Photo by Nexus

Some of us lack a couple of gears; it’s either full power ahead or nothing. Do you suffer from that? I do. My All or Nothing mode was forged a long ago. I come from a family of high achievers and my mother’s way of responding to achievement was — well, see for yourself. Here is an interchange that happened when I was about 11 years old:

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I bounced home from school after Sports Day, “Mummy, Mummy - I got second place in the 100 metre sprints today!!”
My mother looked at me in concern, “Second place? Oh, what went wrong?”

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You get the picture? No wonder I’m an All or Nothing girl!

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I’ve tried hard not to pass it on to my son. But it must have leaked out somehow. I gave a wry smile when I heard Sebastian say recently, after I suggested taking up kite-surfing: “No. I’m not going to take up a new sport. I haven’t got time to devote to a new one. And I’m not interested in being mediocre at things.”
Oh dear. All or Nothing - here we come!

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I’ve been trying to modify my All or Nothing pattern recently. With mixed success. I’ll give you an example: I’m focussing on becoming fitter and more flexible in the next 8 weeks. For starters I’m trying an experiment to see what happens to my body if I go to a yoga class each day for 4 weeks. (That’s maybe in the ALL basket??) Today I also resumed some uphill running for cardio-vascular fitness. Instead of jogging right to the top of a hill nearby, I decided to just run to the first bend and then add a bend each day until I get to the top easily. (Maybe that’s a bit more modulated?).

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All or Nothing is a mode that creates perfectionists. It has a bad rap. Here is an example from a delightful blog by singer/writer Christine Kane

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All or Nothing thinking says, “You either do this perfectly, or you don’t even bother.” It’s one of the biggest blocks to making positive changes in your life. It’s one of the biggest blocks to making your life work at all.

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But is it really all bad?

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Let’s take a look at the Pro’s and Con’s of the All or Nothing mindset: Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by Rusvaplauke

Do you enjoy cooking? Making a meal for others can be a wonderful experience if we approach it in a mindful way and use it to nurture ourselves and others. Or it can turn into a grinding chore if we just throw fast-food meals onto the table. In the following I list some points that are important in order to make cooking a full and satisfying experience.

Cooking as a spiritual act

Cooks were always highly esteemed in Zen monasteries. In ancient China the cook was revered second only to the abbot. This is because cooking can be a spiritual experience. Dogen, the great 13th century Japanese Zen master said in his Instructions for the Zen Cook that the cook must manifest “big mind, joyful mind.”

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According to Dr. Csikszentmihalyi, the eminent psychologist who researched the phenomenon of high performance that he called ‘flow’, it is the possibility of a transcendent experience that pulls people to the kitchen.

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“I’m not surprised that cooking won’t go away,” he said. “I can lose myself making a Bolognese sauce, finely chopping the onions, the carrots, three kinds of meat, and the slow, slow simmering. There is a sense of order and control and something so wholesome and tactile about cooking. Besides, how many times does modern life offer the opportunity to create something with one’s hands?”

Following the cycle of nature

When planning your mean it’s good to follow the cycle of nature by using seasonal vegetables and fruit. Not only does this help your food budget, it also keep you in touch with the natural rhythm of the season. Comforting soups in winter and cool salads in summers help us accept and even celebrate the rhythm of the year which mirrors our own life seasons.

Creative solitude

The kitchen is a good place to enjoy creative solitude. As Dr. Csikszentmihalyi says, “Cooking is one of few activities that people feel better doing alone.”

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Talking of solitude, I once saw a great clip of a live broadcast where a chef called Mrs. Child was making a chicken dish. As she was transferring the cooked chicken to the serving dish, it slipped and landed - splash - on the floor. With utmost aplomb she bent down and retrieved the chicken. Then she looked into the camera and said calmly, “Remember, you are alone in the kitchen!” In honour of this clip I adhere to the “30 second rule”. This means that if something is retrieved within 30 seconds - it hasn’t really touched the floor Read the rest of this entry »

Photo by welsh boy

Dance is a poem. Each movement is a word - Mata Hari

I love dancing. When I was 3 years old I suddenly appeared in the lounge at 11 o’clock at night - stark naked and completely silent. My parents told me that they watched open-mouthed as I began to dance to a complete Beethoven symphony they were listening to. After 30 minutes of dancing, I went back to bed without speaking a single word - so my mother told me. Some years ago, when my mother was slipping into dementia, I told her that I was going to tango classes and was surprised to feel so at home.

She looked at me and said, “Oh, you silly mutt- how you could forget how much you love dancing?”

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These days, dance has come back into my life. David, my partner, is a tango teacher and I am his assistant and dance partner. Whenever there is music to dance to, David and I get up and dance -whether it’s the samba in steamy Rio de Janeiro, or the tango in Buenos Aires . I know that some people find it strange that a Zen master should also be passionate about dancing. As if Zen should be severe and otherworldly! In the West we imagine that sensuality and spirituality are at opposite ends of a spectrum.

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There is a close link between dancing and spirituality. I think that one dance in particular is closely aligned to Zen. That’s Argentine tango. To dance the tango you have to abide in mindfulness. The moment a tango dancer falls out of mindfulness into thinking, the connection to the dance and to one’s partner is broken. It’s like falling out of heaven with a thud! There is an interesting book by Chan Park, called Tango Zen. In it he traces the connection between tango and Zen. You can find his website and new blog here.

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When we dance we tap into deeper patterns of the universe and link into life’s vital energy. That is why dance is one of the ancient ways of connection with the sacred and dance forms part of ritual for many spiritual traditions.

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Here are seven ways dancing enhances spirit and body:

1. Dancing fosters intimacy with self and other

When we dance with someone, we open to another person. It’s as if this hard shell that we think of as ‘I’ becomes permeable. Not only does dancing help us connect with others, it also helps us re-connect with ourselves.

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Dancing gets us in touch with who we are. We can so easily to lose touch with aspects of ourselves. When you look back, were you maybe more daring, more outrageous, funny, more sensuous, or more playful in the past? You can recover those submerged parts by dancing. I’ve definitely recovered my innate playfulness and sensuality through dancing! Check out a short clip of a tango performance by David and myself on YouTube:

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2. Dancing promotes health

***Dancing encourages and improves the overall health and fitness of the body. Dancing

• Strengthens bones and muscles without hurting your joints;

• Tones your entire body;

• Improves your posture and balance;

• Increases your stamina and flexibility;

• Reduces stress and tension;

• Wards off illnesses like diabetes, high blood pressure, heart disease, osteoporosis, and depression. Read the rest of this entry »