TSHP255: Help! I’m addicted to plastic…

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It’s everywhere. In our fridges, our cars, our hedgerows and our oceans. Plastic. A wonderfully versatile material has outgrown itself. So what now? Well, take control! That’s what. Sean and Ed talk about plastic, anxiety and mental health. Is there no end to their talent?

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How to beat your plastic addiction

If you didn’t see the David Attenborough’s BBC Blue Planet episode on plastics you should do so right now. It is totally horrifying. It would seem to make sense that if you are going to create something as invasive as plastic that you should also have thought about and created the processes that would enable us to get rid of it once it has been used.

I found this article in the Guardian. I cannot believe the amount of plastics that we are producing and then dumping. It is not just in the sea there is a mass of evidence of the effect that plastics are having on soil and even in the air we are breathing.

‘Among retailers and manufacturers, they talk of “the Blue Planet effect”. The BBC series, screened late last year, was the moment that many of us realised the catastrophic impact our use of plastics was having on the world’s oceans. Scenes such as a hawksbill turtle snagged in a plastic sack, the albatrosses feeding their chicks plastic or the mother pilot whale grieving for her dead calf, which may have been poisoned by her contaminated milk, are impossible to un-see.

It’s a crisis that affects us all, and the facts make for dispiriting reading. If nothing changes, one study suggests that by 2050 our oceans will have more plastic swimming around, by weight, than fish. It’s already estimated that one third of fish caught in the Channel contain plastic; another piece of research found that “top European shellfish consumers” could potentially consume up to 11,000 pieces of microplastic a year.
Suddenly our use of plastics is firmly on the political and cultural agenda. While impassioned individuals have been pushing to reduce our use of plastics for a few years, the volume of the debate has been turned up dramatically in recent months.

There is hope, too, that the message is getting across. The 5p charge on carrier bags, introduced in 2015, has led to an 85% drop in their use across England; an astonishing 9bn bags. Here, we highlight pioneers who are tackling the issue of plastics in creative ways.

Across the US, around 500m plastic straws are used and discarded every single day. “We could fill 125 school buses,” says Leigh Ann Tucker, co-founder of Loliware. The straws are made from polypropylene, a petroleum by-product, which is technically recyclable in large formats, but this is practically impossible with something the size of a straw. “So they end up as landfill or ocean pollutants,” Chelsea Briganti, Loliware’s other half, chips in. “We’re drowning in our plastic.”

Britain sucks, too. Here, we throw away an estimated 8.5bn straws annually, easily the most in Europe. In London alone, more straws are used than the whole of Italy. Most campaigns focus on getting rid of plastic straws or using longer-lasting or biodegradable alternatives and these have had considerable traction – now the UK government has announced a consultation on banning plastic straws…..’

So What can we do?
I have been keeping a running check on all the plastics that we use in our house and it is scary. I have even found out that most of plastics that I have been faithfully been putting into the recycle bin are not even recycled, despite having recycled signs on them.

To action – I am going to attempt to not buy anything that is single use plastic. I have ordered some stainless steel drinking straws with a little brush to clean them. Over-all I am going to attempt to stop using plastic as much as is possible.

Can be a real trial. Trying to avoid using leather to be vegetarian friendly often means buying plastic belts and even shoes.

I am in the supermarket thinking that I should buy the wine without the plastic cork. When I get my money out to pay for it I realise that the five and ten pound notes are now all plastic. So I reach for the credit card and that is plastic as well. I reach into my bag to make a note and my pen is plastic and even the cover of my note book has been plasticised.

Plastic really is everywhere. Time to investigate silicone and rubber and understand how they are effecting the environment. I want to go home and throw away anything that is plastic and begin to realise that a) there would be virtually nothing left and b) it would all go to landfill. The last straw is that is you burn it to get rid of it you just fill the air with deadly dioxin.

What a mess….

Take care

Sean x

TSHP254: Why Can’t I Meditate?

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Once it clicks, mediation is like riding a bike (Ed – stop talking about bikes, OK?!). Trouble is, that initial phase of learning to calm your mind is much harder than people realise. So how can we learn to overcome the early struggle and benefit from the amazing power of regular meditation? Over to Sean and Ed…

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

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Struggling to meditate?

