The Reward is the Journey

Travelling by train on the East Coast mainline recently provided a wonderful and unanticipated trip down memory lane and an opportunity to reflect on recent years as I used to travel between London and Peterborough at the beginning and end of school terms, and between Kings Cross and Durham as an undergraduate.  I have, I now realise, spent a lot of time on trains one way or another.  "This is England", I thought to myself as the train sped through vast, uninterrupted green space.  Agriculture and pasture land in every direction, as far as the eye could see.  Bliss.  From the flat environment of Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire, to the rolling hills of South Yorkshire.  As I pondered the scenery (and procrastinated opening my laptop and the work I'd brought along with me), I was reminded of something I heard recently at a meeting, where someone was talking about their spiritual journey in recovery.  Recovery, it is often said, is an inside job....

A lot can happen in a week.  And generally does. Last week, as I tentatively placed a few raisins in each of their outstretched palms, and invited them to regard the little objects as though for the first time, they looked at me as though I had travelled to York not on the East Coast mainline, but off a spaceship from another planet.  This week whilst a few eyebrows gently lifted at several points during the second in a series of three mindfulness workshops, the commitment to open mindedness and willingness to trust the process were both in clear evidence.  Mindfulness is a little like a tap slowly dripping into a bucket.  You can hear it before you can see it.  You feel it even quicker.  Today I invited those I worked alongside to jump into their experience, and throw themselves into the present moment.  We joined together in several live experiments (for sometimes the 'being' is achieved through 'doing') and investigated with c...

For me today, it really is the small things that make life worthwhile.  This week I've had several reminders of what brings a smile to my heart and what lifts my heart and prompts my soul to sing (so to speak)... Seeing a friend's number flash up on my phone as an incoming call when I most need to hear from someone who might ask me how I am and actually give a damn about my response to their question. Having a handful of close friends is an immeasurable blessing.  We are not intended to travel this journey alone. "Let us be grateful to people who make us happy; they are the charming gardeners who make our souls blossom."   Marcel Proust Waking up to find that the sky is blue and the sun is making an appearance having been so shy of late and remembering there's only a month until the clocks go forward - Spring really is on the way! The connection between meteorology and mood is well documented.  Even without suffering from Seasonal Affective Disorder our out...

Death is nothing at all. I have only slipped away to the next room. I am I and you are you. Whatever we were to each other, That, we still are. Call me by my old familiar name. Speak to me in the easy way which you always used. Put no difference into your tone. Wear no forced air of solemnity or sorrow. Laugh as we always laughed at the little jokes we enjoyed together. Play, smile, think of me. Pray for me. Let my name be ever the household word that it always was. Let it be spoken without effect. Without the trace of a shadow on it. Life means all that it ever meant. It is the same that it ever was. There is absolute unbroken continuity. Why should I be out of mind because I am out of sight? I am but waiting for you. For an interval. Somewhere. Very near. Just around the corner. All is well. Henry Scott Holland (1847-1918)   I remember first hearing this at my grandmother's funeral.  It provided me with such comfort, and still d...

There seems to be a lot of truth in the statement that sometimes you don't realise what you have until you lose it.  My eyes have been opened this week to the value of my health, and how I tend to take it for granted.  It is all too easy when blessed with generally good health, to fail to appreciate one's body for the incredible machine it is.  Mine, for the most part, maintains itself pretty efficiently.  I try and eat healthily, but am nowhere near fanatical; I seek to sleep 7 hours most nights, but it doesn't always happen, and I exercise because I enjoy the endorphins it produces, rather than for weight loss or stabilisation.  All in all, my body gets a modicum of respect, but is not overly attended to.  Coming down with a cold puts all this into perspective.  Energy levels plummet through the floor, every joint aches and my brain feels like mush.  Suddenly, even the simplest of tasks feels overwhelming and impossible.  ...

Spring is in the air.  And with it love.  I was overjoyed when Charlotte texted to tell me she planned to pedal in a leisurely fashion towards Look Mum No Hands for lunch.  I jumped at the invitation to join her.  We enjoyed the view across Waterloo Bridge, and were ready for the warm welcome that awaited us at the busy cafe.    Look Mum No Hands: Coffee and Bike Repairs in EC1 It's the first time I've got on my bike and left my postcode for a while, and it felt good.  It is, I remember, my favourite way to get around town and in spite of unpredictable taxis cutting us up on Clerkenwell Road, today was blissful.    I've fallen in love again.  With my Trek 2nd District single speed.  This weekend I'm going to treat it to a makeover, with LMNH stickers, courtesy of Sam.  Riding with Charlotte past a sign advertising Jeremy Deller's exhibition at the Hayward Gallery entitled 'Life is to bla...

There are times that call for laugh out loud sillyness.  The last fortnight has been just such a time.  I was so very pleasantly surprised by The Muppets movie which far exceeded the mediocre expectations I had, and caused me to swallow my own doubts that it might lift my spirits and bring a smile to my face.  I laughed, and laughed, and laughed some more.  Childlike fun intended for grown ups.    The plot doesn't do the movie justice: Walter a wannabe-Muppet from Smalltown, USA (which bears an uncanny resemblance to Disney's Main Street) is overjoyed to take a 1950s vintage Greyhound to LA with his clueless brother, Gary and his girlfriend Mary (brilliantly played by Amy Adams).  Whilst visiting the derelict Muppet studio in Hollywood, the bizarrely naïve trio unsuspectingly stumble across the nefarious plan devised by evil real estate tycoon Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to raze the Muppet Theatre and drill for ...

