Originally Aired January 13th-19th on Positive Living Vibrations with Sara Troy and her guest Simon Cole.
Invest in your mind body and soul this 2015 and get away to where you can find A Still Mind
Simon Cole was born in the south-west of England, where he also grew up, before launching into a first career in business as an economist. Some years later, following the start of a more pastoral passage of his life as a volunteer with the Samaritans and youth leader in the Methodist Church, he gained a distinction and special award with his Masters in Counselling. For some 30 years now he has been working as a counsellor, therapist and trainer in various settings, including the Health Service and private client work and course director of a counsellor training programme.
Eight years ago he moved with his wife to south-west France to start a retreat centre in the foothills of the Pyrenees Mountains, which lie between France and Spain, rising in the Mediterranean Sea in the east and descending into the Atlantic in the west. Here, now, he practices a ‘therapy of mindfulness, counselling and nature, incorporating creative therapeutic work with counselling, teaching mindfulness and meditation’, writing, and, of course, walking in the surrounding hills and mountains. Le Sentier Tranquille, which means ‘the quiet path’, hosts individuals, couples and small groups in a residential setting, which offers privacy without isolation to its guests, and where the sense of community, sharing the evening meal prepared by Janet in the French tradition of table d’hôte, is considered an essential element of the therapy.
Le Sentier Tranquille saw the writing of Simon’s book “Stillness in Mind”, as a way to offer to a reader an experience a little like a stay in the Centre, as well as to give guests a means of reconnecting with their experience and maintaining the momentum of change in their lives. In it he offers a different way of looking at mindfulness and sets out the Clear Space Meditation Path, a non-religious meditation practice which connects with the teachings of key western therapy exponents and philosophers
“For me, Stillness in Mind and Le Sentier Tranquille are inseparable,” says Simon, “and alongside our quiet path, always, is the majestic beauty of the mountains of Pyrène.”
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