Heartmindspirit

27/10/2023

Happy to announce the launch of my new venture, Heartmindspirit dedicated to helping myself and others heal heart, mind and spirit.
I am working to offer private sessions online and in person, workshops, healing and personal development circles and retreats blending my training in CBT psychotherapy, body psychotherapy, shamanic practices, Mindfulness teaching and inquiry, compassionate inquiry, psychedelic interest, Buddhist practice, Yoga and pregnancy Yoga teaching. Watch this space 💕😊.

08/01/2023

Each one of us is alone in the world. It takes great courage to meet the full force of your aloneness. Most of the activity in society is subconsciously designed to quell the voice crying in the wilderness within you. The mystic Thomas a Kempis said that when you go out into the world, you return having lost some of yourself. Until you learn to inhabit your aloneness, the lonely distraction and noise of society will seduce you into false belonging, with which you will only become empty and weary. When you face your aloneness, something begins to happen. Gradually, the sense of bleakness changes into a sense of true belonging. This is a slow and open-ended transition but it is utterly vital in order to come into rhythm with your own individuality. In a sense this is the endless task of finding your true home within your life. It is not narcissistic, for as soon as you rest in the house of your own heart, doors and windows begin to open outwards to the world. No longer on the run from your aloneness, your connections with others become real and creative. You no longer need to covertly scrape affirmation from others or from projects outside yourself. This is slow work; it takes years to bring your mind home.

JOHN O'DONOHUE

Excerpt from the book, Eternal Echoes
Ordering Info: https://johnodonohue.com/store

Connemara Cottage, Ireland
Photo: © Ann Cahill

16/12/2022

Retreat yourself in the beautiful Valencian mountains

20/12/2021

07/11/2021

I asked the leaf whether it was frightened because it was autumn and the other leaves were falling. The leaf told me, "No. During the whole spring and summer I was completely alive. I worked hard to help nourish the tree, and now much of me is in the tree. I am not limited by this form. I am also the whole tree, and when I go back to the soil, I will continue to nourish the tree. So I don’t worry at all. As I leave this branch and float to the ground, I will wave to the tree and tell her, 'I will see you again very soon'."

That day there was a wind blowing and, after a while, I saw the leaf leave the branch and float down to the soil, dancing joyfully, because as it floated it saw itself already there in the tree. It was so happy. I bowed my head, knowing that I have a lot to learn from the leaf.

—————-
Insight from Thich Nhat Hanh

More Autumn inspiration in our latest blog:
bit.ly/3D2qhod

Photo credit unknown

21/10/2021

Letting go...I like this from Sharon Salzburg

There’s no doubt that the idea of “letting go” — the advice to “let it go” — has become more popular in recent years. Especially in light of the popularization of meditation and mindfulness, it seems people are starting to see that there is a profound power in the act of surrender.

In a layman’s example, people are starting to realize that gripping tightly to stress doesn’t make you happier. But, there is a difference between surrendering and succumbing, between letting something go and hurling it away from us.

Letting go is gentle, but it is not characterized by passivity; it involves intention, patience, and a willingness to challenge habits of mind.

In other words, letting go isn’t so easy — whether it be letting go of an annoyance at work, a nagging thought during meditation, something you regret in the past. Similarly, it’s difficult to let go of good things — an amazing day with a friend, a wonderful meal, an engaging book — in order to move on to be open to the next good thing.

In this regard I’ve often thought of meditation as being like a fractal, where one small part of something is a tiny, perfect replica of the whole. Coastlines are jagged whether viewed from the immense distance of a satellite, the far distance of an airplane, or standing just above them on the overhanging bluffs. The entire leaf of a fern resembles a magnified version of one of its own smaller parts. Mountains have the same rough, irregular forms whether we see them from a great distance, or look at them close up in chunks of granite.

The moment our attention wanders away from our chosen object in meditation — a sound, a visualization, a mantra, the feeling of the breath, whatever it is — we are guided to gently let go of whatever has distracted us and begin again by returning awareness to that object.

That’s the fractal moment: practicing letting go and beginning again in that micro setting is the replica of having flubbed something at work and needing to begin again, or having strayed from our deepest aspiration or chosen course and having to begin again, or finding that we have fallen down and needing to stand up and begin again.

16/10/2021

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.

” Well — one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,” said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”
I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke haltingly.

“Shu-dow-a, Shu-bid-uck Habibti? Stani schway, Min fadlick, Shu-bit-se-wee?” The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying.

She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just later, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would
stay with his mother till we got on the plane and ride next to
her. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just
for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling of her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies — little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts — from her bag — and was offering them to all the women at the gate.

To my amazement, not a single woman declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo — we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.
And then the airline broke out free apple juice from huge coolers and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar, too. And I noticed my new best friend — by now we were holding hands — had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and I thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate — once the crying of confusion stopped— seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women, too.
This can still happen anywhere. Not everything is lost.

~ Naomi Shihab Nye

10/10/2021