Welcome to the new Mindfulness Journey Website

The New Normal

Working from home became the new ‘normal’ for thousands of people.  College students are grappling with studying and attending classes on-line. Now I am meeting client’s on WhatsApp Video call, teaching mindfulness to medical students on Microsoft Teams, attending meetings and training on Zoom and beginning to run mindfulness events and programmes on Zoom. This way of working has been a huge adjustment and a learning curve.

Sadly, many have lost their jobs and are dependent on state support.  Children denied visits to grandparents to keep them safe and schools were closed for six months from March 2020.  The over 70s were particularly isolated and advised to cocoon at home, leaving them disconnected from family, grandchildren and friends.  Many parents were trying to adjust to the stresses of working from home and taking care of their children and home schooling at the same time.  Thankfully, the schools remained open during the second lockdown introduced in October.  Universities and Colleges moved most, if not all of their programmes online, so college experience was utterly changed for the 18-25 year old’s. College experience is more than an academic experience, so the relationships and networking opportunities usually offered on campus are no longer available to them.

Working through the Pandemic

Many of us lost loved ones to the virus and are grieving.  Daily updates of facts and figures relating to infections and deaths are reported on the radio and television, on social media from all over the world.  There is a lot of sensationalizing, feeding peoples already overloaded nervous systems.  We were reminded of the Spanish Flu one hundred years ago, and the cholera pandemic, one hundred years before that, where, in Ireland, thousands of our ancestors lost their lives. The slogan of the day is Stay Safe, referring to the Government Health Guidelines, work from home, wear a mask, keeping a social distance of two metres, cough into your elbow, wash hands and surfaces regularly and  stay home if you have any symptoms, quarantine.  Testing centres set up all over the country serve those who have been in contact with a person who has contracted the virus or if worrying symptoms arise.  Frontline workers like myself, continue to work throughout the pandemic.  Hospitals focused their resources on dealing with the pandemic, while other health services were limited, creating other challenges for patients and families.

The Context

This is the backdrop to my new website.  I too had to transfer a lot of my work online, after four months of being unable to work, and this new website has arisen from this background.  In Ireland we were offered support through our local enterprise offices to seek mentoring, training and funding to upgrade our businesses to trade online, which I am very grateful for.  So, I embarked on this journey, learning all sorts of new skills and discovering new perspectives and ways of doing things.  Meeting psychotherapy clients on WhatsApp video call is much more effective than I could have ever imagined.  I am teaching mindfulness at the School of Medicine at University of Limerick on Microsoft Teams, planning Mindfulness Morning Sessions on Zoom and training sessions with the web developer on Google Hangouts!  One of the biggest challenges was learning how to use the technology and creatively adapting to this way of working.  This is an ongoing process for me and I’m sure for many of you also.

The Healing Power of Nature 

I have had a love of nature for as long as I can remember. Going for nature walks was part of my experience at school as a young child, where we returned to the classroom with our pockets full of leaves, nuts, conkers, stones, egg shells, old nests, flowers, you name it whatever we found, we collected.  Then we would categorise our items in class with the help of our teacher, by looking up encyclopedias to learn more, in the day’s before Google etc. Our items would be placed on the ‘Nature Table’ and we were free to add anything to it at any time.

I love bird watching and find being in nature a great way of accessing calm and stability.

I hope you enjoy the images on my website. I have taken these photos on my android phone during the lockdown, without the use of filters or enhancements. A mindfulness photography practice has evolved in how I am seeing things, taking mindful shots from different perspectives. I will write a blog about this practice over the coming months.

 A Mindful Approach to Well-Being

The evolving mindful approach to my work as a psychotherapist and a mindfulness teacher has been an organic process over twenty years of meditation practice.  As a worker who focusses on mental, social, emotional and physical well-being there comes with it a realization and awareness that we can’t truly nurture our well-being in a separate, individual and disconnected way.  Our well-being is intrinsically connected to the well-being of all beings, creatures and life on this blue planet, all life that can perceive or feel things.  This includes everything we come in contact with; humans of every colour, class, creed or sexual orientation, plants, animals, fish in the sea, the birds, trees, insects in the garden, wildflowers, the blackberries and hazelnut trees, the sloe and apple, all living organisms. We are all part of this life experience and the well-being of one aspect of life has an impact on the other and so on and on it goes.  When we can see this and experience it for ourselves mindfully, it can change how we see the world and ourselves.  Mindfulness Journey is dedicated to cultivating awareness to enrich your day to day life experience by running Mindfulness Retreats, Workshops and the world renowned eight week Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Programme (MBSR).  Our retreats are not religious retreats, we re-treat to deliberately step off the constant merry-go-round of busyness, that can sometimes become an unhealthy habit.  To take a break from our daily routine.  Intentionally taking the time to rest, slow down, rejuvenate and see more clearly, what it is that supports us in this one precious life we have to live.  Some of us reach burn-out before embarking on this type of journey or have had a major life experience.  Some want to learn how to live life more fully or are invested in and value their personal and mental development.  Others are just curious and interested in learning about mindfulness practices.  Whatever your reason, rest assured you will be welcomed wholeheartedly.  All the mindfulness events offered focus on meeting life’s challenges in a more skillful way that is loving, compassionate and kind.

Suffering is part of life

Suffering is part and parcel of life, for all of us, at some point in time and learning to support ourselves and take care of ourselves is essential to our well-being.

Through mindfulness practice we can learn to make more skillful choices in our day to day lives that will nourish and nurture our well-being and that of the planet.

Many Approaches to Well-Being

Mindfulness Practice is not for everyone, there are many, many ways we can nurture and nourish our well being and expand our awareness.  But for me, these practices have been transformational and through my work I have witnessed others discovering the simple yet profound benefits of the practice in their daily lives.  So, if you are curious, I invite you to give it a go, with an open mind.  Beginners are more than welcome, maybe try a mindfulness session or a retreat to begin with and see what you think, come alone or bring a friend.

Blogs, photos and articles are designed to support your well-being.

I will share stories, poetry, articles and features that I hope you will find useful as you explore what you need and what serves you well.