Archive for year: 2014

Forgiveness may be difficult but it’s not impossible.

Again and again I work with people who are weighed down and disabled by their past experiences or from their negative attachment to what is happening to them right ‘now’. They can get angry with me when I talk about forgiving and letting go. They will often shout and tell me that I don’t understand when I tell them that if they become grateful for what they have ‘now’ they will be able to let go of their negative thoughts and feelings of the past and create a happier, healthier future.

To let go and forgive requires a good dollop of gratitude in the present. It requires that we each learn to love and grow from those things that we currently dislike or hate and seek to avoid. When someone says to me…

…”I try to see the good and be grateful for the good things that happen – but it doesn’t make sense to me to be grateful for the crap.”…

They have completely missed the mark. It is in being grateful for the crap that it does begin to make sense and then life really does begin to change and it changes fast. This takes a step up in consciousness, in awareness. To see the things that were previously experienced as bad and horrible, as good and positive is counterintuitive. But it is the breakthrough point to awakeness when you become the creator of your experience rather then the reactor to events.

Is the universe out to get you?

This is an important question and lays the foundation for how you experience your world. For me all the things that have happened to me have taught me lessons. Some of these have been easy good lessons and some have been hard lessons. When I now look back I would rather not have needed to learn some of those lessons but they were there and I dealt with them. Sometimes the same lessons would come back and back until I got the point. This process is on going. It is life long learning. The main thing they have taught me is this…

When I experience something, or someone, who makes me angry, upset, hurt or whatever, I have a choice I can either assume victim mode and be weighed down by it or, I can observe, learn and grow from the experience. It may be that others see this process as me withdrawing; some might see it as sulking (that is their stuff) for me it is the mindful observation of self, situation and of others so that I can learn and in learning I can grow.

Over all I see the universe of experience as a set of lessons and I see us human beings as points of consciousness, or our sense of self, surrounded by a set of physical and intuitive senses that enable us to learn from our experiences. We are always facing new lessons if we choose to see our experience that way. Of course, if we choose to see life as a problem in various states of fairness or unfairness then we never grow, or we grow slowly.

On a moment-by-moment basis we exercise our choice. Will we learn, grow and develop from what we experience or will we use it as ammunition to reinforce our problems and our negative view of a universe that is out to get us.

The confusion of forgiveness and gratitude

In attempting to forgive we can become confused with the idea that we are condoning behaviours that we know are wrong. We might feel that we are, in some way, saying that what people did, however bad, is ok. This is never the case. To forgive means to forgo your retribution or let go of your hatred and in, letting go of what was in the past enables us to focus on the gratitude of what is in the present. If you hold onto negative thoughts they will, in the end hurt you. You cannot live a happy now, or create a positive future if you believe that the past has done you wrong. It is never what happens it is how we deal with it that makes the difference.

The only person that hatred will ever harm is the hater.

When you hate, or have any negative thoughts about others or any situation, your body creates all the negative chemistry that will ultimately damage your body. It raises your blood pressure, hardens your arteries and leads to strokes, heart attacks, ulcers, back ache, neck ache, head ache and, dementia. Then come the nausea, irritable bowel, eczema, asthma and so on. The list really is endless.

In hatred it is as though you have taken the poison expecting it to kill someone else
Sadly the only person your hatred damages is you. Even worse is that these things that we hold on to, in our negative attachments to the past, stop us moving forward.

All the emotions of the negativity that we hold about other people, or events, are like elastic bands that keep pulling us back and stop us moving forward. The trick is learning to love adversity, love your enemies, love the difficult situation, love the crap and use them all as learning points so that you can grow.

In forgiveness, forgoing or letting go, choose the word that works best for you, you will be able to get into your present. In your present you are then able to create the life of gratitude that you really want for your self. When you are bound to the past you will never create a future that you desire.

Just a thought. If the science of karma, the law of cause and effect, is right, I suspect that it is, then everyone gets theirs in the end. There are no free lunches all debts need to be paid in full. It would seem that it is not my role in life to punish people for what they have done. It is equally true that I do not need to punish myself either. In letting it go I step out of the cycle of karma and move forward unencumbered by the past in to a happy and fulfilling future.

Let go, 
be happy
 and live in your present

Take care,
Sean x

What is life about ? Why are we here?

It is easy to think that we know it all, that we have the physical world taped and that we
know all about life, but what is really going on here?

As a young man I travelled in an attempt to find the answer to life the universe and,
everything. I spent time with various religions, sects, and philosophies. I lived on
communities and tried various practices. I spent time and studied with Christians, Jews,
Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists, and Sikhs. I tried the fringe areas such as Spiritualism,
Theosophy, Christian Science, Dianetics, and even the Moonies. I tried the Tarot, the I
Ching, and the Runes. I talked with teachers and Gurus, and spent many years under
vows as a brother in an Ayurvedic community. I studied philosophy, psychology and
became a psychotherapist and yet, for all those years of time and study I have never found
anyone who knows the answer.

So here is my take. The world is what you make it. In the end it is up to you.

My teacher once said to me ‘what you hold in you bindi will come to pass’. Later the more
pop psychologists and the book The Secret’ made statement such as ‘thoughts become
things’, what you think about you being about’.

From whichever point you look at it from creation is a very odd thing. You might see it as
living hell or the magic of nature, either which way it is very odd. Why should anybody, any
consciousness, God or being create the universe?

Bottom line is that no one knows.

We have developed theories and ideas, religions and sciences, we have belief and faith.
So, my take is this. Decide what you enjoy, discover your passion and lead a happy life.

Take care, may all beings be happy.

