The Blog

I’ve started playing pickleball regularly over the past year, as it’s a fairly accessible and fun physical activity. If you haven’t heard of pickleball by now, you soon will, as the tennis/badminton combo is the fastest growing sport in North America.

While pickleball can be played by all ages, it tends to draw in many from the older, retired crowd, especially ex-tennis players seeking a sport a bit kinder on the joints. Not that pickleball is much gentler, as I discovered, as it can be pretty fast paced and requires quick reaction times. Fortunately, as the ball is plastic, getting hit with it is not so severe, but the need to literally keep your eye on the ball is an excellent opportunity for me to remain present in the moment.

I also enjoy the social interaction, but what surprised me most – other than the speed of the sport – is how fractious situations can get between players. I suppose individuals bring their personalities to the game, as they would anywhere, but I’ve been amazed, at one recreation centre in particular, at the regular squabbling over whose turn it is to play, as well as bickering over points and scores. Mercifully, this is not always the case and many times, operations run smoothly.

For me, the most enjoyable scenario on the court are players who engage verbally during the game and are positive and encouraging about shots.  While some are, others are more resolutely silent or not particularly friendly, which is a shame. But the ones I have the most trouble with are the really competitive people who only play to win.

Obviously, a certain level of competition is healthy, but for me, as an intermediate player still working on my shots, those who whack the ball so hard and fast there’s no chance of me returning it, go too far and spoil the game. I’m more impressed with strategically placed shots than smashed ones – which often backfire anyway – and I struggle with people who show very little consideration for those they’re playing against.

The most admirable individuals for me are advanced players that adapt their game to the level of those they’re playing with, giving learners a chance and the space to improve. There’s a real graciousness in such sportsmanship, which doesn’t mean you have to surrender your win – but at least when you do win, you’re bringing everyone along with you. This kind of respect and generosity in the midst of a fast-paced game is commendable and shows that you can apply this kind of humanity and sensitivity to any aspect of your life – both on and off the court.

I’m so fortunate to be back in England for the summer in my peaceful, idyllic Cotswold haven. One morning, I cycled to the next town and decided on the way back to divert through the side streets. Naturally, I got terribly lost, but in the process, I stumbled on a park with some truly amazing wooden sculptures. When I got back to my town, I passed by the bridge over the little river and saw, to my delight, an egret, followed by the rare flash of an iridescent kingfisher. I was speechless and my heart was full.

I’ve often spoken about how being open to experiences can lead you to magical encounters like this one, and for me, I continually crave these opportunities to feed and uplift my soul. Most mornings, I go for a walk around the neighbourhood, taking in the bridge over the river, always hoping to see something special. Sometimes I do and often I don’t.

One morning, I looked for an egret over the bridge and didn’t see one, though I strongly felt his presence. I walked along the little river path and was excited when I spotted something white – though it turned out to be discarded paper. A couple of seconds later, boom – the egret flew up from where he had been hidden in the bank.  I was rewarded for my yearning, perseverance and for tuning into my environment.

I’m always seeking out wildlife encounters, not just because I love animals, but also for how they immediately bring me into the presence of the eternal, transporting me from my ordinary world into a realm of wonder beyond my immediate understanding.  I think in some way, we all hunger for a connection with something greater and everlasting, which we try to maintain through our relationships, work, creativity, faith and our interactions in the community or wider world.

Amidst our struggles with change and impermanence, we are constantly searching throughout our lives for some kind of consistency or certainty beyond our ephemeral existence. We try to ground ourselves by forming a bridge between our ever-evolving world and the eternal. Sometimes this connection is stronger than at other times, and when we achieve it, there is a true feeling of communion and well-being. It is our looking that makes us human and our finding that makes us divine.

When going through a stressful and traumatic time, it can be admittedly difficult to feel any sense of joy amidst all of the pain and suffering.

