I’d like to do an experiment. I’m about to write a couple of sentences and I want you to read them. But after you’ve read them, I don’t want you to think about what I’ve written. Ready? The pink elephant is coming, but don’t worry.Actually, there are a lot of pink elephants coming and they might be harmful!Whatever you do, don’t think about and don’t panic about the deadly pink elephants which are coming RIGHT NOW (and hoarding all the toilet paper!!!) Isn’t it interesting that once I’ve planted thoughts in your head, you can’t actually un-plant them? How thoughts... Read full article »

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 »

The blurb on the recipe book promised it all;“In the follow-up to her amazing chart-topper… Ella makes it easy to prepare delicious food for you, your friends and family, whatever the occasion.”The occasion was my son’s third birthday and with 30 guests due to arrive on my doorstep to help us celebrate, Deliciously Ella’s promise of “easy” was enticing bait. The hook was the images of the glowy 28-year-old whole-food blogger sitting casually care-free in her sunlit kitchen, while delighting her effervescent friends with “Roast Carrot Hummus” and “Spiced Potato Cakes With Garlicky Tomato Sauce.” The sinker was my expectation... 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 »