Influential People

Who do you remember the most?
Which people have influenced you most? (Might be good or bad)
Are there people that you would thank for their influence or effect on your life?
Perhaps there may be people that have had a direct effect on the way that you think and feel, or on the very things that you do, or have done, with your life?

My teacher, (I recoil from the concept of Guru) and one of the most influential people in my life, would say…

To the awake mind everyone and everything is a Guru
But only if you are awake enough to see it

The influence that we get from another person maybe positive or negative. A person’s behaviour maybe so bad, that they teach you how not to act. My father was both one of the greatest influences in my life, in all senses, thinking, feeling and doing, but he was also one of the most negative people I have ever known.

As I look backwards over life I am aware of so many people that have effected who I am. So in the spirit of gratitude I need to acknowledge and thank all of them, all the people that I have ever met and have worked with because they have all taught me so much. Even my father who was a musician and without that influence in early childhood I do not think I would have done the many things that I have done with music and performing.

Once I begin to look at it there have been so many. My school teachers, brother and sisters and, of course my mother, my aunts and uncles, friends and enemies have all played a part in the creation of my thoughts, ideas, emotions and actions. Wow, aren’t people amazing?

The most profound people are those that I see as my teachers. They stand out for me as those that taught me meaningful things, some of which I would like to term spiritual, though they were not religious, and philosophical, and they we not dogmatic. They taught me things about the game of life, and about some of the rules needed to play the game in a fulfilling way.

I have attempted to add to that store of information and pass it on to those that have crossed my path. I work on one simple principle…

If we all look after each other we can have heaven on earth right now

I realise and acknowledge that I have come to that conclusion through the teachers that have influenced my thinking and my work. I also acknowledge my own learning through experience and the hard work of living a life and trying to live it the best way that I can.

If I have to decide on someone who has been the greatest influence on my life it is a simple monk, a Brahmin call Ramaji. His voice, ideas and understanding live in my head as a constant point of reference. His training that was Ayurvedic and Yogic is the basis of my life philosophy and my training as an Ashtanga Yogi that came a long time before my Western psychotherapeutic training.

So, who influenced you the most?
What are the loudest voices in your head?
Where do they come from?

I guess the other side of that coin would be who have you influenced?

Take care be happy acknowledge the good influences in your life and try to be a good influence on others.

Sean x

TSHP091: Power and Influential People

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What’s Coming This Episode?

The influence that we get from another person maybe positive or negative. A person’s behaviour maybe so bad that they teach how not to act. So who decides who gets the power?

Enjoy the show, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

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I love me, who do you love?

Us Brits are not good at blowing our own trumpet. We can have real problems in understanding the difference between positive self-acceptance, which is really self-love, and arrogance or being up your own backside. Now, I think this is really sad because self-esteem is essential for so many things in life. From allowing us to be happy and successful, to having a robust immune system.

Esteem vs arrogance
There is a very simple way to understand this. People that have arrogance do actually have posi-tive self-esteem but they are looking to you to tell them that they are ok. Imagine this scenario. There is a party, a gathering of people to celebrate an event or simply a social occasion, you get the idea. There are two people that are a little different to all the rest. One is sat quietly in the cor-ner having a meaningful conversation with someone else. The other makes a grand entrance that is loud, demanding attention and getting it. Which one is the most confident and which once feels small and insignificant?

Well, people that make lots of noise, who are larger than life and, demand attention are those that need other people to tell them that they are ok. They need the attention to give themselves value and to convince themselves that they are actually worth the skin that they stand up in. The person who is quietly getting on with life in the corner has self-esteem that is within them. Their value comes from the inside out; they do not need anyone else to tell them that they are ok.

In many ways we live in a world of opposites. Those of us that need to make lots of money, to ob-tain expensive possessions, the rich and famous are those that feel the least for themselves and lack self esteem. We often make the mistake of believing the opposite. We tend to believe that those who appear successful do so because they are full of self-esteem. You will find the most in-secure people, lacking self-esteem in spades, among the rich, the famous and those that we term celebrities.

To have positive self-awareness of your skills, qualities and to be open to accept your failings and, to have the awareness to be getting better at being a human being equals positive self-esteem.

