Choral Evensong
giving thanks for the academic year, with Imperial College Chamber Choir
Join us for the last service of the academic year on 19th June 17.30-18:45
Holy Trinity Church, Prince Consort Road, SW7 2BA, (next to Beit Quad –at the end of Jay Mews)
Music and other details
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Tea, Cake and Conversation on the PhD Experience
Thursday June 20th 2019
12:30- 14:00
Level 4 Forest Room
Chaplaincy Multi-Faith Centre, Chemistry Building South Kensington
Entrance via the glass doors and lifts facing the Queen's Tower and located next to the SAF Cafe.
Book a place.
"A great way to meet PhDs from other departments and find out you have more in common than you think."
"A nice way to look back at events in our day to day life and have a different perspectives to get over them."
This workshop gives a chance to step back for a moment and explore the experience of Ph.D research through sharing one’s own story and listening to the story of others.
As Chaplains, we find PhD students often want to talk about similar themes, like
• how do I make the best use of my time?
• how to prioritise?
• how to work well with my supervisor?
• the ups and downs of working in teams
• dealing with ‘the unknown’ and going ‘where no one has gone before’
• the need for good communications – in the research group, with supervisors, with friends and family
• how to look after myself and get the research done on time
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Reflections on Mindfulness and the Body.
After many years of running weekly mindfulness sessions I keep being struck by how little the mind features in 'mindfulness'. Mindfulness is mostly a 'return to the body'. The mind is notoriously elusive concept in philosophical and scientific language.
In the Chaplaincy we start each Mindfulness session with some simple stretching exercises to help people physically settle after a morning's work. Today my colleague asked the group if there were any particular exercises that they wanted to do. One person asked for something for neck ache. This elicited the disclosure of neck and back ache throughout the room. Not a surprise I guess from a group of people in academia sitting at pc's all day every day.
The comments reminded me of Bessel van der Kolk's argument that most of us can do more to befriend our bodies. Here are some quotes from Bessel's book 'The Body Keeps the Score: Brain, Mind, and Body in the Healing of Trauma'.
“In order to change, people need to become aware of their sensations and the way that their bodies interact with the world around them. Physical self-awareness is the first step in releasing the tyranny of the past.”
“Mindfulness not only makes it possible to survey our internal landscape with compassion and curiosity but can also actively steer us in the right direction for self-care.”
“Neuroscience research shows that the only way we can change the way we feel is by becoming aware of our inner experience and learning to befriend what is going inside ourselves.”
“As I often tell my students, the two most important phrases in therapy, as in yoga, are “Notice that” and “What happens next?” Once you start approaching your body with curiosity rather than with fear, everything shifts.”
This article was originally posted on Andrew's blog 'Practicing Chaplaincy'
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