TSHP100: It’s Time to Celebrate (More Often)

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-self-help-podcast/id663490789″ bg_color=”#2d7ec4″]Subscribe to The Self Help Podcast in iTunes[/button]

What’s Coming This Episode?

Holy moly, we made it to 100 episodes! Who’d have guessed?!

This is a special episode so we took the show on the road today. You might notice a bit of background noise but hey, we’re celebrating! It’s something we should all do more often.

Thank you SO MUCH to all of our listeners, contributors, complainers and fans. We couldn’t have done it without you 🙂

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

sean-ed

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

Stay in Touch

We’re all over the web, so feel free to stay in touch:

Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

We’d be amazingly grateful if you could leave us a review on iTunes. It will really help us to build our audience. So, if your like what you hear (and would like to hear more great free content) then visit our iTunes page and leave us an honest review (all feedback gratefully received!).

It’s Party Time. All the Time.

Come On Let’s Celebrate

A quick look at celebration because we have made it, episode 100 of the podcast!

Ed, Rie and I have been working away over the last few years developing the Live In the Present site and service. Ed has been focused on design, working on the site, the books and currently on the audio visuals for the new “Live In The Present” on-line course. Rie runs the site, processes the book orders and our Facebook and Twitter pages. Day after day she both sources and creates the most amazingly positive images, ideas and sayings that are a daily inspiration for so many people. Along with keeping Ed and I in check! My role has been writing the books and courses and, of course, Ed and I have spent time each week researching and recording the podcast. Then Ed edits and puts it up on the net, creative genius.

So, in celebrating our work to date I want to thank Ed and Rie for their amazing contribution to what I see as “The Work”. The work is done by all those that attempt the make the world a better place, help us resolve our issues and enable people to wake up to their full potential and happiness. Ed and Rie are real and committed workers.

I want to thank all you wonderful people who read, listen and participate in our work at Live In the Present. Every week we have over a thousand regular listeners to the podcast and over time we have over two hundred thousand downloads. It has all been fun and amazing.

Celebration is important

When we celebrate what we have, where we are and all those around us we are acknowledging our gratitude for being alive. It seems to me that we should spend more time celebrating, thanking and acknowledging the goodness that is all around us.

We celebrate at births, birthdays, christenings, weddings, graduations, and even funerals. There are even people who have divorce parties. But everyday can be a celebration. Every morning when you wake you have the chance to celebrate the wonder of a new day. In the evening you can celebrate all that you have enjoyed in your day.

When did you last have a party? When did you find a reason to celebrate with your friends or family. So, come on let’s celebrate.

Be happy and party

Thank you all

Sean x

Ps. stay with us for the next hundred episodes and we will celebrate 200.

TSHP099: Combatting Depression

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-self-help-podcast/id663490789″ bg_color=”#2d7ec4″]Subscribe to The Self Help Podcast in iTunes[/button]

What’s Coming This Episode?

Finally, we’ve arrived at a point where depression is given the attention is deserves. Despite this, it’s still a condition that can go unnoticed so easily.

How have we’ve managed to go 98 episodes without discussing this in details?!

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

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

Stay in Touch

We’re all over the web, so feel free to stay in touch:

Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

We’d be amazingly grateful if you could leave us a review on iTunes. It will really help us to build our audience. So, if your like what you hear (and would like to hear more great free content) then visit our iTunes page and leave us an honest review (all feedback gratefully received!).

Dealing with Depression

Depression

People tell me about being stressed when they are not, they are busy. People tell about having the flu when they haven’t, they have a cold. People tell me that they are depressed when they are not, they are a little bit down. The natural flow of human emotion is to be high and to be low. This flow is normal and may happen minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, week by week, month by month. It may flow throughout the year so that people feel high in the summer and low in the winter. To feel a bit down from time to time is normal.

What is depression?
Try and visualise a flat line that starts in the present moment and goes on into eternity. The line represent the normal, normal feeling and normal actions, you might see the line as flatness neither happy nor sad, positive nor negative. Anything above the line is positive, happiness, joy and as it get higher euphoria, ecstasy and mania. Below the line is dullness, lack of motivation, inertia, unhappiness, misery, sadness, and depression.

Those described as manic depressive have fluctuating emotions between the highs of mania, through normality of the middle line to the lows of depression. There are many types of manic depression. Some are mainly high with a little bit of low, some mainly low with a little high and all other combinations between these two. Then there are is the issues of are these changes rapid cycling or slow cycling.

Depression describes an emotional state that exists below the normal line. As we all have up days and down days we all feel high and lows. Both mania and depression are the extremes of these normal emotional states.

The mind brain
The mind is the emotional and conceptual part of the system or the software of the system. The brain is the meat, or hardware of the system. Feelings are in the software and, the chemistry or endorphins of the brain, are in the hardware. Both effect each other. If we change the way that we think or feel we will change our brain chemistry. On the other hand if we change our brain chemistry we change the way that we think and feel.

