Blog
Mind health
The Secret to .....
At first, everything is an adventure.
There is so much to explore and see and listen to and do and make and learn and take apart and experience. You reach and crawl and pull yourself up and toddle, investigating your world, awed by the miracles of light and sound and texture around you.
Sometimes you cry and sometimes you laugh. Sometimes you are cross and sometimes you are not. Sometimes you are tired and you sleep and sometimes you are wide awake and ready for adventure. All of life is in you. T…
There is so much to explore and see and listen to and do and make and learn and take apart and experience. You reach and crawl and pull yourself up and toddle, investigating your world, awed by the miracles of light and sound and texture around you.
Sometimes you cry and sometimes you laugh. Sometimes you are cross and sometimes you are not. Sometimes you are tired and you sleep and sometimes you are wide awake and ready for adventure. All of life is in you. T…
The Game Of Life
There are two games taking place.
In the first game, the surface game, let's call it 'Drama', all the twists and turns of the game, all the other characters and events that provide such tension and excitement for the character only serve to make the character more absorbed in The Game.
In the second, hidden game (let's call this Realisation), the same characters and events have an entirely different function: to show that the character is not real, that The Game is not as it appears to be.
Like the…
In the first game, the surface game, let's call it 'Drama', all the twists and turns of the game, all the other characters and events that provide such tension and excitement for the character only serve to make the character more absorbed in The Game.
In the second, hidden game (let's call this Realisation), the same characters and events have an entirely different function: to show that the character is not real, that The Game is not as it appears to be.
Like the…
'Stress is just your thinking…’… so why can’t I change the thoughts?
An enormous liberation occurs the moment it is realised that reality is not an objective truth. That it changes in appearance, meaning, association, import with the perceiver.
This is huge.
Because up until that point it was believed that the world was exactly how it appeared. There was no space. Life was just a continual attempt to control, manage or deal with an objectively fixed reality. Until one day, a teacher speaks in such a way that their words create a crack in the concrete and, through …
This is huge.
Because up until that point it was believed that the world was exactly how it appeared. There was no space. Life was just a continual attempt to control, manage or deal with an objectively fixed reality. Until one day, a teacher speaks in such a way that their words create a crack in the concrete and, through …
Stress: approaching as simply as possible. But not too simply…
Today we begin our month long on-line course 'STRESS, getting real with challenge'. The challenge for me is how to do justice to such a multi-layered, enormous topic in 30 days.
Because understanding stress isn't as simple as telling ourselves 'it's just my thinking'.
There are stressors that are humanity-wide (eg. violence, poverty, captivity, discrimination...). There are variables that which, when not right for the individual, can also create stress (eg. noise, temperature, stimulation, slee…
Healing
‘Spiritual bypass’ is perhaps the biggest risk as we explore what is true about ourselves and about the world.
It is a term coined by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist and refers to the ‘tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks’.
And it raises the question,
How do we understand the two aspects of what we are: the pure intelligence, presence and beingness of life …
It is a term coined by John Welwood, a Buddhist teacher and psychotherapist and refers to the ‘tendency to use spiritual ideas and practices to sidestep or avoid facing unresolved emotional issues, psychological wounds, and unfinished developmental tasks’.
And it raises the question,
How do we understand the two aspects of what we are: the pure intelligence, presence and beingness of life …
The joy of stress
In his book, ‘The Body Says No’, Gabor Maté writes in great detail of the indisputable link between stress and a wide variety of diseases.
He demonstrates how stresses, often imposed on the developing psyche in childhood, continue to play out in patterns of behaviour in our adult life that create physically debilitating and even fatal illness.
This field of medicine is psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology. It investigates the link between stress within the system and the emergence of disease and is l…
He demonstrates how stresses, often imposed on the developing psyche in childhood, continue to play out in patterns of behaviour in our adult life that create physically debilitating and even fatal illness.
This field of medicine is psycho-neuro-endocrine-immunology. It investigates the link between stress within the system and the emergence of disease and is l…
Put you in a trance...
“I just want some ice on my wrist so I look better when I dance
Have you lookin' at it, put you in a trance
I just want a Rollie Rollie Rollie…’
We seem to be listening to this song a lot, Finn and I, in the car on the way to school. (For those of you who, like me, didn’t know… ‘ice’, the urban dictionary says, ‘is flashy jewellery often containing many diamonds').
‘Have you lookin’ at it, put you in a trance..’. Ayo and Teo know that the ‘you’ in the song will be hypnotised by the jewels, made half…
Have you lookin' at it, put you in a trance
I just want a Rollie Rollie Rollie…’
We seem to be listening to this song a lot, Finn and I, in the car on the way to school. (For those of you who, like me, didn’t know… ‘ice’, the urban dictionary says, ‘is flashy jewellery often containing many diamonds').
‘Have you lookin’ at it, put you in a trance..’. Ayo and Teo know that the ‘you’ in the song will be hypnotised by the jewels, made half…
It is slavery to live in the mind, unless it has become part of the body
"It's a Slavery to live in the mind unless it has become part of the body." - Khalil Gibran
I came across this great quote the other day, and I wanted to share it with you.
In just 17 words, it shows the imprisonment the mind creates and the freedom available when that is seen for what it is.
For those of us who suffer greatly from the thoughts and beliefs of the mind and the corresponding emotional experiences of anxiety, depression, isolation, withdrawal, conflict, it might be really obvious th…
Defence and Capacity
A friend sent me a recent article by Sir Anthony Hopkins. Its essence was that we deserve the best and so when people treat us badly we should move away from them, have only those who cherish us in our life.
Many thousands of people thanked him for the article. It was a beautiful piece of writing.
And what more powerfully healthy message can there be than that we all deserve kindness, compassion, love, cherishing?
Let’s not ever forget that message. It is vital.
But it is missing a crucial element…
A…
Many thousands of people thanked him for the article. It was a beautiful piece of writing.
And what more powerfully healthy message can there be than that we all deserve kindness, compassion, love, cherishing?
Let’s not ever forget that message. It is vital.
But it is missing a crucial element…
A…
“This time, it’s personal”
It was the tag line from Jaws, The Revenge, famously one of the worst films ever made.
The shark is back and follows the Brody family from Amity Island to the Bahamas, strategically targeting them to extract its revenge.
The images and score of the original Jaws still haunt many of us every time we step into the ocean, such was the power of that film.
But Jaws 4… not so much…
The idea that a shark can be motivated not by hunger or survival but by revenge just didn’t hold water. It was ‘personal’ for…