Dr Amina Aitsi-Selmi MD PhD

I care less. We're not very good at predicting reality, but it's often the best we can do with the brains we have. Our brains are projectors, coupled through the body with the environment in an entangled, approximate, constantly changing relationship. It's very hard to directly grasp full reality - it would be overwhelming. That's why we have senses, filters, and boundaries. Our system can only take in so much - unless trained. So evolution has given us heuristics and instinc

I care less. Since this year's summer silent meditation retreat - and after last year's too - I've come away with a sense of reduced entanglement with the world. In Buddhism it's called nibbida or disenchantment: the byproduct of experiencing more inner calm and joy, and the realisation that nothing external - not a career, not a relationship, not any lifestyle - can permanently provide what we long for: a sense of peace, freedom, fulfilment, wholeness. It can be tough for a

When we start reconnecting with emotions and an ability to express them, a confusing period can follow. Emotions are complex states composed of sensations, thoughts, memories, postures and behaviours. They’re dynamic and can change rapidly. Guilt is similarly complex. We often think of it as what we feel after ‘doing something wrong’. We treat it as the signal that we broke a rule, agreement, or expectation. We feel remorse at letting someone down or taking more than our fair