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Found on my Evernote server, I don’t remember reading it, but so striking
I often dream about falling. Such dreams are commonplace to the ambitious or those who climb mountains. Lately I dreamed I was clutching...

Alistair Appleton
Nov 20, 20121 min read
Post Retreat Preachiness
There’s a list of behaviours guaranteed to piss off your friends after you come back from a retreat. Preachiness is probably right at the...

Alistair Appleton
Oct 28, 20122 min read
Anxiety: a crazy mindful approach
Last weekend we held a new workshop at Spa Road on the subject of Anxiety. Running new courses is quite an anxiety-provoking task, so I...

Alistair Appleton
Oct 2, 20126 min read
Anna on the Summer Retreat at The Abbey
After weeks…and weeks…of rain, I had begun to question the wisdom of running a mindfulness weekend entitled “Sinking into Summer, Sinking...

Alistair Appleton
Aug 6, 20125 min read
Trappist fathers and complexity
A friend of mine sent a wonderful article on the silence in a Trappist monastery. Father A seems to have all the answers which makes me a...

Alistair Appleton
Jun 26, 20122 min read


The bittersaltsweetsour of life: mindfulness, dissociation and tastebuds
This is a reboot of a blog I wrote back in 2012 (which seems like another world) after a weekend retreat at the Abbey in Sutton...

Alistair Appleton
May 8, 20125 min read
Mindfulness vs. Dissociation: now it’s relational
I’m deep in the middle of a research project for my therapy training about the fascinating subject of dissociation and how it impacts our...

Alistair Appleton
Mar 17, 20124 min read
The Polish poet Wislawa Szymborska died aged 88
Her favourite phrase was “I don’t know”. She told the Nobel audience: “It’s small, but it flies on mighty wings. It expands our lives to...

Alistair Appleton
Feb 13, 20121 min read
Patternicity
I’ve been working on the course that I’m giving this week in London – It’s about “poisoned patterns of the mind” and it seems to have...

Alistair Appleton
Jan 26, 20124 min read
Thoughts are a Planet. The Body is the Sun. Occupy your Being. Join the revolution.
George Monbiot makes an interesting statement in this morning’s Guardian. He points out that there is a myth: that the people at the top...

Alistair Appleton
Nov 8, 20114 min read
Compassionate Spaces in the body, in the air, in the Other
The course upon Holy Island was truly wonderful this year. It was a great group. There was palpable energy flowing around the Peace Hall,...

Alistair Appleton
Oct 18, 20112 min read
Steve Job’s Standford Speech, 2005
Your time is limited, so don’t waste it living someone else’s life. Don’t be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other...

Alistair Appleton
Oct 6, 20111 min read
Getting mindfulness off the cushion and into … well, the bedroom, for example
I’m very excited about the workshops coming up this autumn – they’re all pushing mindfulness in different directions. There’s...

Alistair Appleton
Oct 4, 20112 min read
Transformational breathing, transforming, and transition
I (Alistair) went to an amazing workshop this weekend with Alan Dolan. Alan is a fellow workshop leader at the Special Yoga Centre. Or at...

Alistair Appleton
Sep 26, 20112 min read
Mindful musing on mindless violence
I’m still a bit dizzy from the events in London town these last few days. One thing jumped out of the disorientating static of...

Alistair Appleton
Aug 9, 20114 min read
Forcible Thereness
Back filming for Escape to the Country and enjoying the other headspace that being outside of London and away from psychotherapy books...

Alistair Appleton
Aug 2, 20112 min read
Eyes open or eyes closed?
Another interesting insight that floated clear and bright in Iceland was about the perennial question: eyes open or eyes closed during...

Alistair Appleton
Jun 14, 20113 min read
Clarifying mindfulness
Had a wonderful retreat in the cold, perpetual daylight of Iceland. The lovely Reykjavik sangha organized a fantastic 35-person retreat...

Alistair Appleton
Jun 11, 20113 min read
Fame: To grow as a tree grows. Presently.
I had the most wonderful afternoon on Friday talking to the young men and women of St. James schools – two independent, sibling schools,...

Alistair Appleton
Feb 5, 20114 min read
Energywork and Meditation
My therapy work has got me interested in the field of trauma and energy psychology. Working with trauma – highly painful,...

Alistair Appleton
Jan 28, 20113 min read
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