Showing posts with label avoidance. Show all posts
Showing posts with label avoidance. Show all posts

Monday, 12 May 2014

I need help!!

So mindfulness has proved a really useful adjunct to my daily life and indeed at times has really helped with the demands of work and life itself. Yet, its been a struggle at times to realise its benefits when I am not the most consistent of people. I have found breathing spaces absolutely invaluable and cues in my day like waiting for Tubes and green men (at traffic lights, not from space!) to show to allow me to cross the road have been really good to assist the "cracks" in the day to stop and pause.
I have decided now that its time to undergo a formal training course and I intend to start in a few weeks time a 8 week course here in sunny Bridgend.
I will be posting the process and am really keen to see how it will boost my practice and enable me to find the integration I need.
Due to a variety of factors I started my day today with a Breathing Space and it took me 30 minutes to find the peace to consistently note my breathing. I think that shows how I need to practice more and how everyday life and mental "chatter" can be so intrusive and toxic to what we need.
So a possible new direction and further being explored , so more to write soon.

Friday, 2 March 2012

My "London face"

I was introduced to a fascinating idea the other day from a colleague who was visiting London for the day. He had at one time worked in London and then had moved to the West Country. Whilst we waited for the meeting to commence he told me that he hadn't been in London very long that day and he had found himself re-adopting his "London face". I was intrigued by this and asked what such a face looked like. He told me it was essentially a blank stare and he proceeded to demonstrate it to me.
It was as he said blank. In some ways similar to the blank expressionless stare that some people with Parkinson's disease have. Devoid of expression and at the same time a bit threatening.
We discussed what the purpose of such a stare was. He considered it was to avoid contact, in particular to avoid interactions with people who are trying to sell or beg. I was familiar with the tricky issue of eye contact on the Tube and how that took some managing on a busy trip, but this really interested me. Was it a way of keeping to oneself, or a means of keeping people away.
A look that says "don't bother me".
As I was making my way to the Tube at Oxford Circus I noticed that all three Big Issue sellers I had passed didn't offer me their magazine.
I became worried, was I wearing my very own "London face"?