How to Create Your Own Place of Serenity
Your inner serenity is your inner sanctuary – the place within you where you can experience calm, peace, composure, clarity and stillness. This is the opposite to the turmoil of a busy mind and hectic life where you may be constantly experiencing unrest, fear and turmoil. When you bring your conscious awareness to a situation…
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Start With Compassion
Your Inner Critic It is an easy default-setting to listen to your inner critic, the voice that attacks you for your failings. Almost like self-flagellation, we berate ourselves for not behaving differently – when we experience fears, old mindless habits and less than generous thoughts towards others. We tend to think that attacking ourselves for…
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What Does it Mean to Be Present?
We have all heard of the term ‘Be Present’. But What Does it Mean to Be Present? It’s perhaps easier to start with recognising how most of the time you are NOT present. This is because your mind is either influenced by the past or thinking of the future. When this happens, all your thoughts…
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I Am Enough – 1 Mantra Worth Knowing
Every moment, it seems, that as human beings, we give ourselves a hard time. We ask ourselves, ‘Am I enough?’ when we need to shift these words to ‘I am enough’. An Endless List In our work, relationships, appearances, behaviour, choices, the words we speak, the list is endless. All of it is up for…
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5 Effortless Tips to Tackle Overwhelming Emotions
A mindful perspective lets you tackle overwhelming emotions more skillfully. It empowers you to untangle your mind and deal more effectively with difficult emotions that sometimes appear with huge force. Our brains have already stored a lifetime of prejudices, judgments, opinions and beliefs. So without mindfulness, our minds regurgitate the same old reactions again and…
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Transform Self-Criticism to Self-Compassion
Move from Critical Thinking and Self-Criticism to Self-Compassion At the moment our lives continue to be in a state of uncertainty at a global level. In response to this, you may be experiencing an increased level of self-criticism and critical thinking generally. In my Mindfulness Courses, I only have to mention the term ‘inner critic’…
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Have you Listened to Yourself Lately?
Notice your thoughts. Do you treat yourself with kindness and love, or with impatience and harshness? In short, have you listened to yourself lately? Ratio of Positive to Negative Thoughts In her book, ‘The Sweet Spot‘, Christine Carter suggests you become more mindful of the kind of thoughts you are having. To feel happier and…
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How Mindfulness Helps in this Time of Covid19
Perhaps you wonder how mindfulness helps in these unusual times of Covid19. We don’t know what the future holds, but then we never did. This is mindfulness in action; the habits and assumptions we’ve perhaps always made, we now realise were never certainties. Mindfulness invites us to be present and not take things for granted.…
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How Does Being Kind to Yourself Help You?
How does being kind to yourself help you? Being kind to yourself can feel at odds with your usual thinking. It perhaps doesn’t come naturally, would you agree? Yet being kind to yourself, also known as self-compassion, is one of the most important qualities we can nurture as human beings. And of course, kindness towards…
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Nature’s Reminder: Let go of the Old and Nurture the New
Outside my window I can see the beech leaves as they reveal their innate colours of red and yellow. They will hang on a bit longer, looking beautiful in the sunlight, then let go without fuss. It’s a timely reminder for us to declutter as we hurtle three quarters of the way through the year.…
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How to Manage your Emotions
Guess what? You and I are very alike. In fact, we share something in common with every single human on the planet. We all experience emotions. And how do you live with, and manage your emotions? Sure, happiness, joy and excitement are all great. But how do we deal with everyday emotions that are more…
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How to be your own Best Friend
A best friend is always on your side A cheerleader and a supporter. What better than to be your own best friend and support yourself with emotional resilience, courage and kindness? These are qualities you can nurture with mindfulness and self-compassion especially when life feels so stressful or out of balance. There has been an…
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Everyone is your Teacher!
You know the people who press your buttons? They stir strong emotions within you. Everyone is your teacher and there are always learning opportunities! Be curious about your response Sometimes our closest family members or work colleagues drive us mad. But what if you were to be curious about your own response? Focus on you…
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How to Unhook from Ruminating Thoughts
You’ve probably tried before to unhook from ruminating thoughts. You know the ones – the unhelpful thoughts, memories and worries that are insistent and pretty tenacious! They often appear when you’re trying to sleep. Or before you are about to do something big because those thoughts include an inner critic who says you won’t be…
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The Myth of the New You
Do you feel you’re not Being or Doing enough? At the start of a new year it’s easy to look critically at ourselves. We decide that we’re not being or doing enough. All the things that need improvement seem glaringly obvious. We read how everyone else is setting goals for success. When we compare ourselves…
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Transform yourself with Mindfulness
You can transform yourself with mindfulness! Ditch aspects of auto-pilot that no longer serve you and develop your capacity to be more aware and present. Consider that for 95% of the time we behave on auto-pilot. On a daily basis we turn up in our lives with ‘unconscious habits and hardwired beliefs, attitudes and perceptions.’…
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3 Kindness Ideas on World Kindness Day
13th November is designated ‘World Kindness Day’ This sits fittingly alongside the ‘Children in Need’ charity fund-raising events here in the UK. But you don’t need a ‘day’ to talk about kindness. Every day is an opportunity to experience it and share kindnesses with others. Here are some reminders: ‘Kindness’ is a strength and an…
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Connection Heals your Feelings of Separation
It might appear very simple to remember that connection is what heals your feelings of separation. Yet feelings of separation are very common. We feel separate from other people, from what is going on in the world, from our family and loved ones, and even from ourselves. We’ve bought into the great big fat lie…
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Befriend Your Inner Critic
How often does your inner critic push its way into your life and spread fear? Now is the time to befriend your inner critic! What You Say to Yourself Matters You may well say cruel things to yourself. Give yourself a hard time. Believe the negative spin that returns to your mind constantly. This is…
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Access your Inner Self for the Dark Times
You have an Inner Self beneath the surface level! You can access this Inner Self in particular during dark times. Through meditation you can spend time with your Inner Self and connect with those often unstoppable thoughts. Quite understandably, not all of us wish to do this! The Dark Times and your Inner Self This…
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How Can Mindfulness Reduce your Storytelling Mind?
You’ve Been Told Stories All your Life! So it’s no wonder you, and I, each have a storytelling mind. Easter Holy Week in the Christian Church is a story shared annually while every religion has its own catalogue of rich and inspiring stories. We love watching film and drama and love our daily fix. Advertisements…
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