What do we teach our children?
We, as a society, whether we are parents or not, have a responsibility to teach the children around us to have value in ‘who they are’ and not in ‘what they have’. In a materialistic society it is easy to mistake possessions for personal value and real self esteem. So many programmes on TV from “the house wives of…” wherever to “Big Brother” often show us the worst kind of people, with the worst moral and ethical values assuming a sense of self importance of the cost of the possessions that they have.

How is this for good self-esteem
I had dropped off my lovely mother in law, and was driving back to the house, so I switched on the radio. It was BBC Radio 4 and a man was being interviewed. He made a clear statement that he had worked out that he needed £20K per year to live on so every penny that he earned above that he gave away to charity. “Wow, how amazing” I thought. Apparently there is a whole movement of business people in the City of London, and other areas, who do exactly the same thing. This is amazing on so many levels. The fact that these people are not shouting about it and making a big deal, they are just simply doing it, This suggests a high level of self esteem that does not require any accolades or praise from others, they just do it. The second thing is that these people realise that their self-esteem does not come from turning their money into possessions to display to oth-ers.

There are times in our society when we need to display. I can rarely attend a business meeting in shorts and a tee shirt I need to be in a suit to be seen as credible by my peers. This kind of fancy dress is playing a societal game that for me is ok, as long as it doesn’t get out of hand.

Relative deprivation
Unless we wake up to what we have and develop some gratitude for how lucky we are it is easy to feel deprived. If everyone in our street has two cars and we only have one we may begin to feel a sense of relative deprivation. Psychologically and emotionally such things can lead to symptoms of depression, GP visits and medication.

On the radio programme I was talking about before, the interviewer went on to discuss a website where you could put in your income and your circumstances and it would tell you where you ranked in the rich list of the entire world population. One shocking statistic was that if you are in Britain liv-ing on the minimum wage you are still in the top 10% of the world population in terms of monetary richness. Apparently someone Face booked this information and has been hit by a tsunami of neg-ative responses. For me this information is a wake up call to us all.

We, in the West, are very privileged, and those among us that really do have nothing or very little should be supported properly.

Anyway, I wander, self esteem comes from within. It is an expression of how we feel about our self and not about what we have or what we can display to others. If you feel deprived you may need to create more wealth, change your job, adjust your living situation and there is nothing wrong with aspiration. However, it does not matter how many material things you manage to accumulate un-less you feel good about you and who you are, you will only be miserable in comfort.

What you might benefit from most is some therapy to develop your self esteem rather than money and possessions to hide behind.

Look in the mirror every morning for the next one hundred days and say out loud to yourself “I Love You”. If you can’t do it you have little self-esteem. But, if you do it for one hundred day it will be-come a new habit that is inner self-esteem. Because, guess what, self esteem is a habit just like smoking. None of us popped out of the womb with positive or negative self esteem. The way that we feel about who we are is what we have learned to be – maybe time to change.

Be happy, think lucky and, keep looking in the mirror!

Remember, I love me, who do you love? It is real, charity begins at home. When I can love me I can also love you.

Take care

Sean x

TSHP090: The Importance of Self Esteem, Self Love & Self Worth

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Self esteem is an often overlooked area of self improvement. Be good to others, take care of the world and those around you, sure. But how much does what we think about ourselves shape us? Quite a lot, we’re guessing…

Enjoy the show, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

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Will you be my Valentine?

So what will you be getting your loved one this Valentine’s day? Will it be the same as usual? The question is why are you doing it and what does it mean? February 14th is, we assume, a celebration of love, happiness and relationships. Or is it simply people buying cards flowers, meals and wine as a reflex action; is it just another habit in the year?

So, rather than the cards, chocolates, champagne and flowers that seem to have been the staple gifts for many years, how about we go back to basic’s and send a real valentine. A card that we make or write our self with our own message felt from the heart. This works both ways because, believe it or not, many men want some romance as well.

