Last month I talked about loss and grief and the process of grieving.  While grieving  is always an individual process and has no time limit, part of the journey involves the re-discovery of happiness.

I think the pursuit of happiness has become unrealistically popularized and largely misunderstood.  Happiness can never be one attainable state but a feeling that comes in ‘chunks’ which, when put together, may result in contentment, a far more powerful and productive state of being.  So how can we capture those chunks of happiness, even when all seems lost?

I was reminded recently of that wonderful quote by Woody Allen: 80% of success is showing up.

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And so we come to the beginning of another month … a New Year and already February has arrived!

What does February mean for you? For me, February means the birthday of my father (on Valentine’s Day in fact) and a gentle reminder of someone so dear; it means long, hot summers and time at the beach; and another birthday, that of a very special school friend with whom I spent many fun filled hours in our growing years. The gift of her fantastic enjoyment of life still fills me with joy in every email we exchange.

And February also represents the beginning of the school year. After so much holiday freedom seeing those ‘back to school’ banners in the stores can trigger very difficult emotions for some kids. Not perhaps so for the older ones, but very often for those facing Years 2, 3 and 4. Challenges abound because it’s in those years one can begin to feel the pressures surrounding acceptance or rejection – and consequently, the experience of loss, confusion and anxiety.

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I’m writing this on a peaceful Sunday afternoon with the warble of magpies providing a suitable musical accompaniment to my thoughts. It’s two weeks since we returned from exploring Western Australia – the big State! And it is big – and in its vastness we were introduced to a range of extraordinary and interesting entities that capture some of the history of our planet.

Perhaps the most remarkable of these was our viewing of the stromatolites at Hamelin Pool, Shark Bay. These ancient marine wonders are intriguing and unique rock formations – fossils that have developed over some 3.43 billion years and indicate to palaeontologists the earliest forms of life on Earth. Though they appear inanimate, hidden within is vital growth! Sometimes described as living rocks, stromatolites are formed from microbial communities (cyanobacteria) that reside therein and continue, extraordinarily, to build them. It is believed that these communities, through the process of photosynthesis, were responsible for originally increasing the level of oxygen in Earth’s atmosphere sufficiently to enable life as we know it to develop.

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We hear a lot about ‘resilience’ these days. I think the word is often interpreted as some extraordinary toughness that is needed if we’re to survive challenges that appear in life on a regular basis.

But resilience is essentially about flexibility and the ability to “bounce back”; about being equipped to react with an element of elasticity as opposed to inflexible, rigid and uncompromising attitudes.

As it happens, Ainslie Meares encapsulated the word resilience in one of his remarkable poems circa 1980 and long before it became the catch word of the 21st century:

Some run for shelter,
The tree holds firm
And sways with the storm,
The eagle is borne higher and higher (Thoughts, 1980)

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When the art of ‘stillness’ is truly captured, it’s really another form of beauty therapy!

I’m always interested in the progress of our clients as they walk the walk of Stillness Meditation and we review this formally at certain times during their course.  But far from the formal assessment of individual progress is the appearance on people’s faces as they gradually begin to live calmly.

Very often at first meeting, the new client’s strain visibly shows.  When anxious, tense, stressed or depressed, the facial features appear tight, twitchy, nervous or sad.  Hands are restless.  Nails may be bitten down.  Legs are crossed and uncrossed and the eyes, often close to tears, are wide with apprehension.  After so many years’ observing the effects of ‘stress’, it’s just not possible to miss these things. Read more