I find myself sitting in my car on our driveway. It is overcast and there is steady stream of rain falling. The weather looks set in for the day, and likely tomorrow as well.

I feel at ease, comfortable, safe.

This weather takes me back to weather in Britain that I grew up with. At times it might be weather that the British poke fun at, or complain about. Or it might be weather that visitors tease the country for. But for me this weather would fit my introverted spirit, giving me permission to hunker down, to write, to read, to be productive at home alone and not feeling as though I need to go out and be sociable.

I feel comfortable and at ease.

I’m grateful for the climate that live in here in Hawai’i, and when it closes in I remember what I miss.

A short, inspiring video on the power of quiet leadership.

The power of quiet leadership - BBC Ideas

It was early April 2017. I was sitting in an Airbnb in Portland, OR. My wife and I had returned to the city that had been our home for eight years, to sort out a storage room of our belongings, to decide what was going with us back to Maui and what we were going to sell. I had decided to start a podcast to help people start and build a meditation practice. It was to be called Behind The Thoughts Podcast. I had been fortunate to have a community around me when I started meditating, a community that was a source of a lot of support as I built this new habit. I felt that this probably wasn’t true for everyone, and wanted to offer something to help those who wanted to learn about and start a meditation practice. Podcasting was new to me, but I just felt like doing this.

So here I was in the Airbnb, sitting in front of my laptop on take ”x” trying to get past the nerves and just record the first episode. Eventually, through frustration with myself that I might never get this done, I put down my first episode. It did not have to be perfect, indeed never would be as I did not have studio grade equipment for recording. My tools were, depending on where I was recording it, - my MacBook Air (the microphone on that) - my iPhone (the microphone on the accompanying headphones) - an application to capture the recording - a sound file of a meditation bell/gong - Apple GarageBand to string it all together - a service to host the podcast (Podbean at that time)

On my way

Once that first episode was out of the door and I got use to sticking the sound files together, I was off. Over the course of the six months I recorded forty episodes. They were recorded in all sorts of different locations, some outside, some inside. I was enjoying myself…and then it just stopped. There was no particular reason. I reached the fortieth episode and recorded no more…

…until now.

Thoughts of starting up again

In May 2019 Jean MacDonald ask me in an episode of Micro Monday if I was planning to launch a podcast on Micro.blog. At the time I was and my affirmative answer has stayed with me, though I could not find the push within me to get a podcast out of the door.

In the early months of the COVID pandemic I ran a series of meditation videos, still available on Vimeo, to give people some tools to deal with the isolation of the lockdown that was happening in many parts of the world. I enjoyed putting together this unplanned series and it made me think again of my podcast that I had stopped and was now archived on Google Drive.

New website

Micro.blog makes it very easy to host a podcast and so the idea came to me of taking the old episodes off of Google Drive, uploading them to Micro.blog and use that as the basis for continuing the Behind The Thoughts Podcast. So over the Christmas/New Year holidays of 2020 I purchased the domain name for the hosting website and uploaded those first forty episodes. With that done I re-registered the podcast with Apple podcasts.

Relaunch

With that done, on Saturday, January 9th, 2021 I recorded the forty first episode and published it. The Behind The Thoughts Podcast had officially been relaunched. The aim of the podcast is the same as before. To help people build and maintain a meditation practice. It is for anyone regardless of level or experience with meditation. The first episode includes a short guided meditation. Going forward I am expecting to offer more guided meditation sessions than in the initial forty episodes.

The details

Where?

• Behind The Thoughts Podcast website
• On Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your podcasts (if they draw from Apple’s podcast directory)

How often?

• My plan is for once a week. That will be the guiding frequency, but occasionally this might vary less and more often

Material covered?

• Building a meditation practice
• Dealing with obstacles to meditation
• Taking your meditation into everyday life.
• At times informed by things that I am dealing with in my life (on the good chance that they’ll be something in there for you)

And You? - If you have a question, concern or something that you would like me to cover, please get in touch

I hope that you can join me on the podcast and the meditation journey.