Most recently, my elderly mother, already besieged with dementia, was rushed to Emergency with sepsis and a stroke and spent four weeks in hospital, steadily declining and approaching death. My days became subsumed with phone calls, visits and medical consultations, and it was impossible for me not to get worn down physically, mentally and emotionally. 

The situation was compounded by disagreements with hospital and family members over the best policy for my mother’s care, and without my having an adequate support system in place here, I was constantly aching, raging and crying, my nerves were shot and I struggled to keep myself together.  Unsurprisingly, I developed a bad skin infection and needed IV antibiotics and am still slowly recovering.

The importance of self-care at such times is always emphasized, but is so much easier said than done. However, I made sure to make time for myself every day to pursue joyful and fulfilling activities, and what became the biggest lesson for me throughout this period was the utmost necessity of finding joy in the midst of sorrow.

It seems counterintuitive and even wrong somehow to want to be immersed in joy at such a painful time, but I discovered that it was absolutely essential for my own wellbeing. Without joy, the stress would have devoured me from within.

For me, my main source of joy was, as always, in nature, cycling through the woods by the river and interacting with wildlife. Their immediacy and ebullience drew me from the constant spectre of death and reestablished my connection with all that is elemental and eternal.

Joy is what makes life worth living – of helping us carry on and have things to look forward to and celebrate. It reminded me that there is still life out there and wonders to be discovered and enjoyed. Seeking joy gave me the strength I needed to face my challenges with renewed perspective a greater patience and compassion for other people, as well as myself.

While my mother recovered enough to return home, she is still nearing the end and the road ahead remains uncertain. But what has remained steadfast for me is my determination to seek and find joy whenever possible, to reconnect to the realization that I have my own life to live and its precious gift remains vital for me to embrace.

There is no doubt that digital platforms have transformed our methods of communication, giving us ever more scope and opportunities to reach out to one another in instant and impactful ways. Nowadays, even while in transit, with a few taps on our phone, we can join international meetings, sign up for events, order goods to be delivered immediately and even vote on important issues. Much of the time we are interfacing with automated sites, but in many of our other interactions, we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that we are engaging with real live people at the other end and our actions have genuine consequences for them.

I think too often our ability to ‘click and unclick’ according to our whims has inured us from the impact of our actions, and just because we have the ability to disengage so effortlessly, does not absolve us of our responsibility to the real life sentient individuals at the other end. We’ve all had horrible experiences of being berated, dismissed or even ghosted through texting or social media platforms. For me, most recently, I had a tourist from one of my guided walks give me a one-star review because I had to cancel a tour due to my mother being in hospital – just because she could, without any accountability for her behaviour.

For every interaction, regardless of the medium used, we have a moral obligation to treat one another with respect and dignity, and to consider one’s actions as fully as you would if the individual – with all of their feelings and fragilities – were standing right in front of you. Just because it’s easy to dismiss people online does not make it right.

The value of communicating in person has now become even greater than ever because when you’re face-to face, it’s more difficult to be indifferent and unaccountable, as you are actively engaging and resonating with a humanity that you know and feel to be in yourself.

 For all of its undeniable benefits, technological innovations in communication are also progressively chipping away at our genuine, if flawed experiences of being human and eroding our capacity to be kind and empathic with one another. We should not abuse our privilege of being able to reach out to one another in so many multifaceted ways by devaluing those we are connecting with and shunning our responsibilities to act respectfully and compassionately with the real-life people at the other end of the virtual world.

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Amidst the vibrant renewal of Spring, very sadly, this month, two of my dear friends experienced the rapid decline and death of their long-term partners. Watching someone we love suffer at the end of their lives is one of the most heart-wrenching experiences we can ever have, made somehow all the more cruel occurring at this time of the year. My own father died in the midst of Spring many years ago, and I know the incongruity of wanting to rejoice in the return of new life while desperately watching it drain from the person you love.

