Archive for year: 2018

Life, it would seem, is consequential

In the East they call it Karma. Where I live they say ‘what goes around comes around’. Where I was born they would say ‘everybody gets their’s in the end’. In some societies they would say ‘there are no free lunches’ or ‘in the end all debts must be paid in full’. One of my favourites is ‘God pays debts without money’.

Each of the phrases, each of these concepts, suggests that we end up owing something. That in some way we create debt, spiritual, psychological, or emotional. I have known people who are anxiously repentant of any wrong they might have done in their desire not to carry any negative energy forward with them. I have also known those who have knowingly done bad things in the awareness that they would pay the debt later when they got around to it.

Whatever philosophy you use it comes down to the same thing. There is a consequence to every action that we take. It might be good or it might be bad. The point is that it has an effect. It seems that this law of consequence, like most other laws, is neutral. It makes no difference if the action is good or bad both will lead to a consequence.

If we take the karmic approach, as is taught in Ayurveda, we would say that karmas follow us beyond the grave into future incarnations or life times. In the Christian tradition there is the concept of heaven and hell as a consequence for our actions while we were alive. There are also some religions that believe that our life on Earth in consequential and that we are here because we deserve it. Some even believe that life on Earth is the living embodiment of hell.

In Karmic systems the consequences of an action will remain outstanding from one life time to the next until the debt is paid in full. When such a karma hangs over from a previous lifetime it is termed a ‘Samskar’ or is Samskaric. Samkars from the past may have a karmic consequence or influence in this current lifetime. So, a Samskar is a karma form a previous life time and a Karma would be considered the consequence of action in this life time.

The pain of Karma

In most forms of self development or spiritual work there is the idea of forgiveness and of letting go of any negative energy or attachment. We often mistake this concept to be for the benefit of the other person. Really it is for our benefit. As I often say, while you are lying in bed ruminating negatively on another person with as much negativity as you can muster it actually has no effect on them at all. The only person that we damage with our hatred or negativity is our self. This is the personal pain of holding negative karma.

Beginnings and endings

We should also consider the status of a karma. When something happens in life, positive or negative, perhaps we win the lotto or break a leg, we have no way of knowing if this is the beginning or ending of a karma. Is this event, in the present, the result of past actions or is it the beginning of new Karmas in the present.

Karmic dissolution

When I was younger and I was holding lots of negative anger about my family, particularly my father, my teacher suggested to me that I might like to dissolve my karmic attachments to these particular people and events. What he taught, was true for me then and is true for you now.

The only thing that holds a karma in place, be it positive or negative, is emotional energy. This energy is like glue. There are two ways to dissolve the glue. The first is working back through the problem, through many lifetimes, meeting the same people over and over again until we learn the lesson the hard way. The second way is through forgiveness that is quicker but is often tougher. The solvent that dissolves this glue of attachment is love and compassion as in…

Love your enemies

People will often get angry at this concept feeling that they want retribution. They want the other person to suffer so that they can see the pain and problems that they have caused. In many ways punishment is the negative way to maintain karmas and Samskars. The alternative to this would be love that can dissolve the attachment of karma.

In mindfulness we have a choice

Karma and Samskar are a function of mind that are played out when we are on autopilot. We are just doing what we do because that is what we do. It is only when we develop mindful awareness that we have choice, the choice to act Dharmically.

Dharma

Dharma is right action. To act Dharmically is to do the right thing. Dharma is the way that we act and Karma is the result of the way we act. When we act Daharmically and do the right thing we minimise negative Karma. Happiness and good Karma go together. Good Karma and Dharma go together.

Be happy, act Dharmically and enjoy your good Karma

Take care

Sean x

 

Today, as I write this, it is ‘International Mental Health Day’. Ed and I got talking on the podcast about suicide and mental health service provision in the UK. Sadly in the UK we closed most of the long stay psychiatric hospitals in favour of ‘care in the community’ services which failed badly. From my point of view the NHS and many UK governments have failed those that are in need of psychological medicine and support.

The statistics that hit me hardest are that globally every year 800,000 people commit suicide. In the UK suicide is the greatest cause of death in males under forty five and 20% of 14 years old girls in the UK are self harming. The cream on the cake is that the government have now appointed a minster to over see suicide prevention. My first thought is ‘that’s good’, the only country in the world to do such a thing. My second thought is ‘how awful is it that when we have so many suicides in the UK that we now have to have a government minister to over see the situation’. Something is fundamentally wrong here.

Ed and I discussed how men are often emotionally closed and not good about sharing their feelings when things are going wrong. It is certainly true that in most of the cases of male suicide that I deal with the family didn’t see it coming. Or, in retrospect they can see that the signs were building but they didn’t understand what was happening at the time.

I had a bit of time this morning and I was thinking about how suicide is a death that happens suddenly and immediately after a sudden action. We would see this as an action of intent. I have spoken in previous blogs about the difference between suicidal ideation and suicidal intent.

