TSHP475: Staying Mindfully Calm Under Pressure

What’s Coming This Episode?

It always seems amazing when a dramatic situation develops somewhere in the world and, what seems to be, the whole of humanity come together in a spirit of good will with the desire to get something right. Do you remember when the Wild Boars football team became trapped in a cave system alongside their coach. Luckily the coach was an ex Buddhist monk, of ten years standing, who taught the team to be mindful, meditate and await a rescue that non of them knew would come.

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

Show Notes and Links

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Staying Mindfully Calm Under Pressure

It always seems amazing when a dramatic situation develops somewhere in the world and, what seems to be, the whole of humanity come together in a spirit of good will with the desire to get something right. Do you remember when the Wild Boars football team became trapped in a cave system alongside their coach. Luckily the coach was an ex Buddhist monk, of ten years standing, who taught the team to be mindful, meditate and await a rescue that non of them knew would come.

In the ‘Intention Experiment’ quantum physicists tell us that it is now possible to measure energy leaving one person and measure it arriving at another person. You might call this energy good will, love, prayer, absent healing and so on but I suspect that a lot of positive energy was raining down on these guys in the cave and, amazingly, they all got out. Though we do have to offer our prayers and thanks to the Thai Navy Seal, and his family, who lost his own life in helping those trapped children.

The fact that the coach was trained in Mindfulness and meditation was probably the deciding factor in their survival. That had a limited oxygen supply and they were on the edge on hypoxia when they finally got out. In calmness the respiration would have been slower and they would have used less of their vital resource of oxygen. When people are anxious they breath shallow and fast.

Considering that all beings on planet Earth can count their breaths in an average life time at around 700 million breaths each breath has a value that should not be wasted. This amount of breaths is as true for an elephant as for a mouse. Mice have short fast breaths and get through their allotted amount much quicker than an elephant who has deep slow breaths. Those of us who are anxious and suffer from a raised heart rate and a raised respiration will die sooner than those of us who are calmer with a slower heart and respiration rate.

Unless we learn to be mindful and observe our breath we will never be truly aware of what is going on in or system. Using mindfulness, relaxation, exercise and meditation we can slow both our heart rate and respiration and increase our chances of living a longer and happier life.

Being in your own cave
The cave metaphor is often used to describe that inner space that we all retreat to when we are under threat. We would say that a man goes to his man cave, well so do women but in a different way to men.
Sometimes when life feels like it is too much the only place we can go is within. Our computer inboxes maybe full to bursting, our emotional inbox may be full to bursting and our mental inbox likewise. Our systems are in overload, colleagues and family are now too much, and all too often deliverables seem, well, undeliverable.
However hard we work hard, we don’t always meet our goals for the day or the week or the month. New urgent tasks come to us before old ones are done. Sometimes we react by behaving badly, or perhaps we agree to everything, even knowing that we cannot do it all, and the pressure builds inside us. Sometimes we blame ourselves for not being good enough, or our colleagues, family and friends, and we forget we are all in this thing called life together.
Could this be positive?
Seen another way pressure could just be a positive force; it can help us to be better at our jobs, relationships and lives. Pressure can motivate us to be a better person. It can trigger incredible creativity, and boost our productivity. The trick is to mindfully manage what we are thinking, feeling and doing. We need to re-examine how we deal with it, and we can be there for each other. In mindfulness we are gathering tools that work best for each and all of us.
If we all look after each other we will all be okay
There are massive changes coming to the Uk with the war in Ukraine and the financial crisis. The whole world is changes in the focus of economic power and global warming. There is a great deal to do, especially in the coming months. However, if we are mindful of the responsibility we have for ourselves, and if we support each other, we will, in the end, all be alright.
The basic premise of mindfulness is that being present with what is happening now, in this moment, stops us from ruminating about the past or future, and brings about clarity and focus. This does not mean that we deliberately allow ourselves to stay focused on how overwhelmed we feel at this moment. In fact, by stopping the flow of ruminating thoughts and being mindful, we are able to change the way we experience what is going on right now in the moment, and turn the negative aspects of pressure into the positive ones.
We don’t have problems we have learning opportunities
When we feel pressured, for example, if we are working under a tight deadline at work or at home, our concern can become the belief that we won’t meet the deadline, that we will fail and because we believe we can’t, we don’t.
Thoughts become things.
Rumination and disbelief is the way that thoughts become things.
However, we have a choice. Rather than reacting to a feeling of being under pressure by assuring ourselves of our failure, we can for a second or two, notice ourselves breathing in and out, and give ourselves a moment to observe what is really going on. This way we are able to change our reaction, which is mindless, into a thoughtful response, which is mindful.
Stop. Breathe. Respond.
Observe the pressure; don’t become it
Having a positive self-perception is a key component in transforming our ability to manage pressure. This is called self compassion. We need to like ourselves and to know we are worthy as human beings. However, we should also have compassion for others. One person should never think that they are better than another person. It is only when we can recognise the positive aspects of ourselves that we are then able recognise them also in others.
Reflecting on the football team in the cave, it is when we find ourselves in a negative internal cave, in the darkness and unable to see the light, that we need to remain calm, relax, meditate and await our own rescue. In this case it is the rescue that comes from mindful practices and the insight that allows the light to penetrate our darkness. So often that light will be self compassion.

Take care, be happy and be calm

Sean x

TSHP474: Organ Donation

What’s Coming This Episode?