This week Ed and I got to talk about one of my favourite topics, meditation. It has been an interesting issue between us for years. I think Ed would like to be a meditator but just can’t get into it. I guess the fact that I told him years ago that you don’t have to meditate to be mindful gave him the ultimate get out. But it is true. To be mindful is to be someone who is focussed on the present and what they are doing right now. Mindless people have minds that wander all over the place, worry about what was or what will be. Mindful people are calmer and more focussed and generally more effective as people in whatever they do. The way it goes for me is that you do not need to meditate to be mindful yet meditators develop mindfulness as a byproduct of their meditation practice.

Benefits of meditation include, lower blood pressure, less illness both physical and mental and the ability to deal with crisis and situations easier.

Anyway, I found an article looking at the reasons why people have problems meditating and some ways to overcome them. That reminded me of Ed so I sent it to him and we talked about it over on the podcast. In this blog I focus on some of the reason why it would be good to meditate.

First I have to say that I do not like the word meditation as it has too many connotations of a man in a loin cloth sitting under a banyan tree chanting to himself. If we use the phrase mindfulness practice it sounds more like something that you might do while at work or in an airport or mainline rail station.

Rie and I do ten day silent Vipassana meditation retreats. These involve ten days of meditation, eleven hours a day, one hundred and ten hours of mediation during the retreat. Afterwards we are met with a variety of responses. There are those that see us as heroic, having survived some great ordeal! Those that see us as idiots and are in total disbelief or understanding of why anyone would want to do such a thing, and there are those that nod with knowing and understanding.

The question that comes up again and again is why meditate? Well, there are a million reasons why. People that take the time and make the effort to do a ten day sit have many reasons as to why, I can only tell you why I do it and, what it is that I get from doing it and why I continue to meditate everyday.

The first is silence. The world is full of noise and very few people experience peace. From the moment that we wake there are radios, televisions, news, information, things to do, people to see, places to go. Each of us is required to process masses of information.

If you consider the world of your grandparents and great grandparents, there were few or no cars, no computers, no mobile phones, one channel on TV and, three channels on the radio. The only news was the newspaper and news took time to arrive. All things that had to be done took time and happened at a more leisurely pace.

Not so now. Information and information sharing is instant. When the planes flew into the twin towers we were all able to watch it happening in real time. In the Japanese tsunami we watched the waters rush across the land, destroying people’s lives, as it happened. As Syria is being blown apart and engulfed in live sapping chemical weapons we can see the effects immediately. We know about the war and the casualties the instant that they occur.

The bottom line is that the physiologically of the human body that flies jumbo jet and runs the biggest computers is little different to the one that drove the horse and cart several generations ago. People ask me if stress is real and I explain about the amount of information that we now all process and I say “yes”, stress is very real. But as in all things, it is not what we experience that is the issue it is what we do with it that makes the difference. You cannot be stressed without your permission.

The problem is that now we have so much to deal with, so much information to process, and it is easy for us to forget who we are and why we are here. We cease to hear our inner voice and cease to attend to our own needs. In meditation we still the mind, reduce the outside stimulus of everyday experience and, create the inner peace and silence in which we begin to hear the answers to our problems. For many, it is the only time that we might even realise that we have any problems to face.

Both Rie and I teach mindfulness programmes as either Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR) and Mindfulness Based Self Coaching or MBSC. As I do this work it becomes clearer to me over time that the real answers to our deepest questions are found within us not without us. All the theoretical teachings of gurus are nothing compared to the hands on, mind off, silence of inner knowledge and understanding that comes from meditation. It is truly life transforming. I see this all the time on the programmes when the common statement from participants is “why didn’t anyone teach us this when we were children?” It seems that many schools are now using Mindfulness sessions in the classroom. I read of one school that had stopped giving children detention and got them meditating instead, amazing!

If we were all to take just a few minutes each day to stop, breathe and be silent, we would literally change the world. This is because the effects of mindfulness and meditation are to give us increased insight and understanding, tolerance and equanimity, it allows us to respond rather than react. Most important of all it gives us choice. We can choose to be happy, we can choose to be miserable, we can choose to moan about life, we can choose to find solutions and so on.

