I'm delighted to be offering two wellbeing workshops this autumn in Dumfries. Following positive feedback from the workshop on understanding chronic (persistent) pain, I'm going to be delivering this workshop again, but it'll be slightly longer at 3 hours to allow more time for the practical things. In addition, I'm going to be delivering a … Continue reading Wellbeing workshops on pain, stress and anxiety
Last weekend, on a local well-being day, I heard a quote about meditation which I'd never heard before, but which made instant sense. 'You can’t stop the waves, but you can learn to surf.' Wow, I thought. How come I'd never heard that before? It's a quote from Jon Kabat-Zinn, one of the most influential … Continue reading Surfing the waves of the mind
I recently participated in two workshops for therapists about understanding pain, particularly long-term (chronic) pain, and how to help people with such pain to improve their situation. The sessions were very intense with a huge amount of information and were led by a local therapist, Hedd Piper, who, although is a chiropractor by training, is … Continue reading Understanding persistent pain
If you're looking for free, good quality relaxation tracks to use at home, in English or Welsh, why not try these three tracks from Yoga i Bawb (trans: Yoga for All) a west Wales yoga group. The three available are: * Progressive relaxation - relaxing each part of the body in turn * Yoga Nidra … Continue reading Free relaxation tracks, including in Welsh
It seems that almost every week another study is published which shows that meditation and mindfulness are helpful to us for a number of reasons e.g. research showing that meditation can slow aging, or that mindfulness is being taken up by various groups e.g. some schools in Wales. As a result, many people know about … Continue reading Mindfulness and meditation audio tracks
It can take years, decades even, for ideas to become accepted widely in society, and it seems that meditation in the Western world has taken about 40 years to go from relative obscurity ('hippy') to mainstream, and even to McMindfulness and a backlash. The evidence for this acceptance is the recently published Mindful Nation UK report produced by … Continue reading The Mindful Nation UK report
In the monthly journey through Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, we have now arrived at the final limb/stage: samadhi. The previous two limbs (dhyana and dharana), have taken us on the journey of focusing the mind and meditating, and now the mind is suitably prepared for samadhi, which is interpreted as full absorption of the self. The … Continue reading Samadhi – an end or the beginning?
Meditation. Lots of people have heard of it, many may think they "can't do it", others may not know what its benefits are, and quite a few probably think it sounds all bit strange and isn't for them. We have reached the seventh limb of Patanjali's Yoga Sutras, and after practising how to concentrate (see … Continue reading A one-track mind, or, dhyana
In my monthly look at Patanjali's eight limbs of yoga, we're drawing towards the last few now. The three remaining are internally-focused and build towards what can be seen as the ultimate goal of yoga. These three are: dharana (concentration), dhyana (meditation) and samadhi (absorption, union). This month I will concentrate (pun intended) on dharana. Dharana (pronunciation guide) … Continue reading Dharana: training the brain to concentrate
Last week was Mental Health Awareness Week in the UK (11-17th May) and for 2015 the theme was 'mindfulness'. People familiar with meditation and yoga may already know about mindfulness, especially as there has been quite a surge in interest in mindfulness in the media, in politics, in business etc in the last few years, … Continue reading Mindfulness in mental health awareness week
Breathe Move relax 