On January 1st, with a new month here, never mind a new year, I worked through my December todos, seeing what was undone and bringing those items forward to January.

This is not my Bullet Journal, rather it is a hybrid system that I have been cobbling together from a number of different systems. It has taken me a while to get here, but I am feeling more comfortable than I have done for a long while in managing my life and for that I am grateful.

The process of getting here has been a reminder to me of sticking with it. If the intention is there, I believe that a way forward will be found. The key for me has been perseverance.

Now also feels like a good time to review where I have got to.

A sketch of my system

I have borrowed from the following places and systems,

• Bullet Journalling
• Patrick Rhone’s Dash/Plus system
• James Clear’s work on building habits
• The community at Micro.blog

Probably the biggest move, and this started over a year ago, has been the move away from digital task management to good ol’ pen and paper, in the form of notebooks. I think as digital devices became more portable, I thought to manage my life with their help. But I had to be honest with myself, it wasn’t working. It was also pushing me into a corner of feeling as though I had to get things done, either because of how the apps were constructed or how I understood to use them.

With benefit of hindsight, this move to notebooks made total sense. I have been keeping journals, both written and digital, for a number of decades. The written journals have always been my most enjoyable in keeping - making the time to write and then having that visceral experience of putting my thoughts to paper through a pen, a favourite of course, traveling across the pages of the notebook.

Let me take a look at how the systems listed above have come together to create what I now use.

Micro.blog

Returning to the list above, I’ll start at the end. I have found the Micro.blog community very helpful as members share where they are at in managing tasks in their own lives. While I can’t point to one specific person or piece of advice, I have appreciated the thinking out loud which has nudged my own thinking along and given me new ideas where I was getting stuck. So “Thank you, all.”

Bullet Journal

The Bullet Journal method by Ryder Carroll was my first attempt at transitioning from digital to paper. At first I stayed away because the learning curve looked too steep to me. I forced myself back to have another look and ended up using Carroll’s system for many months. I enjoyed the ritual of sitting down and writing, being away from the screen, both big and small. With time though the Bullet Journal felt too involved for me, bringing an added layer of complexity to my todo management that I did not want. Whether that was how I was using the system, sticking to rigidly to how I thought it should be used, or it simply not being for me, I don’t know, but I moved away from Bullet Journaling.

Dash/Plus

The Dash/Plus System is a metadata markup system created by Patrick Rhone, whom I met on Micro.blog. Like the Bullet Journal, I started using it and then stopped. It is not as involved as Bullet Journaling, something that appealed to me, but it still did not work for me. With the benefit of hindsight, I think that I was probably trying to stick too rigidly to the system as Rhone presented it as opposed to making it my own (ironically, something that he encourages). I put it down and did not return until I picked up James Clear’s Clear Habit Journal.

James Clear on building habits

I started reading James Clear’s book Atomic Habits, and using his methods of using small habits to build larger habits. I was making progress there and so decided to buy his Clear Habit Journal to help track my progress. I never finished Atomic Habits, but in the Journal I adopted some of Clear’s ideas alongside creating a Dash/Plus / Bullet Journal hybrid method unintentionally (see below). This I feel is still under construction, but has been working for me since August 2020.

David’s Tracking Method (for want of a better name!)

Clear’s Clear habit Journal can be used in anyway that one likes, but has some features that made me think in a particular way.

• The bulk of the book is dotted pages which put me into a Bullet Journal / Dash/Plus mindset. Clear offers some suggestions for how to use the dotted pages, but they did not work for me.
• The front of the Journal contains an Index. With that and the dotted pages, I dropped into a daily list of todos, short journal entries and reflections, and occasionally some data points around what I needed to remember. I use some of the markup from Dash/Plus and created a couple of my own. Days just run on below each other, separated by a short, drawn line.
• At the end of each month, I start a new page bringing forward undone items from the previous month.
• The initial pages in the Journal offer space for a single line journal reflection each day. I currently use it to reflect on what I am grateful for.
• The back pages offer a way to track habits per day, each month. I use that to keep up with some habits that I wish to build.
• I also use the back dotted pages to keep notes on meetings I attend, projects I am working on, or fact sheets I need at hand.
• All of these have quick access from the Index at the front of the Journal.

