To become who you are already are in your essential nature -
Gentle, compassionate,
and capable of living fully and passionately present?
What if the question is not,
Why am I so infrequently the person i really want to be?
But ‘why do i so infrequently want to be the person i really am?’
How would this change what you think you have to learn?
What if becoming who and what we truly are happens not through striving and trying
But by recognising and receiving the people and places and practices
That are for us the warmth of encouragement we need to unfold?
How would this shape the choices you make about how to spend today?
What if you know that the impulse to move in a way that creates beauty in the world
Will arise form deep within
And guide you every time you simply pay attention
And wait.
How would this shape your stillness, your movement,
Your willingness to follow this impulse
To just let go
And dance?
From what if there is no need to change? By Oriah Mountain Dreamer