The Reward is the Journey

Mindfulness has become somewhat of a buzz word.   It’s in fashion.   People are talking about it.   Everyone seems to have heard of it.   Some have tried it.   Once or twice.   They may have read about it.   In a magazine article.   Or even a book.   Scratch beneath the surface of the hype, and therein lies the confusion.   It appears so simple to those who want to grab and grasp what it may have to offer them.   For those of us who have been treading this path a little longer, it is so much more than a passing fad.   Mindfulness is a way of life.   A way of being in the world.   A way of being in ourselves.   So often I hear people define mindfulness as paying attention in the present moment.   This is true, but it is far from the whole story.   Mindfulness for mindfulness’ sake is hardly worth the effort.   Mindfulness is not, and never was, ethically neutral.   It is a quality that is cul...

I’m often asked whether I recommend meditation to those new in recovery.   It’s not something I feel qualified to answer, as individual practice is very personal.   There are some schools of meditation whose teachings would doubtless be more challenging for those who have only recently got sober, but mindfulness is probably not one of those.   There are however a few considerations for anyone wishing to explore meditation as an adjunct to recovery.   Firstly, the importance of a good teacher cannot be overstated.   I have been privileged to learn, I think, with the best.   I got a solid platform on which to establish a platform some years ago from a teacher about whom, at the time, I knew very little.   Today I know better how fortunate I was to be taught by her.   Whilst there are some excellent books available, complemented by DVDs and downloads, there is, I believe, no substitute for sitting in a room with someone who embodies what they teach. ...

It occurred to me recently that this journey is far from an easy one.   It demands everything we have.   And often feels as though it requires more than we have to give.   To approach the task with rigorous honesty is to come to accept that many of the places we have sought refuge and even made sanctuaries lack the implicit qualities to provide us any shelter in the midst of the storms we seek to escape.   The so-called gift of awareness is in fact a double edged sword as whilst it promises growth and progress, this comes at a price.   It will doubtless get cold and uncomfortable as we emerge from those familiar hiding places, our well developed habits, distractions and obsessions along the path of freedom from self, and from self constructed fantasies. We have, for whatever reason, imbued the most inappropriate people, places and things, with apparently magical qualities, hoping they might hold the keys to our happiness when in fact the combination to that part...

Equanimity is not a word we hear an awful lot about.   I am not sure of its translation or usage in other languages, but am aware that in English, it doesn’t tend to sit in common parlance.   Perhaps that’s just a reflection of my experience, perhaps not.   We might, at first, see it as simple indifference.   This would, I think, miss out half the story.   Equanimity seems, to me, to be far more akin to powerlessness.   A straightforward acknowledgment of where we sit, in relation to the world, and to our fellow beings. It carries with it a sense of our powerlessness as individuals, and as groups, over this world of conditions and of the suffering we will inevitably encounter and witness others also experience.   It implies also our powerlessness over others’ thoughts and feelings, reminding us that we have dominion over only our own minds and hearts.   We cannot seek to alter another’s feelings towards us, and we will doubtless come across tho...

Approaching the ExCel Centre and the Royal Victoria Dock yesterday morning there was a somewhat incongruous mixture of people meandering around - those attending the London Comic Con MCM Expo and those who had or were planning to swim a mile in the Thames.  Clad in my brand new wetsuit, nerves began to escalate as we surveyed the course.  The circuit demarcated by the buoys and safety team bobbing in kayaks seemed to stretch into the middle distance.  We watched a few swimmers complete the course, and I began to worry. I was relieved to meet Rob, who proudly told me this was his first open water event.  We matched - wearing matching BlueSeventy suits, and identical Aquasphere goggles.  We chatted about our training as we stood in the queue to check-in to swim in the 'Blue Wave' scheduled to start at 12:30 and I began to feel better about things.  Whilst it was sunny, the conditions weren't as good as they had been e...

He referred to the mind as a wild elephant that needs to be tamed.   The metaphor struck home, as did the image of tying it to a stake in the ground and expecting the elephant to submit.   This week of largely unbroken quietness has been about cultivating right effort and right concentration.   We have been shown the virtue of doing one thing and only one thing at a time.   When sitting, sit.   When walking, walk.   When eating, eat.   Through this systematic attempt at single-tasking, one can see more clearly how much of our lives is spent ambitiously (and possibly rather arrogantly) multi-tasking, and how exhausting and depleting this is, as an endless and uninterrupted mode of functioning.   We need only think rationally about the act of composing a text message whilst following the GPS driving through an unfamiliar area, catching up on the news whilst having a conversation about our present difficulties at work, or whatever our mind somehow i...