In conclusion

This still feels like a work in progress, but truth be told I have pretty much dropped into a rhythm which I think will stick with. I use my iPhone and laptop’s Calendar and Reminders apps for some appointment checking - sometimes these will start in my journal and then be moved to the appropriate app - otherwise it is in my journal.

As I start to see the end of the current Clear Habit Journal in site - I’m not using a notebook year on year, just as I use it up - the next decision is what notebook will be next? Clear’s Journal has a lot already in place, lessening the need for setup, but there is also a lot that is superfluous to my needs. So I am looking elsewhere, and again the pen and paper crowd on Micro.blog have been helpful as they share their tools. I’m am looking forward to that hunt!

I started writing this earlier in the year while spending a weekend in Hana, on the far east coast of Maui. My wife and I, and a couple of COVID free trusted friends rented a house. I arrived feeling nauseous after navigating the twists and turns of the Hana Highway, and so stayed behind to rest while everyone else went for a walk.

I sit watching a bug crawling across the top of the wooden balcony railing. It looks like a cockroach. A youngster if so. The ever moving feelers are my give away for cockroach identification, though I claim no expertise in the field.

I was reading, looked up and saw the bug scuttling across the railing, and I thought - I am living in my world view. Sitting here in this rented house in a remote part of Hawai’i, listening to the ocean crashing against the rocks not a 100 yards away, and this little bug is in its own world view, whatever that looks like - does it even know that the ocean is so close? What is, does it have a concept of the ocean? I am thinking and judging that its world view is much simpler than mine.

And I then stop myself and think about everyone’s, everything’s world view. All probably contain some truth. Then there is how we process and use our worldview. And maybe the greatest challenge, how do we share our worldview and opinions on it alongside everyones’ and everything else’s?

I’m not necessarily going anywhere with this train of thought right now. Just putting out there what a cockroach crawling across a balcony brought to my mind.

In this little corner of Hawai’i the wet weather has been slow in coming. While the seasonal changes are not as noticeable as in the far northern hemisphere, there is a subtle, perceptible change in the atmosphere - the light, the sensed feeling of the days. Autumn arrived a few weeks ago … in part. The part that was missing was the wet weather, the rain.

Days have been hot, the sun piercing in its strength. We have been running the sprinkler system off and on to keep the lawn from turning brown, and watering the vegetable garden three times a day to keep life in our vegetables and salad. There have been hints on rain, a few minutes or an hour or so of wet weather, but never coming to much.

In the early hours of this morning I lay in bed listening to rain falling. It was still falling when we woke up a few hours later, and although a little brighter now, the clouds are lingering and drizzle is in the air.

I love this weather. Not only do I appreciate the break from the hot sun, but it also takes me back to wet weekends that I grew up with in England and Wales, and then subsequently when I lived in Portland - weekends when I would stay nestled at home. The mood of this weather fits with my introvert nature - no reason for going anywhere, for getting involved in the noise of life. Of staying comfortably at home, reading, writing, or perhaps watching a movie.

In my attempt to read more, I have put a book in the glove compartment of my car. I am not the fastest of readers, and find that I do not have a lot of time to read - perhaps a few pages before turning off the light at night. Other opportunities are grabbed here and there…and that was the motivation for the book in the glove compartment idea.

No, I do not intend to read and drive. However, perhaps after going into a store, I’ll stop for a moment and read a few pages? Or maybe I will tie in a lunch break instead of rushing home, pulling over in a park or beside the road to munch on a sandwich and read a few pages?

