I am a Super yacht industry professional specializing in business development and have teamed up with Vanessa Hodgson to raise funds for Macmillan Cancer Support who use Mindfulness as part of their psychological, self help approach.

I am a passionate believer in Mindfulness and the benefits it can bring to people living with Cancer through the application of Mindfulness Meditation and Integrative Medicine. 

Vanessa a keen swimmer and who has trained this route before, will be supporting me through my training and swim on the day.

Vanessa and I aim to raise awareness about the concepts of mindfulness, and how it can benefit not only cancer patients, but that of everyday people from all walks of life. Mindfulness is often defined as living in the present-moment, non-judgemental, awareness.

The mindfulness elements of accepting things as they are, turning towards rather than away from difficult emotional experience, and embracing change as a constant are helpful antidotes to these difficult realities. The emotion-regulation strategies practiced in mindfulness-based interventions help to prevent worry about the future and rumination over past events, and allow people to live more fully in the present moment, regardless of what lies ahead. The inevitability of loss, change and to some, eventual death are helpful to face in general, but are both more challenging and more powerful for people directly facing a life threat like cancer.

For myself, to swim the Solent will be a big challenge. I have never had a lesson in my life, but this challenge has great meaning to me and this is my way of trying to make a difference. Not only have I set myself a personal challenge to swim the Solent, but I also want to raise as much money as I possible so charities like MacMillan with the new Mindfulness program, can empower you to live well in the midst of change and uncertainty.

Vanessa is always keen to motivate people out of their comfort zones. Hence on this occasion after a glass of wine, the Solent looked
more like a pond rather than an extremely busy stretch of water, that was until reality hit the morning after. The gauntlet had now been thrown!

The swim will take place on September 17th 2016 

Thanks for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page.

Donating through JustGiving is simple, fast and totally secure. Your details are safe with JustGiving – they’ll never sell them on or send unwanted emails. Once you donate, they’ll send your money directly to the charity. So it’s the most efficient way to donate – saving time and cutting costs for the charity.