It’s Mental Health Awareness Week and this year the focus is on why people struggle to thrive with good mental health. Instead of looking at why people get ill, the Mental Health Foundation is asking how we can cultivate good mental health and thrive rather than just survive. They’ll be publishing a report on why… Continue reading Mental Health Awareness Week wants to know why you’re not thriving
Continuing the extracts from Free Your Pen: Mind Training for Writers. In the last few posts we explored why the mind is such an unruly place and what we can do about it. Now we dig deeper into the source of mind training practice and look at some of the ideas that underpin the teachings… Continue reading Free Your Pen: Lojong for Writers
Continuing the extracts from Free Your Pen: Mind Training for Writers. Last time we looked at the how the ego and its shadow causes most of your problems as a writer. Here we explore the solution in this final extract from chapter one: The Courage to Write Writing is a leap of faith. You never… Continue reading Free Your Pen: Finding the Courage to Write
Continuing the extracts from Free Your Pen: Mind Training for Writers. Last time we looked at why mastering your mind is so important. In this post we’ll have a closer look at the real cause of the problem with another extract from chapter one: Meet Your Mind Although everybody writes for different reasons, the fears… Continue reading Free Your Pen: The Real Cause of All Your Problems
From a certain perspective it looks like the world is going mad, but perhaps there’s something else going on. This is what happens when our true nature is subverted. We’re socialised into being less than who we really are, but deep in the shadows, the soul fights to break free, and when it finally does,… Continue reading The Pressure to Break Free
Last week I talked about how I stumbled into joy and how strange it was to be so happy for no reason. It shouldn’t be strange because joy is my true nature. But as anyone who has suffered with depression will know, that’s not an easy thing to remember. Especially on a bad day. Depression… Continue reading Unreasonable Happiness: or How to Be a Dog
I’ve struggled with Morning Pages for years. I would do them for a bit and then quit. Start again. Quit again. Repeat. Then last week I finally worked out why: I understand the problem with Morning Pages and I know how to fix it. If you don’t already know, Morning Pages is a writing practice… Continue reading Getting the most out of Morning Pages
Earlier this week we looked at the process of feeding your demons, which is a way to make friends with your shadow. In this post we’ll dig deeper into the various types of demon you might find skulking in the darkness of your worst fears. But first, what is a demon? In this practice, demons… Continue reading Shadow Companions: Types of Demons
Lama Tsultrim Allione gives us a bit of background on the practice of feeding your demons and how it works, a little on the founder, Machig Labdron, and how she made friends with the naga demons. But most useful of all, she then takes us through the five steps of the process of meeting and feeding a demon. Worth taking the time out to do this meditation. Enjoy!
Recently I realised that I’d spent my whole life fighting against the darkness. But my demons won’t die, no matter how many times I bash them over the head. It’s exhausting. So I was open to trying anything that might help when I came across the practice of Feeding Your Demons in the book of… Continue reading Embracing Darkness: how to feed your demons
One night I was having trouble sleeping so I decided to do a guided meditation. It seemed simple enough: you meet a guide who gives you a gift and then shows you something you need to face. I thought it might distract me from the insomnia and shut my whirring mind off for a few… Continue reading An Unexpected Gift: when a guided meditation went “wrong”
“Wherever there is light, look for the shadow. The shadow is me.” – Anais Nin “Every man carries with him through life a mirror, as unique and impossible to get rid of as his shadow.” – W.H. Auden, The Dyer’s Hand “Most of the shadows of this life are caused by our standing in our… Continue reading Me and My Shadow
Jessica Davidson 