Category: Blog

It always amazes me that whenever I go to speak about the benefits of meditation I draw a blank. I can’t think of anything, even though I know the impact meditation has had on me has been profound.  I couldn’t understand it for a long time until one day it dawned on me that I…

From a spiritual perspective, success can be failure and failure can be success.What? When we fail we naturally review our behavior to see what led to our failure. When we succeed, the opposite happens. We assume that the actions we took created the outcome, which is very understandable, but from a spiritual perspective it is…

Below is an extract from a book that author, Chris Bray was writing about my work. This chapter is about a boy I treated with autism and is a good demonstration of what is possible. no rest for Leanne . . . When he was a baby, Leanne told me, Tyson didn’t sleep at all.…

No savior is coming. There is only one authority on you and that is you.  I regularly say on my podcast that the time of the guru is over, the time of the spiritual master is over, the time of the spiritual teacher is over. I say it because it is true and also because I…

Ever eat a piece of cake when you knew you shouldn’t? Did you ever start a new diet only to fall off the wagon a couple of months in? How about getting into a wonderful relationship only to see yourself destroy it with pettiness and jealousy? On the surface, it makes no sense. Why would…

Here is a little definition of consciousness and unconsciousness. Unconsciousness thinks it is what it knows. Consciousness knows what it is.  Unconsciousness is limited.Consciousness is limitless. Unconsciousness thinks it is what it knows.  I am a man ~ I am a woman ~ I am non-binary.I am an amalgamation of my parents’ DNA.I am American ~…

Let me start off by telling you some deep truths, the first of which is that I am lying. What? Let that marinate for a minute and see what happens. It is a version of what Epimenides ruined many a party with in ancient Greece. He was well known for staggering to his feet just…

How I inadvertently become a Taoist sage and how not cool that is. In March 1989, computer scientist Tim Berners-Lee submitted a proposal for what he called the World Wide Web. Like most people at the time, I was unaware of Tim’s proposal. It was a small event that had big consequences in my life.…

Grabbing every morsel of goodness with both hands. “There has been no change – at all.” The mother delivered this news with a mix of irritation, exasperation, and fading hope.  The stakes were high. Her daughter, a beautiful little five year old girl, had been diagnosed on the severe end of autistic spectrum two years…

Just when it looked like nothing much had come out of the lockdowns two summer blockbusters show indications of a growth spurt in consciousness.  The films Barbie and Oppenheimer were released on exactly the same day.  By all accounts, these two films couldn’t be more different. What looked like a massive clash highlighting just how,…

I am lying in bed at the end of the day. I turn off the light and close my eyes.In a short while I will go somewhere I can never remember,somewhere I can’t describe in words or convey in pictures. The place I go after dreaming. I am sitting in meditation.I have stopped thinking and am in…

I use the power of story to help me through my darkest hours. Maybe it can help you too. Many years ago I learned how to write screenplays for Hollywood. Once I knew the beats, turning points, and every little script structure I was never able to see movies in the same way. I won’t…

Love the little children that run around inside you demanding chocolate and ice cream, cocaine porn and whiskey. Love the little children who wreck your life with their neediness and obsession, their jealousies and violence. Love the little children, who are stronger than you like. Who take over in a flash, gorge on what they…

I live in a valley at the end of which my ancestors live in Tír na nÓg, the mythical Irish Land of the Young. They have been calling to me since I moved here and a couple of months ago I went on a quest to meet them. I first heard the call in my…

In the last ten years I have interviewed over 250 artists for my art podcast John Dalton – gently does it . . . One of the questions I ask every artist is, “Do you have a big art dream you would like to achieve before you die?” Sometimes the response is grandiose, “I want…

Here is a useful perspective for highlighting unconscious triggers for symptoms. I have used this perspective hundreds of times in my one-to-one sessions and the people I work with have found the results very helpful and illuminating.You can use this perspective for any kind of symptoms – mild or severe.  It starts with frequency.Are your…

A long time ago in Bethnal Green, I thought it was the end for me. I was in a cafe alone with friends, laughing and joking, them not me, unaware of my impending doom.  I stared into my coffee and willed my stomach to return to the middle of my body. It paid no attention…

Are you a snapper? Do you snap at people?I don’t – usually.I used to a lot more,so when I snapped at someone the other day, it was such a shock that I found myself writing a little poem about it. The sort of poem I imagine Winnie the Pooh or Mr Rogers might write.  When I…