Medication
Anti-Depressants change the brain chemistry that in turn changes the way that we think and feel.

Psychotherapy
This changes the way that we think and feel that in tern changes the brain chemistry.

Both medication and psychotherapy are relevant and will effect depression. In most cases of deep depression they will only work effectively when used together.

Clinical depression
This is when depression is the sole result of deficient brain chemistry. This requires medication, which may need to be used forever, just as if you have an insulin deficiency because you are diabetic you will need medication for life.

Reactive depression
This is when an event or experience effects our thinking and feeling and subsequently effects our brain chemistry. Included in reactive depression are bereavement, loss, hurt, separation and so on. Also there may be trauma and post traumatic stress. Both medication and talking therapies will be useful for reactive depression.

Repressed anger
This is not accepted by all authorities, though I often find it in my consulting room. Perhaps a manager or partner acts in way that creates anger within you that you are unable to respond to. The situation requires that you keep quiet and repress your feelings. Over time, as the anger accumulates, the negative feelings, that are unexpressed, eventually turn against you and are eventually excreted as depression. Therapy is an absolute must in this case. Also running, jumping, screaming and shouting to let go of all negative energy will be really useful.

Generally there are many issues of feeling down in life. Post natal depression, the baby blues, midlife crisis, bereavement, loss, being let down, and so on. In most cases when the situation remains unaddressed it will eventually become depression.

We all need to be aware of our emotional health. The self help tip here has to be that if you begin to feel bad, down or depressed do something about it. The more aware you become of your self the more you will be able to attend to your own needs and not get lost in the depth of depression.

Those that practice mindful meditation are least likely to experience depression and those that are depressed and begin to practice mindfulness will not only solve their problems quicker but will also reduce the levels of medication required to solve their issues.

Be happy and be mindful

Take care

Sean x

TSHP098: Should You Trust Your Intuition?

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-self-help-podcast/id663490789″ bg_color=”#2d7ec4″]Subscribe to The Self Help Podcast in iTunes[/button]

What’s Coming This Episode?

‘Go with your gut’, they say. ‘What does your instinct tell you?’ they shout. But as we all know, most advice is just plain wrong (unless it comes from Sean).

So should we trust our intuition? Do we even have a choice?!

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

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

Stay in Touch

We’re all over the web, so feel free to stay in touch:

Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

We’d be amazingly grateful if you could leave us a review on iTunes. It will really help us to build our audience. So, if your like what you hear (and would like to hear more great free content) then visit our iTunes page and leave us an honest review (all feedback gratefully received!).

Intuition a blessing and a curse

Intuition is the sixth sense that resides above cognition and below awareness.

When it is below awareness we call it ‘gut reaction’. Perhaps we meet someone and have an instant feeling about them, maybe that they are not so good. Yet we allow our cognitive mind to override our gut feeling. Other people have told us what a nice person they are, they have told us of the good things that they have done. So, we buy into it, get swept away, go along with it. Later on, when it all goes wrong, we remember that gut feeling. We might even become angry and frustrated with our self for not listening to that inner voice in the first place, and we decide that next time we really will listen to it, but do we?

There are skills that utilise this intuition below awareness such as healing and massage. The practitioner, in simply touching someone’s body, can ‘feel’, and feel is the right word here, all kinds of things about the patient. They intuitively know where the tensions are and can feel where the problems are and what is needed for them to be undone. Included in these skills might be reflexology, reiki, acupuncture, acupressure, moxibustion, doIn and even physiotherapy, chiropractics and osteopathy.

There is an intuitive psychic skill termed ‘psychometry’ that happens in the intuition below awareness. This is where the psychometrist can hold a personal possession and, by attuning to it, giving an insightful reading about the owner. Perhaps descriptive of personality, problems, forthcoming or past events and, solutions. Even readers of Tarot cards, crystal balls, sand and, runes are all using intuition below awareness. Probably the most acceptable practise here is the water dowser, or diviner, who is able through the medium of the dowsing rods or twigs to connect with a water source. Dowsing is also used to find minerals, oil and precious metals. People such as Uri Geller use this energy to bend spoons.

At the other end intuition above cognition often gets a bad press. This is the world of the ‘Clair’ or clear. To have clear vision is to be clairvoyant and is seen, by many, as a nonsense rather than a real sense. The clairaudient will hear. Not in the way that a psychotic hears voices but as a true inner voice that is meaningful and insightful and, usually, right. Then there is the clairscient who simply just knows. This is knowing without knowing, as though a file of information has simply been dropped into their head and they seem to have a depth of knowledge about us that defies our understanding.

