By Helen Potts
“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life? ― Mary Oliver
Mindfulness and poetry have a special place in my heart and in my practice and I feel supported and saved by them on a daily basis. This alchemy of insight and wisdom is truly soul work.
Mindfulness and poetry individually, yes …but there’s this invitation to consider the potency of them together as a gentle holistic medicine, encouraging us to engage with our energy and equilibrium, our anxieties and desires. This is a practice as a prayer, offered to ourselves and others; this is a practice gentle, therapeutic and revealing without the pressure of an outcome or goal.
We often become absorbed in the desire to know what a poem means and whilst this may be rewarding, through mindfulness we learn how to appreciate poetry in a different way, perhaps without the urgency of needing to know; allowing ourselves to soften the intellect, engaging more fully with the mystery.
Mindfulness allows us to slow down and create a calm awareness to receive the words of a poem. It encourages the thinking mind to quieten and allows the poetry to be received not only through the ears but also in the body and the heart. We can be intimately in touch with the experience of the poem, connecting with our senses, connecting with our willingness to be open.
Poetry naturally creates a sense of our common humanity. We meet our own feelings and emotions in the words of another. We have conversations with people from past centuries with the revelation that our emotional pain, joy and complexity are indeed ancient not new. Mindfulness is a door through which a journey into poetry can begin and poetry always offers a welcoming hearth and home for mindfulness.
Research demonstrates that individually they are considered to address pain and illness, stress and isolation: our lives, our loves and our losses. I believe that together they are most definitely more than the sum of their parts.
Over the last year leading sessions on mindfulness and poetry has genuinely moved me: the heartfelt sharing, the realisation of our commonality and connection and also our ability to consider worlds and experiences that are not the same as ours. It engages our compassion, it cultivates relationships and we all become accustomed to holding the space as we read, listen and practice. And yes there are tears as we engage with the heart but there’s also laughter and deep wonder at the world in which we share.
I would encourage all teachers to consider the opportunity poetry offers to enhance their mindfulness sessions. It dissolves and reinvents teacher student relationships; it extends this wonderful gift of agency as someone is empowered to offer a poem that has accompanied their lives at moments of healing, through times of distress or remembering. Here we find all the themes of mindfulness effortlessly spilling from the page, here we learn to listen attentively, generously, tenderly.
About Helen Potts
Helen is a Mindfulness UK IMC graduate. She leads mindfulness and poetry for wellbeing sessions and is passionate about making mindfulness and compassion relatable and inclusive, sharing with others the healing potential this offers. Helen has run a number of community groups, supporting people who are experiencing illness and life challenging circumstances.
“It is wonderful seeing people connect and give space to the fullness of their lives: the pain, the joy and the messiness! We are all the same really, we want to live well, find some ease and fulfilment; whatever our resources I believe this is possible.”
Helen Coordinates MUK Wednesday sitting group