I recently wrote a blog post "Kidney donation: why it's well worth considering".  I commented that most blog posts on this website are primarily written for fellow health professionals & others interested in an evidence-based approach to stress, health & wellbeing.  However this sequence of posts about kidney donation are different in that they are written mainly for other potential kidney donors and their friends & families.  I hope a personal story about a fellow donor's experience will be helpful, especially as my background in medicine & psychology may colour these posts usefully.

Note: I actually had the kidney operation in December 2016 but, when initiatlly writing this blog, the hospital asked me to change the dates so it was less likely that the recipient would be able to identify me 'by mistake'.  Since I and the dear man who received the kidney ... and who is now very well ... have been in fairly regular contact, it's OK to confirm that the actual donation was in December 2016. 

        "To thine own self be true, and it must follow, as the night the day, thou canst not then be false to any man"  Polonius in Shakespeare's "Hamlet"

I have been writing a series of blog posts about character strengths - most recently "Twelve practical suggestions for exploring our character strengths (12): building up specific strengths exercise".  In today's post I give a personal example of using this building exercise with the character strengths of kindness and hope.

More to follow ...

I wrote yesterday of my three wishes for this ten day “retreat” in Hampshire … a “being/doing” shift, an exploration of awareness (& it seems also our sense of self), and a chance to get perspective on my life.  For the first week I focused especially on the first two of these hopes.  In this final three days of my stay, I’ve swung much more to looking at my life overall.  When I’m “sitting on the bank of the river” after spending such a quiet beautiful week here, it’s a lot easier to get perspective than when I’m caught up in the fast flow of my day to day life.

I didn’t write a reflection in the blog yesterday (although I did the day before).  I said when I came down here for this ten day retreat at the Krishnamurti Study Centre, that I was aware of three intentions … three hopes.  One was to “move the slider across” from the usual heavy emphasis on “Doing” in my life at home to a much greater emphasis on “Being” here in the Centre & walking in the surrounding countryside.  A second wish was to explore “Awareness” more … both by seeing how it is to spend days where I am more aware, and to read/discuss/think/experiment with awareness over the time here.  Both of these hopes have worked out well … precious days, deep, soft.

I have already written a series of posts about this stay down at the Krishnamurti Study Centre in Hampshire - see for example the first one "Setting the scene" or the most recent (before this one) "Being, flow & 'pure driving'".  Yesterday I took an ‘idle & blessed’ day.  This is something I’ve done back at home in Edinburgh a few times … see, for example, the posts “A day spent 'idle &a

Yesterday I wrote a post on "Our sense of self".

I wrote a post yesterday on "Quietening down ... and do we need time to change".  Now it's the fourth morning … I have some sense of my inner world rearranging itself, like shifting icebergs.  That description overplays what feels to be going on … but changes there certainly are, in what I’m paying attention to and in how I’m feeling.

I've already written a couple of blog posts during my "retreat" at this Study Centre - "Setting the scene" and "Settling & questioning".

I wrote a post yesterday about arriving here at the Krishnamurti Study Centre.  Now it's early on the second morning – how was the first full day?  It was fine.  I wrote, thought, read, went on a two-hour walk (boots repeatedly clogging with the Hampshire clay), practised yoga, meditated, and talked a bit (at mealtimes).  I can feel myself settling, my mind ‘changing’, still a bit ‘uncertain’ of this big shift in my environment & activities.  It seems like I’m thinking more clearly and about bigger issues.