Then I got to thinking about suicide by life style. There have been many cases that I have dealt with over many years of people who have been on a slow yet apparently deliberate road to suicide. When I look at life style at an individual level but also at a national and international level I wonder how many of us are on a suicide mission. Historically there have been so many situations where people have known the dangers but continue to do things and behave in dangerous ways and use dangerous products.

Lead in paint, lead in petrol, asbestos in buildings, additives in food, bacon and cured meats, red meats generally, the hormones in milk, the pesticides that are killing the pollinating bees, our continual use of plastics and plastic related products, paints and finishes. The list could be endless but I feel I need to include the amount of time, human consciousness and money that is poured into bombs and other weaponry designed to end lives.

The countless life style clients that I see all the time and have done for many years. All the addicts, addicted to both legal and recreational drugs. The smoker who despite multiple amputations will not quit the habit. The drinkers who never give their system a rest. The diabetics who despite sight loss and limb loss maintain bad diets and never exercise. The motorcyclist who had to go ever faster round corners until eventually he came off and died, taking someone else with him. That list could be endless but what about…

…those people who chose to focus all their attention of negative experience never seeing the positives around them increasing their depression in increments until they had nothing left to live for. Those people who continually fear the future, never living in the present and becoming ever more anxious. Those people who can never stop and are workaholics both at work and at home. All of these people creating ever more stress, filling their systems with ever more stress hormone, hardening their arteries and heading for strokes, heart attacks and vascular dementia. Those people who chose to self medicate with carbohydrates as comfort food whose weight became unsustainable for their heart and their joints…

I guess that in the end it does not really matter if we are living a long or a short life, the issues is are we happy. Is it better to live a shorter life that is full of happiness or a long life that is full of misery?

When Ed and I were talking about this we were looking at what is the difference in modern society and the past. Well, we know that preindustrial and agricultural societies have much lower levels of all mental health issues, and we know that as countries start to industrialise, urbanise, mechanise and digitalise that levels of stress and lack of mental health increase.

I think this is all about family and community. When we lived in extended families there were people around for support, help and advice that had it’s own informal stress management function. In our bid for individual fulfilment and the culture of ‘I’, ‘Me’ ‘My’ and I must have now and sod you…has led to both social and family isolation.

We have forgotten the fact that we are animals, we are primates, that were designed to live in groups, to be caring, sharing and mutually supportive.

As someone said recently, “racism does not exists because there is only one race and that is the human race”. I keep saying it, but I believe it to be true,

‘if we all looked after each other, we would all be alright”

 And the thing that enables us to both realise it and do it is called ‘MIndfulness’.

Maybe in the end the only solution that we have to all of our mental health problems is in our own hands right now. If we were more mindful, more caring and more sharing I think we could crack it.

Stay happy, be lucky and be mindful!

Sean x

 

 

The thing about a Tsunami is if we are prepared then we have a chance of getting to safety and limiting the damage. It is when it comes out of the blue, we didn’t see it coming or we were side swiped, then it becomes difficult.

The poor people in Indonesia have just suffered a tech tonic shift creating an earthquake, tsunami and a volcanic eruption. For these people this disaster came out of nowhere unexpected. Horrendous phone footage showed helpless people attempting to get out of the way of the eighteen foot wave. As this disaster rolls on the death toll currently stands at 1305 and is rising. These people have nothing, have lost everything and unless we all help they will not survive. Time to dig into our pockets and give whatever we can.

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

I have had my own Tsunami’s to deal with as have many of the people that I have worked with. Your child dies, you find your partner in the arms of another, you think you have won the lotto but have lost the ticket, you are told that you are being made redundant, the lorry hits you from behind when you are stopped at the light, you discover you are ill, the most important person in your world dies.

Some people do sail through life free of Tsunamis while others seem to be given one every time they turn around. One of the things that we learn is that life is not fair and that God, should she or he exist, has a vey odd sense of humour.

The thing about the Indonesian crisis is that they did have early warning systems in place. However, they had fallen into disrepair and some had even been vandalised so no warning was given prior to the wave landing on shore.

When we look at our own Tsunamis, our own crises, it is those people who have their own early warning systems in place and working that survive the best. The most effective early warning system that we can have is to be aware and awake, alert yet relaxed, calm and yet attentive. It is when we slip into autopilot that we get side swiped without seeing it coming.

There is something about being aware before it hits that allows us to protect ourselves. As the say ‘forewarned is forearmed’. When we can see a disaster coming we start to process it so that by the time it hits us we are already in protective mode. This then leads to a more effective recovery mode with less shock and anxiety.

However, even the most aware person can be side swiped. Your house burns down your partner is killed in a road traffic accident, the stock market collapses and so on. If at this point we have a strong emotional core so that the greater resilience we have the quicker the recovery. A strong emotional core is built through the practice of mindfulness both sitting practice and living practice. To me being mindful in the moment not only means that you might have more chance to see the Tsunami before it hits but you will be able to recover quicker when it does.

I guess that now in Indonesia there will be those who are mindlessly destroyed by these events and there will those who will Mindfully survive and help and look after others. Recovery is often a long and painful journey.

Take care and build your core

Sean x