An Open Mind

As deputy editor of lads’ mag FHM, Ed Halliwell was working hard and playing harder. It was all great fun... until it wasn’t. Now a leading expert on mindfulness, Cuckfield-based Ed tells JENNY MARK-BELL that his journey to enlightenment began with a cup of tea.

- Ed Halliwell 

IN his early 20s Ed Halliwell was living the Nineties dream. As deputy editor of the lads’ mag FHM he presided over a world of High Street Honeys and irreverent interviews. Britpop was in the ascendancy and hedonism was cool: there were lots of parties and a fair amount of excess.

But he was struggling. Ed had found himself in magazine publishing quite by accident: “I just followed where my automatic pilot was going. I was drawn to this world of pleasure and fun and excitement but I remember thinking there was always a niggling, nagging thought that I don’t really know how I got here and I don’t know where I’m going.

“My attempts at relationships didn’t work very well. My relationship with myself was non-existent and I found it very difficult to be still and on my own.”

Talking at his home in Cuckfield, where he moved with his wife and two sons seven years ago, 44-year-old Ed is a serene presence. He speaks eloquently, in well-mapped sentences and doesn’t falter or fall into verbal tics. Now a mindfulness teacher and author of three books on the subject, he is also a consultant for The Mindfulness Initiative and advises the Mindfulness All-Party Parliamentary Group.

But getting here wasn’t an easy journey. In his 20s Ed was attempting to mitigate a rising maelstrom of emotions by pushing it away – working and playing harder. “That worked for a while but it wasn’t very sustainable in the long run because that nagging sense of disquiet kept coming back.