As we approach that time of the year when New Year Resolutions are talked about, I’d like to share an insight from one of my favourite books, Willpower, Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength, by Roy Baumeister and John Tierney. To summarise, while willpower is a quality we can – and arguably should – all develop more of, on a day...
Latest Blog Posts
Eight things I have learned from prostate cancer
In May 2018 I underwent keyhole surgery to remove my prostate gland. The surgery followed a diagnosis of early stage prostate cancer over a year before. Three identified tumours were small, and not growing rapidly – Gleason Score 6 for those of you in the know. But the location of one showed the potential to spread. Given my relatively young...
This festive season, don’t let the urgent become the enemy of the important
This is a time of year when stress levels peak. Yes, we have parties, holidays and festivities to look forward to. But there are all those other things we need to get done before year end. Project deadlines, work assignments, and around the home perhaps, all sorts of jobs to complete in readiness for Christmas and the New Year. All...
Meditation and being ‘in flow’
I had the very good fortune of hearing Professor Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi deliver a presentation at a Happiness & Its Causes conference on one of the concepts for which he is world-famous: flow. ‘Flow’ is the state of being we all experience – however briefly or infrequently – when we become completely immersed in whatever it is that we are doing. By...
Why my book is NOT called ‘Mindfulness is Better than Sex’
Book titles can be challenging for an author. In a noisy world where everyone is competing for people’s attention, how do you distill the essence of a 300 page book into a title and strapline of just a few words? And do so in a way that makes a reader want to pick the book up or click for more?...
Create more space in your life without changing what you do
One of the most stress-inducing ideas, when we’re crazy busy, is the one that we just don’t have time to relax. We’d love to push back for a while. In fact, we’re desperate for it. But we put the idea out of our mind because we’ve still got a pile of work to get through, and there just isn’t any...
Recommended Reading for Mindful Safari
Mindful Safari is all about being here and now, among some of the most extraordinary vistas in Africa. And spending time with iconic wildlife in their own habitat. Even though the emphasis of these special visits is non-conceptual – that is, simply being present – in recent years a number of excellent books have been published offering a conceptual understanding about...
Photos from Mindful Safari Victoria Falls 2018
Dear Readers, We’re just back from our most recent Mindful Safari season, and I wanted to share some hot-off-the-press photos from our fantastic time at Victoria Falls. We made so many wonderful memories during our time there, it’s hard to know where to begin! Perhaps with the way we started each day – a guided meditation. It’s very easy to...
What are mantras, and how do they work? A Tibetan Buddhist view.
Dear Blog Readers, Among the most widespread images of Tibetan Buddhism are those showing multi-coloured prayer flags catching the wind, or Tibetans whirling prayer wheels, or monks chanting in temples. Mantras are the focus of these and other activities in our practice. But what is a mantra, exactly? And why the emphasis on repeating mantras? Like most other subjects in...
The Fascinating Science behind Mindful Safari
When we set out on our first Mindful Safari it was with a sense of curiosity: what would a week of twice daily meditation sessions, combined with twice daily game drives, feel like? What changes might we sense by the end of it? Since then, the experience of dozens in the ever-extending Mindful Safari family has been that our time...
Are Short Stories Making a Come Back? Tell Me What You Think?
I have always loved short stories. As a teenager I remember devouring the work of Somerset Maugham, who was considered a master of the genre. I enjoyed the way that you were instantly immersed in a particular story or world. How the dynamics moved forward with a particular intensity. And how the best of the stories delivered a satisfying, unexpected...
The Easy Way to Meditate – Through Nature
One of the most predictable outcomes of any meditation program is that several months afterwards, most people who attended will not be meditating. This may seem a bleak assessment. And although it’s based on personal experience, it is by no means my experience alone. According to Joshua Smythe, a biobehavioral scientist at Pennsylvania State University, only 30 percent of people...
