The Still Point Retreat
“To spend a concentrated period of time in silence and meditation is always a gift to yourself and brings its […]
“To spend a concentrated period of time in silence and meditation is always a gift to yourself and brings its […]
I know this to be true – when I am stressed, I am flat and uninspired. And I can usually […]
We are SO close to launching our new membership platform The Portal. Creating this has been an epic undertaking, and […]
High stress levels, fatigue and emotional overwhelm are in abundance these days and on the downside, these things affect our […]
Hello and thank you for your patience. It’s been a few weeks since I penned a Letter to you. I […]
Occasionally, when I am going about my day, not necessarily doing anything that interesting, simply out of the blue, I […]
When we are stressed, or a little anxious at work, or perhaps exhausted with schooling in isolation (I refuse to […]
I love this quote, for I really agree with the why settle for less BUT I would also highlight, the […]
We all hold stories about ourselves, what we can do what we can’t do; our preferences, things we love and […]
Often people wait awhile to learn to meditate. It feels like something that can be learnt later, or when life […]
When in times of immense stress and pressure, it’s so good to just come back to the basics. Today the […]
Today I want you to undertake a little exercise. Carve out 30-60 minutes and sit down and write out how […]
I’m not sure about you but sometimes I feel joy is very close by, popping in and out of my […]
There’s a path of tension, doubt, overwhelm and frenzy you can take with this pandemic. Or a path of creativity […]
I often teach about our personal seasons. Summer being hot, full, lengthy and abundant, but also with the chance of burnout. Autumn being […]
There is so much going on around us, our backyards, our communities, our countries and globally.It is a lot. A […]
The Mushroom At The End Of The World, is a fascinating and rich read into capitalism and nature and diversity that I […]
We see too often not what’s there, but what we are conditioned to see. Our brains override new possibility to take shortcuts that previously made sense. […]
There is very little that I do without my ego chiming in about what a bad job I am doing […]
The brain is so remarkably plastic that we can quite easily wire in all sorts of habits, responses, and reactions. This […]
Today I want to ask you, what is the thing that you’re putting off? Not ’the big dream’, but the small […]
The brain and mind we tend to flog, relentlessly. If we want to be brain and mind fit, we need […]
One of the simplest and most effective tools I am ALWAYS banging on about, aside from Integrated Meditation, is powering down […]
Often resilience is viewing as a strength, a tough as nails approach, unwavering attitude after so much endurance. But, resilience […]
I always laugh with my really fit friends, about my constantly wanting a short cut. Any shortcut. But it’s just a continual commitment […]
Our relationship to ourselves is the most important relationship we have. Yet it is often shelved due the demands placed […]
How will you hold your awareness this week? Scattered or as something sacred? Fractured, or utterly focussed on the present? […]
Ordeals are challenging. Lockdown is boring and frustrating. Illness is the terrible. Divorce is horrible. Or, are they and they […]
Every day, we saturate ourselves in thoughts, unchosen, not always well meaning, often chaotic. We must reconcile this is the […]
What conditioning of your mind might you recognise is robbing you of reality? What reactions are taking you out of […]
When in those perfect, clear moments when we are cleavered away from our overthinking, and we are just absolutely present […]
One of our beloved students Juana, introduced me to the writings of Richard Rohr. ‘Just This’ is a beautiful collection […]
Zen meditation teacher Susan Murphy writes in her brilliant book Upside Down Zen, “Meditation is lonely as any practice is lonely […]
One of my favourite Zen fables, that I will alter for more colour, goes like this. A very young monk […]
I think we all know we’re probably pushing it a little hard. We all have past experience with burnout, having lit ourselves alight […]
My friend Jen told her son, it’s not so much about the big decisions in your life, it’s about the […]
My friend sent me the cover of this week’s New York magazine with an enormous gold title The Return Of […]
I spent the weekend studying with the phenomenal Rose Baudin, and the amount of rapid scrawl notes I took is […]
‘Happiness is your natural state. You don’t have to do anything to acquire it, because you have it already’ says […]
When we began to work with the term High Grade Living, it really meant intentional living, elevated to enjoy life […]
The challenge we have with a lot of modern spirituality and modern meditation is all the spiritual bypass and nonsense […]
It’s so desirable to make the ‘right decision’ and so challenging in knowing what the heck that is without all […]
This is really a follow on from yesterday, which was a Letter to you about the challenges that expectations bring […]
I find it personally really challenging to not have expectations. My mind is always working away ferociously, painting vivid imagery […]
In truth I found this little Letter sitting on my desktop, and now I am unsure if I have already […]
I would also add to power, is the education about oneself. To know oneself is to understand our conditioning and […]
