Reasons to be Grateful

Ed and I were talking on the podcast, this week, about Thanksgiving, about being grateful for what we have and where we are.

In Britain, perhaps a little earlier in the year, we have the harvest festival when we, in churches and schools, give thanks for the years farming produce. Historically this has been a great event that acknowledges our gratitude for the fact that we will survive the winter. Often harvest festivals were held in villages and communities keeping them together in a shared identity.

In this week of thanksgiving it begins with Grey Wednesday, when shops begin the early sales of good deals of Christmas fair. Thursday Thanks Giving is a celebration of when the founding fathers thanked the native Indians (1621) for their help and support they gave in 1620 when half of their community died from starvation. Next comes Black Friday when goods, at crazy discount prices, are available in the shops all over the world. This year Black Friday will also be the day of Mike’s Funeral (Rie’s dad), certainly a day of thanks giving. All this is followed Cyber Monday when special deals are available on line.

So, a quick word about Mike, who is my amazing father in law, who will be interred on Friday. It has been a real journey for him and the family as cancer and COPD have challenged his system and his spirit. He has been an amazing man. His granddaughter Halle wrote a poem to be read by her brother Ryan at the funeral in which she described him as her inspiration. She concluded with…

‘He is the bravest strongest man I know. Because you don’t know how strong someone is until being strong is the only option they have. I love my grandad, he is an incredible man, that is why my grandad is my inspiration.’

Mike’s funeral will truly be a thanksgiving for his life and the effect he has had on all those around him.

Thanksgiving as a Day is a national holiday celebrated in Canada and the United States. It gives thanks for the blessing of the harvest we have just had and our hopes and intentions for the coming year. Turkey Day is celebrated on the second Monday of October in Canada and Thanksgiving is on the fourth Thursday of November in the United States. Around the world many other places are now observing similar celebrations.

For all of us all we could be grateful and greet all our life with thanksgiving especially when we sit to eat. Traditionally we would say grace before the meal…

For what we are about to receive make us truly thankful

When we eat mindfully we eat with gratitude we greet all our food thankfully.

So whatever you are doing this week, waiting for a bus, eating a meal or making love, how about you greet it with thanksgiving and gratitude.

Be happy, be grateful

Sean xx

The Value of Life

In this weeks podcast Ed and I looked at death and the value that we put on life. This followed a week where death has been high in our minds both globally and personally. The ISIS attacks in France were highly reported however they were not alone as there were also attacks in other countries and cities such as Beirut, that hardly made the western press at all. Two days prior to these events Mike, my father in law sadly passed away. So, it has seemed to me that death had been all around for the last few weeks.

I have been struck by the contrast of one man, a family, a whole team of nurses and medics trying to enable someone, Mike, to live and another man who straps explosives to himself and ends the lives of hundreds of people. It makes no sense to my emotional mind yet logically I do get it. It all seems to come down to the social grouping of ‘us’ and ‘them’.

This week I also watched Goggle Box, that crazy programme were we watch other people watching TV and their responses to the programmes. One of the programmes they were watching this week was ‘The Hunt’ were David Attenborough talked about a variety of animals attempting to kill other animals to enable them to eat and survive. The clip that interested me was that of the seal and the polar bear. At the outset, as the bear was trying to catch a seal to eat she looked big and strong, at that time everyone hated her in favour of the seal and they all shouted at the screen for the seal to get away and live which it did.

Later, when after a long winter the polar bear was skinny and near death due to lack of food the watches swapped their allegiance from the seal to the bear in the hope that she would now catch a seal and eat in order that she may survive. It became obvious that the watchers of these acts of death and attempted death were supporting those animals that they identified with at the time. It was as though the animals had been accepted as one of ‘us’ and were therefore supported by ‘us’.

This sense of ‘us-ness’ is a sense of anthropomorphism in which we assume human values to a particular animal. We assume that we know what these animals are thinking or feeling, it is as though we humanise them. This is both an emotional and a cognitive response. The opposite is ‘them-ness’ this is when we strip humanity away from another person and treat them in ways that we would not treat ‘us’. The Nazis did this with the Jews reducing them to the status of less than other humans, therefore making it ok for them to be mistreated and murdered at will. Any waring faction in the world can only do so when it separates either themselves or their victims and create ‘them-ness’.

The massive resources of money, knowledge, equipment, medicines, nursing and love that were poured into Mike were an expression that he was one of ‘us’ and that we would do all that we can to save him and ensure that his passing was as peaceful as possible. Over all these were all acts of love.

The Isis bombers that spent their massive resources of time, money, knowledge, training, weaponry, and so on, to prepare for these great events of hurt to others confirmed that their victims had become ‘them’ and as they were no longer ‘us’ could be treated in that way. This was an expression of hatred to those that they killed and sought to kill so that it could be as awful and as painful as it could possibly be.

Acts of ‘us-ness’ tend to be acts of love while acts of ‘them-ness’ tens to be acts of hate.

In a fractured world where human consciousness breaks the whole of humanity into various groups of us and them, acts of hurt become commonplace. To the asleep mind ‘they’ don’t matter because they are not ‘us’. ‘They have no feelings’, “They are not like ‘us’”. The divisions become endless, black/white, gay/straight, Christian/Jew, Muslim/Hindu, the list goes on forever.

