Blog
Perhaps you have dropped by my blog to pick up some meditation advice, or maybe you are in a situation at work, or in your relationship that is prompting you to look for some answers.
Whatever the reason is that you are here, welcome! I hope you find what you are looking for and if by chance, you don’t find it then drop me an email and let me know what you are interested in. I will see if I can help.
The blogs that you will find here deal with different aspects of wellbeing, along with all the ways in which we can undermine ourselves as we try to achieve it. It’s a funny thing but don’t you find that much as we want to change and grow, we can still manage to get in our own way?
One of the special features of the Awareness in Action blog is the wide range of meditations and exercises we include to help us work with the habits that we have developed in order to help us cope but that actually get in our way. As we learn to make these techniques part of our everyday life, we begin to find ways to exchange these habits for ones that will help us develop. We can bring about the changes we are looking for.
To help you find your way around you will see blogs marked that relate to your own journey, to your relationships and to your workplace. You can also just browse around and see what catches your attention.
Now you have found us, feel free to comment, ask questions and share your own experience. A blog only really comes alive when its readers join in and take part.
Can Your Local Supermarket Help to Inspire Compassion?
When you are pushing your trolley round your local supermarket doing the weekly shop, perhaps compassion is not the main thing on your mind. It’s quite likely that you are focused on finding everything on your list and getting home as soon as you can. I can sympathise. However, recently I have been trying to […]
How to Turn Your Restaurant Rage into Kindness
A few weeks ago, my partner and I were out with some friends for dinner. We had not seen them for a while, and we had a lot to talk about. On top of that, one of our friends was going through a bit of a tough time and needed support. We happy to offer […]
5 Things to Remember When You End Your Meditation Session
How do you end your meditation session? Do you find that it’s very easy to hear your timer go off for the time you’ve allowed and then just get up and carry on? It’s a shame to do that though, because you are missing out on a great chance to mix meditation with life. Here […]
3 Simple Ways to Handle Difficult Emotions in City Life
For many of us, city life is crowded, busy, noisy and full of difficult emotions. We rush to work, along with all the other thousands of hurrying people. There’s traffic to negotiate, or crowded road crossings. All the time we are surrounded by adverts and billboards urging us to buy all kinds of things. There […]
How Not Reacting Can Make You Stronger
There is a traditional Buddhist teachingabout the power of not reacting. It’s based on the image of being hit by an arrow. The first arrow is the difficult circumstance, disappointment or stress that we face. This arrow is unavoidable—challenging things are just part of life. The second arrow is how we react to whatever is happening—and […]
What Makes Us Want To Turn Away From People?
We might look for connection, but it is not always easy to follow through Just a few days ago I was sitting waiting for my partner in a square outside one of the major Amsterdam bookstores. I was enjoying people watching and feeling the connection with all the people passing by. There was a guy […]
How To Deal With The Stuff That Comes Up In Meditation
Let’s take a look at what some of those might be. Your thoughts are out of control There is no problem to have thoughts going through your mind during a meditation session. The thing is not to follow after them. Just let them come and fade away. Our habit is when a thought comes, […]
7 Ways To Cope With Feeling Overwhelmed By City Life
We have all been there. Those moments when city life feels too full—too many people, too much noise, too much everything. We long for some peace and quiet and a chance to regroup. For most of us the immediate answer is not a holiday. We have families to care for, and bills to pay. That […]
3 Ways Anxiety Can Make You Difficult at Work
A recent story Recently I was doing a piece of work in a rural area in the south of France. You might think that’s very pleasant and, in some ways, it can be but not when you need to get things done. When you are in the middle of nowhere the internet can be […]
Which Meditation Method Works Best for You?
A meditation method is really just an activity we can give our restless mind when we want it to settle. The meditation teacher Mingyur Rinpochecalls this restless mind, our monkey mindand he advises giving our monkey a job to do. That’s how we try to tame it and get it working for us, rather than […]