The leaves have almost all fallen off the trees across from our house. The trees are knuckling down for the long dark months ahead, pulling much needed resources back into their centres and letting their leaves go in a spectacular blaze of colour. Every year, this brings me so much joy. This year, this season,…
Creating habits that stick
How do you go about creating habits? As we continue into autumn, I have been musing here about taking time for a reset as the seasons change. Resetting intentions, creating habits, taking time to review what we want these next months to look and feel like. What might have worked over the summer or last…
Time for a reset
This is a big week in our house. Not because of school restarting in Scotland (more on that in a mo). But simply because we are having our kitchen refitted, after 17 years in this house with a kitchen we have never loved. This has involved having the entire contents of the kitchen redistributed throughout…
A little summer breather
Once again we find ourselves at the end of June. As I look back over musings over the past few summers, I see a pattern. I continue to live dominated by the school term, and therefore for us in this household, the end of June coincides with the end of the school term. And also…
Practicing being present
It is an oft-quoted statistic that it takes 10,000 hours to master a new skill. This hypothesis was popularised by Malcolm Gladwell in his book ‘Outliers’, where he was referring to work by psychologist K Anders Ericsson. Gladwell’s argument is that with enough consistent practicing and effort, anyone can become an expert in a new…
At the end of Lent, what one habit to keep?
This week sees the end of Lent. Anticipation builds as we look towards the celebration of Easter this weekend. For some, that might mean the prospect of a long weekend, family celebrations, ending a fast, feasting on chocolate. For others, it is the acknowledgement of the life-and-history-altering events of the first Easter. Whatever your focus…
Too busy because we need to be needed?
How often this week have you told someone that you are busy, when asked how you are? And has your motivation for that at a deep, possibly subconscious level been your need to be needed? Ouch, that is a harsh way to start. We have been musing during this Lent season with the idea of…
Rocks in the jar: what are yours?
How often does your week seem to disappear down the sinkhole of time passed and you look down into that black hole and see your good intentions spinning rapidly round and round into that vortex and you wonder what on earth just happened? You look back and see multitude rabbit holes down which you trot…
Busy but not distracted?
Last week, I mooted the idea of giving up busyness for Lent. This idea comes originally from the I’m Not Busy website, as a response to the busyness epidemic from which our world is suffering. They propose spending between 10 and 30 minutes each day of Lent doing…. …absolutely nothing. I like the idea of…
There is a time for solitude, a time for stillness
There is a time for everything, a season for every activity under the heavens.” Wise words, and particularly relevant today in our oft time-starved lives. This of course is a choice, and comes back to how we use our time – what is most important to us, our values and priorities. And also to what…