Is my new favourite scent.   Swimming has for a long time been something more than a simply pleasure.   It is a sanity saver.   When I swim, I need for nothing.   I feel free.   I have nothing to do, nowhere to go, no one to be.   I can just swim.   I am fortunate in that I have taught myself a pretty efficiency technique which means that, for the most part, swimming is easy.   I can, and often do, swim with my eyes closed.   When swimming in a lane, I rarely need to see ahead of me, and my position in the water tends to mean that my eyes are downward facing, to the bottom of the pool.   It depends how busy it is of course but peak conditions mean I have the lane to myself and can swim ‘blind’ to my heart’s content, feeling my way through the water and counting my strokes – an average of 9 in a 25m pool, or 3 breaths.   Next weekend however, the smell of chlorine will be absent, as I plunge into the Thames at Docklands. ...

When a friendly (and similarly enthusiastic) swimmer I met on the poolside at Frome Leisure Centre told me about the 50m swimming pool at Bath University, I could hardly contain my excitement.   I must confess I thought of leaving the pool we were about to get into, and make my way immediately to the campus at Quarry Road.   But I held off, to make the journey another day (the very next day, in fact).   I can quite see why the University of Bath was hailed as the University of the Year 2011/12.   It is, quite simply, incredible.   I was blown away on arrival at the Team Bath Sports Village.   My own alma mater in the North East of England did not even have a pool.   I kid you not.   I was an undergraduate at a university without its own swimming pool.   Bath University has a truly magnificent pool.   Eight lanes each of fifty metres.   Blue heaven. As I arrived on the poolside, it was love at first sight.   I took my time, and ...

There is no doubt that were I asked to design a retreat centre it would have a pool.   Or two, perhaps – one indoor, one outside.   The bigger and deeper the better (for deeper is faster, as I learnt this week).   Even when not in training for an epic fundraising effort, an important component of my mindfulness practice takes place under (or at least in) water.   For me, it is like coming home.   I immediately, with ease rather than effort, come into contact with my breathing and can practice to my heart’s content (usually for at least 40 minutes, without interruption, sometimes considerably longer).   The water supports and also challenges me, providing the ideal forum in which to practice.   I swim just to swim, and I swim myself back into sync.   When I swim, I feel connected – to myself, and to my senses.   Until someone joins my lane...!   Enter the difficulty we are taught to turn towards.   In the pool, I have little option....

Stripping away the distractions of our everyday existences, a retreat provides us with an environment conducive to a deeper more concerted period for reflection and practice.   Of course, mindfulness is something that can be practised in everyday life, but it helps to establish solid foundations before trying to take on the real world.   A retreat is a wonderful opportunity to solidify one’s practice, regardless of duration.   For those new to meditation, half a day or a day’s guided practice is a good place to start.   A weekend, or 3 day residential breaks offer a timescale during which a more sustained period of practice can take place.   A week is something to build up to, and prepare for, as I have discovered. Broken down into its essential components, mindfulness is about becoming fully aware, in the presence moment of all our experience, without discernment.   It involves experiencing contact, feeling and perception and being able to slow dow...

One of the highlights of any retreat for me is the formal teaching, or Dharma talks that take place most evenings interspersed among some post supper practices.   Considering what it is that inspired me to follow this path, and embark upon a journey I feel I have only just begun, put simply it must have been the quest for a different way.   Another way.   Not necessarily a gentler, or easier way, for I feel sure I would have come across this earlier were it either of those.   But a different way, that might lead to a different destination (and knowing that it might not). Sometimes life wakes us up abruptly.   Like the din of an overly loud alarm clock at an unfeasibly early hour, a thoroughly unwanted interruption to that which we do most of the time – sleep.   We are awoken from our slumbers with a start, and forced to confront those things we tend to push to the back of our mind, preferring instead to pursue transitory pleasures to alleviate the tense rel...

Being in surroundings outside of my home environment, and adopting a routine unrecognisable to my ordinary week, stirs things up.   Grist for the mill in abundance, in fact.   I realise very quickly my attachment to the known, and to the familiar, and to that over which I have some control.   Joining a group most of whom I do not know, who have come together with the sole purpose of being on a silent retreat is a strange scenario indeed.   There is something profoundly artificial about our circumstances.   Out there, in the real world, none of us pass our days and evenings in quiet contemplation.   We get on with being busy.   So here, the slowing down is more like applying the brakes hard. The first 3 days of a retreat is said to be the hardest.   We begin to come face to face with all that we have brought with us, in addition to our bags.   As it is allowed room to surface, we are able to see with clarity that which frightens us, that whic...

I always enjoy returning to somewhere in which I formed happy memories.   Reconnecting with a space in which I enjoyed a peaceful yet productive week last year has been wonderful.   I am able to look back, and there is an immediate space for reflecting on what has happened between then and now.   I know my way around.   I have a different room but the corridors smell the same.   There is something of a two phase process that happens when I leave my home environment, and my ordinary routine packing and bringing with me only a few selected possessions for my sojourn.   I occupy an empty uncluttered space.   It is somehow both impersonal yet warm, and welcoming of whatever I might contain.   I like the parallel with the uncluttering of my psyche whilst becoming ever more present and accepting of whatever arises in my moment to moment experience.   My simple room facilitates reflection.   It helps me contemplate the true worth of the clutt...

