When I think of Calcutta, I return to the elderly man whose back I massaged. We shared no language. I did not know what to say to him, and perhaps there was nothing that needed saying. For a while, touch was our way of communicating.
I revisited that memory while writing “Calcutta: Suffering and the Art of Not Looking Away”, my contribution to El Hombre y lo Divino. In the article, published in Spanish, I describe my time volunteering at Mother Teresa’s centres and my subsequent stay in Bodhgaya, where meditation brought me face to face with a different kind of unease: that of my own mind.
Years have passed, but I still have no simple answers to many of the questions that arose there. I do recognise how deeply those experiences have influenced the way I accompany others and the work I now share through Laurus Regenerative.
In everyday life, opportunities to care tend to arrive unannounced. Someone begins telling us something just as we are about to leave. A conversation becomes uncomfortable. We discover that a colleague has been feeling overwhelmed for weeks. We may want to listen and still find ourselves thinking about our next task, or preparing an answer before we have understood what is happening.
I recognise that difficulty in myself. Attention wanders, patience wears thin, and our good intentions coexist with tiredness. This is why practice matters to me: making time to notice how we are and learning to return to what is happening.
That is the space I hope to offer through 10 Weeks of Mindful Regeneration. We come together to practise, share and explore our experience with curiosity. Sessions take place in English, online and in person in Málaga, and you are welcome whether or not you have meditated before. Each meeting offers an opportunity to pause, feel the body and listen to what emerges when we stop filling every moment.
I find that space in the garden, too. Working with the soil gives our attention somewhere tangible to rest. We can notice the moisture, touch a leaf, recognise what has changed since the previous week. There are things to do, but there is also waiting. However much we want a plant to grow, part of our work is to give it the conditions and time it needs.
This is the invitation behind Feel Good Regenerative Fridays: to share a morning in Alhaurín de la Torre through mindfulness, gardening, writing and conversation. We meet in English and Spanish, and no previous experience is needed. I am interested in what can emerge when we gather around something as simple as tending a garden and allow ourselves time to get to know one another.
These questions accompany me when I work with organisations as well. In a meeting, a disagreement or a decision, the way we pay attention has consequences for other people. Sometimes we need to pause together and ask what is happening, what we have stopped hearing and what we might do differently. This is part of what we explore in our Mindfulness and Social Emotional Learning programme for teams, through practical tools for communication, empathy and conflict resolution.
I see a common thread running through these spaces: the possibility of coming to know ourselves better as we learn to relate to one another and offer care. Some days this will come easily; on others, we may barely know where to begin. That, too, deserves our attention.
If you would like to follow the journey that gave rise to these reflections, you can read the full article in Spanish in El Hombre y lo Divino. And if any of these questions resonate with you, perhaps we can continue the conversation at one of our upcoming gatherings.
What in your life is asking for a little care at this moment?