I just figured that maybe with a book nearby, when I am out and about, it might engender in me a new habit and find me taking time to read. I believe that the time is there, even if I convince myself otherwise at times, I just have to find those opportunities. I say to people who struggle finding time to meditate, that the time is there, you just have to be creative and look for time. Now I a throwing that back at myself and looking at reading. Yes, the time might not be what I ideally want, but it will be something.

Now I just have to remember that the book is in the car!

Sonder - n. the realization that each random passerby is living a life as vivid and complex as your own.

By John Koenig and his Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, “that aims to fill holes in the language—to give a name to emotions we all feel but don’t have a word for.”

The 2nd Highly Sensitive Men’s Seminar

Here is a promotional video of the 2nd High Sensitive Men’s seminar taking place over Zoom on December 5th. See my previous post for more details and where to purchase tickets.

Towards the end of the second week of December, the 2nd Highly Sensitive Men’s seminar will be held. I am not an organizer of this event, but plan to attend. The first such seminar, A Weekend for Highly Sensitive Men, was in person in California and held just before the pandemic. Due to COVID-19, this seminar will be online (see Details below).

Why am I attending?

First and foremost to be in the presence of men with the same or similar personality type to myself. I find that whenever I am around people who just accept, understand and get me, I can show up in a way that I might not be able to do if there are a mixture of personality types. I do not have to make excuses for myself. The ground of presence is one of acceptance and understanding for my being highly sensitive. Everyone can start from the same place and move on from there.

Secondly, to network, to build community, to hear and learn from other highly sensitive men. I would have liked to attend the original conference, but that was not possible at the time. I am grateful for this opportunity.

I hope to meet you there.

Details

This seminar will focus on the Highly Sensitive Man and career. The tentative moderators will be,

• Tracy Cooper, Ph.D., who has a very good website exploring the lives of Highly Sensitive People, and who’s latest book is Empowering the Sensitive Male Soul.
• John D. Hughes, writer, entrepreneur and leadership consultant, as well as being executive producer and appearing in Sensitive The Untold Story.
• Will Harper, Emmy Award winning filmmaker, director, and producer of Sensitive The Untold Story and Sensitive and in Love, and author of a forthcoming film on highly sensitive men.
• Tom Falkenstein, founder in 2015 of the European Centre for High Sensitivity, and author of The Highly Sensitive Man: Finding Strength in Sensitivity.

Logistics

• When: Saturday, December 5th, 2020
• Time: Noon to 5:00pm CST
• Where: Online on Zoom
• Cost: $150
• Tickets & Further Details: Eventbrite

Last weekend was one of unplugging and heading to the beautiful community of Hana on the eastarn edge of Maui. So isolated is the community, that at the height of the recent pandemic lockdown there was a road block established to prevent all but local residents from traveling out there, thus protecting their vulnerability. Along with my wife and a few friends, we spent the day at Hamoa Beach, enjoying its crystal clear waters. We left early in the day, some of our party cycling out there. With our early departure the road was empty, though truth be told nothing about the day was busy due the pandemic and no or few visitors being on the island.

By mid-afternoon we were beached out and ready to head home before sunset. A quick stop on the edge of town for an energizing coffee and cake and then into the twists and turns of the road to Hana.

The Road to Hana

The road to Hana is a justifiable attraction for visitors to the island. The lush vegetation overhanging the road, the waterfalls, and views across the ocean make for a very special experience. As well, with the twists and turns of the road, the drive requires concentration. After a day in fresh air I was tired, and along with the road dancing between shade and sunlight caused by the late afternoon sun, I found the never ending bends in the road exhausting. Arriving home, I had enjoyed the day and at the same time I was pleased that the drive home was over.

The Bird and the Window

With everyone on their ways to their respective homes, I unpacked the car, took a shower and sat down to rest. I could still feel the drive home in me.

