What is mindfulness?
Last updated on 3rd November 2011
Those who do not have the power over the story that dominates their lives - the power to retell it, reexperience it, deconstruct it, joke about it, and change it as times change - truly are powerless because they cannot think new thoughts.
- Salman Rushdie
Yesterday we had the twelfth & final session of this "Life skills" evening class. There was scheduled to have been a bit less than a three month gap since the last - eleventh - session. However the heavy winter snow we'd experienced had resulted in this last session being postponed.
How many things, both just and unjust, are sanctioned by custom!
- Terence
Our truest life is when we are in dreams awake. - Henry Thoreau
I wrote yesterday about the first part of this tenth "Life skills" evening. I particularly discussed development of Goodwill practice - very much in the "Nourishing positive states" section of the "Four aspects" diagram (below). In the second half of the evening we moved on to the "Exploring & processing" section of the diagram with the introduction particularly of various forms of therapeutic writing.
Do you want to hear my favourite procrastination joke? I'll tell you later.
- Piers Steel
If you want others to be happy, practise compassion. If you want to be happy, practise compassion. Dalai Lama
This above all: to thine own self be true, And it must follow, as the night the day, Thou canst not then be false to any man. Polonius in Hamlet
- Shakespeare
Yesterday was the ninth evening of this "Life skills" training. I wrote about the eighth session last week. The sequence of regular weekly classes now moves on to increasing gaps between sessions - so it's three weeks until the tenth, a further five weeks until the eleventh, and then an additional eleven weeks until the final twelfth session. My hope is that we will be able to arrange occasional follow-up meetings even after that.
A man is as happy as his mind allows him to be - Abraham Lincoln
Do not be too timid and squeamish about your actions. All life is an experiment. The more experiments you make the better. What if they are a little coarse and you may get your coat soiled or torn? What if you do fail, and get fairly rolled in the dirt once or twice? Up again, you shall never be so afraid of a tumble.
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
A man is as happy as his mind allows him to be - Abraham Lincoln
Yesterday we had the sixth session of this twelve evening "Life skills" course. I wrote last week about the fifth session. A dozen slides covering material we explored are viewable/downloadable at slides 1-6, Powerpoint or slides 1-6, PDF and slides 7-12, Powerpoint or slides 7-12, PDF.