Losing someone we care about is inevitably an aspect of all of our lives, and while we’re aware of this reality on some level, still, the experience so often hits us unexpectedly and we’re never fully prepared for how to deal with the suffering when it lands on our doorstep.

Watching the demise of a loved one, even with the most vigilant of care, is like being forced to fight a rapidly losing battle. It can erode any feeling of control we have or topple how we make sense of the world, suddenly throwing us onto another course we don’t know how to navigate. Sometimes we find our way through the fog by busying ourselves with all the multitude of actions accompanying a death, so it takes time for our grief and sadness to catch up to our struggle to calibrate a new reality.

As we suffer the loss of someone close to us, we are also suffering the loss of a significant part of ourselves. Every day, every year, as we get older, we are slowly losing parts of ourselves, our youth, our vitality and our access to a never-ending future full of possibilities. Our time on this planet becomes more finite as we age, but still, even knowing this, even feeling this inevitability in a myriad of ways, doesn’t fully prepare us for when a loss is absolute. Losing someone wakes us up to the realization of our own delicacy, fragility and transient time we have to be alive.

It reminds us – so starkly – that nothing is permanent, and that many things or people are gone so much sooner than we expect, wish or hope. It is such a powerful message to value each and every moment, and to be fully present and cherish the experiences with those we care about and not to take them for granted, knowing they will not last and will soon slip into memory.

Loss is always sad, frustrating, heart-breaking and disorienting. It is never easy and never the same for any two people. If we did not love and did not feel attachment, meaning and belonging, we simply would not be human. The well of our grief is a testament to the depth of our love and the preciousness of the relationships we’ve been blessed to be a part of during our short time here on Earth.

I was on the bus the other day when an elderly woman got on and was struggling to find her fare. She eventually presented a transfer, which the driver dismissed as being two days old, and instead of motoring on, waited at a green traffic light for the woman to produce her fare. The woman said she didn’t want to hold up the bus and got off.  

While now stopped at a red light, another passenger came forward and chided the driver, claiming she could have just let the senior on for free. The driver’s replied that she hadn’t told the woman to get off the bus. The passenger then called out to the woman, who was still standing on the pavement scrambling for her fare and she came back on the bus – for free -and we helped to get her settled in a seat. She was immensely relived and grateful.

What struck me so dramatically about this incident was the bus driver’s complete indifference to the woman’s plight. While we all have rules and regulations to follow in our jobs, there should be a common sense provision allowing leniency in extenuating circumstances, particularly to help those in need. Echoing Gandhi’s proclamation, that ‘the greatness of a nation can be judged by how it treats its weakest member,’ it is an aspiration that we should all strive for as a society, as well as in our own daily lives.

Though I often see incidents of people helping out, I would say that overall in my lifetime, I’ve witnessed a real erosion in people’s efforts to care for one another. It’s interesting that during the pandemic, public addresses were made urging people to look in on their neighbours and elderly, as if this is something that would not have occurred to us naturally.

I do feel that we all have the desire within us to care for our fellow human beings and that these days, it often gets expressed more readily in the virtual realm, through social media campaigns and Go Fund Me sites. But it seems to me that we’ve lost the natural instinct to care for one another in our everyday interactions. Caring is like a muscle that needs to be exercised, and when we switch off to anything but our own immediate circumstances and are not present to those around us, indifference or apathy often settles in.

Multiplied many times over, it is this apathy which is eroding our society and destroying our world because when we cease to care, we cease to act. Conversely, when we care about something, we’re invested in protecting it or improving its outcome. The biggest challenge in today’s world is in getting people to care, and to turn that focused measure of concern into productive, transformative action.

Caring means reaching out and doing what you know is right – at times extending beyond the stated rules. If we all made the effort to care a little bit more, our positive actions would continue to reverberate out and create a more peaceful, loving and beautiful world.