Suddenly there was a bang on the window. Getting up I saw a small bird on the ground. It must have flown straight into the window and was twitching on the ground. I went outside to see if it had survived the collision. Reluctant to be picked up, but unable to fly in that moment, it flapped its way across the ground every time that I reached down to it. Eventually I picked up the bird and went to sit on the grass and cradle the little creature in my hands.

Initially the bird struggled and flapped some more, but eventually it calmed down and fell silent. Although its eyes were closed, I could see that it was still breathing. With the sun setting the day was cooling down. The wind was quietening and a special stillness was falling over the property that only comes with dusk. As the bird calmed, so did I. The drive home faded from memory. Just being present with the bird, the landscape, the air and myself became what was.

For a moment I became aware how we can be somewhere, but not there. Not present to what is immediate in that moment.

As I sat there quietly holding the bird, I became more present to my environment - the stillness of the air, the wispy seed heads of the vetiver grass, the colours of the sky as the sunset, the tiny feathers of the bird and their intricate patterns. There was no adding  to my being there. I was simply present.

Moving on

With time, I got up and gently placed the bird, still resting, in a large plant pot. That way it would be off the ground and out of site of any night time predators, and at the same time could still rest.

The next day it was not there. I like to think that it had recovered and flown away.

This is a strong image for me, an image from the past,

A remembrance - sitting in my bedroom window at Tandderwen. Late at night, silence, quiet, looking out over the world.

Tandderwen was the name of my house when I lived in South Wales. It is not unusual for houses in Britain to have names rather than numbers. Tandderwen is Welsh for Under the Oak. I don’t speak Welsh, but when the house was nearing completion and I was pondering what to name the new property, a friend lent me a book of Welsh words (along with their English meanings). Tandderwen jumped out at me as I thought of the big oak tree that stood by the small gate leading to the house. It was a beautiful old tree, and I valued its presence standing guard over the gate and land, rooted deeply in its age.

I lived in that house for ten years. I think about it from time to time, and though my life has moved on and changed, I do miss my old home and what it gave me.

I lived there by myself. Situated in the South Wales countryside, it was quiet and peaceful. The house was designed with extra thick walls, full of recycled newspaper as insulation. The triple glazed windows added to the stillness within the house, cutting out sound.

A couple of windows, including my bedroom window, protruded out from the side of the house. The bay that they created offered up a seat on which to sit and survey the surrounding countryside all the way to the distant Black Mountains.

On occasion I would sit in my bedroom window at night, all the lights in the house turned off, gazing out into the night. I felt as though I was looking out on the world. In the distance I could see the orange glow of city life. Nearer by lights of neighbours’ houses across the fields shone out from behind curtains. Car lights moved through the country roads. Aircraft flew overhead, lights blinking.

I felt removed from the world. A part of it, and yet distant at the same time. From that vantage point, both physically and metaphorically, I was able to reflect on what it was that I was a part of, the world in which I lived. I felt in someway as though I was looking out on the lives of others, looking out on the world. People going about their nightly routines, returning from work or an evening out. Joys and sorrows, struggles and successes all happening under the night sky. We were all in this together.

In that I felt a comfort. A comfort in being able to step back for a moment and reflect on the bigger picture. A reflection that I could take out into the next day.

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.

There are times when I find myself loosing focus on what I am doing and I start looking for distractions. Not unlikely it is because I am coming up against something that I don’t enjoy doing or find difficult. When I hit those situations, I am trying to train myself to get to paper & pen to gather my thoughts and find a way forward.

📚 I love coming across phrases in books that just jump out at me. One the books that I have on the go right now is Kitchen by Banana Yoshimoto. I loved the imagery that Yoshimoto conjured up in this passage,

Until only recently, the light that bathed the now - empty apartment had contained the smells of our life there.

Oh, the treasure of books.