Sean x

According to Wikipedia kindness is a behaviour marked by:

‘ethical characteristics, a pleasant disposition, and concern for others. It is known as a virtue, and recognised as a value.’

Google defines kindness as:

‘the quality of being friendly, generous, and considerate’.

How do you define it?

When I was a child I read the book ‘The Water Babies’ by Charles Kingsley. In the story there was a wonderful character called Mrs Do As You Would Be Done By. She ensured that whatever the children’s behaviour; it was reflected back to them. Later in my travels I discovered the laws of Karma and Dharma and the concept that ‘what goes around comes around’.

If the law of karma is real then we have a vested interest in treating other people well, on the basis that we will also be treated this way. This can make acts of kindness and altruism begin to sound too calculated though, in terms of social stability, in any community or group of people, treating others fairly means that I will be treated fairly as well.

In Ayurvedic psychology acting positively and serving the needs of others without expecting anything in return is termed ‘Bhakti’. People such as Ghandi, Mother Theresa and Nelson Mandela, amongst many others, would fall into this category. People who have given of themselves without great reward or aggrandisement. You will probably know of people in your life or community who have been Bhakti.

Kindness or treating other people fairly and well is enshrined in most religions and philosophies. In the Ayurvedic and Hindu worlds acting in the right way is termed dharma.

‘The word “dharma” has multiple meanings depending on the context in which it is used. These include: conduct, duty, right, justice, virtue, morality, religion, religious merit, good work according to a right or rule, etc. Many other meanings have been suggested, such as law or “torah” (in the Judaic sense), “logos” (Greek), “way” (Christian) and even ‘tao” (Chinese).’

Though there is no équivalent word for dharma in the Western lexicon.

‘Dharma has the Sanskrit root dhri, which means, “that which upholds” or “that without which nothing can stand” or “that which maintains the stability and harmony of the universe.” Dharma encompasses the natural, innate behaviour of things, duty, law, ethics, virtue, etc. Every entity in the cosmos has its particular dharma — from the electron, which has the dharma to move in a certain manner, to the clouds, galaxies, plants, insects, and of course, man. Man’s understanding of the dharma of inanimate things is what we now call physics.’

For me, psychological or spiritual dharma is to act in the right way, in every situation all the time. An ideal to aim for though hard to achieve. This is what we in ‘live in the present’ term mindfulness. To be mindful in the moment, to be aware of yourself and the other people around you means that you can do nothing but act in the right way, which is to act with kindness. Being mindful, being positive, being kind and being happy are all facets of the same attitude of mind and way of being.

Kindness is in the same spectrum as love. It is part of the positive forces that brings people together, solves problems and creates happiness.

However you would express your acts of kindness, it would be good if we could all spend the day being consciously kind.

Be happy.

Sean x

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Why do you go to work? Do you jump out of bed shouting ‘hooray’? If not why not? A few people will be doing what they do each day because they simply love it and would carryon doing it what ever happened. Sadly many people will be going to work simply for the money and hating everyday of their life

What are you doing?

Ask yourself this simple question if you did not need the money, perhaps you had won the lotto, would you still do what you do, would you still go into work?

Maybe, if you were very conscientious and had a very responsible job or, if you felt that people relied upon things that you had to do, then maybe you would feel the need to go into work to tie up those lose ends. But would that be it, would you then do a runner and do something else with your life?

What is the relationship between your life and your work?

Do you work for money or happiness?

Most people would say that they want money and that it will make them happy, however they do not really understand what money is. Often people see money as the route to their fulfilment, they are generally wrong. There are millions of examples where money has created great unhappiness. Yet, when we understand the true nature of money it can make us happier.

You see, money does not actually exist, it is not tangible stuff. On a British bank note it states “I promise to pay the bearer on demand the sum of £X”. Now, this is a nonsense. If you took you £20 note to the Bank of England and asked for your twenty pounds they would look at you like you were mad. A bank note is a token of good faith. At best it is a share certificate that entitles you to a share in reserves of the banking system. In the current bank led recession it is easy to assume that this share is not worth very much if anything at all. A bank note is really potential energy.

There is both good energy and bad energy

Money works at a much deeper level than simply bits of paper. Your twenty pound note is like a seed full of energy that, if planted in one way will grow and bear the fruit of other £20 notes. If planted on barren soil, or frittered away, it becomes nothing.

There is both good money and bad money

There is a relationship between money and emotion but it is the reverse of what we expect it to be. Just as there are positive emotions of happiness and wellbeing there are also negative emotions of sadness and negativity. In the same way there is positive money and negative money. That is money that makes us feel good and money that makes us feel bad.

Money is a magnifying glass

Money tends to makes things bigger just like a magnifying glass. When we are feeling happy we will use money to create more happiness. But, if we are unhappy, we will use money to create more unhappiness. This is simply the nature of energy so that…

Your money flows where your consciousness goes

You see money, like all forms of energy, is neutral, it is neither good or bad. All energy does is enable us to act out what we are feeling.

The person who is happy with money is the person who is also happy without money. The feeling comes before the money.

However it is important to realise that is you want to create money it is easier to do so if you are feeling positive. It is happiness that makes it easier to create money, not money that creates happiness.

Money is the energy of life

If your are a giver, money will allow you to give more. If you are a hoarder money will allow you to hoard more. If you are a happy person money will allow you to be more happy. If you are an unhappy person money will allow to be more unhappy.

The common word is ‘more’

All that money allows you to do or be is ‘more’ of what you already are. Because money is just energy, and when you use it you are expressing your life energy.

Be happy, live in the present and allow your self to positivity create your financial wealth and in so doing you will also find your financial health.

Sean x

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