TSHP286: Are you ready for change?

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Are you ready for change? Do you fight like mad to avoid a new routine or do you embrace the madness of our universe? Change will come to us all – it might be a shift in career or the loss of a loved one. Our ability to adapt and show resilience to these changes can have a big impact on our wellbeing…

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

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Change

Change is like time, our experience of it depends on the point from which we view it.

We could say that the only thing that we can be certain of in life is that all things change, that nothing ever stays the same. We could say that one of our biggest problems is that we have to deal with the stress of change often when are forced to undergo it. We might even think that change is a fabulous stimulant and that we all need more of it, that lack of change creates boredom that paralysis the brain.

Or, perhaps we might crave to maintain the status quo and the stability of a fixed system, universe or society, where we all know where we stand, where life is predictable and there are no surprises.

Change is a strange and challenging thing.

Physical change

We know that out entire body is always changing. Every seven years we renew all the cells in or body, so that, every seven years our body is completely new. Some parts of out body are changing much quicker. The receptors in our eyes that interpret what we send and send messages to the brain function through the rods and cones of the retina as the pigments and chemical respond to the light. Many times a second the receptors are activated and then reactivated as we track the moving images around us. The body is a good indicator of change.

There is a neat trick that we call ageing. Each cell has a string on it called a telomere. As each cell reproduces the telomere becomes shorter until in the end it runs out and the reproduction ceases. This is called getting old.

Social change

This happens generation on generation as values, beliefs, ideas and even fashions change from one generation to the next. As the social compass moves we find that behaviours unacceptable a generation ago are now common place. We might change laws so that, for example, gayness that a generation ago was illegal is now celebrated. Sometimes it is the reverse as we look in horror at the behaviour of previous generations. Slavery and bear baiting are now illegal.

Intellectual change

This is driven by the intellectual thinkers. Often it is this intellectual part of human consciousness that is the precursor of social change. The intellect questions the existing order and continually asks ‘Why?’ It challenges conventions, laws and rules and demands that we look a new at who we are and what we are doing.

Emotional change

Emotional change is demanding, passionate and immediate “I want it all and I want it now”. It maybe the maternal drive that seeks to protect the family or the possessive drive that becomes attached to people and things. Change at this level is often acquisition, “I want more” and the more might be possessions, power, money or even people. Overall emotional change is about adapting the world so that ‘My’ needs are met be they driven by business of dictatorship.

Conceptual change

The key to conceptual change is that often it does not want to change at all. When it does change it happens slowly, sometimes very slowly. It may be seen is eras or epochs. Here we are looking at dynasties, and systems of control that last for many years. The ruling Empires that peak and decay as the order changes. We now see the European Global Empires coming to a close as the era of European domination comes to an end. The new era will probably belong to China, India and the Pacific Basin. In a couple of hundred years the common global language will probably have moved from English to be something like Cantonese or Mandarin.

Meaningful change

This is the sensitive realm of the intuition that drives conception or the way that we see things. A conceptual era is often driven by the understanding of spiritual philosophy. It is seen in terms of the question ‘why are we here?’ and ‘what is the meaning of life?’ These answers change and as we human beings change and, hopefully, evolve.

The Icons that change behaviour

Our leaders both spiritual and political are engaged in creating change. At anyone time in any society there will be the icon figures that people look up to for inspiration and guidance. They may be dictators such as Hitler, scientists such as Einstein, spiritual leaders or social engineers.

The Christian Era that began two thousand years ago, that peaked at a point where virtually everyone in Europe attended Church services, it has now peaked and declined so that now less than 5% of the population of the UK regularly follow church services. It is thought that the values of the Christian traditions are now being superseded by Buddhist traditions with a rise in meditation and mindfulness, vegetarianism and veganism.

Personal Change

Beyond all that is you, your change. What do you need to do to get your life online so that it works well for you. Is it that you need to maintain your status quo or do you need to embrace change to stimulate you energy? The most important thing is to act with awareness. Maintain what serves you well and change what does not serve you well.

Positive change leads to positive results and negative change leads to negative outcomes.

