I received some bad news as a bolt out of the blue, and it hit hard.
It could be argued that I could have foreseen it coming, but I didn’t.
The calm, peaceful mind I’ve been cultivating was suddenly no more. I was angry.
I know anger is a negative emotion, and the teachings of Buddha tell me that it arises from self-cherishing delusions; having more regard for myself and my own needs than for those of others.
I do accept this, in principle. In practice, yesterday my anger arose and was a long time abating.
As I continue to learn how to train my mind – and my heart – anger is something that I need to and will address. I’m going for growth.
Today, on my walk with Lydia, I am still aware of anger. It feels like it is pervading my whole body.
I have concerns that Lydia will pick up on this, but she doesn’t seem to have done.
We are in a quiet spot with no immediate triggers. Lydia is calmer today than she has been on this same walk for some time.
She walks to heel with a loose lead most of the way, and I reinforce this with food rewards and praise.
It rains a little bit but neither of us minds. Then the sun comes out.
I’m going to visit friends this afternoon. It will be another good day. And this time I believe the good feeling will stay, at least for longer than it did yesterday.
The theme of yesterday’s Buddhist teaching was ‘Transforming Adversity’.
It was the first of the latest 4-week course, as an outreach from the Kadampa Madhyamaka Buddhist Centre, near Pocklington.
It only takes me 15 minutes to drive to the Meeting House.
A few years ago, when I was living in Leeds, I drove to Buddhist teachings and meditation meetings in Pickering, a distance of over 50 miles.
I went regularly, almost every week, for about two years, until the classes there stopped.
They helped me a lot those meetings, with the words spoken by the teachers, the benefits of meditation and the experience of a supportive group.
When I started going to the meetings that I go to now, I was in a very bad state mentally.
These meetings have helped me a lot too, to reach the point that I needed to reach, where I am now.
When I first started with my journey of mental health recovery, I was like a drowning person – thrashing about desperately trying to find something to hold on to, so that I didn’t sink. Well, I did find things to hold on to – lifelines – and I didn’t drown.
Now, I feel like I’m waving. I need to keep working at it, to make sure that I keep my head above water, but I’ve learnt a lot in different ways and I keep learning.
Today is a good day.
I take Lydia to a dog field.
Trev and I go out for breakfast.
I meet a friend for coffee.
In my book – literally, in my book – that counts as a good day. A very good day.
This morning, I wake with a sense of unease. I try saying affirmations but can’t settle, and decide to just rest into the feeling. It will pass.
Not so long ago, I felt an almost overwhelming sense of fear; almost but not quite. I drew on all the self-management methods I could muster, and it abated.
I let Lydia out into the back yard earlier.
We’re lucky to have a courtyard-cum-garden which is approximately square in shape, has a seating area, a paved area and some flower beds.
It is low maintenance and has become even lower maintenance since we got Lydia.
Lydia likes to dig.
I decided to not try to stop her digging which means we have big holes in the flower beds.
Even so, or maybe even because of this, we have some self-seeded flowers blossoming – purple foxgloves and yellow Icelandic poppies.
She’s been quiet so far this morning. When I checked on her earlier, she was lying down, looking up at the sky, following the pigeons in flight but not barking at them – not much anyway.
I’m encouraging Lydia to be “quiet”. In doing this I’m following some guidelines from an on-line training resource I bought, that follows the principles of service dog training.
Lydia is approximately 9 or 10 years old. She would have made an amazing service or working dog if she’d been trained from when she was a puppy. She’s responding positively to the training I’m doing with her now, although it’s a slow process. This is just as well, because I’m 69 heading towards 70, and slow suits me, especially as I’m learning too.
Trev heads out to yoga. He’s only just started going to yoga classes, tending to favour the gym, and a swim. It isn’t always easy to learn to do new things with your body and your brain as you get older, but that doesn’t mean it can’t be done.
When I do eventually get out of bed I do a few physio exercises for my knees, then head downstairs.
I talk to Lydia, to let her know that we’re not going out for “w-a-l-k-i-e-s” yet. I’m going to meditate first.
It’s the Buddhist group meeting tonight, but I feel I need to meditate now, so I do.
I don’t have a formal routine for meditating at home.
I sit down in my comfy chair with a cushion supporting my back and my feet on the floor.
I put my hands in the position on my lap as we are taught in the class, and partly close my eyes, letting just a little bit of light in.
Surprisingly – to me – I don’t find it too difficult to concentrate on my breath this morning. I don’t have too many distracting thoughts creeping in. I don’t time my meditation, just do it as long as I want to and can, and then feel ready to go out for our walk.
As is usual now, Lydia waits patiently while I put on her harness and leads. I reward her with a treat, get myself sorted with bag, phone and keys, and then we head for the door.
