<![CDATA[Richard Gilpin Psychotherapy

<![CDATA[Richard Gilpin Psychotherapy - Blog]]>Wed, 04 Mar 2026 16:01:51 +0000Weebly<![CDATA[Bodyfulness]]>Fri, 15 Aug 2025 15:09:20 GMThttps://www.richardgilpin.co.uk/mindfulness-blog/bodyfulnessAn easy misunderstanding to fall into with mindfulness is to see it as purely (or mainly) psychological in nature. Its emphasis on embodied awareness offers a large clue that it’s as much an education in physicality as it is in mind and thought. In this regard, mindfulness-based approaches are an uneasy fit with mental health paradigms that prioritise what happens from the neck up.

Participants on mindfulness courses in clinical settings, for example, quickly discover that ‘practice’ involves spending lots of quality time in a universe of bodily sensations and energetic formations that are habitually overlooked or disregarded. Inspired by their eight or nine weeks of training, many go on to change their lives in ways reflected in what they do with their bodies, and how they treat them.

Walking the Walk

What we call ‘mindful living’, as loose as that term might be, is actually all about embodiment. It is the cultivation of an ongoing, uncomplicated sensitivity to what is happening here and now – perceptions, sensations, hedonic tones, impulses, cognitions, actions – all of which are arising in a world that is continually seeking a response.

There is, in fact, little about mindfulness that you could not learn, outwardly at least, from a dog or a cat. Animals are perceptive, receptive, attentive and modest. They are humble and naturally self-contained. Unconcerned with past and future, they dwell effortlessly in the immediacy of their experience, retaining a knowledge that humans easily forget, something the philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau put neatly: “Thus our earthly joys are almost without exception the creatures of a moment” (Reveries of The Solitary Walker, 1776 – 78).

Balancing Act

Fortunately, us humans are not entirely divorced from the natural wisdom of animals. Since the time of Hippocrates (460 – 370 BC), the so-called ‘father of modern medicine’, the psychological benefits of fresh air and exercise have been well understood. What we put into our bodies affect our minds and vice versa. Even just a few minutes a day of aerobic exercise changes how the body regulates stress hormones. On some level we all know that when we trade time being active outdoors for time barely mobile and peering into screens, we are taking risks with our emotional wellbeing.

Spending quality time in and with our physicality is also an act of kindness. Contact with nature and activities devoted to moving the body are vital to human welfare. Unlike animals, humans are prone to overlooking such a simple truth. For most of us, sustaining healthy behaviours requires wise attention and effort. These mental qualities of wise attention and effort entwine with the cultivation of embodied awareness to strengthen the foundations for a mindful life.

Heads, Shoulders, Knees and Toes

I have found the simple act of running around parks and fields to be an important education in body and mind. When I am running and alive to the presenting moment, I am as connected to what’s happening inside me as to what’s going on around me. My body moves as a seamless whole, an incredible system of interrelating parts in communication with each other and their environment.

At such times, I might become aware of how breathing regulates itself while maintaining its delicate correspondence with the viscera and skeleton. Sometimes I notice how muscles seem to harmonise with each other, and how the posture adjusts itself so finely to the forces of speed and momentum.

If I can fully relax into this and the thinking mind quietens, tensions I didn’t even know existed often spontaneously come into awareness and release themselves: joints stop clicking, muscles unclench, limbs free up, feet land softly and gracefully on the ground. In these moments, my animal nature come to the fore. It is bursting with life.

Knees and Toes

At other times, when the mind is preoccupied with its stories or resistant to the physical exertion, I experience a lingering sense of disconnection. The sense of self feels strong and fixed. Like those dissatisfying mental health paradigms, I become the one who is interested only in what is happening from the neck up. A hardness invariably creeps into my running experience. Everything starts to grate. Body parts feel out of sync with each other. The feet meet the ground with a thump. The smash of thoughts inside my skull can feel just as unyielding.

Through mindfulness and its associated qualities, I can pick up on this, hold it in mind – perhaps just long enough for a sensitive response to become possible again. If so, in comes a newfound receptivity to whatever is showing up. Self-absorption eases up. There is less struggle and grabbiness. If I invite or encourage attention into my lower legs, ankles, toes and soles of my feet – the further away from the skull the better! – often I will rediscover the simple joy of taking just one step. New relationships open up within the body and there is a brightness of contact with the grass, the air, light and shade. The world comes alive. The body swings back into rhythm and I am a humble, happy animal again.

