Heart and Mind Programme

I have been teaching mindful self compassion since 2017 but I have been leading courses and retreats on mindfulness and self compassion since 1989. I am based in Derbyshire, UK.

To be very honest, I have been through some tough sh*t/trauma in my life and I needed both mindfulness and tender sweet caring love for myself to come through it and also to keep going. They both gave me the threads/tools with which to weave my own parachutes for when the going gets tough and also to enable me to change how I am with myself so that various dynamics in my life change, internally and externally.

I find that my journey on this adventure of being so kind and caring to myself, is rich and holds many unexpected gifts. I trained in four different faith traditions (Catholic, Hindu, Sufi and Tibetan Buddhist) to the extent that I was a novice monastic in two. Yet it was mindful self compassion that really proved the game changer for me. I have discovered fierce self compassion and also protective self compassion, and so many other new parts of this MSC programme terrain, that I could fill a book with the experiences I have had so far in personal growth and depth. So as you can tell I am pretty passionate about this programme because I know from my own personal experience that it is beneficial.

I am also a soprano in a large choir, sail oceans in our boat, am married and have two adult children and three cats. I live in the countryside and during this peculiarly challenging year of 2020 have been gardening and growing vegetables and walking the hills behind me and attending the Circles of Practice of MSC daily worldwide.

I am a yoga teacher and also a trained goverment teacher and I have three degrees, one of which is from Stanford University in California.