I ask Lydia to “sit” and “wait” while I open the door. This is all part of our process of learning not to rush, taking things step by step, being calm and not worrying about what may lie ahead.
I take her in the car to the walking place that we’re both most familiar with. We go to this spot at least three times a week, usually mid-week. It provides plenty of opportunity for stress-free walking and stress-free training with occasional but manageable encounters with other dogs.
This morning, we have one such encounter and I apply the techniques that I have been taught by the behaviourist that I recently consulted with.
The distance between us and the other dog and owner are less than they’ve been before, although we still have a couple of grassy banks and a drainage ditch between us.
Lydia does react but she also settles down quite quickly, and we continue on our way. It is progress. We still have a lot of work to do between us, but it is progress.
I’ve brought some pieces of cooked chicken with me today, and we do some “heel” reinforcement work, as well as some repeats of “watch”. We are building up muscle memory, hers and mine. I didn’t learn to respond positively to a lot of frightening and difficult to process situations when I was younger and neither did she. We are on this journey together.
It’s an early start for Lydia and me; she’s going to the groomers.
When I first started taking her for grooming, around 3 years ago, she was very anxious and so was I.
I hadn’t taken a dog for grooming before; I hadn’t had a dog before.
Lydia must have had some previous grooming interventions as her claws were not overly long and her coat, though clearly in need of a good brushing, was not in bad condition.
Even so, there must have been a few pounds of fur on the floor by the end of that session.
We’ve been back every 4 to 6 weeks since, and we have both become steadily less anxious at each visit.
This is at least in part because of the kind, confident, patient approach taken by Vicky, the groomer. Between us we talk to Lydia, reassure her, and I feed her treats while Vicky does the clipping and brushing.
Today, Lydia jumps up on to the grooming table without even having to be asked. Her front and back claws are quickly clipped and Vicky then goes on to brushing and thinning her coat, which is wavy, thick and soft; a beautiful sandy colour with grey undertones.
I’ve put a muzzle on Lydia, just to be on the safe side. She can feed and drink through it, and it helps to make sure that, between us, we can get the job done.
We opted for minimal intervention, right at the start. Lydia doesn’t have a bath or a shower. After half an hour of clipping and brushing she’s had enough. We say our goodbyes to Vicky and head out for our morning walk, to a quiet spot nearby.
Lydia walks to heel with me most of the way, hardly pulling or tugging at all.
We arrive home. Lydi and I have our respective breakfasts. Trev’s already had his.
It’s Tuesday and I’ll visit my friend in the village later. For now, I rest, Lydia rests, Trev rests. He’s going to the gym later but we can all take it easy for a while. We’re retired.
I first heard about affirmations over 30 years ago, when I came across the Louise Hay book, ‘You Can Heal Your Life’. (Hay House, 1984)
Affirmations have helped me in my healing process, although I’ve had to do a lot of other things as well.
The affirmation that I connected with at that time was: “I am the love and beauty of life in all its manifestations.”
I didn’t feel like I was the love and beauty of life in any of its manifestations, but I kept saying it to myself, over and over again.
I’d had some persistent warts on my thumb for years and found no lotions or potions that did anything to get rid of them. They disappeared though, shortly after I started using this affirmation.
Coincidence? Maybe, but I don’t think so. The power of positive thinking is not to be underestimated, in my view. And my view does tend to be aligned with a lot of other views, including those embedded in Buddhist teachings.
During the Covid crisis, my affirmation of choice was, “I choose to be peaceful and calm; everything is unfolding as it should”. Some people laughed at me when I told them about this at the time, but it did help me to stay calm during Covid, even if I did go through some very ‘not so calm’ periods later.
Today, I am saying the Louise Hay affirmation, and also another that I came across online:
“My knee is healing and getting stronger, each passing day.”
I don’t have too much of a problem with my knees, at the moment, but they are a weak point for me, so I do exercises that a physio taught me, take a one-a-day vitamin and mineral supplement for joints, apply some ‘wear & tear’ lubricating fluid that I bought from the chemist, and say the affirmation.
I need my knees to be functioning and flexible so that I can keep walking and working with Lydia.
We go on our woodland walk this morning.
On the narrow path across the field, between growing crops, Lydia’s nose nudges the backs of my knees, but the lead is looser than it was the last time we did this walk. She seems much more relaxed, and this continues as we emerge from the field and start along the grassy path beside the wood. I do a few ‘about turns’ as I need to but she pulls very little. We make our way through the wood, which has a warm dampness about it from yesterday’s rain, heating up now with today’s sun.
At one point during our walk, Lydia looks up at me, mouth open as if she is smiling, and I think that she is telling me that she isn’t as afraid as she used to be. She is still alert to sights, sounds, smells, but she isn’t pulling away from me. I feel like we are more ‘together’ on this walk, today. Every so often I reinforce the “heel” command, using some dried food from her daily allowance, mixed with some treats to give extra value to her reward for being a “good girl”. I haven’t brought cooked chicken with me this morning; I’ll use that tonight when we have our evening training time.