It is easy to see those that we see as ‘them’ as inhuman and not like ‘us’.

On the basis that one man’s terrorist is another man’s freedom fighter George Bush and Tony Blair, as the instigators of the Iraq war, may be seen by those in Isis in exactly the same way that ‘we’ see Jihadi John in the west. That is uncaring, immoral, violent, hateful, murderers and so on.

Russell Brand also popped up this week. A video clip from some months ago appeared on my FaceBook feed where Russell was talking about how we could overcome these violent acts of terrorism, we put the clip up in the list after the podcast and it is worth a listen. In the statements that Russell makes is the clear suggestion that in the end all that will solve the worlds problems is Love. Alongside this have been many quotes from John Lennon’s ‘Imagine’. This all feeds into my basic belief and life work that is simply, if we all look after each other then we will all be ok. This obvious and evident truth is the basis of my life and my work.

In the words of Martin Luther King, Jr
“Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.”

Having come myself from a family that was full of ‘us’ and ‘them-ness’, with me being the ‘them’, to watch the love of ‘us-ness” that Rie’s family poured into her dad was a joy to behold. It so starkly shows me that if we could all just treat each other in the same way then there would be no wars, no strife, no hunger, no refugees. It would be so easy to create heaven on earth but to do that we have to imagine no countries, imagine no religion just imagine all the people all living life in peace.

If you did watch Goggle Box or The Hunt you might consider, the next time that you bite into the body of another being, that other beings do not really need to die in order for you to live. For most meat eaters the act of eating the flesh of others is an unconscious act, “it is what humans do, isn’t it?” It is only possible to eat another being when you see that being as ‘them’ that is provided to feed ‘us’. Strangely, when given the option to kill the lamb, the calf, cow or pig for themselves most people recoil in horror and disgust, just like those watching The Hunt. We may choose to see animals as different to us. If we allow ourselves into the mind of animals, another piece of anthropomorphism, we may well be seen as the imprisoners, torturers and murderers. These are the very same acts on animals that we decry when they are carried out on human beings.

Surely, and in the end, love is all there is?

Take care and be happy

Sean x

TSHP129: Thanksgiving and Gratitude

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What’s Coming This Episode?

It’s Thanksgiving time in the States (and a few other places, interestingly) so a show about the valuable lessons it can teach us all seems appropriate. You’ve heard it before and you’ll hear it again – you need as much gratitude in your life as you can possibly get.

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

Show Notes and Links

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TSHP128: The Value of Life

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What’s Coming This Episode?

After a difficult week for team LITP we thought we’d have a simple discussion about life, death and all of the wonderful, scary, happy and dangerous bits in between.

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

Show Notes and Links

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Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

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TSHP127: Overprotective Parenting, Independence & Anxiety

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What’s Coming This Episode?

I think we can all agree that parenting is a rather important book. The thing about being a parent though, is that there is no text book. There’s no hard and fast way to raise a human being. Sometimes, we make mistakes – maybe we’re overprotective, perhaps we’re under-protective, too strict or goodness knows what.

It’s an important job but sometimes we make the wrong calls and, over a long enough time line the routines and habits we teach can have a long term, negative impact. So how do we pick up the pieces?

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

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Leave us an Honest Review on iTunes

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Overprotective Parents

In this weeks podcast Ed and I were discussing the over parenting of children. In a nutshell what I was saying was that parents who need to over parent or over protect their children are limiting the child’s ability to grow and develop and discover the world and their place in it.

After the horrors of the Second World War in the 1940s England must have seemed a very safe place. Because it was safe, children were free to play out and discover the world. At that time there were no mobile phones, no internet and no TV. TV did not begin until 1953. The only media available to a child was either a comic or ‘listen with mother’ on the radio on the Home Service Channel that later became Radio 4.

So, to get their entertainment kids went out to play and would often roam around coming home for meals, though they could often be away from the house all day. No one thought of this as being unsafe. All the children walked to school, older children/siblings looked after younger ones.

It is with the development of transport, very few families had cars and people used public transport, cycles or foot, that children began to be ferried around. As television developed followed by the internet and mobile phones children had less reason to move away from the house and play became home based.

But something more sinister happened. As media and news became more immediate disasters, rapes and murders from around the word all became instant news and the world, all of a sudden, became an unsafe place. Parents became fearful for their children and the need to over parent and control began.

Where as in the 1950s young kids were street wise and kids from the late 70s onwards became less self reliant and more constrained and restricted by their fearful parents. The same parents came to positions of power in government and enacted laws that were said to protect children but actually limited the ability to develop. In the 1960’s a child could leave home at the age of fifteen and go to work.

However, the bottom line is that parents act out their own fears on their children. When a child is born it does not have fear it learns it from the immediate family through both observation and experience. In this way the limitation visited on a child came from their parents.

Writing this, I just looked up from the keyboard to see a Dettol advert, which, as you know, kills 99% of all known germs. A good thing you think? Well how can a child build a robust and effective immune system if it is not subject to the germs and bacteria that will enable them to develop the necessary antibodies?

Over control, from government to parents, develops a less creative, effective, healthy and dynamic population.

If you want your kids to find self-fulfillment let them live a little for themselves. Yes they may break their bones or cut themselves, but we can’t wrap the world in cotton wool. To become self fulfilled we need to go out and live.

Take care and be happy

Sean x