By Dr. Ron Passfield
Open awareness is something that you can practice anywhere. It is basically being fully present through your senses. From my lounge room and deck I can see Moreton Bay with Stradbroke Island in the background. I used to wake up of a morning and note the sunrise across the bay on my way to making … Continue reading “Building Mindfulness through Open Awareness”
A mindful check-in is a way of becoming aware of your internal state at any point in your day. You can check-in to your breath, your body sensations or your feelings. You don’t have to adopt a particular posture or location – it is just a matter of tuning in to whatever is happening for … Continue reading “A Mindful Check-In: Opening to Awareness”
So often you look without seeing. It’s as if your eyes are turned inward rather than outward – you are consumed in thought, not absorbed in what is before you. Sometimes if you are open to experience, and present to what lies before you, it is possible to experience an awakening awareness of the beauty that surrounds you. M.L. Stedman … Continue reading “Opening Our Eyes – Growing Awareness”
Recently we lost a long-standing friend with the death of Kay Dickie on 3 August 2023. My wife and I have known Kay for forty years – from both a work and a personal perspective. Her career was interlaced with both our work lives during her many interludes in the world of work. More recently, … Continue reading “Our Friend Kay: A Life of Openness and Curiosity”
Christina Dohr presented on the topic of “Relational Resilience” during the recent Embodiment Festival. Christina is a qualified somatic educator and embodiment coach, who aims to help people through bodily awareness (of breath, sensations, posture and movement) to achieve self-awareness and authentic connection and relationships. She is a strong advocate of movement as a way … Continue reading “Relational Resilience through Bodily Awareness”
Natural awareness is often contrasted with meditation focused on numbers, the breath, sounds or particular sensations or feelings. Natural awareness is not goal-focused – it is more about being aware of awareness itself, noticing that you are noticing. So much of what we do in life is goal-focused – natural awareness provides a desirable shift … Continue reading “Natural Awareness through Nature”
Day four of the Radically Reframing Aging Summit challenged us to be open to the opportunities that aging presents. Each of the four presenters in their own lives and their own words demonstrated that they had reframed aging and viewed it positively as a period of possibility and creativity. They reinforced the view that aging … Continue reading “Aging: Being Open to Opportunities”
Frank Ostaseski in his presentations during the Healing Healthcare Summit focused on openness and curiosity. In the process, he revisited two of the key lessons of living and dying that he had previously written about – (1) welcome everything, push nothing away and (2) cultivate a don’t know mind. Openness – welcome everything Frank suggests … Continue reading “Cultivating Curiosity and Openness”
Diana Winston previously introduced the concept of the spectrum of awareness – moving from a narrow lens through a wide lens to a panoramic view. In a recent guided meditation podcast, Diana illustrated how to practice these different types of awareness through meditating with fish in an aquarium. She suggested that observing fish in an … Continue reading “Exploring the Spectrum of Awareness through Fish in an Aquarium”
Diana Winston introduced the use of singing bowls in meditation when she provided a guided meditation podcast with Master Tibetan musicians Michael and Jahna Perricone. Diana called her celebration with singing bowls Glimpses of Being and provided a way of developing “varying awareness” by moving from a narrow focus to a very wide focus of … Continue reading “Widening Awareness Through Meditation and Singing Bowls”