It would be difficult to sum up the two months I spent in a place as rich and eclectic as Costa Rica. And though I travelled around a fair extent of the country, immersing myself in nature and volunteer experiences, I feel, as I often do, that I learned more about myself than the country I was in, particularly what I’m capable of and what’s truly important to me. Of course, I could wax lyrical about Costa Rica’s beautiful scenery and stunning wildlife, but being there so long meant I also experienced much more in terms of ordinary everyday life and the challenges of navigating my way through it.

As a solo traveller, I needed to organize and arrange everything myself in advance, and once there, had to make several adjustments along the way. So the greatest necessity for me was to be adaptable – to be open to whatever I encountered, however much it differed from what I was expecting. Despite all I had read, Costa Rica was more complex – and expensive – than I was prepared for.

Many of my plans went awry and various travel mishaps ensued, and even with the greatest vigilance, several items broke or got lost on the journey. The other major challenge was in adapting to a new culture – and language, and I often had to confront outlooks and values that were quite different to my own. And while I mercifully avoided any major illnesses, I struggled with the extreme tropical heat – sometimes inside as well as out, and water irregularities – such as frequent cold showers or no running water at all.

But it was the constantly having to decide, plan and experience things alone that was the most difficult and emotionally exhausting aspect. I’m proud of how I was able to navigate it solo, venturing well out of my comfort zone and having many incredible adventures. I even managed to make a few local friends along the way.

Volunteering in various places and staying with local people meant I was privileged to be able to look beneath the country’s prevalent tourism façade and to see the conditions in which Ticos live, giving me a deeper, multi-faceted view of the place, flaws and all. For me, so much of the value of travel is going beyond the shiny surface and learning what a place is truly like for those who call it home.

I’m always grateful for my ability to travel the way I do, and my experiences in Costa Rica helped me to strengthen my capacity to face and overcome challenges and to be brave and bold in attempting new and audacious ventures, all of which was very validating. But perhaps most crucially, seeing what I could and couldn’t live without shone a glittering light on the things that are the most important to me in my life. For me, the true wonder of travel is the way in which it necessitates us to be more mindful and introspective, while at the same time reminding us that it’s a big, varied world out there full of intrigue, interaction and possibilities.

During my recent travels, I spent some time volunteering at a spiritual community and retreat centre. I was less drawn towards the specific ritual practices on offer, but was instead very keen to connect with like-minded, spiritually intuitive people. Sadly, the reality turned out to be quite different. Apart from my growing discomfort with the emphasis on hallucinogenic-induced ceremonies, my greater issue was the disconnect I experienced between the expectation of being an active part of the dynamic community I had been invited to, and instead feeling increasingly unsupported, neglected or ignored.

For me, a lack of clarity, poor communication and disrespectful treatment are always upsetting, but it was even more unnerving occurring at a place identifying itself as a haven of higher vibrational energy. It became increasingly clear to me that while no malice was intended – quite the opposite in fact, as I believe their good intentions were genuine, the problem was that the community members were overstretched in running the retreat centre and didn’t have the ability or energy to address the pressing needs and issues of the volunteers.

The irony of being at a place that offered guided spiritual practices led by people unconcerned with the volunteers’ welfare was too hard for me to take and I left the place early. However, when an opportunity arose to voice our concerns, the community members seemed receptive to the issues and recommendations we expressed, and I truly hope that they will make some positive changes in future and view it as an opportunity for learning.

The experience also brought home to me what it means to be spiritual. For me, at the root of any spiritual practice is the ability to be present, and the way in which I began my own spiritual journey. Being present in my immediate environment is the basis upon which I can develop the clarity and understanding I need to respond to situations with intelligence and equanimity. With clarity and presence, you can then incorporate other practices, such as kindness and empathy. 

For me, it’s imperative that this kind of foundation is firmly in place before embarking on any ceremonies or rituals, or the lasting value of these experiences will be fairly limited. Of course, guided retreats and ritualistic ceremonies can have a place in supporting your spiritual journey and helping to direct you into other realms of perception, but fundamentally, the real work happens with what you do yourself.