Be happy and become the change that you would like to see in others.

Sean x

 

 

 

 

 

TSHP285: Climate Change and Self Development

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Climate Change. It’s here. It’s changing… but are we ready for the change? Aside from the terrible predictions of fire, flood and famine, we’re interested in the chance it gives us to become better. Better friends, family neighbours and wider communities…

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

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TSHP284: World Kindness Day

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What’s Coming This Episode?

Kindness needs a bump. We know it’s important by why don’t we always act like it? In honour of World Kindness Day 2018, we thought now was a great time to explore the art of kindness…

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

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Floods and Fire

This blog and podcast follow on from the last one. Kindness, love and compassion for creation might just be what is in contention at the moment. Are the global disasters of flood and drought a product of global warming or just simply the natural rhythms and flows of global weather patterns?

A reality check

Today I have been online to they Gulf talking to someone who is deeply emotional and upset because their home has been flooded in the recent, and unexpected, downpours that have hit the Gulf. This person had uprooted herself and her family and moved lock. stock and barrel to the Middle East for work and a better life. Now everything that they had and all that they have worked for is either lost or ruined.

I am thinking there seems to be something a bit crazy going on for a dessert to have a complete years rainfall in a couple of days. Is this the real effects of global warming?

I hang up the Skype and check the news to find out that the death toll in the California wild fires has just hit 50 with a couple of hundred people unaccounted for. Again I am thinking is this the real effects of global warming?

When we are getting floods in desserts and fires in fairly equitable climates it is surely time to take stock.

Have we already broken this planet? Most importantly can we change our behaviour and save it? I go right back to my good friend Ed and his rant about how we all need to get out of our cars and walk and cycle. He is right.

Ed is good to talk to at times like this as he has tremendous energy and drive to attempt to make things different. His commitment to the local community with traffic and transport issues seems to be paying off and the planning officers are now beginning to include him in their decision making processes.

Practically what can you and I do about global warming?

Today is Grey bin day and putting it out there it is in my face again, the bin is crammed full of plastic and, over all, we are pretty good at what we buy. My mind is full of those images of plastic in the oceans with David Attenborough authoritative tones doing the voice over. I want to say that it is never too late but the monkey I’m head is saying ‘is it?’

What do you think?

Some people tell me that if it is already too late that there is no point in doing anything. While others fanatically want us all to be vegan, minimise everything that we use and change every aspect of our lives.

Can we down size our expectations of life? Do we want to?

It seems that we are at a choice point. If w eall turned down the heating and put another jumper on instead, limited all our shopping habits, if we stopped eating red meat, walked and rode rather than driving, stopped using single use plastic and only used clean energy and also embarked on a large tree planting program we might just hold the situation and then maybe reverse it.

The alternative would to dramatically reduce the human population. Perhaps that is what Mother Nature will do if we can’t take control of it. He ho, watch this space.

Take care and live mindfully

Sean x

Looking after each other

The 13th November was national kindness day. While I completely agree with they need for us all to be kinder to each other I am always surprised that we might need an annual day to remind us to do it. Surely in a well balanced society we would do this as naturally as breathing. It probably has to do with the lack of wellbeing in my own childhood but I have seen much of life’s work as promoting how we can best serve each other. Along with all the other sayings that I find myself repeating is…

…if we all look after each other we all be okay…

I know that, in life, difficult things happen. However, if we all pull together and look after each other the negative effects can be minimised and the healing maximised. When there are floods, famines, droughts and disasters we can all help in our own way, however small we can, collectively, have a positive effect. The world may not be perfect but we could create heaven on Earth. To do this requires an amount of awareness and mindfulness and a sense of personal responsibility.

We can’t just leave it to ‘them’

There is no ‘them’ – ‘they wouldn’t let that happen would they?’ ‘they will make it alright won’t they?’ It is only when we realise that there is no ‘them’ there is only ‘us’ that the world will begin to change. We have to stop expecting the local council or the government to clean up the streets. We need to start picking up the litter ourselves or maybe not drop it in the first place.

