Tag: mindfulness
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Showing up for myself
It’s the week of love and contrary to what one might expect, I can hardly wait for Valentine’s day. Traditionally, it’s never rated as that big of a holiday for me. Sure Graeme and I exchanged gifts and cards and probably had a meal out. Our legal wedding fell on the day after Valentine’s, which…
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Causes and conditions…
It’s Brigid’s weekend over here in Ireland. Whether one celebrates the Saint or the Goddess, it doesn’t matter. She’s definitely within the collective conscious. There has been much talk about putting scarves out on her eve so that they can be blessed and imbued with her healing powers for the year ahead. As well, the…
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Lightly, my darling
Whenever things feels heavy in my life, like when I start to feel the walls caving in, I remember the words of Aldous Huxley: It’s dark because you are trying too hard. Lightly child, lightly. Learn to do everything lightly. Yes, feel lightly even though you’re feeling deeply. Just lightly let things happen and lightly…
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Slow down, you move too fast
As many of you know, and those who have been reading my blog will know, the last few years of my life have been difficult ones (to say the least). Life turned upside down with the illness and death of my beloved. And before that, I was working a lot. Too much, some might say.…
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Trust Emergence
There is a beautiful poem by John O’ Donohue called “Fluent”. It is not long. It’s simply: I would love to live Like a river flows, Carried by the surprise Of its own unfolding. I can still remember the first time I heard these lines. I was with a gang of fellow mindfulness practitioners on…
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One wild and precious life
As I sit down to my 2026 desk, it’s hard not to notice the sentimental feelings of new beginnings that come with the new year. I know that these feels will slowly melt away into the ordered schedule of the daily, monthly, yearly routine. However, even if it’s for these first few words that I…
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Quiet moments of presence
Last night, my son surprised me with coming home for Christmas. He has been living in Australia for the past year, and despite my many ‘are you sure you’re not going to come home?’ queries, he managed to truly catch me off guard! There were many tears and lots of hugs and plenty of ‘this…
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Quietude
One of my favourite times of the day is the early morning in which I surrender into quietude, or what the Cambridge dictionary calls a state of calm and peacefulness. This is especially true during December as we approach the solstice. Usually at this time of year, I feel a pull between the noise of…
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Christmas tree lights…
My mom and my brother arrived this past weekend for the Christmas season. There was a lightness in my step, as I left the house to travel up to the airport. However, there was also a sense of needing to ‘get through’ the first week of visits as I am smack dap in the middle…
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Embracing the dark
Up here in the Northern hemisphere, we are officially in the darkest days of the year. The birds at my feeder seem hungrier, there is ice on my windscreen and the pale, silvery winter sun casts warm hues on the tops of buildings, requiring us to look up a bit more. These can be hard…