Home and, after giving Lydia the rest of her breakfast allowance in her favourite food ball – which she pushes around with her nose to get access to the dried food pellets that I put inside – I get my own breakfast. It’s a late one and I have a busy afternoon planned.
For much of last year I had what I referred to as ‘Wellbeing Wednesdays’ because I used to take Lydia for a walk first thing, then go to a yoga class, then go for a psychotherapy session at 1pm, then, after taking Lydia out for another walk in the afternoon, go to a Buddhist teaching and meditation session in the evening.
Now I have ‘Mental Health Mondays’, with yoga and Qigong in the afternoon.
Qigong isn’t as well known as yoga, and I find both beneficial for both my physical and mental health. I wrote a blog post about Qigong a while back:
It’s good to be on the receiving end of congratulations, and to feel good about the publication of my book. I used to think that I could never feel good about anything to do with myself again. Now I can, and I do.
When I first started writing this blog I had just retired and it was something that I wanted to do.
I thought it would help me to complete a cycle of mental health recovery that I’d started many years previously, and that in writing about my experiences it might help others too.
I had no idea then just how far away I was from the summit of my recovery mountain, or just how many sheer cliff faces I was going to have to climb to be able to finally enjoy the view.
That was over five years ago.
I found no easy answers but knew that I had to keep going, and I did.
At 69 I have no wish or need now to climb any more mountains, either in my head or with my feet. However, my journey does continue, day by day, step by step, and I will continue to write about it and share it with anyone who is interested.
My new e-book, publishing on Amazon for Kindle 5th June, gives insights into how Lydia, Me & our Family of Three have recently made our final ascent:
‘Train your dog; train your mind – positive reinforcement for humans and canines’
My latest piece of ceramic art, made out of stoneware clay. This and other works by me and 70 other artists and makers will be on show and for sale at the Saltaire Maker’s Fair, Victoria Hall, Saltaire, near Bradford from 24-26 May 2025:
“Tree of Love”, my latest piece, ready for the Saltaire Makers Fair at the end of May #saltaireinspired #saltairemakersfair
I’m struggling a lot with fear at the moment. Fear of the future; fear of uncertainty; fear of not being able to cope with whatever life challenges lie ahead.
I’ve coped with a lot of life challenges in the past but I was younger then! I used to put my head down, put my back into it, prioritise and push through. Now, in my 69th year, I know I can no longer do what I used to do. I have to do things differently; see things differently; find an approach to working through my fear that is in tune with my more mature status and circumstances.
I know that I have to believe that everything will be – is – OK. I also know that a lot of what I fear is in my head. I don’t live in a war zone or on the streets.
But when you’ve had to pick yourself up by the bootstraps and start again, and again, and again, it’s hard to believe that the pattern isn’t on repeat.
I’ve been working hard to learn my lessons, to change how I see and do things and to live in the here and now. The important thing is not to let the fear take over. This can be easier said than done, but I’m working on it!
The featured ceramic piece includes some Kintsugi repair work. This is a Japanese method for making a feature of a repair instead of trying to hide it. The idea is that the piece is even more beautiful than it was before.
Although I’ve previously described myself as a poetic potter and a potting poet, I don’t think that is really the case. They are two separate outlets for expression.
There’s nothing wrong with that, and the two may never combine or get closer. But there’s a part of me that wishes I could find a way of integrating the two, to some extent at least.
At a potter’s fair recently, where I had set up a stand, I sold a small piece – a box that I had made out of solid clay and put through the raku-firing process – to a lady called Lynne.
Lynne was really encouraging about my work, and she also invited me to join a poetry group.
I had some inner resistance as I’ve been struggling with my mental health and know that I need to have time to rest and not over-commit. However, Lynne’s enthusiasm was inspiring and it turned out that the group met only a few miles away from where I live. So I went along to a meeting.
I’m so glad that I did.
There were just five of us there and each of us read poems that we’d written. We were able to give feedback to each other if we wanted, but there was no pressure. It was relaxed, informal and supportive.
The theme for the meeting was ‘Highlight’ and I’d written a poem – my first in ages – which I read out:
Highlight
The highlight of the holiday was your choosing of the story; one that I'd read to you before
It's a story that opens the door to a memory of what hasn't been; days unseen; and brings to life the clue about what to do in days to come - more highlights - and maybe after all nothing left undone.
Sometimes it can be hard to open ourselves up to new possibilities when we’re still coming to terms with grief about the past and/or dealing with prevailing difficulties in the present.
I don’t yet know how my work with words and my work with clay are going to come together directly, if at all, but it’s good to work creatively with words again, as well as with clay.
Glad About 
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