Birkbeck holds a special place in my heart.

I have often written/joked about my addiction to life long learning and Birkbeck saw one of my most expensive forays into lifelong learning when I did a Masters more there 10 years ago. Like many who have done a Masters, I’m not 100% sure what it added to my career opportunities and I have certainly moved away from what I studied since having children.

I did an MRes in Government, Policy and Politics and though my work is now in Therapeutic Services and Interventions the research skills I gained during the course have since served me well in both my day-job (focus groups and post-service interviews with clients and report writing are both examples) and my mindfulness teaching (evaluating and measuring the impact of the work I do has always been a passion along with reading the latest research on Mindfulness and EMDR).

Birkbeck is also the place where I did my first eight week mindfulness course as a participant. Under the tutelage of Michael Chaskalson and in a hot and crowded room along with 25 other busy, burnt out Londoners I learnt to pause, breathe and began cultivating more calm than I had had in many years.

So it was with much fondness that I prepared to teach a course for The Bloomsbury Institute Staff and Students, and was delighted to find out that I would be teaching this course at Birkbeck. bil.ac.uk I now have an excuse to go to my old stomping ground of Bloomsbury once a week and soak in the vibes of SOAS, IoE (where I also studied to train as a teacher) and Birkbeck. It was a sunny spring morning on my first day of teaching there and as I left I noticed with affection a predictable queue for the Hari Krishna food that is served there everyday, good to see some things don’t change.  A new edition was a pop up bike maintenance service, run for and by students.

Such a special part of London, so many memories and I realised in the sunshine, I may not easily be able to sum up all that doing a Masters gave my career but it certainly gave me a few happy years before and just after my children were born, it gave me a sense of belonging to a vibrant student world and I am happy to be a part of that again, for a brief time at least.

Today’s Total Practice Time: 45 minutes seated and movement