Is it right to give part of your body to another person? Some people who become donors donate their body once they are dead while others do so while they are still alive giving away a kidney, bone marrow, eggs and semen, blood and so on. The whole issues raises so many questions. The main one being just because we can do something should we?

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

Show Notes and Links

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!).

Donor or not?

Somebody reminded me this week that we had previously done a podcast and blog in which I stated tat as a vegetarian that I would never accept a body donation from a pig and yet twelve weeks ago which undergoing heart surgery I agreed to have a pigs valve fitted in my heart. At the time of the operation I decided that’s I would accept the valve as I had just had three units of blood in transfusions. In my meditation I came to the conclusion that in creation life lives off life and I accepted that if I was to live it would be as a result of the donation from the pig.

Below I have copied the original blog fro the previous podcast. I would be interpreted in your thoughts and comments.   

This weeks podcast and blog has been inspired a listener who directed me to an article about a little girl who had died. They pointed out how many people she helped to live by the donation of her organs. This was a hot and difficult topic for the listener as they are now in a similar situation where a relative close to them will shortly die. Their family are currently discussing the rightness or wrongness of donating organs. Their discussion also raised the issue of the rights of the family versus the donor. Should the family have a say in someone’s decision to become an organ donor.  They suggested that Ed and I do a podcast to look at these difficult issue. I started asking people, checking some services and ideas online. The first issue seems to be is it right or wrong?

So, is it right to give part of your body to another person? Some people who become donors donate their body once they are dead while others do so while they are still alive giving away a kidney, bone marrow, eggs and semen, blood and so on. The whole issues raises so many questions. The main one being just because we can do something should we?

Would you be a recipient?

Ok, so would you accept an organ from a donor? Would you accept a blood transfusion?

As a lot of these issues are so personal I have put in quite a few links, some to people who have actually had the transplants described. The issues of both accepting and giving body parts hits at the very core of what do we believe, issues of morality and what is right and wrong.

Would you donate?

Would you give an organ? Do you carry a donor card?   Sixty two percent of people in Britain do carry a card, while only 4% of us are prepared to give blood? And each year hundreds of people donate their entire body to anatomical and medical science.

It would seem that donating your very skin and bones is the ultimate act of altruism. For many the feeling is that once you are dead you no longer need them and the may as well be recycled. For others a desecration of someone’s remains is the ultimate act of disrespect. 

I have worked with people who have waiting a very long time for a suitable donor and some who have died while waiting due the lack of suitable donors. I also know someone who chose to donate a kidney to a complete stranger on the basis that they had two and only needed one. they literally just put themselves on the register and eventually a suitable recipient came along.

I have also worked with both heart and liver recipients of transplants who despite their gratitude to the donor experience the development of odd behaviours, habits and cravings, as though the organ brought a certain amount or memory with it. Not all donations are easily received. 

Man who rejected donor hands

Even those that do receive an organ or as in the link below a pair of hands are unable to accept and accommodate the gift. This man decided that he would rather have them removed.  

http://time.com/4419959/double-hand-transplant-surgery/

Face transplants

It may equally be true of the recipients of another persons face. In this link the man has had an astounding reconstruction. I look in the mirror now and find that the effects of age have changed the person who is looking back leaving me with the question ‘who are you?’ Am interesting and education journey.

https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/mar/28/face-transplants-history

Blood transfusions

In the Christian faith Jehovah’s Witnesses believe that the Bible says taking blood is wrong and would not accept blood transfusions. Therefore, they would not donate. They also keep their own blood for future transfusion. Many non-Christians would concur and refuse to give or receive blood. For me I am happy to both give a receive blood.

Animal organs – pigs

This a big one. Is it right to create an animal that has been engineered so that its body parts would be acceptable to the human body? Does this raise the issues of animal rights? I guess that if you are happy to eat meat then organs are a byproduct of the same process. For me, as vegetarian, the idea of breeding an animal to harvest it’s organs in outrageous. But is is a personal issue.

http://www.smithsonianmag.com/innovation/future-animal-to-human-organ-transplants-180956402/

Faecal transplants

This is a very interesting area of research. With the development of neuropsychology the relationship the gut and our brains and between the gut and our emotional self is being investigated. It seems that we can say ‘happy gut happy brain’. We know that many medications, including antibiotics rip the natural flora out of the gut. This can have many consequences including emotional issues such as depression. Current experiments where faecal matter from people with a health gut/brain is transplanted into those lacking in appropriate flora is showing good results. Have a look at the link below it might open your eyes to the possibilities. How would you feel about having someone else’s faecal matter transferred into your gut?

http://taymount.com/faecal-microbiota-transplantation-fmt

Donor eggs and sperm

IVF and fertility clinics would not normally be associated with ideas of donation but that is exactly what they are. Even if the couple involved are known to each other and the IVF follows the same route that would have been taken naturally we are still moving bits of one person into another. One thing that concerns me in this area is the idea of designer babies, either to create a certain quality of child or a second child whose blood or umbilical fluids might be used to cure a brother or sister.

https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2011/may/14/donor-eggs-pros-cons-conception

https://www.babycenter.com/0_fertility-treatment-gamete-intrafallopian-transfer-gift_4095.bc

Looking this are overall I ask myself again the question ‘just because we can do something should we do it?’ Once we play with the gene pool we are releasing unknown consequences into the future. Lots to thinks about in this podcast and blog.  

Take care and be happy. 

Sean x