It is Sunday morning. I am sitting at our small desk that looks out onto the front garden and from there, in the distance, to the expanse of the Pacific Ocean. I am home alone. Sunday morning music is playing. By that I mean music which reflects my mood on a Sunday morning and allows me to drop into a reflective space. I’m appreciating the quietness, the space, the time to step back and think, write and reflect. I’ll be heading outside soon to do some work, but for now this time is important and feeding me. It is allowing a host of disparate thoughts, books, writing to all sit present in my life. Nothing is vying for attention. Everything is allowed into the mix with the trust that out of this will come some insights, or at the very least a clearing away of the nagging attention that some things are bothering me for. It’s a valuable time that I do not take for granted. I wish at times that I had more space like this, but when it does materialize, I am grateful and make the most of it. Life in these moments feels expansive, nourishing and necessary. This too will go, but for now I will gratefully accept its presence. Thank you world.

Written as one paragraph as that is how it came out, a stream of consciousness that did not feel as though it needed to be edited.

As a compliment to the live meditation sessions that I am running through May on my YouTube page, I am sharing tips and advice on meditation practice.

I am calling these brief posts, May Meditation Nudges. Here are the topics and links from the forth week. Posts from the first week can be found here, the second week here, the third week here, and the forth week here.

• Day 29 Hear, reflect, meditate
• Day 30 Keeping it light
• Day 31 Boundaries

The May meditations are now finished, though the videos remain up as do those from the April meditation series that preceded these. So they can be viewed in your own time when you are ready. Just head over to my YouTube page to view them.

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.

As a compliment to the live meditation sessions that I am running through May on my YouTube page, I am sharing tips and advice on meditation practice.

I am calling these brief posts, May Meditation Nudges. Here are the topics and links from the forth week. Posts from the first week can be found here, the second week here, and the third week here.

• Day 22 Emotions
  
• Day 23 Fine tuning the focus
• Day 24 Loving kindness
• Day 25 Does this ring true for you?
• Day 26 Breaking my own suggestions
• Day 27 You are not alone
• Day 28 Vulnerability & meditation

The May meditations are now finished, though the videos remain up, as do those from the April meditation series to view in your own time. Just head over to my YouTube page to view them.

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.

As a compliment to the live meditation sessions that I am running through May on my YouTube page, I am sharing tips and advice on meditation practice.

I am calling these brief posts, May Meditation Nudges. Here are the topics and links from the second week. Posts from the first week can be found here, and the second week here.

• Day 15 Community
  
• Day 16 No judgement
  
• Day 17 Awareness and Mindfulness
  
• Day 18 Self-Confidence
  
• Day 19 Faith
  
• Day 20 Meditate from where you are
  
• Day 21 Missing your regular meditation
  

I hope that you can join me for the remaining two May meditations this coming Monday 25th and Thursday 28th. Meditations are streaming at 12:55pm Hawaii time on those days. Head to my YouTube page to see the thumbnail to click on to access the stream. If you cannot make it at that time, all videos are archived for viewing in your own time.

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.

As a compliment to the live meditation sessions that I am running through May on my YouTube page, I am sharing tips and advice on meditation practice.

I am calling these brief posts, May Meditation Nudges. Here are the topics and links from the second week. Posts from the first week can be found here.

• Day 8 Creating a place to sit
  
• Day 9 Beware of waiting for silence before you meditate
  
• Day 10 Meditate where you are
  
• Day 11 The Breath
  
• Day 12 Take a break
  
• Day 13 Boredom
  
• Day 14 Just show up
  

I hope that you can join me for the May meditations.

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.

Through May I am streaming twice weekly meditation sessions on YouTube. For those who cannot make the live stream, all of the videos are archived on my YouTube page. The schedule can be seen here. As a compliment to the live sessions, I am writing daily short pieces on tips and advice for meditation.

I am calling these brief posts, May Meditation Nudges. Here are the topics and links for the first week.

• Day 1 The Meditation Posture
• Day 2 Beware of looking for good and bad meditations
• Day 3 Meditation Timer
• Day 4 Frequency - how often and for how long?
• Day 5 Familiarization
• Day 6 Meditation is a marathon not a sprint
• Day 7 Motivation & Dedication

I hope that you can make the May meditations.