Just taking a little time, be it a few minutes or an hour of meditation, we create a magic space of calm and relaxation that we rarely find in our daily lives anywhere else.

There are many options these day with apps blogs and courses online that enable us to learn how to meditate and develop mindfulness skills.

I have to give a shout out and thanks to Dave Potter at Palouse online who has created the most amazing resource and it is all free. He offers the complete Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction Course online. He has also added so many resources from Ted Talks to scientific papers and an extra session, week 5b that focuses on mindfulness and pain. Go take a look

There are many benefits in doing the MBSR programme in a live group face to face but if you can’t get to one or can’t afford to attend one Palouse is amazing. Even if you have completed a face to face MBSR or MBSC programme it is still worth a look and enjoying the many resources that Dave offers.

Take care, be happy,

Sean x

TSHP253: What’s the Meaning of Life?

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What’s Coming This Episode?

We thought we’d tackle an easy topic this week. The meaning of life. It’s easy to cruise through life without giving the question a second thought. Perhaps that’s a sign of a life well lived?! Not having to actually think about the question. Who knows? Well, Sean and Ed have some ideas so let’s have a chat…

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

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Have you cracked the meaning of life?

A listener messaged in this week explaining that they have been in therapy and that their counsellor had asked them to explain their meaning of life. This left them a bit stumped and so they asked us to discuss it. Most people at this point (Ed did) quote from the Hitchhikers Guide To The Universe…

…the number 42

In the Hitchhiker’s Guide they are told…

So now that you know that the answer is 42 you now have to find out what the question is.

I like the concept of 42 because it has as much meaning as any other reason that I have heard about.

Belief and religion seem to put a spring in people’s step
In the work that I do in both private and public organisations the issues of purpose and direction are strongly associated with stress. Those that feel that they do have a clear direction are more energised and even dynamic. Those that feel that they have a direction suffer less from stress related conditions. Though the direction and reason to be does not have to be religious, I often find that this is the case. To believe that you want to save the world, the whale, turn all the world vegan or believe in reincarnation can be reason enough to give your life meaning. We all need a direction

Having a direction is having a purpose, having a purpose creates meaning.

Question:
What is the purpose of your life, what is your direction and what meaning do you give to life?

The big questions are…

Why are we here? What is life all about? What happens when we die?

However you answer that the deal is that we all need to fill in space between birth and death. We can either find a meaningful way to live life so that we feel we have a purpose or we can blunder around and try to cope and survive this thing called ‘life’.

My thinking is that if the things that you do with your life make you happy that is about as good as it gets. Feeling happy and fulfilled is the only place to be, I think. Yet, very few people really get there. Often lives are dominated by the expectations of others from parents, and teacher, through religion, culture and relationships.

Question:
If you are really honest with yourself what is it that would make you really happy?

For me it is simple, working with people as a psychotherapist, playing music, cooking and being with Rie and Robert and the extended family makes me happy and puts a smile on my face.

Working with people is my life’s work, it is the only thing that makes any sense to me out of this mad thing called life…

If we all look after each other we will all be ok

This is eternally true and would solve all the world’s problems in an instant.

The extensions of joy
The weird thing is that when you do connect with your purpose it is really just a beginning. Now that you are on your path it leads you to other places, ideas and things? My music world has taken me to so many places and been such a joy and an inspiration and it continues to do so. Working with other people has taken me through various areas of academia to writing books and appearing at conferences, working all around the world and doing the podcast and this blog. And being with Rie has given me joy, love, fun and fulfilment.

Life is a long thing and even now I play with the idea of what will I do when I grow up. Hopefully I never will grow up and will carry on enjoying this thing called life.

Whatever you decide to do with your life let it be joyful.

Take care and be happy.

Sean x

TSHP252: Are we built to have just one partner?

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What’s Coming This Episode?

A listener sent us a message as she had been experiencing feelings for another person. Sean and Ed discuss monogamy, relationships and a few other things in between.

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

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Does Manogomy Work?

This week on the podcast Ed and I dived into the issues of relationships and their boundaries. Having been asked, by a listener, to look at the concept of monogamy we expanded this idea to look at other common types of relationship that couples are now engaging in.

So having considered this, how would you describe your own relationship?

