Temporary Suspension




Who am I at work?

The Japanese have a formal term for the “outside” mask others see: ‘tatemae,’ and the “inside” face that few people see, ‘honne.’ This is especially common in the workplace, and is not just particular to Japan.

I lived in Japan for a couple of years following university and I remember this terminology. As a gaijin (foreigner), I was on the outside looking in, certainly to start with. People put on their work clothes, their work voice and mostly didn’t want to stand out from the crowd. Work is a great example of wearing the outside mask. The more firmly fixed this is, the more our real self, the one that feels relaxed and at ease in mind and body, is hidden from others.

The idea of wearing a mask or several masks depending on context and situation, is almost always about people and relationships. I have worked at several companies and I am familiar with the work mask, either you let your true self, ‘honne,’ illuminate through in your work environment and interactions, or you keep that work face firmly in place.  It’s a matter of degree of course, we need to adapt ourselves to situations but sometimes we can take this too far. We can look and act professional, say what management want to hear, get promoted even, and yet for many of us, somewhere deep inside we are not really happy.

What gets in the way of showing more of your real self, the ‘honne’ in the workplace? Is it the work culture, your boss, your colleagues, your own judgements about yourself? Are you scared that you won’t be taken seriously if you let your guard down? If you are not being true to yourself and you are aware that you are hiding behind ‘tatemae’, then pause, take time to uncover what’s going on behind the mask. This is not always an easy exercise, often there is fear lurking in the background that is the underlying cause of our unease.

Befriending the self takes time and commitment but it will  allow us to develop more self-confidence about who we are, we can start to let ‘honne’ shine through in body and mind, our eyes and our smile, the mask begins begins to dissolve.

To be who you really are takes courage but it will make a big difference to your life if you can let yourself shine from within.

Time is like a bag with a big hole in it

Why are we so obsessed with what time it is?

Time has got to be one of the greatest causes of stress, because we always think we are running out of it. Ironically, when we are still our mind is either in the past or the future, but if you let it,- it will slowly settle into now, hence meditation as a great practice to allow some space around this stressful illusion that time is indeed running out. Underneath this is of course the fear that ultimately when it runs out that’s it, The End.

We are condemned by the constraints of time.  When Sartre said ‘man is condemned to be free,’ I see time as one of the shackles we bear in our ‘freedom’ as human beings. There’s never enough time, or we are running out of time, or we watch the clock until we finish work and then real time kicks in. Or the only time that time has meaning is when it is the weekend or we are on holiday.

Time is like a bag with a big hole in it. Where did the time go? I wish we had more time? I guess it’s because clock time never stands still so there is an illusion that time is always moving, there is no present moment, or there it is and then it is gone. Quick catch it if you can!

Meditation is one way to go beyond time and actually allow it to flow through the hole in the bag. Be part of that flow instead of trying to control it or pin it down.

Out of your head into your body

The conditioned modality we live in is in our heads. We live in our heads almost all of the time apart from when pain or tension in the body calls us to respond. When we do respond the response is often a head based reaction, a verbal reaction. We often treat our body as if it were separate from the head.

Every moment thoughts are vying for our attention. It is as if our head is hovering 30 cm in front of us as we proceed through the day: planning, thinking, creating narratives, projecting forward. The head leads, the body follows.

We live in a back and forth relationship with past based thinking and future based thinking, only occasionally do we feel and see the present as a tiny slit of light in a dark room. That light is integration, the head is back on the neck, integrated with the body and interconnected with our surroundings. We are in felt relationship with the self and the world around us.

Using the breath as an anchor, feeling the breath deep in the lowest part of the belly, we can cultivate befriending the self and bring the head back to the body. As we practice yoga and mindfulness our mind, heart, and belly come into balance and harmony.  There is a feeling of space and freedom within and in relationship to our environment and our interactions.








To be or Not to be, that is the question






Quack Quack

Monday hits us with the familiar sound of the alarm clock. We get swept up into the week and the usual pattern ensues, as we succumb to the expectations, norms and conventions of everydayness. Before the week has even started we long for the weekend again.
Are we being true to ourselves as we live like this? For much of the time we are on auto pilot, and this is often the case for those who work and even for those who don’t.

It is inevitable in many respects that we get swept along with the day to day, but we can lose sight of the now as we peddle fast to keep up with others or engage for the sake of engagement or obligation. We forget that we have it in our gift to stop even in the midst of to-do-ness.

This can happen as we glance up from washing the dishes and catch a rainbow, or stop to watch the ducks in the canal on our way to work, or we have a moment of anxiety brought on by any number of triggers. These moments can plunge us into despair but can also awaken us to our meaning in the world. The rainbow, the duck or the anxiety can jolt us into wakefulness.

Being authentic in our life is to create a balance between the everydayness we can get swept into and the pauses and sometimes stresses, which allow us to reclaim our lives and live more authentically.




Memories are part and parcel of the complex nature of being, some form deep emotional roots, others are so transient they evaporate. We cannot be who we are without our backlog of memory files, created moment by moment; they form and shape the narrative of our identity. Some files gets edited and re-edited as we retrieve them, talk about them,  and embellish them. The weight of those files, is either the baggage we carry on our backs, or,  the notepad that weighs very little.

Herinneringen is an interesting concept when we talk about mindfulness. Mindfulness is often interpreted as moment to moment awareness, but it is of course bound up with memory. The traditional Pali meaning of the word mindfulness (Sati), is seated somewhere in the realms of remembering, calling to mind. How we experience successions of now moments is based on the history of how we experience and interpret our life.

Think back on part of your summer, how much of what you remember and recollect truly reflects the experience? There is a tendency for the remembering self to focus on the negative aspects, even if they only constitute a small part of the overall experience.

The cultivation of mindfulness helps create memory files that are less judgemental, less prone to mental elaboration. We learn to experience  our day to day without getting caught up in the proliferating narrative and the meta narrative that ensues. This happens over time as we develop our mindfulness practice and get to know our selves better.

The only journey is the one within

You can travel from A to B like I have recently, moving from my home in England to a new home in Holland, but it is the journey within that is most important. And it is not always easy. The mind states we carry come with us on our travels.

The path of yoga and mindfulness helps open the door within, to explore who you really are and your meaning in this world. That journey is a continuum unfurling moment by moment and it is not always a straight or smooth path.

How we navigate that course in response to what happens day to day, determines the quality of that journey.  We can be thrown off kilter or we can be in balance, even if the road ahead is uncertain. There are times when we come to a split in the road,  we can sense the potential for change, but fear can get in the way of taking the road less travelled. If we feel grounded even in the face of uncertainty we can  elect to choose a different path and face the challenges ahead.

In order to cultivate groundedness and balance we need to be aware of our actions, our thoughts, our words. After all, what we do, think and say, is the measure of who we are day to day. Whilst the journey is not always bright or smooth we learn from the moments of darkness and the pitfalls. It is often the less well trodden path that enables this learning and growth.

Through self analysis and reflection, tuning in and soft listening to the body and the mind in various contexts and situations, we start to befriend the self and cultivate mental balance.

When we radiate equanimity it touches those around us. Our well being is fundamentally interconnected with the well being of others. So the journey within is reflected back to us and we know if we are on the right path because we feel the smile within, even if the path is difficult.

In time we cultivate more wholesome habits, more skilfull responses. The journey keeps unfolding and we continue, with purpose and a smile.

To quote Jon Kabat Zinn, “Wherever you go, there you are.”