Mindfulness Meditation

A Path to healing

If you have days when the fog won't lift, tiredness clings, and your body just isn't bouncing back the way you'd imagined — you're not alone.

Cancer and its treatments can take a toll—not just on your body but on your mind and spirit too. Fatigue, a hazy brain, and anxiety can all linger long after treatment, leaving you wondering if you'll ever feel like yourself again.

Learning meditation and mindfulness is something we can do for ourselves as an integrated and complementary element of the treatment pathway. These practices are fierce allies, proven to help settle the nervous system, ease pain and anxiety, and rebuild resilience and clear perspective to support your healing. They are enduring companions, staying with you long after treatment ends—becoming vital tools for grounded living as you reclaim your strength and sense of self.

I first learned Transcendental Meditation in 1988 and then began a quiet dance with the practice—sometimes drawing closer, sometimes stepping away, but always finding myself returning to its steadying rhythm.

In the 1990s, a work opportunity sparked an unexpected adventure.  This led our young family to relocate to New Zealand where I worked as a Strategic Advisor to Chief Executives across large government departments. I spent long hours in boardrooms with senior leaders—places where camaraderie was rare and any sense of wellbeing even more so.

Throughout it all, meditation remained a quiet thread in my life. Over time, I began sharing simple meditation practices with colleagues during our lunch breaks. They told me they started to find small moments of calm, and greater clarity and resilience in their busy days.

A year or so later, I became seriously unwell. In preparation for a gruelling two-year treatment schedule — including nine major surgeries and eight months of chemotherapy — I decided to strengthen my practice and do a 10-day Vipassana silent meditation retreat. It was there I had a powerful insight: I wanted to train as a meditation teacher and take this wonderful practice into workplaces to help restore some balance and humanity in professional life.

That was over 12 years ago. Since returning to the UK, alongside completing a Master's degree and delivering complex change programmes as a Workplace Change Project Manager, I've earned three formal qualifications as a meditation teacher. I've taught mindfulness and meditation in organisations such as the British Red Cross, the Francis Crick Institute, Cancer Research UK, IOSH, and BBC Radio Kent.