Delivering the first session of a three part workshop this weekend prompted me to review a question I've been exploring since undertaking the training necessary to become a teacher is mindfulness:  as a mindfulness teacher, where do I sit?  Mindfulness based approaches differ in significant and substantial ways from an operational definition of therapy per se (if indeed there is any such thing).  The agenda at a mindfulness class resembles something quite unlike anything you might encounter in counselling or psychotherapy.  The approach is by its nature, far more tightly structured and this fact has at different times provoked semantic controversy as mindfulness courses appear to be more closely related to a skills training than a group therapy.  It gets more complicated still as becoming more skillful at the direction in which we incline our attention, undoubtedly confers benefits to the practitioner who might, with time and dedication, find th...

The Nike 2012 campaign caught my eye as I passed the Waterloo IMAX.  It resonated somewhere deep within me and prompted me to enquire of myself, whether I make it count? Life, I have been reminded by several significant happenings recently, truly is precious.  Time is apt to escape us, and with it our lives if we're not mindful.  This is it, there is no dress rehearsal.  As such, I feel as though I've been given a wake up call of giant proportions.  I have for some time been interested in the way in which individuals manage their time.  For much of our early life, we have our days managed for us - our primary caregivers will tend to implement some sort of routine, creating a structure within which our waking hours are framed.  This continues at school.  The older we get, the more autonomy we have as to how we choose to spend our time, and it becomes a hallmark of our character, our values and our circumstances.  I aspire towards wo...

The Royal Philharmonic did not disappoint.  The Cadogan Hall is one of my favourite London venues, and it made the perfect setting for a wonderful concert featuring some of the best-loved music by one of the world's most popular composers, Burt Bacharach.  The performances of the four fabulous vocalists brought something very special to the evening, which I enjoyed surrounded by a sea of couples, all of whom had opted out of the cliche to celebrate Valentine's Day in a delightfully alternative fashion.  I drunk in the lurve, and revelled in the superb acoustics at the home of the RPO which provided a feast for eyes and ears.  Cadogan Hall was constructed as a Church with Byzantine architectural influences When congregations diminished it fell into disuse and was bought by Mohamed Al Fayed  In 2000 the Cadogan Estate purchased and renovated the Hall In 2004 the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra performed their first concert as the residen...

Many of us perhaps didn't foresee being where we find ourselves today...  February 14th comes around again, and it would be easy to think about the things we maybe do not have in our lives today.  Easy perhaps, automatic maybe.  But painful all the same.  Valentine's Day, like any other day, is ours to do as we wish.  We can enjoy ourselves, or we can hurt ourselves, wishing things were other than they are.  We have choices as to the direction in which we incline our thoughts, our minds, our actions and our hearts. Mourning what we lack might feel comfortable, and familiar but it's unlikely to induce the abundance we all deserve.    "All of our suffering in life is from saying we want one thing and doing another." Debbie Ford "The heart is itself its own medicine. The heart all its own wounds heals." Hazrat Inayat Khan Recovery is about learning to love ourselves.  It can be a challenging journey, taking the risk to open our hearts ...

Battle commenced shortly after 9 o'clock on Saturday morning.  It was -4.5ºC outside so I drove to the ring.  This was my second BodyCombat™ class.  My opponent is negativity - invisible yet strangely present and easily brought to mind, as a focus for my jabs, crosses, hooks and upper cuts.  So immersed was I in fighting the good fight that I completely missed the announcement over the PA system that my car was attracting rather a lot of interest from several Parking Enforcement Officers.  This weekend gym visit cost me more than muscle fatigue.  Thankfully, whilst they had attached the straps, meaning my car was dangerously close to boarding the low loader, by some miracle (and a very helpful member of staff) Herbie managed to escape the jaws of death (well, an unwelcome visit to the pound, anyway) and I have only a penalty charge notice to address.    Having come face to face with an unanticipated...

I was very sad to learn of Whitney Houston's death, news that I heard when I was contacted in the early hours of Sunday morning by LBC 97.3FM who requested a professional comment regarding the star's demise.  The causes of her death are yet to be confirmed, but it looks likely that drugs contributed. Whitney Houston's addictions have been widely documented - she spent brief periods of time attending rehab, but struggled it would seem to align her actions and decisions with her faith.  Addiction is a progressive illness, and Whitney Houston conceded that her addiction brought her to use freebase cocaine. As the moving tributes from countless celebrities begin to appear on Twitter, I find myself reflecting on the immense tragedy that is the end of somebody's life, somebody who gave so much to the music industry and to the world at large.   According to Guinness World Records, Houston was the most awarded female artist of all time....

"We may run, walk, stumble, drive, or fly, but let us never lose sight of the reason for the journey, or miss a chance to see a rainbow on the way." Unknown    Endings are important.  This is true everywhere, but perhaps nowhere more so than in therapy.  The end of a therapeutic relationship is something to mark.  As individuals, we all have different ways in which we 'do' endings.  Some of us would prefer not to do them at all.  I have grown to rate them as highly as I do beginnings.  As such they require care, and attention.  I have learnt the importance of a planned ending.  There are so many scenarios out there in the real world where we do not, as we cannot foresee endings.  We experience their abruptness, their harshness, and lack any opportunity to reflect on what it is that has passed, or to maybe say goodbye.  Therapy need not re-enact the pain that we experience elsewhere.  We have the opportunity...