Being kind to yourself- a story

 This month I have been receiving a daily email from Shamash Alidina (here ) and it has been a great point of focus during the working week to read the email and take a few moments.  

Moving forward this is something that I may do on the blog- a weekly update perhaps with a meditation. I will work on that idea...

In the meantime, I would like to share the story that Shamash sent out last week as it's been one that has resonated particularly well for me trying not to let the old impersonator syndrome come to the surface as a newbie at work.

Enjoy

***

Once upon a time there was a water bearer who carried two pots of water to his teacher each day.

Each day he would walk to the nearest stream, fill both pots with water, and walk back, one pot on each side of a pole he carried across his neck.

One pot was cracked, and so by the time the water bearer reached his teacher, it was only half full.

This continued for two years, with the water bearer only bringing one and a half pots of water.

The perfect pot was proud of its achievements.

The cracked pot was sad that it could only do half the job it was supposed to do.

One day, the cracked pot said to the water bearer, ‘I feel so upset and ashamed. I’m imperfect and I can’t hold a full pot of water. What use am I to anyone?’

The water bearer told the cracked pot to look on the ground as he carried it.

The cracked pot noticed the most beautiful wild flowers and plants on its side of the path.

The water bearer explained, ‘When I realised you were cracked, I decided to plant seeds on one side of the path, and every day, as you leak, you water that side of the path.

If you weren’t cracked, these gorgeous flowers wouldn’t be here for all to enjoy.’

Moral of the Story: Sometimes you may think you’re not perfect, or your mindfulness practise is not perfect, but how do you know?

This story goes to show that even a cracked pot can be seen as perfect just as it is.

In the same way, you’re perfect just the way you are, with all your imperfections – they’re what make you unique.

So, thank you for being a cracked pot!

***

What is mindfulness?

Read an interesting piece this morning Here

Interesting to read views around the monetisation of mindfulness. Also some examples of businesses using it in a non mindful way 

Currently, mindfulness is unregulated in the UK as it's not a medical service in the way that seeing a psychiatrist or a counsellor is, but it's still a service that can support vulnerable people and therefore a mindfulness teacher has a duty of care to ensure the safety and confidentiality of participants.

I'm hoping to develop my practice and ultimately take classes/sessions and would ideally provide at no cost.  Employers have to take care of their employees ( well I'm not sure they HAVE to, but the good ones do) and money is put aside for CPD in many organisations. Wouldn't it be great for mindfulness to be recognised as a great way to support people . Prevention better than cure and all that. 

Rather than pay lip service and offer a one hour mindfulness/yoga session every now and again or just as a one off so that it can go into the HR folder, why not investigate providing regular sessions for staff to support their wellbeing . Within the working day.

Being part of a group of around 80 mindfulness teachers nearing completion of the MTTC run by Christopher Titmuss and his daughter Nshorna with support from mindfulness teachers from the US, Germany and India is a real.ptivilige and I'm excited to see where we all take our mindfulness practice moving forward. 

What is mindfulness? Something worth exploring.

"Mindfulness isn't difficult, we just need to remember to do it."

- Sharon Salzberg

Mindfulness? Isn't that just a bit trendy and 'pop-sciencey'?

 If you had asked me what my opinions and thoughts were around mindfulness a few years ago I would have come up with a list something along the lines of:

trendy

a bit like yoga without the moving

colouring

emptying the mind

not for me

another passing fad

You get the idea. To be perfectly honest it wasn't something that I had given a huge amount of thought to. It wasn't something that came up in my family or social circles, it wasn't something that was considered to be especially relevant at work. In a nutshell it wasn't something that I thought would be for me.

My work situation changed and I started to consider alternative career paths. After various conversations, I started an introduction to counselling course.  At the same time it was suggested at work that we would devote a big chunk of our allocated CPD time to a mindfulness course. To give a little context to this - the pandemic and subsequent lockdowns had just come to an end (the lockdowns anyway had ended) and awareness of mental health , wellbeing across the world was pretty much at the forefront of everyone's thoughts.

I was feeling fairly uninspired by the idea of having to spend a day followed by a series of after work sessions on mindfulness; I found it hard at this point to see beyond the irony of mindfulness and being at work. However, it was certainly something that sounded more interesting than some of the 57,000 slide presentations that one has to sit through sometimes ( sorry, I am prone to exaggeration at times but you get the idea)

The dates were set. Compassionate mindfulness. Here goes...

My next post will continue the journey. I am not going to get all evangelical about things, that's not my style (not even sure that I have a style!) but it's a journey that I am so happy to have started and three years down the line feel that it's one to keep on exploring and learning from.