We are all ‘us’.

We are all one race, the Human Race. Strangers are just family that we have yet to get to know. Because there is only one race, only one creation, when we cause harm to anyone or anything we are really just causing harm to ourself.

Charity begins at home

Because this is always true, we only harm ourself, it really helps if we can treat ourselves well with self-compassion and self love. It is then that we develop the inner resources to treat others with compassion and love as well.

Charity may begin at home but it does not have to end there. When we can see all of creation as ourself we might just begin to treat creation with the respect that it deserves.

Take care and be kind and happy

Sean x

TSHP283: Why You Should Live a Frugal Life

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What’s Coming This Episode?

As we approach the Christmas holidays a lot of people will be saving hard (or maxing out that credit card) to enter into the gift giving yuletide spirit. We know that financial pressure can bring huge amounts of anxiety. We also know that consumerism needs containing. So can we live a more simple, frugal life and be happier than ever?

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

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Frugality

Frugality can often be associated with meanness, which may be true in some cases, but I am left wondering about the state of the planet and our general lack of frugality. If we look at what we have done to planet Earth and to the lives of all the other nonhuman inhabitants we might consider that our greed is to blame.

While the Western drive for more, more, more, sweeps to engulf the East it would appear that Mother Earth is running out of resources and is now gradually warming. I read some research this morning that told that my diesel car, that I bought because I was told that it would be better for the environment, is now partly the cause of obese children.

Tonight in the UK is Bonfire night and that means that collectively we will throw tons of CO2 and other particulates and pollutants into the atmosphere. I am left wondering where frugality meets mindfulness and where meanness meets the act of Dharma or ‘right living’?

If we get away from the concept of frugality as meanness, that does not imply that people cannot be mean, but, if we consider frugality mindfully and environmentally we might just find a case for promoting frugality as a sustainable way of living. People who are frugal or who live frugally consume less. They eat much less, waste much less and perhaps spend less money on themselves. We could say that they have a smaller carbon footprint.

Frugality may mean spend less. Eating less food and meals cooked at home can save money energy and is actually healthier than take away, restaurant and ‘ding’ meals. The simple things such as re-using plastic bags by simply washing them out, taking those items that we no longer want to the charity shop or donation station. And, my favourite bug bear is that we throw thirty five percent of the food that we buy in the bin. Learning on how we can use and eat leftovers makes a phenomenal difference to our environment.

Suzi Lee – Bare bones traveller

Well worth a read Suzi explains in her blog how she travels around the world on very little and often nothing at all. She is a bare-bones budget traveler, getting around by hitch-hiking, taking local chicken buses and sleeping in cheap hostels or occasionally on the floor of kind locals.

Just looking at the current state of the weather should be enough to make us think again. We were promised that with global warming we would have cool dry summers and warm wet winters. There was also the suggestion that there would be an increase in wind movements and storms. Well, hey. It all seems to be happening right now.

We could take the view that the planted is here to be used and just say ‘Sod it’ and use the whole thing up – goodbye human being. Or we might consider our responsibility to those who have yet to come and to those non-human Earthlings that we share this planet with. We could all do so much more in every sphere of our lives if we choose to.

I guess the choice is the mindless walk into oblivion or the mindful walk into survival. If each person is a small drop in the ocean of universal consciousness then collectively we have an impact. If we see ourselves as a meaningless drop in the ocean of life then it is oblivion here we come.

For those Astrologically minded the Piscean age was about gurus and teachers and people needing to be told what to do. The Aquarian age marks a shift in which each individual becomes self determining and individually collectively responsible for what happens next. There is no long a ‘them’ out there who will make the decisions for us and make it alright. Try to be a drop in the ocean!

Take care, be happy and be frugal

Sean x

 

TSHP282: Remembering the Dead (Halloween Special)

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What’s Coming This Episode?

It’s Halloween as we record today which to Sean thinking about why we dress us like zombies and beg for sweets at at neighbours’ front doors. It’s a fascinating history as it turns out and we dive deeper into the world of respecting and remembering the deceased…

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

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