(first published in 2014) I never had a dog before. Animals were fine but I never really, “got,” them, at least not in the way other people seemed to.  I’d met some Scottish terriers in South Africa and thought they were great but owning one, no, not really me.My wife is wise.  She knew I…

How to gently grow into your best life.  Back in the late 80’s I was involved in some pretty intense personal development trainings. They were great and I learned a lot about myself.  Over the course of a weekend, people would drop layers and layers of old baggage and have dramatic transformations. They would truly…

I am sitting with my eyes closed in a school hall in Dublin. Forty people I met only yesterday surround me. John Denver strums over the sound system and we are encouraged to sing along.This is the 80’s.This is personal development.“Sweet, sweet surrender. Live, live without care. Like a fish in the ocean. Like a bird…

In praise of the half-remembered gems of poetry I’d like to think of myself as someone who remembers complete poems. Someone who can recite them at significant moments in life, preferably looking into the middle distance with a slight breeze in my face emphasizing my windswept and interesting look. Unfortunately, I am not that someone.…

On a February morning in 2019 my mother slipped away. Her body had slowly deteriorated in the preceding year – an acceleration of a process that had been happening over her last decade. I was deeply sad but not shocked. It wasn’t until six months later, outside her house, with my car full of bits…

My ancestors are calling me.From where I am not sure.I used to think it was from the past. Now it feels closer.Like the next room,or a parallel room.  I didn’t have ancestors growing up.I had Grannies and Granddas and Uncles and Aunties.Beyond my Granny and Grandda’s Ma and Da was a blurry shimmer of unknown people,…

On the off chance our thoughts do actually influence the world, can we let go of our need to be right about a coming apocalypse? I have a friend who is very concerned about the decline in driving standards over the last 10 years. They have adult children who are all good drivers but remain…

Overcome with emotional distress? Hearing the over-enthusiastic voice can help you find your way out of it. I awaken from a clammy dream, fretful and damp. Unclear dream-whisps persist, none of them good. Outside the rain makes its way toward the house, slowly engulfing familiar landmarks. I feel like the same is happening on the…

Stress reduction, health benefits, mental health management, and better sleep, are some of the reasons people are drawn to meditation.Not me. I get the benefits but they are not why I meditate. If I meditated solely for those reasons I would have stopped long ago. For me, it’s not about meditation at all which is a strange…

The other day, while repotting some orchids, I suspended my prejudice and listened to a shaman who said the whole point of existence is for the universe to ask it’s big question, “Who am I?” — that all the different lives, yours and mine, with all our varied experiences are fragments of this great self…

It always amazes me how heavy I can make fun. Like fun is the least valuable thing in existence. Fun is the afterthought – the bonus.Fun is the cherry on the cake that you only get to eat if you have done all your chores, been responsible, been an adult, paid your dues, and your taxes –…

You are very sensitive to other people. Wonderful – go deeper.You are very intuitive.  Lovely – go deeper.You resonate with the tarot and use it for everything. Great – go deeper.You are in touch with the other side.  Fantastic – go deeper. You resonate with astrology and use it all the time.  Excellent – go deeper. You remember…

A couple of months ago I was helping a man in Australia with tinnitus and chronic sensitivity to radiation.  The tinnitus, which is a continual ringing in the ears, was nearly driving him insane, and the chronic radiation sensitivity meant he had to live in the middle of the countryside away from Wi-Fi and cell…

I have always been sensitive to people. What started as a natural ability became a heightened coping mechanism and eventually developed into a profession. “I treated people who had been abused, physically, mentally and spiritually.  People who were in cults, raped, beaten, tortured as children.  People who weren’t wanted as babies.  People possessed.  People who had done terrible…

An unusual silence covers the morning.The humans are not stirring.No alarms and no commutes.Even the phones are put aside to favor a second sleep.The trees hold their breath.The birds shuffle on the branch confused.Without a word the crow lets them know the score.Incredulous, they mouth, “What, another public holiday? Bríg smiles —- enjoying the benediction of…

I read the Carlos Castaneda books in the late 80’s. Interesting and wild and different. A refreshing break from the Indian gurus and Zen masters I was inhaling at the time. The same dynamic of master and student but coming out of a wildly different culture. Carlos was the student and Don Juan was his master.  There was…