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.

To compliment the twice weekly meditation sessions that I will be running through May on YouTube, I am posting what I call a daily ‘Meditation Nudge’.

These short posts will offer a meditation instruction or practical meditation tip. I am posting them on my Micro.blog site. If you bookmark this page and refresh it each day, you can read the latest post. I hope to have them up mid to late morning (Hawaii time) each day. As of this post, I have just posted the third nudge.

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.

With the April meditation series now over. The question came up for me as to “what next?”

I set up the April series not only as a class for those who wanted to learn more about meditation, but also as a resource for people struggling with the stay-at-home order. Through meditating individuals can start to build tools for themselves to work with their minds, quite often the source of these struggles.

I enjoyed running the series, and it was well received.

May Stay-at-Home

Then I heard the announcement that here on Maui the stay-at-home order will carry on through Maui (with some staggered openings). Similarly such appeared to be the case across the country, indeed the world.

Meditation sessions

So along with some interest from those already sitting, I decided to run a May series of meditations. There will be less weekly sessions, but the continuity will be complimented by some regular (daily?) posts about meditation on my Micro.blog site. Maybe also a day of sitting?

More details can be found here. I hope that you are able to join me in meditation during May.

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.

I have long kept a journal. For me it started as a record of my travels during the late 1980’s. Since returning from those journeys my journal has become a place to share what has been on my mind, to explore my thoughts and work through them. It has been a place to just write with no goal.

The passage of time

Journaling as a daily activity has embed and flowed. From days of intense involved writing, to weeks of occasional notes, just wanting to get a thought out of my head while not having enough time to take it further.

I have gone through periods of having my journal sit beside me during my morning meditation. If something is really nagging at me, I pick up my pen and journal and write it out of my head.

Other times I have put time aside to write, just allowing the pen to go where it wants to go with no agenda as to what I say. I might start with the weather and end up with something that happened last week.

Yet again I might have my journal as something that I carry around with me and jot words into as I go through my day - words of inspiration, something that I am doing, or just something that I am trying to work out in my head.

Medium

The journaling medium has also varied over the years. For the most part it has been a pen and notebook. I love the process of allowing a pen to track across the page. My choice of notebook and pen have varied. I find it important to write with that which I am comfortable.

As the digital age developed I started having a part time computer based journal that lived on an app on my computer and iPhone. With this I had a place to catch things on the go. In time, with the realization that if the app goes so do my journal entries, I have started to transfer those entries to a digital text based format, something that can be opened in pretty much any writing application regardless of platform - computer or phone. And with that my main journaling medium now appears to be text files sitting in the Cloud.

Self-Isolation

With a digital journal that can be accessed on my computer and iPhone, I have found it a helpful as a place to go to during this period of self-isolation brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. Self-isolation puts me and my family in a situation that we have never found ourselves in before. The isolation part does not bother me. I am use to not venturing far. But being an introvert in a very extroverted family with our needs and wants sometimes clashing, having a place to go to put down my experiences and feelings has been a great help. The process allows me to go inside, to process, to explore, and normally by the time that I reach a finishing point I find I have created some space in my life. In some way I have relieved pressure that has been building up in me. I am ready to take on other things. The exercise of writing has allowed that to happen.

How?

Each day I simply open a new file, put the date at the top, enter the time of my first entry and write. Later in the day I will open the same file, enter the current time and add more content to that file. By the end of the day it becomes a log of my experiences and thoughts through the day.

I am grateful for it.

Time passes

I started this post on April 1st according to the timestamp on the file that is holding this post. I am unsure why there has been the delay in getting this out? I think in part it has been managing my way through these times of self-isolation with my family. Today I wrote on my micro.blog blog,

One of those days which never really feels as though it gets going, such that by the end of it there is a sense of frustration and a “cross my fingers” that I am not there tomorrow.

