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It has been a while hasn’t it?

I am all of a muddle, having had a busy month or so and have been neglecting all my online duties.

Back in the middle of June (the 16th to be exact), my main website, mattcaulfield.com where I promote all my courses, products and coaching keeled over, catastrophically. So catastrophically in fact that I lost my website and had to create a brand new one from scratch. With zero budget.

So, I spent 3 weeks teaching myself WordPress so that I could build the new site and now I have total control over it (huge learning curve, but deeply rewarding).

Because of the rush, I have to be honest, I am still not sure where I am going with it, and some of the site is just a facsimile of the old one (I just cut and pasted the content).

The idea of the new site (as you can hopefully see by the clean design) was to simplify everything, to combine everything that I do into one site and present it all in a clean and fresh (and easy to understand) way.

I have combined my NLP based blog with my “Business Advice” blog (for budding therapists and coaches) and was intending to combine this blog into there as well. But I am not sure. I would love to hear feedback from you, dear readers, to see what you think. At the moment I am leaning towards keeping it separate.

Unfortunately, with the site being “OK for now” I have had to leave it and had other things to do.

I taught my first “Psykologika Esoterika” training a couple of weeks ago, this is where I teach people to be a “mentalist” like Derren Brown or Patrick Jane. You can read a training report here with some pictures and clips of how the delegates got on.

Then I headed straight into an NLP Practitioner training.

As you can see “work” has taken up much of my time since I last wrote. I put “work” in inverted comma’s as it isn’t really work and I am very grateful that I can make a living doing what I love. It is not essential to living a “slow” life to be “self employed” (for want of a better word) and many “slow” people have proper jobs (it is about doing what you love after all, and if what you love involved working for someone else, go for it). However for me Slow is about freedom and to have true freedom you have to escape the 9-5 humdrum.

Speaking of escape, I have recently submitted an article to the New Escapologist magazine, it will appear in issue 4 which is out on the 16th of August. Whilst planning this I have had the pleasure of conversing with Rob Wringham, the founder and editor. He is an incredibly likable, intelligent and motivated (if that is the right word) person with wisdom beyond his years. I am glad to have had the opportunity to get to know him personally. I highly recommend you check out the magazine at www.newescapologist.co.uk

In my last diary entry I talked about staring out of the window a lot. Well staring has turned to action and, in between trainings, I have managed to finish off the garden and now have an outside idyll to relax in.

If we ever have the weather.

It has turned distinctly autumnal here (I am sat writing this wearing 2 jumpers) and I keep needing to remind myself that it is only the start of August and still the middle of summer.

So it is back to staring out of the window…

Which is a shame, I am feeling that summer is slipping by unnoticed for me. And (as I said in my last entry) one of my basic tenants in helping you slow down is to get out amongst nature, not only will the fresh air do you good, but engaging with nature and noticing the signs of the passing of the seasons will help you engage and connect with time again.

Since I last wrote I have finished reading Tom Hodgkinson’s excellent “How To Be Free” and (re)read “Nineteen Eighty-Four” by George Orwell (Orwell is one on of my favourite authors of all time), it is one of my favourite books, but I probably hadn’t read it for about 15 years and I had forgotten just how profound it was, every page makes some cutting comment or observation about our Society and the way it is heading. I urge you to read it, if you haven’t already.

I am also reading “Chi Kung: Way of Power” by Master Man Kam Chuen, as it was recommended to me as one of the best treatise on Chi Kung. It is. I need it at the moment, after the last months hectic activities my energy is flagging and I need a bit of a boost.  Chi Kung really is an amazing form of gentle yet extremely powerful exercise and Tai Chi is the worlds laziest martial art, gentle, simple, yet extremely powerful after just a little practice. If you are looking for a gentle way to boost your vitality (and defend yourself in a non-violent and non-aggressive way) I really do urge you to give it a go.

I must also get back to meditating. Meditating makes you cool (I need to do more obviously). I notice when I don’t sit for some time I become scattered and anxious. I am currently working on some simple guided mediation mp3 downloads which will be available very soon, in the mean time why not pop over to the “free stuff” page and get a guided relaxation primer and some other goodies?

Be back soon
Matt