Main blog

]]><![CDATA[Observing the Silence]]>Mon, 02 Jun 2025 12:00:00 GMThttps://www.richardgilpin.co.uk/mindfulness-blog/observing-the-silenceBecause mindfulness is a contemplative practice, it values simplicity and non-distraction. By extension, it holds silence in high regard. It is widely accepted that environments conducive to mindfulness practice are ones that keep the clamour and noise of everyday life at a distance. Classes, training courses and retreat centres tend to prioritise relative quietness. The rest of the time, however, just like everyone else, practitioners inhabit a busy world of human interactivity. This is where the practice gets ‘real’ and ‘interesting’ because we are obliged to engage and respond, to speak and to act. If our practice is in good shape, we will find ourselves reflecting on the causes and the effects of our speech and our actions.

Image courtesy of Michael Leunig

At a recent conference of healthcare professionals, which was themed around mindfulness ‘in troubled times’, I was impressed by how a congregation of over a hundred people in one room were able to navigate a packed programme of talks and workshops with poise and geniality. Most of what was spoken and shared throughout the day had a purposeful, kindly quality to it. During interludes, a natural respect for each other’s space seemed to flow. The harmonious vibe was noted by some of my colleagues. I recalled one of the more subtle and under regarded mindfulness practices: noticing the absence of something. Here, it was the absence of friction and antagonism. It had a pleasant feeling tone. It was easy to linger with. As I developed this practice further and the day unfolded, something else came into awareness, something troubling: what wasn’t being said.

Wellbeing Agenda

It can be tricky to notice absence. Minds in their default state get so hijacked by what is going on that it takes skill and effort to notice what’s not going on. This was true for me at the conference. Amidst all the announcements, speeches, discussions and PowerPoint presentations, it was hard to tune into anything else. Most of the time, my interest in what someone was saying occupied my whole attention.

At other times, I was able to sit back and take in the experience more widely and deeply. What came into awareness was often unremarkable, such as familiar ways of talking about mindfulness-based interventions in clinical care, a general enthusiasm from delegates for the latest scientific evidence, and a pervasive interest in recent innovations. But when a “wellbeing expert” gave a lengthy presentation about “surviving and thriving in challenging times”, something else stood out, conspicuous in its absence: the lack of any reference to social, economic or political conditions. Not a single mention! For her, mindfulness was exclusively about individual wellbeing and your capacity to “slow down and get in touch with yourself [and] focus on what you can control.” Even by the questionable standards of contemporary mindfulness, this total lack of context, not to mention the total lack of interest in context, was striking.

Inactive Service

Later, during a Q&A session, context did get a mention – briefly – but again in a troubling way. The panel of speakers on stage were asked for their thoughts on the relationship between mindfulness and social activism – a subject of deep and abiding relevance to many practitioners. After a moment’s hesitation, when nobody seemed quite sure what to say, one member of the panel, who is a leading figure in the mindfulness field, responded. He reminded us of the customary links that clinical applications make between mindfulness and human action. More impressively, he made a passing reference to a standout example of the ‘troubled times’ we live in: the appalling slaughter and forced starvation of the people of Gaza that amounts to ethnic cleansing and genocide. But just when it seemed like he might declare a clear, definite and proactive role for mindfulness in social activism, he paused and folded, concluding meekly with the suggestion that we might like to consider writing thank you letters to activists.

The implications of his response didn’t hit me straightaway. Gratitude, after all, is commonplace in the mindfulness world. Its practice is often combined with mindfulness on training courses. In this sense, his answer was befitting of an expert committed to existing frameworks of practice. It was also the kind of answer you might get from a Buddhist monastic, who is obliged by their ethical precepts to not participate directly in many kinds of social and political activity (western mindfulness has a tendency to echo its Buddhist roots in clumsy ways – this might have been the case here).

But here we were, a roomful of active citizens, not a monk or a nun in sight, sharing a day devoted to mindfulness in troubled times, and being told by a senior authority figure that the appropriate limits of our civic responsibility was to write appreciative emails. For him, the scope of mindfulness practice does not extend beyond personal, indirect action. Notice the implicit passivity in his message: don’t personally stand up for anything; don’t foster awareness of the social context of distress; don’t directly challenge or confront power structures that cause harm; do thank others for committing themselves in the service of peace, justice and compassion, but stop short of doing that yourself. And then what? Congratulate yourself for having “done your bit”?