I know from working with many couples that often what people have and what people want or desire can be a very different thing. Yet, as a society we have settled on a model of monogamy as our social norm. Though most research suggests that a high percentage of people do have affairs though these are, in the main, hidden.

Where did monogamy come from?
Gamy comes from the Greek gamous meaning marriage. Monogamous means one marriage. In modern terms this would mean one partner. Monogamy in modern relationships also means to be faithful to that one partner. Which in turn means not to have sexual relationships or to be intimate with other people out side of the monogamous relationship.

Monogamy probably has its roots in the Abrahamic religions and was probably a socio-economic structure that enabled social organisation and control. Monogamy as a social structure creates social organisation and the development of laws, property rites and inheritance. Once there is a firm social structure the lineage of a family can be traced back to prehistory, following either the maternal or paternal line. The fact that we know in the UK who the next monarch will be is because there is a rule of law and a succession of family rites. However, all of the laws based in property and people all have their origin in the monogamous structure of society.

Serial Monogamy is when someone is faithful to an individual relationship while they are in it, yet they may choose to end a relationship and begin another one. Issues of separation and divorce raised another whole set of laws and rules to deal with changing rites of all those involved. It is probable that without monogamy and the subsequent social structure there would be no need for solicitors, lawyers and many of our courts.

Polygamy is a marriage with more than one person. Poly being the Greek word for many. This is usually one man with several female wives. It is rare to find one woman with several husbands. John Smith of the Mormon faith reputedly had up to 40 wives. In Islam, under both Shia and Sunni law, a man can have up to four wives. A woman having more than one husband is not allowed.

Polyamory, which is described as ‘consensual’ is to have loving, and often sexual relationships, with several people at the same time. This does not mean all at once but is having more than one ongoing relationship. In many Polyamorous relationships the various participant my never all meet. However, what occurs is all open and transparent so that all those involved understand what is happening. Those practising polyamory are often in one main relationship and have other relationships within, or around this.

Open relationship is when members of a main relationship have sexual relationships with other people though it may not have the same transparency as in a clearly polyamorous relationship. However it may include sex between three people, manage a trois or troism. Or there maybe multiple people involved, up to as many as are in an orgy.

Most animal species are polygamous except birds who often mate for life. As birds are directly descended from dinosaurs it may be that they were also monogamous and mated for life with the same partner.

Marriage had both a social and political function. Feuding families came to peace by joining together. Land disputes and empires were resolved and built on beneficial marriages.

Monogamy and reality
Research results vary a little but they indicate that fifty to sixty percent of people are unfaithful at sometime in their marriage or main relationship. Some genome research suggests that up to 30% of children may not belong to the father who is raising them as his own.

The selfish gene was described as the need of the individual to carryon their own genetic line therefore taking any opportunity on offer to reproduce. As we know that continuous breeding with a population, known as inbreeding, leads to a dilution of the available gene pool that can result in various genetic mutations. This happens in closed communities who for cultural or religious reason only allow for breeding with the limited group. As the strength of a species is dependent on cross fertilisation it would suggest that the selfish gene idea would support what we know about evolution.

Living alone in a committed relationship
I guess we need to shout our for the singletons. There is a growing trend for people to be in a faithful, monogamous relationship with another person who they do not live with. These people, usually termed singletons, maintain a serious ongoing relationship with a permanent partner but choose to have their own house or accommodation. The couple may spend time together in each other’s houses but also choose to be alone in their own space.

Celibacy
If are to take into account the whole gamut of relationships, many of which would have a sexual component, we should acknowledge the world of celibacy. The celibate is the person who chooses not to share themselves sexually with others. Celibates may have all kinds and varieties of relationships with all kinds of people. However they have, at some point, decided that these relationships will be non sexual and platonic. A platonic relationship is purely spiritual and not physical.

I guess there are many other sorts of relationships that could be added to this lists such as cyber sex and teledildonics. The issue is that whatever type of relationship you engage in they can mostly all be monogamous other than the poly relationships. Over all there is no rule and no book of words that will tell us the right from the wrong. It will always come back to ‘does it work for you?’ As long as each person involved agrees to and is happily engaged in what takes place.

So, however it works for you, enjoy your life and enjoy your relationship

Take care

Sean x