Well, where do I begin?
I’ve had such a lovely week, which started off last weekend with 3 days at Samye Ling (http://www.samyeling.org/) Buddhist Monastery down in the Borders. I completed module one of a year-long Mindfulness course with the Mindfulness Association whilst there.
The course was great and it really helped point me in the right direction with my daily meditation practice. I’ve lost focus with it all a little bit recently, so this really helped and also it built on what I was already doing and took it a few steps further by teaching me to be more mindful in my general daily life and not just whilst I’m meditating.
And of course the weather was amazing whilst I was there, so that meant in my spare time I got to tour the grounds, go for a paddle,
go for a walk, chat to some really lovely like-minded people and sit in contemplation near the lake and river.
I came away feeling re-charged, happy, healthy, settled and inspired.
If you haven’t been before I highly recommend you go. You don’t have to do a course there, you can just go for a day trip or stay overnight as a guest. Whichever way you choose you won’t be disappointed!
Mindfulness itself can benefit anyone and everyone, in so many different ways. We are so busy, stressed, anxious, tired and always trying to multi-task, whilst never quite focusing on any one thing, especially what’s right in front of us. We live in the past and the future but not in the now, this leads to all sorts of problems both mental and physical and mindfulness helps us address this. This means we become less stressed, less pressured, kinder to ourselves and in turn more focused, clear headed and happy in ourselves and with ourselves.
Try to be more mindful of what you’re doing today (really notice yourself washing-up or brushing your teeth instead of thinking about hundreds of other things instead), maybe try a 5 min online daily guided meditation and see how these little things make such a difference to your state of mind. Go on, give it ago!
I was also really pleased to hold another Meetup event this week (http://www.meetup.com/Lets-Make-This-World-A-Better-Place/events/119846232/). At this Meetup we watched the documentary ‘The Economic’s of Happiness’, which promotes localisation instead of globalisation. It’s a super documentary and makes so much sense. My wish is that we would all live a little more like this as it’s not only better for the environment but it’s been shown to be better for our own development and happiness as well.
We had a great chat after the documentary had finished, and really put the world to rights, along with coming up with several ideas of things we could do and look into, which kept my happy buzz from the weekend before continuing nicely! =0)
So apart from seeing some lovely clients, starting to sort out my garden (which is looking amazing by the way, ha) and realising the handmade natural and palm-oil free soap that me and my partner-in-crime, Lucy, made just over 6 weeks ago it now ready to use that’s pretty much me for this week.
Oh, there is one more thing…….
They had peacocks at Samye Ling and anyone that knows me knows how much I love peacocks! On top of everything else the weekend held this was most certainly the icing on the Samye Ling cake (although I’m note sure the peacocks would agree after being stalked by a Faith-shaped human with a camera in tow half the weekend)!
Oh, go on then, just one more……….
Have a wonderful week everyone and if you’re ever at a lose end and fancy coming along to any of our Meetups you’re more than welcome!
http://www.meetup.com/Lets-Make-This-World-A-Better-Place/
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Lets-Make-This-World-A-Better-Place/645860645431054?fref=ts
Here’s one I just posted which nicely fits in with this week’s blog:
http://www.meetup.com/Lets-Make-This-World-A-Better-Place/events/130642442/
