Month: November 2014

Poetry Friday

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The time will come when, with elation you will greet yourself arriving at your own door, in your own mirror and each will smile at the other’s welcome, and say, sit here. Eat. You will love again the stranger who was your self. Give wine. Give bread. Give back your heart to itself, to the stranger who has loved you all your life, whom you ignored for another, who knows you by heart. Take down the love letters from the bookshelf, the photographs, the desperate notes, peel your own image from the mirror. Sit. Feast on your life. Love after Love, Derek Walcott

Mindfulness Meditation

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A few years back I took a ten week course in Positive Psychology taught by Tim LeBon. This most recent branch of psychology (founded by Martin Seligman in 1998), studies the strengths and virtues that enable individuals and communities to thrive. Over the ten weeks we covered topics such as happiness and positive emotions, flourishing, positive relationships, meaning and accomplishment, strength, resilience, savouring, wisdom, mindfulness and meditation. For the first time in my life I was challenged to meditate. For a whole week I had to dedicate 15 minutes of my time to doing nothing. Thinking about nothing and focusing on nothing but my breath. For anyone with an overactive, highly obsessive and slightly neurotic mind (which is probably most of us!), this sounds a lot easier than it is. That said, I survived the challenge and noticed such an impact on my mind (outside of the meditation zone), I have since made a conscious effort to practise mindfulness mediation at least five times a week. I can honestly say it’s something I will do for the rest of my life. …

eat food. mostly plants. not too much.

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It’s widely acknowledged that a healthy body equals a healthy mind, but in modern society we are all bombarded with contradictory dietary advice on a daily basis; coffee, wine and fish being the main culprits. Also confusing, is from which nutritional group the largest proportion of our diets should come from. High protein? High carb? Low fat? Low Carb? In a media full of mixed messages, whose rules should we follow? Michael Pollen, international bestselling author, has written a book called FOOD RULES: AN EATER’S MANUAL in which he provides 64 rules designed to help you stop worrying, improve your relationship with food and truly enjoy eating without the guilt. Researched from a collection of folk wisdom, grandmothers, science and common sense, this book is all you need to maintain a healthy relationship with food, dine happily and live well. It’s broken down into three parts – what to eat, what kind of food to eat and how to eat it. You can read it in a couple of hours but it will forever change how you think …

Action for Happiness

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You may have seen the latest ITV report ‘Tonight: Is Britain Happy?‘ an up-to-date exploration on the science of happiness, which showed (for those that were in any doubt) that improved wellbeing really does make a difference to our happiness levels. An organisation that have been pioneering the art of happiness since 2010 is Action for Happiness. Action for Happiness is ‘a movement of people committed to building a happier society. We want to see a fundamentally different way of life where people care less about what they can get for themselves and more about the happiness of others.’ They provide practical ideas (see their collection of posters below) to enable people to take action in different areas of their lives – at home, at work or in the community. Encouraging members to form local groups and take action together. Our genes influence around 50% of the variation in our personal happiness and our circumstances (like income and environment) about 10%. Which means as much as 40% is accounted for by our daily activities and the conscious choices we make. So our actions really do …