It has been a long time since I have sent some news about Holistic Education and my work teaching mindfulness, yoga and using holistic approaches.  As a result there is a lot of news to share.

Doing a warm up with Richard Branson prior to the Hackney Half-Marathon

As something ends, something begins.  I have renewed my interest in running and on 30 April 2017, I ran the Hackney Half-Marathon with my daughter.  I also used this as an opportunity to fund raise for St Joseph’s Hospice who had been so kind and supportive to our family.

On 6 June 2017, an opportunity to teach mindfulness at work suddenly manifested.  There is a lot of evidence for the benefits of mindfulness in the workplace for mental health and wellbeing.  I welcomed this new beginning and so I began to teach a Mindfulness-based Stress Reduction course on Tuesdays for staff at Hackney Council.

Due to the additional course, I decided to let go of my Wednesday yoga class. I made a resolve and on Wednesday 12 July, I taught my last class, marking a pause in almost 19 years as a yoga teacher.  It was sad, but in the space that followed, I sensed light emerging in my heart, a gift to encourage me taking steps into the unknown.  Incidentally, I was recently reflecting on how I missed teaching yoga and tonight I am looking forward to covering my old yoga class as their current teacher is away.

My Buddhist study group – our last session

The next day, on 13 July,  after nearly 6 1/2 years, my Mitra Study course  was coming to an end  That evening, we completed the presentations of our very last Year 4 module.  After a chant for ‘transferring merits’ together, I realised just how much studying Buddhism on a regular basis had been a key part of my life.  At the moment, I am looking to co-teach a study group and am optimistic that something will arise in 2018.

On Saturday 15 July, I had my last acupuncture session until September – the series of treatments has really supported the grieving process and helped me cope with the intensity of change.  It has rekindled my interest in promoting Shiatsu in schools.

On Friday 21 July the school holidays began and a week later, I went on a 9 day “Women’s Intensive Retreat” at Vajrasana.  As a mindfulness teacher following the UK Network of Mindfulness Teachers Good Practice Guidelines, it is important to participant in retreats regularly to deepen one’s practice of mindfulness meditation.  This retreat included a week of silence (with opportunities for a 10 minute ‘meditation review’ every other day).  It was a deeply healing process and I would like to share more about it in another post one day.

That’s the first part of the update for now.  So much has also happened since July, including traveling to Japan in August and then, in September, being involved in a BBC 1 documentary with Susan Bogels and Esther de Bruin who run the MyMind for ADHD in Amsterdam – I had done the MyMind training with them in 2014.

Thank you for sharing this update with me by reading this post.

Warmly,

Bernadette