We all have the sense of intuition whether it is highly developed or not, and, by the way, it can be developed just as a weight lifter can build a bicep. When it works we know who is on the phone before we pick it up. Or, we are thinking of someone and then they ring. Or we discover that something has happened to someone while they were in our thoughts.

While intuition is not held with much value by western psychology, that is often stunted by its obsession with cognition, or the thinking mind, eastern psychology holds it in high regard. The dot in the centre of the forehead represents the bindi, third eye, Ajna Chakra or pituitary gland, you choose. It acknowledges this part of the human mind brain system that is intuition. It is said that what you hold in your Bindi will come to pass. This suggests that the intuitive function of the mind brain may not simply be a passive recipient of information but might also be able to create, or tune into future events and experiences. This involves the higher or creative mind.

Imagination, creativity, intuition and thinking are all aspects of the mind that effect, and control, our perceptual experience. However, it is only the intuitive aspect of the mind that is passive, all the others are being active. Developing the intuitive mind involves mindfulness meditation. In meditation we learn to relax the bodily tensions, still the thinking mind and allow contemplation of the intuitive mind to flow. The developing medium or seer perfects these skills so that with practice they develop clearer and clearer insight.

Intuition and insight are both a blessing and a curse. We may not like the things that we see. They may be distressing or painful. Often those that develop such insight will feel separate and alone. There are few people who truly understand what the intuitive person experiences. The blessing is the magic of knowing the unknowable. This can be blissful and joyous, together with a feeling of connectivity to all of creation, beyond compare.

We all have some level of insight. When you see or feel things about others check it out and see if you can develop your intuitive gifts.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

TSHP097: 5 Timeless Tips for Spiritual Awakening (and a Better Life)

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-self-help-podcast/id663490789″ bg_color=”#2d7ec4″]Subscribe to The Self Help Podcast in iTunes[/button]

What’s Coming This Episode?

This week we’re delighted to welcome back Vide Kadampa (Chris!), our resident Buddhist that we first met back in episode 57.

This time we have 5 amazing pieces of advice for you that you simply can’t afford to ignore. They were written over 1000 years ago and yet are eerily relevant to our modern day lives of busyness, beeping smart phones and anxiety.

This one’s an epic!

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

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

  • Sean gave a not so gentle nod to meditation. Try Headspace, Calm or get started with our free files by subscribing via the boxes on this site
  • Ed demands that you watch Interstellar, preferably in BluRay if you can
  • Vide (Chris!) recommends you dive deeper into the source of today’s ‘Advice from Atisha’s Heart

Stay in Touch

We’re all over the web, so feel free to stay in touch:

Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

We’d be amazingly grateful if you could leave us a review on iTunes. It will really help us to build our audience. So, if your like what you hear (and would like to hear more great free content) then visit our iTunes page and leave us an honest review (all feedback gratefully received!).

Timeless Advice For All Mankind

Buddhist texts are often so directly applicable to our experience of the modern world that it is sometimes easy to forget that many of them were written hundreds or perhaps even thousands of years ago.

One such text is known as ‘Advice from Atisha’s Heart’. Atisha was a very famous teacher and scholar who came to Tibet from Northern India at the request of the Tibetan King.

There he gave many excellent teachings and resolved the confusion which existed at that time about what was ‘true’ Buddhism. He taught a very practical presentation of Buddhadharma which allowed the Tibetans to practice all the stages of the path to enlightenment in a logical and understandable way.

This presentation is known as Kadampa Buddhism, and it is still practised today by millions of Buddhists around the world. When the time came to return to India, Atisha gave this teaching which has become known as ‘Advice from Atisha’s Heart’.

Since there is never a time when worldly activities come to an end, limit your activities.

This advice reminds us that if we want to make spiritual progress we need to make time for our practice. Although this advice is all given in a spiritual context, it is good general advice if we want to achieve our life goals whatever they may be.

We fill our lives with distractions and before we know it, we are at the end of our life and we have not made the spiritual progress we know we could have. People die with a full diary. We think that we will die when our work here is done, but it does not happen like that. We die when we have things to do tomorrow and the next week and so on. This advice is to remind us that since our worldly activities are unending, we need to consciously limit them.

Friends, the things you desire give no more satisfaction than drinking sea water, therefore practice contentment.

Very important advice because our desires are the main cause of us living unfulfilled lives. When we are thirsty it is tempting to drink sea water, but the result of doing so is that our thirst will increase. In the same way we can understand that when our desires lead us to obtain objects such as cars, watches, partners etc. our desires – far from being satisfied – only increase.

When we see something attractive we naturally generate a desire for it – to possess it or experience it. We work hard to obtain it, but when we actually do obtain it, we do not experience the satisfaction we expect, or if we do, it is very short lived. In fact all we have done is reinforce our habit of trying to obtain satisfaction from external objects. If we practice contentment, recognising that we have enough, we can experience peace of mind and create space and time for spiritual practice.