Hush in the Room

Bear in mind the context of these remarks. They came after specific reference to the situation in Gaza and they were made to a large gathering of healthcare professionals. Some of the conference delegates are part of a large-scale, non-violent movement calling for a ceasefire in Gaza, an end to their country’s arm sales to Israel, and support for boycott, divestment and sanctions against that state as a way of forcing it to comply with international law.

Why? For important reasons hopefully you know already, but also because health workers, hospitals and the delivery of medical supplies have been repeated targets for the Israeli military. Countless health workers have been killed. Therefore, healthcare professionals worldwide stand in solidarity with their fellow workers. They also stand with all the people of Gaza who are being relentlessly persecuted in the most cruel and brutal of ways. They speak out for peace, justice and compassion. They participate in protests to raise awareness about the situation in Gaza. They engage in collective, direct action. It works. It matters. It is also a simple expression of the ethical dimension of mindfulness practice.

The conference speaker appeared oblivious to all of this. He didn’t seem to understand how he was promoting passivity and retreat in the name of mindfulness. He seemed unaware of the way in which he had brought up Gaza and simultaneously cast it aside. His unintentional disregard for the lived reality of the people there could be heard in everything he didn’t say. Did he know how his comments landed in the room? I doubt it. I’m not sure I know myself. Because nobody said anything, including me. We all chose silence.

Disturbing the Peace

Some experiences become more poignant with the passing of time. What was said and what went unsaid at the conference, especially in the handful of minutes described above, stayed with me long after. My own silence at the time did too. I think they point unsurely at some of the blind spots of modern mindfulness – ones that carry the potential for more confusion if not brought into awareness. Confusion is no bad thing. It can be a prompt for renewed curiosity and investigation that leads to understanding.

One of my favourite stories about silence – apocryphal and from the Gestalt Therapy tradition – concerns a sound engineer at a radio station who, for her private use, makes compilations of excerpts from archived interviews. The excerpts are not the words of interviewers and interviewees, but the soundless spaces between the words – the pauses before a person speaks and the breathing spaces after someone has spoken. The engineer has many of these compilations, all completely silent, and she enjoys listening to them in her leisure time. For her, each compilation is unique, rich and intriguing. Because there are many kinds of silence and she can hear them all.

If it listened deeply to itself, what might the world of mindfulness learn about its many silences? Perhaps, for starters, that they’re not all the same. That silence itself is not inherently virtuous. That some silences can be complicit with the worst of human deeds. That sometimes silences need to be broken. That way, the world of mindfulness might learn how to better discriminate between ennobling silences and ignorant ones, respectful silences and indulgent ones, engaging silences and avoidant ones. Mindfulness practitioners, as much as anyone else, need to recognise such distinctions in order to safeguard against slides into indifference.

If it woke up a bit more, what might the world of mindfulness learn about how to better navigate ‘troubled times’? Perhaps, for starters, that mindfulness and collective, direct action are complementary, not mutually exclusive, no matter what the ‘experts’ might say. That troubled times require stepping outside the boundaries of self-interest and personal wellbeing, and deploying our mindfulness skills in active service to others. That the mental quality named ‘mindfulness’ is ethically sensitive and recollective in nature, which means that to ‘be mindful’ also requires learning the lessons of history. In regards to Gaza, that means understanding, as the novelist-journalist Omar El Akkad reminds us, that “no society in human history has ever donated or applauded its way out of a genocide.” The same can be said for writing thank you letters.

Such are the ways that the world of mindfulness could spare itself the ignorance and shame of becoming a silent witness to the unfolding crime scenes of history, only to realise, much too late, all the things that should have been done. To be able to see through the filters of political deception and media manipulation to the deeper questions about our humanity is a type of insight practice. In the case of Gaza, this requires practitioners to not deflect away from what is happening there, like the speaker did at the conference, but to stay with that, to care about it, and to act. Otherwise, all we're left with is a terrible silence, not a mindful one. What happens for those who choose the latter is articulated by El Akkad:

“The gears will grind to a halt one day, and the silence that waits then, for those who commended this killing and for those who said nothing, will be of a far more burrowing kind… It will take the form of previous statements quietly deleted, previous opinions abandoned and replaced with shiny new ones about how, yes, it was such a terrible thing that happened. And finally, it will take the form of a quiet unheard reckoning in the winter of life between the one who said nothing, did nothing, and their own soul. And there will be no words exchanged then, only a knowing” (One Day, Everyone Will Have Always Been Against This, Omar El Akkad, 2025).