Life over the last almost four weeks, that is how long my family & I have be practicing self-isolation, has been an up and down ride. Some days have gone well, others have felt like trudging through mud - unproductive, lethargic, family members struggling.

Through it all I have been journaling. Some days more than others - the frustration that I speak of in the blog post above can play a part in that. However the day plays out, the writing helps to keep me going.

You?

What are you using to help you manage your way through these times?

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.

Starting tomorrow, Tuesday, April 7, I shall be offering a free virtual meditation session each day, probably through April. The intention is to give me and hopefully you a break during your day, a time to come back to yourself in a world of self-isolation.

Details on how to join me or watch later are in the invitation below. No experience is required, just a wish to stop, breathe, be with yourself and let the world carry on without you for a few minutes.

I hope that you will join me.

The Invitation

Dear Friends,

I am writing to let you know of a daily meditation session that I will be offering during this time of self-isolation. My plan right now is offer it until the end of April, but that is open to change. My aim is to show up each day, and at the same time I am aware that life might happen to make that impossible. I shall try and inform everyone if I know ahead of time that I cannot make it.

Why am I doing this?

• Friends asked me if I would offer some meditation instruction.
• I find that living this life of self-isolation with family, for me some days are good, some days are a struggle. The answer to this for me is to make some time where I can reset and come back to myself. This daily, midday meditation I hope will serve that purpose for me and for you.

Logistics

• The first session will be streamed live on Tuesday, April 7th at 1:00pm Hawaii time (4:00pm PST / 7:00pm EST / 12:00pm New Zealand / 12:00AM UK).
• I will look to be online 5 minutes before the top of the hour.
• No meditation experience is required to take part in these sessions.
• The whole session will last no more than 20 minutes, with meditation about 10 minutes (don’t worry if that sounds too long, I will have you covered).
• You can be at home, in your office, in your pajamas, in a suit. My only suggestion (if possible) is to find a quiet place to sit comfortably (and not be driving).
• As I will be using YouTube to stream the sessions (see tech details below), they will be recorded and can be watched later if you cannot make the live time.
• As I will be at home I hope and will ask for no interruptions, I cannot guarantee that as life happens around me.

Technical Details

I have decided to use YouTube to live stream the meditation sessions. This will be my first time using this platform to stream videos. I have spent time experimenting with it, but I do ask that you bear with me as I get use to YouTube’s intricacies. Here is what you need to know:

• Click on this link to be taken to my YouTube channel.
• You will see a thumbnail link to the next scheduled video (take a look now), click on that and the video will start at the designated time(ish) - providing I hit “Go” at the right time).
• Recordings of all past sessions will be available on my YouTube Channel.
• Comments and chat will be disabled for the videos, at least that is the plan so that we can concentrate on meditation. If you have any questions or comments (put anything out there as I want this to work for people), contact me if you have my contact details, otherwise there will be available via my YouTube channel (click on the About tab).

Have I missed anything? Is something unclear? Please get in touch.

Please pass this onto anyone else who you think might be interested.

Thank you for your interest in these meditation sessions. I looking forward to seeing you there.

Stay safe. Be well.

David.

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.

Laurie Helgoe is a psychologist and an author whose work I admire. Her book Introvert Power has long been a favourite of mine on the growing genre of books on the subject of Introversion. She recently posted a piece of advice on Twitter which I thought was very helpful for these times. Retweeting it is one way of passing it on. Sharing it here is another.

Looking back

Are you struggling with the self-isolation which appears to have been imposed on most of the world? Is it overwhelming you?

Stop for a moment. Imagine yourself in the future looking back to your time of self-isolation. What do you wish you had done or experienced?

Do that or experience it, NOW.

I feel that this is a good piece of advice for any time in my life, perhaps when I am feeling down, or stuck, or as though my hands are tied in some way.

What opportunity is available to me now? What would I like to experience now?

And it might be as small a thing as stepping outside, or opening the window to breathe some fresh air.

Source

The original tweet is here.

If you want to find out more, I’d love to hear from you. Just click here.