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LGBTQ+ MENTORING As you may know, I've been working as a qualified, UKCP-accredited psychotherapist for more than 13 years and see clients on Zoom for long- and short-term work. And as a gay, cis-male, LGBTQ+-affirming practitioner, I have had many LGBTQ+ clients. In longer-term, weekly therapy, we have worked together to tackle personal familial issues but also the wider impact of growing up LGBTQ+ in a homophobic world. I use integrative psychotherapy and energy psychology to work with this 'normative' trauma. (If you're interested in this psychotherapy work, then you can find out more here .) But sometimes that intense, long-term work is not what is needed. And so, from September 2026, I am offering one-to-one mentoring specifically tailored to my queer/LGBTQ+ community: compassionate conversations where gay men, lesbian women, bi folk, trans folk, queer folk and all everyone in between can discuss single issues in one or two sessions. In a friendly, 45-minute conversation, held in a warm and relational space, we might look at: the complexities of your unique LGBTQ+ experience relational difficulties arising from dyfunctional families, internal and external homophobia trauma related to historical physical, psychological or spiritual abuse talking frankly about your LGBTQ+ sex life (often avoided by straight therapists) finding ways to celebrate the gifts and strengths of your LGBTQ+ individuality issues of addiction and self-harm arising from damaged self-esteem claiming your right to privacy as well as to taking up space in the world. exploring the spiritual depths that LGBTQ+ experience often offers LGBTQ+ compassion conversations can bring a fresh set of eyes to any issue where you're stuck. Even a single session might bring solutions and plans that help you move forward. Less intense than therapy, but perhaps the kindly space you need to move things on. Sessions can be one-offs or on a monthly or sporadic rhythm when they are needed and we can agree time-slots to suit your calendar. A 45-minute session costs £45. You can arrange a session by filling in the form below. If you have any further questions, please message me on therapy@mind-springs.org. Don't struggle on your own when a compassionate conversation might offer LGBTQ+ affirming support and kindness. Please note that compassionate conversations are not a substitute for medical care. If you are in serious psychological anguish, then please contact your GP or medical doctor for treatment. I am not an accredited therapy supervisor, so please check before bringing client work. My mentoring work also adheres to the UKCP Counselling and Psychotherapy guidelines, which can be found here . All discussions remain strictly confidential in line with those guidelines. For deeper, prolonged work that involves the treatment of trauma, please read my psychotherapy page here . Request an LGBTQ+ Mentoring Session Please take a moment to fill out the form. First Name Last Name Email Phone number Give brief outline of what you would like to discuss Submit

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Alistair Appletons Mindsprings Videos VIDEOS Dive into this library of video teaching from Alistair. Guided meditations (usually around 30-40 minutes) Teaching on various topics: body-based meditation, compassion, internal family systems and much more Alistair's answers to students We've organised the 150+ videos into different channels and categories. You need to be a supporting member to access the golden ones! Good for Beginners Tips and Talks on How to Meditate Bringing the Body Online Untangling Thoughts & Thinking Soothing & Centring the Body-MInd Maitri: Loving Your Inner Parts Opening the Heart to Others All the Guided Meditations All the Teaching Community Favorites Beginners Good for Beginners Here are a dozen practices that give you a good taste of embodied meditation. Many of them done standing up: Starting with a lovely set of energy practices, bring energy into the standing body Then moving into the classic Mindsprings relaxation, Polyvagal Tuning . Then a brace of practice looking at tracking the energy around the somatic circuit And three practices working with awareness and stillness: 3 Objects , Mantra and the Practice of Fives Then there are two tasters of Beingfulness and Tonglen Finishing with a recap of the energy workout with my dog, Ben. Reproducir video Reproducir video 39:39 Windhorse Practice I During the Summer 2025 retreat on Holy Island, Alistair introduced a new, short meditation practice that is based on the Tibetan Windhorse practice. This was the first time he taught it to the Zoom community. #windhorse #guided Reproducir video Reproducir video 36:07 GM Windhorse III Reproducir video Reproducir video 36:03 Windhorse Standing and Sitting A 40' guided version of the Windhorse practice - both standing and sitting. A great everyday practice that uses 7x7 breaths. #windhorse #guided Reproducir video Reproducir video 32:06 Fighting Festive Frazzle The Annual Mindsprings session giving some tips and tricks from the world of therapy and meditation to navigate the ups and downs of Christmas #fightingfestivefrazzle #XmasFirstAid #holidaystress Reproducir video