“Do I dare disturb the universe? /Shall I part my hair behind? /Do I dare to eat a peach?” T.S. Eliot The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock “And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” Anais Nin (quote found in Elizabeth Lesser’s book Broken Open)   Week 10 of lockdown. 10 weeks of being in, adapting to, well, what exactly? What is this thing we’re in, really? And more importantly, how do we get out of this? Do we need to take a risk? I went to the supermarket this morning for some essential nonessentials, you know just exercis ..read more

“Mr Duffy lived a few feet away from his body” -James Joyce Dubliners “true spiritual realisation, authentic enlightenment, is found in the body and nowhere else” -Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Lockdown shocked me. It happened suddenly and seemed to arrive without warning. Today (16/05/20) marks nearly 9 weeks of lockdown with some lifting of restrictions (garden centres opening, more time out), yet the impact of what occurred in such a short amount of time expressed itself clearly to me today. I had paid a visit, cleaning bucket, bleach and binbag in hand to my (our) shared office. It was quite cle ..read more

“do not go gently into that good night/old age should burn and rage at close of day/rage, rage against the dying of the light” -Dylan Thomas Counselling clients (and doing a fair bit of self-reflection on my own experience) has led me to agree with many that the time we are going through now is most akin to a time of loss. This, of course, provokes in most of us a range of feelings that resemble grief in its many forms. It was Elizabeth Kubler-Ross[1] who categorised these into what has become known as the loss cycle, the passage of grief and mourning that seems to have five distinct phases to ..read more

“strange days have found us/strange days have tracked us down”-Jim Morrison One of my great pleasures these days is my mindful walk along Whitley Bay, a pleasure that has grown in the past few weeks of lockdown, for lately there has been a powerful addition along the coast. Weeks ago, some stranger had the idea of piling a set of beach stones atop each other, one at a time, to create a wonderful cairn. Over the weeks others-including myself-have followed, and now there are dozens of these silent cairns, stone sentinels looking out at the sea. The sight is unexpected and truly breath-taking. Wh ..read more

There seems to be more time these days. Of course, that can’t be right, can it? More likely, it’s my experience of time that’s changed. With less traffic on the roads there has been a vehicular slowdown, but also a corresponding slowdown in my mind-or rather, the nature of my mind-traffic has slowed somewhat. Its feels more paced, as if my whole fight or flight system has calmed down. As I walked barefoot along the beach today, I was aware of both how my mind creates this thought traffic, and that there are actually gaps in between the thoughts-as similarly there are normally always gaps betwe ..read more

“first there’s me. Then there’s mine, then there’s trouble” -Akong Rinpoche “how do we act when we do not get what we want, or when we do not want what we have?”-Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche My local supermarket. I queue outside at two metres distance from the person in front of me. I wait. We are allowed in, one by one when, one by one, a person walks out. There is a sense of annoyance if it’s felt a person is taking their time to choose Yorkshire tea or another brand, “just buy it, let me in and out” says a voice behind me (or, is that, inside me?). We are zoned in-store; two metres distance, fol ..read more

An occasional lite blog reflecting on the impact of the virus from a therapeutic setting. I received a phone call yesterday from a couple that I had been seeing for counselling. They were spending time together, but this was very new, normally they lived very busy lives and met up at night and weekends; now they were on top of each other and it was driving them crazy, cramped up in a small house. I reminded them that a healthy couple relationship is a balance between togetherness and separateness; too much togetherness and it feels like suffocation, too much separateness and it feels like the ..read more

An occasional lite blog reflecting on the impact of the virus from a therapeutic setting. So, we are in the midst of what some are referring to as a “lockdown”, though we can still go out to exercise-walk, cycle, run. My preferred exercise is mindful walking. I first learned this practice from tutors at the Mindfulness Association, and at first, I hated it! Now it’s my favourite practice. How does it work? You walk: swing one foot out and bring your awareness to the feeling(s) in the foot (the balls of your feet, your heels) as you lift and land, then the same as the other foot lifts…and lands ..read more

An occasional lite blog reflecting on the impact of the virus from a therapeutic setting. “you know the thing, the thing I want to say about this coronavirus thing? I mean, I don’t have it, but you know what I want to say?” I shifted in my chair. I had seen this client for a while, and was getting used to her style. “What do you want to say about your experience of this?” I asked. “I want to say: welcome to my world! That’s what I want to say! I don’t want belittle anybody’s experience but this is how I feel all the time. I wonder if people might now think about folk like me, anxious and panic ..read more

“there’s no weather channel for our emotions. We don’t know whether to expect sunshine or clouds each day. Why can’t we just be happy?”[1]   There’s an old pre-Buddha story from India. A man is sitting by the side of the road and hears the sound of thunder a mile away. He looks down the road and sees a cloud of dust. As it gets closer, the cloud of dust is revealed as a wild forest elephant bellowing towards him. As the elephant gets closer the man realises that clinging to the beast is a small man, held on by a rope. The road vibrates, the elephant gets closer, and as it passes the man asks ..read more