I know myself well enough to know when I’m procrastinating.   Putting off.   Avoiding the inevitable.   As I pottered my way through the afternoon, I was well aware that I was delaying my journey and the beginning of my retreat.   It wasn’t calling me.   Everything else seemed to be.   Meeting myself in this place was the kindest thing I could have done in the circumstances.   Rather than scolding myself for my lack of enthusiasm and my resultant tardiness, I responded with the kindness I would extend to a dear friend who found themselves in a similar conflict – wondering whether to retreat from the retreat.   I knew the drill.   I picked up the phone and let a few kindred spirits who have accompanied me this far on the journey know where I was at.   They didn’t criticise, judge or condemn.   They beckoned me to come in my own time, and join them in the venture we were embarking on together, as individuals but also as a group, and a...

The week had been in my diary since September 2010.   It got progressively closer, as time seems to pass whether I’m ready for it to or not, and then arrived.   Returning to the same venue I visited in September has highlighted the passage of time very clearly and unmistakably.   Things have changed and I guess I’ve changed, in response to them.   As a way to spend this week of all weeks, it wouldn’t have been my first choice, but I previously committed to this, and am of the conviction that everything happens for good reason.   So, I’ve come and have brought with me, along with my yoga mat, foam blocks, cushions and blanket, a mind that is open and receptive to the process.   It’s good being a grown up.   I have choices.   My primary responsibility this week is to listen to my body’s wisdom, and attend to its needs.   Self care is a pre requisite of any retreat.   All that is on offer is available should I wish to accept the invitati...

"Nothing would keep me here" she said, blankly.  "It's home time."  She was right.  The hands of the clocks confirmed it was indeed 5 o'clock.  And she was making her way with some purpose, down the corridor, towards the lift.  Home time is something I can't remember being referred to as such since primary school.  Somehow, in that environment, there was never any question about it.  The bell rang, and we dispersed.  Everyone went home.  Teachers and pupils filed out of the classroom and it was, quite simply, the end of the day.  I couldn't ignore how it had struck me as odd that my colleague was so clear about the time at which she left the building.  When did home time become vague?  When did this get blurry as a concept? Working for myself, I recognise that my working hours are somewhat flexible.  It works both ways.  I have a degree of autonomy over my hours, whilst accommodating my...

Venturing to pastures new is something I enjoy.  The long weekend called for a longer ride, and Windsor was determined to be a suitable destination.  I've been before.  I participated in the first two Palace to Palace bike rides in aid of the Prince's Trust several years ago - cycling 45 miles from London (St. James' Palace) to Windsor.  Charlotte's most welcome suggestion sounded like a good plan, and the weather looked promising.  Not great, but not bad either.  It was good to get onto the roads, and made a nice change from the circuits of the Park which, while thoroughly enjoyable and in places still pretty challenging, can get a little same-y after a while.  We rode with purpose, and maintained a decent enough average speed of about 24kph over the seventy odd kilometres we clocked up visiting Windsor, Ascot and Virginia Water before heading back via Chertsey, Weybridge and Esher.  With 3 weekends until my big swim, I'm eager to get wet, but ha...

I like to think of myself as reasonably perceptive.  Someone who notices their surroundings.  He caught me by surprise.  Standing there, surveying the view in amongst the fridge-freezers, washing machines and tumble dryers.  Proud in his familiar surroundings.  Only they didn't seem to be the right ones.  The dog in the window brought a smile to my face as I reflected on how comfortable he seemed in what many might not classify as his natural environment.  Like a fish out of water, I s'pose... It struck me that many of us occupy surroundings that perhaps don't immediately make sense.  We confuse those who encounter us.  We take them by surprise.  We challenge their assumptions.  The dog reminded me that it matters very little what others think, if we ourselves are comfortable in our own skin, going about our business.  Life has a funny habit of taking us to places we might not have previously ...

The Bank Holiday feels well deserved.  It's been a while since Easter, and the weather seems to have barely changed since the middle of winter.  It's cold and gloomy, and the un-Spring like conditions have been remarked upon in my consulting room countless times in recent weeks.  The rain feels relentless and drizzle terribly dreary.  I am beginning to sound terribly British, aren't I?  Rain didn't stop play earlier in the week, and I managed another medium length bicycle ride in Richmond Park.  40k or so, in slightly below average conditions.  I like to think I go faster when my tyres are wet.  Unfortunately, our company was distinctly enthusiastic, and there were some smart machines out there.  A different crowd to the Sunday brunch bunch.  These guys were serious.  I saw their teeth. Some of us don't seem to have an innate 'off' button.  I know I tend to fidget.  I'm restless, and am happiest when I'm busy, ticking th...