The lessons don’t stop just because you’ve found your path
Timothea Goddard founded OpenGround twenty years ago, but she’s still learning new and challenging things
Practicing mindfulness and sitting in meditation practice can be excruciating. Not because it’s boring or because you get pins and needles in your feet… but because you’re alone with your mind. In a world when our brains are constantly engaged - in an instagram post, a podcast, a news article - we very rarely contemplate our inner world.
When we do - it can be uncomfortable and painful. We can see parts of ourselves we’d rather ignore - the selfish, jealous, angry and anxious parts we’d rather ignore. But it can also show us what it is to be human, and to appreciate that flaws do not make us failures.
Timothea Goddard teaches mindfulness based stress-reduction at OpenGround. It’s an 8 week course where 15-20 people learn to meditate through this particular style designed by Professor Jon Kabat-Zinn. She was my teacher, many moons ago. And while I don’t keep up a regular seated meditation practice, I can appreciate the amount of lives Tim has improved through this particular course.
Talking with Tim is a pleasure - I think in part because she really listens. Not just to me when I’m speaking, but to her own mind. She has an inner perspective that means she can truly hold space for the conversation that’s taking place. This kind of listening allows more room for acceptance - of our human foibles. It is, as she says in our interview, a relief to understand that we are all flawed and imperfect - and that this is completely normal.
The key thing I took out of our interview, apart from the fact that I should take the time to contemplate my own inner world, is that even when you find the path you’re meant to walk, it won’t always be smooth sailing.
Now in her sixth decade on the earth, Tim has discovered new challenges to keep her work going and has had to learn to adjust, learn and grow again, at a time in her life when she might have expected this kind of growth had finished.
Listen to Timothea Goddard on A Better World Blueprint on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
Tim’s Blueprint:
Some ideas from Tim on how she has lived her life of purpose
Who is the person that most inspires you?
“That would be Jon Kabat-Zinn. I love him. And I love his trust in his own mind and his own experience and his rigor. He's not a health professional. He was a molecular biologist working in a hospital who was in love with Buddhist psychology and yoga. Because of his love of what he was finding out about being free inside himself through meditation, he said, well, this is a suffering place, this hospital, let's see if I can make something that could be of use for people. And the course we teach now, 45 years later, is literally what Jon put together. And it comes deeply from Buddhist psychology, so it's trustworthy in that regard. But he's such a gifted teacher.
“And what I've experienced from him is that he is deeply curious about every person he meets. He lets assumptions drop away. That's the basis of respect, that genuine curiosity. So it feels very fresh being around him. He lets himself not know and steps out of assumptions all the time. So I aspire to that. Jon says people are geniuses if they're given the space and time and authority to get to know themselves. I think a structured practice can offer you a bit of that space and time to find your own genius. And he has really given that to the world and he's given it to me.”
Do you have a saying that helps guide you in life?
“I remind myself to drop into the vertical. What I mean by that is this moment of now, which is happening, from the sky down to the earth. So much of our lives is defined by the horizontal, like tracking a path of achievement in time. And I've got to decide, I've had that job, so I've got to decide what I'm to do in the future and planning and even for tomorrow, going to take the kids here or whatever. So we're always in the horizontal. And the vertical is just now and now.
“And it is dropping a line down from the sky through my brain, nervous system, heart, breath, capacity for digestion, my pelvis, the power of that, all down through the base, through the pelvis and legs and feet into the earth, that is now. And there are huge resources in the now. If I'm not struggling, if I'm not rehashing the before, if I'm not leaping into the future.
“Now drop into the vertical, the vertical, the vertical, and that vertical moves through time, right? So there's something about that I'm finding useful as a kind of metaphor or an invitation. And it orients me in a kind of timeless zone where I can find ground and my resources, or my overwhelm.”
What is your favourite thing to do?
“My work.I love my work so much. I don't think I'm a workaholic because it doesn't impinge my other connections with my kids, partner, life. I involve myself in everything else. But I find the psychotherapy process, being involved in that with people, absolutely fascinating and precious and awe inspiring. So to go to work for me is just not work. I just adore it. Teaching the mindfulness meditation is the same. I just feel grateful and joy. And I do love other things. I swim in the ocean every day. I love cooking. I'm very domestic. I love hanging out at home and cooking. I love my dog. Just enjoying ordinary life like that.”
What's the best thing you ever did?
“Having a baby. Two of them actually. It's changed everything for me.The amount of love and the endurance that it takes and unpleasantness that must be allowed and letting go of preferences was just so liberating for me. And I also felt like I arrived on the planet. Up till then I felt like a bit of a kid and then I was like, I'm an adult, far out!”
What's the best piece of advice you've ever been given?
“To let go of shame. I had a teacher - Florence Meleo-Meyer, who worked at the Centre for Mindfulness. She was my main teacher. I think it was after my first bit of training, she said, let go of shame. Shame is one of those self-conscious emotions like guilt, and it's a protective emotion. It shuts down us from being as good as we are, but it also stops us feeling legitimate feelings like fear, because I shouldn't feel afraid. I've got to be ashamed of it. Sadness, rage, anger, grief. It kind of, it shuts us down. And she said, work on giving that up because it's just going to constrict you. I thought that was brilliant advice. And I think I've become shameless.”
Listen to Timothea Goddard on A Better World Blueprint on Spotify or Apple Podcasts.