In the podcast this week we suggested that you ask each other certain questions and Ed has put some, links up that will help you do that. The aim is that you tune into each other all over again. Tuning into each other is what the practise of Tantra is really about. The word Tantra, much famed by Sting, with the promise of prolonged sex, means ‘woven together’. The act and purpose of foreplay is to tune into each other, this is the weaving of Tantra that leads to sensual and sexual pleasure. When woven together two people become one, they merge together in sensual bliss. Well, the best form of foreplay is communication. It is easy to say “I love you” but when did you last tell your loved one what you love about them and why you love them?

My suggestion is that you write your loved one a good old fashioned love letter, or you sit down and actually tell them why and how you love them. It might just bring you closer together.

Take care, be happy and make love not war.

Sean x

TSHP089: How to Win at Relationships

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Valentine’s Day is upon us once again so Sean and Ed are gazing into one another’s eyes and talking about love.

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TSHP088: Can Love Survive Distance?

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Can relationships survive distance? Of course they can! Is it straight forward and easy? Certainly not. Sean and Ed dive in to this weeks topic…

Enjoy the show, it’s The Self Help Podcast!

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Long Distance Love

Love is an energy that pulls things together just as hate is an energy that pushes things apart. For me love, like gravity, is the glue that holds the universe together. This attractive gravitational pull works at all levels big and small. It holds the moon around the earth and the earth around the sun. It holds the particles to the nucleus in an atom. At a social level it holds families and communities together and in intimacy it keeps couples together.

Whether we call it the law of attraction, the power of gravity or, the profundity of love, it is the infinite power that binds the whole of creation together. So, I think of love as elastic. Once we make a love bond we connect our emotional elastic to anther person. Once connected, we are pulled towards that person. If they move away we follow as the emotional elastic becomes stretched and we are pulled.

Living apart
The elastic is not dependent on distance. We may live very close to someone, in the same house and the same bed, and have little tension or pull in the elastic. We may live apart, either side of the earth and feel the exquisite feeling of the tension of love pulling us back together. The elastic of love knows no distance, but it does know vitality, health and strength.

The issues with couples is not usually the length of the elastic it is the colour or shape of the elastic, different needs create different elastic:

Physical elastic
Physical love may need a lot of physical, even sexual, contact for it to remain healthy. When people are dominated by physical need long distance relationship seldom work, unless the couple are able to anticipate the repeated honeymoon experience of coming back together after a prolonged absence as in sailors or off shore rig workers.

Sensual/Social elastic
May also require physical or sensual contact. However social media can support and maintain the social need in relationships and the idea of long distance sexual relationships, or cyber sex is no longer that uncommon. However, the sensuality of touch, from the held hand to the caressed buttock may be essential to maintain sensual elastic.

Intellectual elastic
At this point distance becomes less of an issue. Intellectual sharing of experiences, playing with ideas and concepts, the writing or reading of poetry and letters, enables the person at the other end of the elastic to become your inspiration and your muse.
I have come across many people who have maintained a loving relationship with a person they have never met and, perhaps never will meet. The extension of the pen pal, the person who writes to someone who is in prison who may never be released.

Emotional/Passionate elastic
Passion may involve physical, or emotional, contact, but the idea of ‘saying it with flowers’ or sending that expensive or seductively personalised gift can maintain and even strengthen the elastic.

Dutiful elastic
The love of rightness or to be righteous, the commitment to duty and fidelity, to being moral and correct is powerful in maintaining a strong elastic bond. This may be as true for the child sent to boarding school, the army officer, the priest, or the dutiful partner.

Intuitive/sensitive elastic
The deep intuitive emotions are about as near as we can get to unconditional love. At its best it is the clearest, purest elastic that requires nothing in return. It is the pure love of love. Its extent is limitless it power total.

Love at a distance
I guess what I am trying to say is that the ability to maintain a distant loving relationship is dependent on feeding the needs of your partner. If the elastic is well and appropriately fed it remains strong. The stronger it is the less likely it is to break.

Perhaps the question we should ask our long distance partner is, what do they need and how will they know that we love them? Once having sorted that out you should ask yourself the same questions and then see how they fit with our partners. The closer the match the better the chance of the relationship surviving.

Have a look at your love elastic and decide how it works for you.

Take care and be happy

Sean x