Words of praise and fame serve only to beguile us, therefore blow them away as you would blow your nose.

This advice tells us that although we may become beguiled with our own self importance when we are praised, these things are not real sources of happiness, only suffering. If we pin our happiness on being praised, then our happiness depends on others, and this makes our happiness very unstable.

Have no hatred for enemies, no attachment for friends.

This advice reminds us that we should not allow friends or enemies to throw our mind off balance. If we have an enemy, what makes them an enemy? It is our view of them that makes them an enemy. We focus on something (real or imagined) that we find unpalatable or unacceptable, and then exaggerate this until it is all we perceive when we think about the person. There comes a point when this perception is so intolerable that we feel the need to harm the person. This is anger. Normally we believe that the person themselves is horrible, but if we think clearly, we can see that the horrible person only exists in our mind, not ‘out there’.

Similarly, attachment in this sense means that we believe that the other person is an independent source of happiness. This other person ‘has’ happiness and we can get some happiness if we are with them/marry them/have a relationship with them. This is not the reality. What is really happening is that we have found something we like about the person and we have focuesed on it. We have exaggerated this quality until it is all we can perceive. Then when we think about the person we naturally develop desire, and engage in negative actions to acquire some happiness.

Atisha advises that we have no anger and no attachment. What is implied is that we have a warm friendly feeling for everyone. A healthy balanced view which allows us to react reasonably and not get carried away with misapprehensions.

Do not look for faults in others, but look for faults in yourself and purge them like bad blood.

We normally ignore our own faults and focus on the faults of others, but here Atisha advises the opposite.

This advice tells us that it is pointless to look for and dwell on the faults of others. If we look hard enough, everyone appears to have faults. This is a very negative occupation but if we are not careful we can spend long hours dwelling on the faults of others, steadily becoming increasingly negative towards them and deepening our bad habit of viewing others in a bad light.

Instead we should look within ourselves for our own faults and overcome them. We should not beat ourselves up over our faults, and we should never forget our good qualities, but it is important to have a realistic view of ourselves.

We should understand faults such as anger and attachment, and if we have these faults, we should understand how to overcome them, and then put these methods into practice.

More information about Atisha’s Advice and Kadampa Buddhism can be found here.

TSHP096: Tolerant of Intolerance?

[button link=”https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/the-self-help-podcast/id663490789″ bg_color=”#2d7ec4″]Subscribe to The Self Help Podcast in iTunes[/button]

What’s Coming This Episode?

Sean and Ed are talking about intolerance this week. What’s up with intolerant people? Interestingly, by being intolerant of intolerant people we all end up intolerant. Go figure…

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

Show Notes and Links

Resource of the Week

Stay in Touch

We’re all over the web, so feel free to stay in touch:

Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

We’d be amazingly grateful if you could leave us a review on iTunes. It will really help us to build our audience. So, if your like what you hear (and would like to hear more great free content) then visit our iTunes page and leave us an honest review (all feedback gratefully received!).

Why Do We Tolerate Intolerance

It is said that the only thing that we should be intolerant of is intolerance.

Yet to be tolerant of intolerance can create the most destructive of emotions and actions. If a ‘Hitler’ were to emerge again today, someone who inspired others to kill another six million people in cold blood, would it be ok to tolerate this behaviour or should we go to war to challenge this? For me the answer is an undoubted ‘yes’. I don’t want to go to war and I think that killing, in all forms is wrong. But, yes, I would go and fight to protect the freedom of all.

One problem!
How do I know that I am right?

One man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter

In all cases of tolerance and intolerance there is the issue of which side are you on? If both sides believe that they are right, if both believe that God is on their side, they cannot both be right. So, how do we know what is the right thing to do, what should we be tolerant of?

For me, most cases of tolerance and intolerance are not cognitive they are emotional. It probably comes down to what do you feel? When you listen to your inner voice, to your intuition, you are probably as close as anyone can get to making sense of what is right and wrong and what is tolerable.

My inner voice tells me that all behaviours that harm other beings in any way are intolerable. This includes all forms of bullying, abuse, deprivation, manipulation, exploitation, and so on. In my world this means that the behaviour of many professionals from politicians, lawyers, estate agents, car salesmen and, most managers are unacceptable and intolerable. As a vegetarian I would include the killing of animals and the eating of meat, but this is just my own point of view.

Tolerance is always a bias. Perhaps it is working for the best results for the majority that is as good as we can get. Perhaps at an individual level, our responsibility is to question what we feel, what we do, why we thing what we think? If we listen to our inner voice we can get it right for our self.

Think about your intolerance and how it effects other people. You may need to check your attitudes out with a therapist to enable you to understand where you are.

Take care be happy

Sean x