Reproducir video 22:09 Festive Do's and Don'ts A list of 10 Dos and Don'ts for getting through Xmas in one piece #FightingFestiveFrazzle Reproducir video Reproducir video 39:37 GM Kaleidoscope Returning to a classic Beingfulness practice, in this Monday session from Spring 2024, we enjoy sitting in the four fields like a child playing with a kaleidoscope. #kaleidoscope #beingfulness #guided Reproducir video Reproducir video 42:23 GM Expanding Through the Senses Reproducir video Reproducir video 39:38 Three Objects 2024 Starting 2024 with the classic meditation for sharpening our experience of awareness and how we have the power to move it at will. A wonderful practice for any occasion. #threeobjects #Beingfulness #Monday #awareness Tips and Talks on How to Meditate After and during many of the live Mindsprings sessions, Alistair talks about some of the misconceptions and common questions arising for meditators. These 13 short talks address a potpourri of subjects: Eyes shut or open during meditation? Not identifying with our thoughts The goal of the 'aerated' self Meditation on the cushion vs. meditation in the 'real' world Not falling into the pitfall of looking for calm Some practical unpacking of practices like kapalabati and the practice of fives How to Meditate Reproducir video Reproducir video Kapalabati unpacked Another nuts and bolts explanation of a practice we often do in Mindsprings sessions, Skull Brightening Breath (Kapalabati). This is potential energy clearing breath practice #pranayama #explanation #kapalabti #meditation #short Reproducir video Reproducir video Is meditation in the real world better than meditation at home? Is meditation another thing you do or is it part of your everyday life? From the car park of M25 Services at Cobham, whilst away filming for Escape to the Country, .From the carpark of M25 Services at Cobham, I answer Jane's question about the benefit of formal practice vs. everyday practice. #short #meditation #practice #dzogchen #shamata Reproducir video Reproducir video Images for suffusing awareness As we practice the rising-descending torus meditation, the question of how to describe the process of 'suffusion' in energy leads to discussion of various images #short #imagery #awareness #meditation #suffusion #Pali #Tripitika Reproducir video Reproducir video The purpose is not to be calm Jane speaks about John Kabat-Zinn's refutation of meditation as a 'calming' thing. And I agree... It's much more powerful than that. Reproducir video Reproducir video Intro to the Practice of Five The introduction to my shamata-vipassana meditation called 'The Practice of Five'. This involves an alternating practice of calm abiding and beingful awareness, measured out by the fingers of each hand #explanation #practiceoffive #shamata #vipassana #meditation #teaching Reproducir video Reproducir video Practice of Fives unpacked From the car in Pembrokeshire, I unpack the practice of fives, which combines shamata and vipassana in an alternating sequence. #teaching #shamata #vipassana #explanation #meditation #guide Reproducir video Reproducir video The aerated sense of self Following on from Valerie's description of her experience in the four fields practice, I talk about the 'aerated' sense of self which comes when we learn to see our self as constructed of discrete phenomena. #fourfields #beingfulness #noself #self #teaching Reproducir video Reproducir video The Three Stages of Shamata Following Dameon's question about the shamata / self-soothing practice (without mantra) I go through the three stages of the practice and outline some of the benefits. #teaching #meditation # shamata #soothing Bringing the Body Online Bringing the Body Online Mindsprings grounds a lot of the meditation we do in the body and this is a great selection of somatic practices: We start with two simple energy exercises which you can use before any practice session. Then there's little talk on the specific nature of somatic practice. Two practices introduce Alistair's Polyvagal Tuning which is a great somatic practice for bringing us into a positive body-mind state. Then there is a suite of practices introducing the Somatic Circuit - a great way to find your way back into the body. Next, are practices opening up this space: the Somatic Tent . Followed by a more advanced energy practice known as the Torus . Finally, there is the classic practice of Earth Breathing and some somatic practices opening the heart for Compassion work. Reproducir video Reproducir video 39:29 GM Energy Workout & Tune Ups Starting a new sequence of Tuesday teachings looking at energy psychology, Alistair explains the concepts of online/offline and guides us through Donna Eden's energy workout #energypsychology #tapping #online #tuneups #guided Reproducir video Reproducir video 42:07 GM Being with the Body Following the May Cliffhouse retreat with the subject of "Sitting with the Body", this Monday morning session took up the same theme. #4fields #7cycles #body #beingfulness Reproducir video Reproducir video 39:18 GM Earth Breathing & Ego Loop From our Tuesday evening session in late March 2024. Combining the classic earth breathing practice with an exploration of the source of our anxiety - the ego loop. #earthbreathing #egoloop #tuesday #meditation Reproducir video Reproducir video 34:56 GM Voo & The Jellyfish From our Tuesday session in April 2024. This was in 2 parts. The first using the VOO breath to calm the nervous system and then a lying-down practice exploring the vagus nerve. #vagus #nervoussystem #calming #guided #breathing Reproducir video Reproducir video 42:43 GM Shamata on Sounds From our 2024 season looking at Shamata - Vipashyna. This Shamata practice uses sound as the anchor. #shamata #sounds #guided Reproducir video Reproducir video 33:15 GM Polyvagal Tuning The classic stress busting exercise from Mindsprings. Lie down and let the ventral vagal tone take over. #PVT #Stress #guided Reproducir video Reproducir video 33:36 GM The Blind Body From our Monday session in mid June 2023, where we were exploring the body-from-within. #beingfulness #body #somatic #guided Reproducir video Reproducir video 43:12 GM 8 Cycles of the Body From our Monday session on 3rd July 2023, looking at the body field in our exploration of Beingfulness. This is a lying down practice exploring the 8 interlocking and inter-nested cycles of somatic phenomena. #beingfulness #somatic #cycles #guided Thoughts & Thinking Untangling Thoughts & Thinking After and during many of the live Mindsprings sessions, Alistair talks about some of the misconceptions and common questions arising for meditators. These 13 short talks address a potpourri of subjects: Eyes shut or open during meditation? Not identifying with our thoughts The goal of the 'aerated' self Meditation on the cushion vs. meditation in the 'real' world Not falling into the pitfall of looking for calm Some practical unpacking of practices like kapalabati and the practice of fives Soothing & Centring the Body-Mind Central to all meditation is the ability to calm and soothe the body-mind. Without this, all further therapeutic elaborations tend to disappear in a morass of fizzy distraction: The soothing practice of Earth Breathing Shamata or calming practice: the practice of Fives Working with mantra Frond breathing Tonglen and compassion for our own experience Soothing & Centring Maitri: Loving Your Inner Parts Before we can love others we have to be aware of and love the multiplicity of parts within our own psyche. The practice of maitri (of self-compassion) explores this with the help of Richard Schwartz' Internal Family Systems. Beginning with a short overview, we dive into the crucial experience of the 'backspace which gives us the somatic field of loving-kindness into which our parts can peep. we can explore the parts that Schwartz identifies as firefighters, managers and exiles in our practice and bring some kindness and clarity to them. These parts often manifest in specific somatic ways as explored in the teaching around cylinders Two more talks about the wider ramifications of this work in our lives. Maitri Opening the Heart to Others Ultimately all our practice comes back to how we relate to others. The cast-iron patterns of selfishness are hard to soften. But therapeutic meditation turns a lot to Buddhist practice here: Guided practices to feel the embodied 'backspace' essential for compassion practice Embodied versions of the Buddhist practice of tonglen Explorations of the awakened heart or bodhicitta Discussing the practical challenges of loving others Compassion All the Guided Practices The Mindsprings Video library contains more than 50 guided meditations ranging from 10 to 50 minutes. Please use the search function to pinpoint the practice you want or look through the categories to find inspiration. All GMs All the Teaching The Mindsprings Video library contains more than 100 recorded teachings. Some are short answers to questions Alistair gave during sessions. Some are longer teaching on meditation, therapy or Buddhism. Please use the search function to pinpoint the practice you want or look through the categories to find inspiration. All Teaching

Alistair Appletons Mindsprings Podcast PODCAST

Alistair Appletons Mindsprings In-person retreats and events IN PERSON Join me in stunning locations across Europe for weekends and longer retreats together. Mindsprings began on Holy Island and since then I have had the pleasure to teach in London, Dublin, Scarborough, Edinburgh, Cardiff, Iceland, Holland and Sweden. Please take a look to see what's coming up... 0 tickets left Oferta de membresía Holy Island Summer Retreat 2026 dom, 23 ago Holy Island Centre for Peace Leer más Details Oferta de membresía Dublin 2026 sáb, 12 sept Oscailt Integrative Health Centre Leer más BOOK Oferta de membresía Cabilla October Retreat jue, 15 oct CABILLA CORNWALL Leer más BOOK Oferta de membresía Rosemerryn November 2026 jue, 19 nov Rosemerrynwood Leer más BOOK Oferta de membresía London Weekend: Free Yourself from Guilt sáb, 12 dic Kagyu Samye Dzong London Tibetan Buddhis Leer más BOOK

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Page Title Thank you! I see that you've enquired about compassionate conversations with me. I know it's never easy to ask for help, so thanks for trusting me thus far. I will read over your message and get back to you within 48 hours with a suggestion of how to proceed, and some proposed dates. I look forward to speaking to you soon! Alistair