Last week I wrote about "Using Williams & Penman's book ... as a self-help resource (3rd post) - first week's practice".  It's time now to move on to the second week's practice described in chapter six - "Keeping the body in mind".

Time to roll up our sleeves and start turning Williams & Penman's book's "meditation recipes" into genuinely nourishing meals.  I have already written a first blog post on why we have good reason to be optimistic about the benefits we can achieve with this kind of self-help venture.  The second post encouraged us to get ready for the mindfulness practice.  We are now at chapter five in the book - "Mindfulness week one: waking up to the autopilot".

In January, the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) published their new evidence-based clinical guideline on the care and treatment of adults with generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) or panic disorder (with or without agoraphobia).  This guideline updates and replaces their 2004 one (which was itself amended in 2007).  The full 56 page guideline is available as a PDF and in Word format.  It also comes as a 24 page "Quick reference guide" for health professionals, and as a 16 page "Treating generalised anxiety disorder and pan

“ Fear is the mind-killer ... I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path. Where the fear has gone there will be nothing. Only I will remain. ” - Bene Gesserit "Litany against Fear" from Dune by Frank Herbert

Yesterday we had the twelfth & final session of this "Life skills" evening class.  There was scheduled to have been a bit less than a three month gap since the last - eleventh - session.  However the heavy winter snow we'd experienced had resulted in this last session being postponed.

“ [This is] the doctrine that we cannot accept the command of an authority, however exalted, as the ultimate basis of ethics. For whenever we are faced with a command by an authority, it is our responsibility to judge whether this command is moral or immoral. The authority may have power to enforce its commands, and we may be powerless to resist. But unless we are physically prevented from choosing the responsibility remains ours. It is our decision whether to obey a command, whether to accept authority. ” - Immanuel Kant

“ Those who dream by night in the dusty recesses of their minds wake in the day to find it was vanity, but the dreamers of the day are dangerous men for they may act their dream with open eyes to make it possible. ” - T. E. Lawrence

“ What counts in making a happy marriage is not so much how compatible you are, but how you deal with incompatibility. ” - Leo Tolstoy

“

I slept and dreamt that life was joy. I awoke and saw that life was service. I acted and behold, service was joy.

” - Rabindranath Tagore