 Spiritual awakening can’t be bought as a shiny package that will magically transform you. True spirituality comes from the work that you do within and emanate outwards. It’s a slower and less dramatic process than a ceremony or a retreat but the reward for the hard slog is its endurance and sustainability. It’s the certainty that you can be in a spiritual place at all times because you are drawing your resources from within and bringing them with you wherever you go in your everyday life and beyond.

It always feels odd starting a new year starting in the bleak of mid-winter, when all around feels cold, lifeless or dormant. In the midst of a deep freeze, it’s hard to feel it as a time of renewal or rejuvenation, or be energized to make and follow through on New Year’s resolutions. But one change we can enact today or any day, which carries a lasting impact, is to treat our fellow beings with more kindness and respect.

I was on the subway recently and nearby, a disheveled looking man in worn-out clothing was hunched over in his seat, reposing. Many moved away or kept their distance, but one man across the aisle reached over, tapped him on the shoulder and handed him a pair of work gloves, apologizing that they weren’t better gloves, but that they would at least help keep his hands warm. The recipient thanked him, put them on his hands and resumed his slumber.

 I smiled at the man for his kind and spontaneous act, which I found to be very moving. It also served as an important reminder that it is up to us to decide how we view and interact with one another, especially the vulnerable people we encounter in public spaces. We can choose to look away or instead, we can see in them as we might be one day ourselves, in a precarious situation in need of help.

I don’t have solutions for the issues faced by many of these people. But what I do have is an ability to alter my perspective and behaviour. I’ve taken to carrying around extra granola bars in my backpack and often when I encounter someone on the street or in the subway asking for money, I ask if they’d like something to eat and if they say yes, I hand them a bar. Sometimes I chat for a minute and other times, it’s just a brief exchange. But the look in their eyes always says the same thing – thank you for acknowledging me as a human being.

In the depths of winter, when many of us are at our lowest, as well as grappling with the darkness and cold, it’s worth remembering and acknowledging that we all struggle in different ways. Our shared problems and challenges are one of the main things that unite us. Let us at least begin the year by opening up our hearts more to show greater kindness, compassion and respect to one another, to see the humanity in others that we cherish in ourselves.

While on the bus this week, I watched as a little boy and his nanny got off and the boy turned around and said, ‘Thank you driver for driving us.’ Many of the passengers heard him and smiled, and the simple act of appreciation instantly lifted the mood of the bus.

For me, it was also a timely reminder during a season ratcheted up with commercialized bonhomie and good cheer for us to connect with everyday simple pleasures too. It’s hard to get away from the manufactured hype, as if the flick of the Christmas switch instantly channels us along a cascade of holiday preparations, bespoke gift buying and mirth, while for many, the ‘spirit of the season’ does not align with their current reality of struggles, anxiety and hardships.

It’s interesting that the chosen word for 2023 is ‘authentic’, which is a word we need more than ever at this time of year, to acknowledge what is authentic in our lives and in the world around us. It’s important to take time to detach from the pressures and relentless messaging of ‘getting the holiday right’ to pay attention to what is around us all the time, and to take pleasure from various things that are with us on a day-to-day basis. It could be a simple meal or petting a dog, seeing the moon glowing in the sky or a conversation with a neighbour or friend. These are gifts that are easy to acquire when we tune into our environment and can bring us both immediate and lasting satisfaction.

The real joy of this time of year, as in any other, are the blessings we have in our every day lives and ones we can pass on and share with others. This can also be an opportune time of year to reach out to those we love, those we are thinking about and those who are in need.

Enjoy the holiday decorations and lights, but if this season is about celebrating light, then let’s bring forth our own inner light too. Kindness is in short supply these days and taking time to be kind whenever we’re able and spreading joy are the greatest gifts we can pass along to one another, not just for the holiday season, but for always.