I woke up today feeling very grateful. Grateful for having been blessed with privilege and opportunity. Grateful for having a supportive family and friends. Grateful for professional friendships based on trust and warmth that have created opportunities for me to contribute in academia, politics and professional communications practice. Grateful for life in a peaceful, tolerant …
Category Archives: Mindfulness
Finally rained
It has been a very dry summer in Ancaster, Ontario, where I live. This morning I was awakened by loud claps of thunder and the sound of rain pattering on the windows and roof. I realised that it has been a long time since I heard this sound. It even felt a little strange to …
The quantified self makes us more human
I have been thinking a lot about the concept of the quantified self. Since Ash Wednesday 2016, I started a fast that meant that I went pescetarian. While I thought that I would miss beef, chicken, pork and duck, the reality has been that I do not. It helps that my favourite foods have always …
On the simple life: find your peaceful thing.
Every new year, I hear many of the people I know express that they want to “return to a simpler life” or eliminate clutter. I often have this noble ambition myself. This year, I asked myself what this really means. I came up with a couple of ideas. Eliminating clutter doesn’t mean stripping back all …
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Mindful of small pleasures: drinks
I sometimes take a moment to think about the things that make me happy or comfortable. I was having a conversation with a friend recently who asked me to blog about stuff that I brings me comfort. I thought that I might write about a few. As you may remember, I wrote a series of …
Define your motivations to defeat fear and bring happiness
Many of spend much of our time dashing about, feeling busy. We cycle through feelings of relief for having “caught up” and then are plunged back into the anxiety of feeling “behind.” The question to ask is the following: why are we in this negative cycle driven by fear? Fear is a terrible motivator. It …
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Replacing fear with mindfulness
In our interactive era, you spend a lot of time with yourself and the internet. You ask yourself a lot of questions. I think it is important to listen to the questions that you are asking yourself and be mindful of why you are asking them. If you find yourself asking whether you spend enough time …