Can you even fathom this?? In one century, we’ve added 28 years to our average life span – a change so […]
Our Integrated Meditation students report that they tend to engage with technology differently once meditating regularly, and they frequently question […]
When we are over engaging with social media or technology in general, it can have the opposite of our original […]
This week I really, really felt drawn to working with our emotional landscape, neuroscience and relationship to technology and social […]
How the ego LOVES to welcome an imagined persecution and prepare an attack? Have you ever noticed how much time […]
I work with so many creatives, and frequently the biggest block to building anything in this world, is the idea […]
I have of late been diving more deeply into studying the Tao Te Ching and the Heart Sutra. The wisdom […]
Hello lovely reader, I have fallen into a haphazard matter of writing these Letters to you. Without the self imposed […]
I love this story, for it demonstrates how quickly we can get caught up in concepts, and delusional about where […]
As a follow on from the last Letter, I thought it would be helpful to return to our intentions behind […]
We cannot control our lives. Read it again. It took me way too long to grasp this and I still […]
Spend one day, but make it the entire day, in being acutely aware of how many preferences you lug around, […]
One of the very common pitfalls of self development and spirituality is spiritual bypass. Spiritual bypass is where spiritual practice […]
Nearly all our automated responses to situations were formed before we turned 7 years of age. So tiny! When we […]
I am often teaching students, don’t sweat your actual seated meditation, do it, and see the results in your daily […]
I don’t know about you, but I have been experiencing huge waves of grief, sadness and anger. It might be […]
Our bodies are the host for our consciousness, and when we are fatigued, physically have overdone it, or unwell, consciousness […]
This week marks a year since we went into lockdown in the UK. Many countries were ahead of this, or […]
If you wait for the perfect moment to create, you’ll be waiting a lifetime. Our job is to get our body […]
One of the often unnerving things that come with wisdom, is seeing parts of ourselves, that once recognised, cannot be […]
When we prepare a recipe, there’s much that goes into it before the moment of eating. The creative process, the […]
Let’s talk about perspective. What does it really mean and how do we get it? Everyone says think ‘big picture’, […]
If you had all the money in the world, how would you spend your time?If you had no one to […]
If you have been a student of mine for awhile, or reader of these Letters, you will have at some […]
This is such a beautiful way to describe the limitations of the human mind. Often we get so caught up […]
I know, yet six weeks into this year, there is much weariness. A fatigue, that became like a heavy coat […]
There are some days when we find this impossibly hard. The idea that everything can speak to us of passion […]
Whatever the question, Love is always a good answer. So simple, right? Nonetheless, I find it sometimes hard to remember, […]
“Yet”, a powerful word, brimming with potential and possibilities, the perfect finisher to many sentences, the opener of doors, the […]
It’s so important to remember this. The other day flying to Sydney, I had an old friend visit with force, anxiety. It […]
Before technology and modern times, people used to be far more attuned to nature, to the rhythms of the universe, […]
I want you to think of how many books you have read this year. How many online articles? How many […]
Humour is one of my core values, it gives me energy, inspiration, connection. It has the ability to reset me, […]
If you can imagine an architecture that your mind has constructed, like a matrix or 3D rendering, and we mentally […]
I think we all use the language ‘just do your best’ a lot when going through something challenging. Sometimes it’s […]
I wanted to take a moment today to invite you to be kind to yourself. A lot of the time […]
Have you ever sat and eaten a meal with someone who on that occasion was rushing through their food, barely […]
As we close off for the year, and I come to enter into a gorgeous little sabbatical that I will be […]
Often when we are in a crisis, we have no idea what to do. There’s not exactly a handbook on what […]
Can you hold your sorrow more loosely? Could it be easily blown away with the wind, the seasons? How do you ensure […]
The Buddha was once asked, “What have you gained from meditation?” He replied, “Nothing!” Then he continued, “However, let me tell you what I […]
Have you ever waited for just the right moment, just the right words, just the right look, just the right […]
Wisdom is knowledge put into action, refined over many seasons, carved out through many storms. Wisdom is acceptance of what […]
Being a human can be challenging stuff, we’re an intricate web of thoughts, bias, prejudice, conditioning and the expressing of […]
Sifu Shi Yan Ming is RZA from Wu Tang Clan’s teacher (sifu) in kung-fu, and I really like this simple […]
At any given point in time, we never really know what’s actually going on. We have the experience, the moment, […]
Today choose one single thing that can elevate you to your highest grade self. Is it… – drinking two litres […]
I have been doing a lot of Workplace Program work, and the fatigue and burn out is real right now. […]
Thanks to my friend Jen, I have discovered the wonderful writing of Edward Abbey, who I am diving into. I’m […]