Main blog

]]><![CDATA[How Does It Feel?]]>Tue, 01 Apr 2025 14:34:48 GMThttps://www.richardgilpin.co.uk/mindfulness-blog/how-does-it-feelWhat is your ‘felt sense’ in this moment? Yes, this moment. If you are not sure, pause and allow awareness to open to your physical experience. Deliberately inhabit the ever-present inner landscape of bodily sensations. Let the prevailing mood or atmosphere of body and mind become known to you. What do you notice about the overall quality of feeling you are experiencing now? Pause reading and just feel.

What do you notice? Is the prevailing feeling tone of your subjective experience pleasant, unpleasant or neutral? Is it in flux? Whatever you notice, and no matter how rapidly it may be changing, feeling tone is always either pleasant or unpleasant or neutral.

Three Hedonic Tones

Cultivating awareness of the hedonic tone of one’s experience is a significant part of mindfulness practice. Particularly in meditation, we can become keenly aware of how qualities of pleasantness, unpleasantness and neither-pleasantness-nor-unpleasantness (i.e. neutrality) arise out of the process of contact with bodily sensations, sounds and thoughts.

Sometimes the tone of the experience is clear, such as when there is intense physical pain (unpleasant) or when we are lost in a dreamy mental fantasy or a state of bliss (pleasant). Many times we simply fail to recognise this aspect of our psycho-physical process. Feeling tones can be subtle, habitual and easy to miss. Noticing them is a practice in sensitivity.

Two Discoveries

Mindfulness of feeling tone facilitates two important discoveries. First, it allows us to catch what happens next, i.e. what occurs conditional upon the arising of a feeling. If the feeling is pleasant, the mind tends to cling to the experience. If it is unpleasant, the mind tends to resist or avoid the experience. If it is neutral, the mind might overlook the experience altogether, or get caught in boredom or numbness, which inevitably gives rise to a renewed cycle of craving and aversion.

Second, we come to see how feeling tones are constructed by the mind. They are not implicit in the object we are in contact with. Our minds get this mixed up. If I like Marmite and you don’t, it says nothing about Marmite, right? We may experience different feeling tones when eating Marmite but this is due to our minds. Feeling tones also vary depending upon circumstances. If you are feeling happy, people and things may look or sound more pleasant compared with, say, when you feel sad, angry or anxious.

One Contented Person

Mindfulness facilitates a greater capacity to be with an experience without adding anything to it. In becoming aware of the hedonic tone of the moment, we can engage with it just as it is. We can appreciate pleasantness. We can develop an accepting attitude to unpleasantness. We can acknowledge neutral feelings. Greater sensitivity and flexibility of response help us step outside the dissatisfying loop of attachment and aversion and allow spaciousness and ease to find a foothold.

One final thought: mindfulness meditation emphasises embodied awareness and much of our bodily experience is hedonically neutral (an obvious example being the breath, which neither excites nor repels the mind). In deliberately cultivating awareness of neutral feeling tones, the meditator can discover how these often have a quality of restfulness or easefulness, i.e. how neutrality shades into pleasantness. In this way, through the simple practice of meditation, one’s ‘bandwidth’ for pleasantness broadens and one develops a subtle taste for quiet contentment.

Main blog

]]><![CDATA[Mindfulness of Difficult Emotions]]>Wed, 12 Feb 2025 11:18:52 GMThttps://www.richardgilpin.co.uk/mindfulness-blog/mindfulness-of-difficult-emotionsWorking with difficult or painful emotional states is an understandably frequent topic of discussion on mindfulness training courses. Feelings will out – perhaps all the more so in meditation which is, after all, a purification of the heart.

Skilful mindfulness practice lifts the lid on the mind’s suppressive tendencies and allows emotional turbulences to express and expend their energy. The process can hurt but, in so doing, as the poet Rumi famously put it, the meditator is cleared out for some new delight. For this reason, painful emotions can and should be welcomed.

The first step is to recognise what is showing up. Feel and note what is arising. Finding a name for the emotion can help to clarify and appease the thinking mind – ‘sadness’, ‘fear’, ‘pain’ etc. Often emotions come in clusters or blended forms, with varying shades of affect. If one noting word does not come to mind, you can always use ‘feeling’.

