Fr Simon Sleeman OSB Fr Simon Sleeman OSB, a monk in Glenstal Abbey, has been sharing weekly videos on techniques to help cope with being in isolation.
“I have some preparation for a lockdown let’s put it that way,” Fr Sleeman told The Irish Catholic. Last year he spent some time in St John of God Hospital recovering from depression and anxiety. He has lived in Glenstal Abbey for almost 50 years.
“People were very positive that saw the first one so I said ‘well why not do a second one’. I wanted to share practices that I find helpful for myself at this time.”
Fr Sleeman said it was initially on a whim, when he was trying to think of how he could help people at this time and he asked another monk, Fr Brian to get a camera and just started recording. He said initially he felt very vulnerable and was anxious about who would see it and what people would say.
However, the reaction was positive, with locals happy to see him since for the first time in a while and “then emails were coming in saying ‘the exercise really helped me’.” So Fr Sleeman says he will continue to post the weekly videos titled ‘Heart Centre’ on YouTube until the coronavirus has calmed, “and listen if one person finds it helpful isn’t that enough?”
The third and most recent video is on noticing your surroundings. Especially as you get older you’re familiar with everything,” said Fr Sleeman “suddenly you don’t notice anything, and I think we have a tremendous over familiarity that we miss out on a huge amount.”
“I often think we’re in a very visual world and we can miss out on touch and taste, especially now,” he said explaining how we need to get out of our heads at the minute and “get back in contact with or bodies” and our hearts as that is where prayer comes from.
Fr Sleeman said that his next video will be on cloud watching, “It’s like watching a fish bowl, it’s so relaxing and calming to watch these clouds, puffy clouds, now we don’t often get them”. There will be plenty of footage and nature sounds for people to tune in and out of.
You can watch the video on the Glenstal Abbey School YouTube channel.