me promote it into  the language because, quite frankly, I perceive that so many people spend so much of their life in headtrips they seem to have lost touch with basic reality!
   Most simply put, headtrips are a journey around the inside of your head. They lead you absolutely nowhere of real value until you are motivated to act upon them and validate their existence in the light of day. All those thoughts, worries, ideas, plans, fears, concerns, projections, mental dramas, hopes, desires, fantasies, misunderstandings, misinterpretations, day dreams, concepts, theories, philosophies, confusions, regrets, delusions, indecisiveness, guilt trips; can easily turn into headtrips which lead nowhere if not recognised and approached in a correct manner.
   Headtrips do not have any substantial value or outcome other than taxing the mental and emotional energy and distracting the mind from the real life at hand. That is not to say that mental activity should be done away with. Thoughts are fine, mental effort is fine, self reflection is fine, problem solving is fine, but headtrips are the beginnings of a neurosis or an obsession. Their maleficence is that they become self perpetuating. Everyone has them from time to time but well-balanced people do not succumb to their taking over of too much time and energy.
   Being able to recognise and manage a headtrip is an invaluable skill in life. The practise of meditation is exactly that - learning to watch and detach from mental stuff and then to carry out in life only those actions which will produce grounded and positive results. The key to this is the old adage of "Be Here Now". Focussing on the here and now, concentrating the mind, body and feelings on the action at hand will relieve you of the endless, fruitless addiction to headtrips. Being able to say to yourself, and even to others - "Oh that's just a headtrip", is such a useful device for putting yourself back on track to attend to what is important. Let the headtrip continue at one level if it needs to, but by recognising it for what it is, you have disempow-ered it from stalling your real, forward progress. It will then either burn itself out or else manifest as a valid and productive thought form which leads to action.
   I mention headtrips here because they seem to become immensely more powerful for a new mother. Because new motherhood is frequently unchartered territory, many of the worries and fears a mother nurses (sorry!) can blow up into unmanageable incidents, only to show themselves in the end as being the result

of a headtrip.Instability (and new motherhood is often a trigger for instability) will frequently cause things which are not based in reality to appear real. Headtrips can often become the norm when your whole life seems to revolve around nothing other than breastfeeds, nappies and poor sleep!
   One example of this was an occasion when I helped out a new mum with whom I was sharing a property some years back. It was a very common scenario and one that I had been through myself, many times in the years before.
   One morning, Cathy came over to my kitchen in her pyjamas, extremely bedraggled and with tears streaming down her face. Her 5 week old baby just wouldn't settle, she was at her wits end, and could I help. She told me she had done everything she could think of: changed the nappy (2 or 3 times), offered her breast, cuddled, rocked, sang, yet still he wouldn't stop crying. Since this had never happened before, she was now worrying that maybe he was sick with something serious and maybe he needed to go to the doctor.
   I accompanied her back home, suggested she just sit down on the front step and relax. I then followed the crying noise into the house and up the stairs to the baby's bedroom.  There, half undressed, screaming and flailing around on the bed, was her little boy. I picked him up and held him securely for a few minutes until he settled a little. I then dressed him warmly, swaddled him and held him again for a few minutes more. Then I tucked him into his basket and left him to sleep.
   Apart from being amazed, Cathy was more curious as to how I did that! What did I have that she didn't - or that she couldn't draw upon at that time?
   After some discussion we discovered she was particularly tired that day and felt really behind in her housework. She just wanted the baby to sleep and leave her alone for the morning. In other words, she was simply shorter on time, energy and clarity than required for that particular baby on that particular day. The more she tried and failed, the worse they both got. As things strayed further and further from the plan or from past experience, the headtrips started. She became worried that there was something wrong with him, something beyond her capacity. She also felt guilty that she maybe she'd done the wrong thing and made him worse. She also felt incompetent because she couldn't fix it, and (initially) felt too proud to come and ask for some help. These are all very common maternal syndromes.
   Upon reflection (and after a nice cup of tea and a biscuit), Cathy was able to see