Opening Up

Mental noting helps to anchor the attention in the moment, but the key is to feel the feeling. And to allow the feeling – to open up to it and allow it to be. This is the second step: acceptance. Acceptance is not passivity or resignation. Acceptance is a courageous and patient willingness to meet, bear and befriend. The befriending part is important. An attitude of a warm-hearted engagement with emotional pain is the essence of compassion, an close ally of mindfulness. It is compassion that allows us to incline into and soften the cold, hard, aching regions of the heart.

Implicit here is a significant distinction between recognising what is happening in the moment and mindfulness of what is happening in the moment. The latter is only fully present when there is also the awareness of the mental or attitudinal filters through which we are recognising the emotion. Mindfulness of sadness, therefore, is a clear acknowledgment of the feeling and the mental reactions to it (liking or not liking the sad feeling, wanting to get rid of it or to indulge it etc).

Acknowledging the relationship to the emotion enables a deeper knowing of the experience, particularly the interplay between mental and physical phenomena. You can even use the noting word itself to facilitate this awareness – if you are using a word such as ‘pain’ or ‘unpleasant’, see if you can also be aware of the felt-sense of the word itself. Alternatively, you can stay with a broad sense of how the emotion is affecting the body or ‘zero in’ on one particularly intense sensation.

Investigating

Emotions are energy forms. The suffering we experience in reaction to unwanted emotions comes about through identifying with them as ‘me’ or ‘mine’ and the underlying aversion to the feeling. Is it possible to know all aspects of the experience – the feeling, the relationship to it, the process of cause and effect – in order to unbind from the pain-creating struggle? This is the third step: investigating.

Through the cultivation of mindful awareness, we begin to see how emotions arise in association with thoughts, memories and fantasies, and urges to avoid, control and suppress. We discover that it is possible to let go of mental stories, melt our resistance to unpleasant states, and allow the energy of the emotion to flow, express itself and move however it wants. In so doing, we find a way of stepping off the mental battlefield and finding some peace.

Main blog

]]><![CDATA[Soft Power]]>Wed, 01 Jan 2025 17:34:56 GMThttps://www.richardgilpin.co.uk/mindfulness-blog/soft-powerGentle, patient and persistent effort empowers one’s mindfulness practice. On a micro level, this is no more and no less than the energy required to wake up to what is occurring in the here-and-now. On a macro level, it has four aspects: to sustain wholesome (aka positive) mental states that have already arisen; to arouse such states when they have not yet arisen; to abandon unwholesome (aka negative) states when they have arisen; and to guard against negative states so that they do not arise.

Image courtesy of Michael Leunig

These are traditionally known as the ’four great efforts’. They are not restricted to formal meditation practice. On the contrary, they are meant to be ongoing points for reflection, worthy of consideration at any time and in any circumstance. These efforts can be distilled down to four simple questions:

What is beneficial and worth maintaining?
What is beneficial and worth developing or strengthening?
What is not beneficial and needs changing?
What is not beneficial and needs avoiding?

Reflecting on these questions regularly, and honing your actions accordingly, is a means to clarity and composure in everyday life. If this is a new idea to you, below is a fitting exercise as we enter a new year.

New Year’s Resolutions

Take a few minutes to run through the past year in your mind. What do you recall? What stands out? Are there particular highlights or low points showing up? What do you have gratitude for, even in terms of the smallest of moments? What do you regret, even in terms of the tiniest dream unfulfilled? What experiences, activities or events seem to have been positive, useful or enjoyable? Which were more negative, unsettling or difficult? Which seem neutral?

Now take a pen and paper and write brief notes around the following 10 questions. A couple of tips: Don’t think too hard, let yourself scribble in a spontaneous and uncensored way. Secondly, don’t discount the seemingly minor and run-of-the-mill reflections that come to mind as these often contain the real gold dust:

What is worthy of celebration from the past year?
At what times did I live in alignment with what really matters to me?
What would be good for me to do more of?
What would be good for me to implement or develop?
When did my actions not align with what really matters to me?
Have I done what I set out to accomplish in the year just finished?
In terms of what I hoped to achieve, what got missed out?
What valuable lessons have I learned?
What would be good for me to release from or let go of?
What in my life is not serving me?

Your notes should contain within them some clues as to what would be good for you to maintain, to develop, to change and to avoid. Now you can set some clear intentions for the year ahead by posing yourself these four questions:

What aspects of my life are beneficial and worth maintaining?
What aspects of my life are beneficial and worth developing or strengthening?
What aspects of my life are not beneficial and need changing?
What aspects of my life are not beneficial and need avoiding?

Main blog

]]>