Blog
Glass of poison anyone…? Anyone…?
It’s a well worn expression and attributed to pretty much every sage in the quotations book… ‘Resentment is like drinking poison and expecting our enemy to die.’
Dr Gabor Maté in his book, ‘When the Body Says No’ takes it a stage further with research showing again and again that resentment and the stress it causes are major factors in the occurrence of a wide range of diseases and of the toll those diseases take on the body.
The danger of this finding, as Dr Maté takes great care to point out is …
Dr Gabor Maté in his book, ‘When the Body Says No’ takes it a stage further with research showing again and again that resentment and the stress it causes are major factors in the occurrence of a wide range of diseases and of the toll those diseases take on the body.
The danger of this finding, as Dr Maté takes great care to point out is …
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…
To see you
Shakespeare, Byron, Baudelaire could search the furthest corners of language and still not find the poetry to convey who you are. Nothing can come close to describing you. No words, no music, no painting, no sculpture can bring you to life. All falls short. You are beyond words. Unique, unmatchable, unquantifiable. The indefinable essence of you. Only you.
The miracle of you.
And I can’t see it. I can’t see you because I look at you and all I can see is what I need. I need you to be more this and …
The miracle of you.
And I can’t see it. I can’t see you because I look at you and all I can see is what I need. I need you to be more this and …
How does this understanding work when the whole system is corrupt?
When it seems impossible to be free because the system is stacked against us?
In those moments, we experience a them and us. There are victims and villains. We feel trapped and stuck. It looks impossible that anything can change.
Hopeless and despairing are not our nature. That is not who we are. That’s why it feels so off. We can use these feelings as a sign to look deeper into what is going on.
They tell us that we are missing something. They tell us that we are not seeing clearly who we are and…
In those moments, we experience a them and us. There are victims and villains. We feel trapped and stuck. It looks impossible that anything can change.
Hopeless and despairing are not our nature. That is not who we are. That’s why it feels so off. We can use these feelings as a sign to look deeper into what is going on.
They tell us that we are missing something. They tell us that we are not seeing clearly who we are and…
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…