The work I produce is unoriginal, meaningless tripe…I’m a terrible mother, who’s always too tired for her kids…I can’t cook…All this, according to the voice in my head, is fact. Fortunately, of late, I’ve been learning not to believe everything I think.I first began taking notice of the mean voice in my head after meeting social scientist and self-compassion pioneer Kristen Neff, a clinical psychologist from the University of Texas, who developed something called the Self-Compassion Scale in 2003, which paved the way for a new field of psychological research. Since then almost 1500 articles or dissertations have been written... Read full article »

I confess that I was terrified when I picked up Ronald Purser’s new book McMindfulness.It had been a long time coming after the management professor from San Francisco State University embraced the Mindful Crank persona in 2014 and wrote a series of provocative articles such as The Myth of the Present Moment, and Beyond Mc Mindfulness. During a period in which TIME Magazine was hailing the Mindful Revolution, when Google had started imploring business leaders to Search Inside Yourself and New Republic was declaring 2014 The Year of Mindfulness, Purser raised some thought-provoking ideas. In essence, his argument is that... Read full article »

As a health journalist who writes about the science of the mind-body-health connection and who’s interviewed countless scientists on the subject, you would have thought that when I started making my new documentary about mindfulness, I would have known a thing or two. But just a few weeks into the endeavour I came across a study by neuroscientist Sara Lazar’s team at Harvard which changed everything and made me realise that I still had a lot to learn.The study caught my attention because Lazar’s team had done a direct comparison of two of the most famous meditation programs in the... Read full article »

At the risk of sounding like I’m whining about my #firstworld problems; this morning was nothing short of crappy. With thanks to two small children who had broken my sleep throughout the night, I woke up feeling crappy. With thanks to a freezing house not suited to Sydney’s mid-winter weather, I got out of bed feeling crappy. With thanks to my late start to the morning, I wrestled my monumentally resistant children out the door, feeling crappy.As my morning continued, so did the crappiness. The crappiness of an overflowing Inbox. The crappiness of another film-grant rejection. The crappiness of a... Read full article »

When the conference director of Happiness and Its Causes asked me to host a panel discussion between experts on deepening our mind-body connection so that we can lead healthier lives, I was delighted. It’s a topic I’m dedicated to raising awareness about and the lineup was terrific. There was Michael Mosely – the famed English doctor and BBC presenter known for self-experimenting in the name of science, Elissa Epel – an American psychiatry professor and stress expert, who co-authored the bestselling book The Telomere Effect about healthy ageing, Amit Bernstein – an Israeli mindfulness professor who is doing extraordinary work... Read full article »

I sat on the stage looking out at an audience of psychologists, mental-heath workers, educators, academics, and everyday folk looking for reliable ways to live better in this crazy, busy, mixed-up world. The event, which was called “Mind The Hype: Is Meditation All It’s Cracked Up To Be?” was hosted by the University of Melbourne as part of Melbourne Knowledge Week and was billed as a panel discussion about whether mindfulness has rightfully earned its place on the top of the global health trend charts.  Although the subject matter was the focus of substantial debate, the enthusiasm for the event... Read full article »