Archive for year: 2022

I have been watching the Jubilee celebrations and it struck me how many people when interviewed described the Queen’s kindness. Many where describing how they had used her example as a way they had gone on to act in their own lives. They made me think about our relationships between our leaders and our own behaviour. If we follow the like of Putin does that mean that we learn that it is okay to just go and violently take whatever we want from who ever we want? Or if we have a leader like Gandhi do we learn that with love and tolerance we can win the argument?

Think of the leaders that children are influenced by. Obviously we have parents and siblings, teachers and friends and their families. Politicians and social or celebrity icons. What are these leadership figures teaching us. Only you can decide what the lasting lessons of Boris Johnson will be on the generation who are growing up under his leadership. The Queen’s model of leadership could be seen as very different to his yet she id probably a very remote figure for our media hungry youth where celebrity had so much status. How often do we see kindness.

Kindness is a fundamental aspect of all successful human communications and relationships. In many ways we can’t talk about kindness enough. You would expect me to say this because I always do…

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

We all have such great potential for love, care and kindness if we just stop long enough to listen and respond appropriately.

A couple of weeks ago Ed and I went to Amsterdam to attend a conference and exhibition. While the event was completely amazing there was something else that was in the air and in water in Amsterdam. It was in the looks of the people as they went about their daily lives. It has really stuck with me. It was so powerful. It was kindness. There we were in a community of people who were concerned with ensuring that each other were okay. It felt so good.

Scientific evidence shows us the positive effects of doing kind acts for others, as well as receiving or even witnessing kindness, has upon our brain and our emotional chemistry. Neuropsychology measures the increase of the positive endorphins in the brain that enhance our sense of wellbeing. Even the smallest act of kindness can change a life and being the one doing it can change your life aswell.

Each year kindness week and a kindness day. This year it was in mid February. I am using https://www.twinkl.co.uk/event/international-random-acts-of-kindness-week-2022, as my resource for this week’s podcast. However, I am left wondering why we can’t have a loving kindness year or even a loving kindness life. Back to my mantra…

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

The concept of sharing loving kindness is common in most schools of meditation, known as Metta. Metta or as loving kindness meditation that often comes at the end of normal meditation practice, though it can used as a full meditation of loving kindness. In Metta we are expressing caring and empathy for others and even all sentient, feeling and beings. Traditionally this begins with yourself and then, like ripples from a pond, it spreads in ever increasing circles to encompass all of creation.

In this blog I am partly quoting from Bodhipaksa who is a Buddhist practitioner and teacher, and founder of Wildmind in 2001. Well worth a visit http://www.wildmind.org/metta/introduction/what-is-metta

In the current time we need to be building positive emotional connections with all those around us. For many meditators Metta is not limited to meditation practice but is a way of life.

Metta is recognising that all sentient beings (including all animals) can feel good or feel bad, and that all, given the choice, will choose the former over the latter. Such contact with feeling implies that there can be suffering for all beings. This is the point where I became a vegetarian. The bottom line for me is that other animals do not have to die in order for me to live and that other animals do not need to suffer so that I can live.

Metta is the solidarity that we have with others, this sharing of a common aspiration to find fulfilment and escape suffering. At this time, dealing with Covid and the aftermath of Covid, we can choose to help others and they choose to help us we could reclaim community. The way that I see it is that if we all work together we can achieve anything.

Metta is empathy which is the willingness to see the world from another’s point of view: to walk a mile in their shoes. When we are consciously awake and are aware and switched on we can learn from the experience of other people. When we are consciously asleep and switched off we often have to suffer individually in order to learn and grow.

Metta is the desire that all sentient beings be well and are doing well, or at least the ones we’re currently thinking about or in contact with. It’s wishing others well. When we look after others the chances are that they will look after us and wish us well. Creating the positive and peaceful family of community. This takes me back to that feeling in Amsterdam.

Metta is friendliness, consideration, kindness, generosity. Charity is when we offer friendliness and support to others. It may be money though the most charitable thing that we can do is to be there for other people when they need us.

Metta is an attitude to action rather than just a nice feeling. It’s an attitude of friendliness but friendliness in action.

Metta is compassion. Compassion means ‘with feeling’. When our loving kindness meets another’s suffering, then our Metta transforms into compassion and we feel and respond to their needs.

Metta is shared joy. When our Metta meets with another’s happiness or good fortune, then it transmutes into an empathetic joyfulness. We feel better and more joyful from having made that compassionate connection with another person.

Metta knows no bounds. We can feel Metta for any sentient being, regardless of gender, race, nationality species, ethnicity, orientation. When trained in psychotherapy we are encouraged to treat all those people that we work with, with unconditional positive regard. We also need to treat ourselves in the same way with unconditional positive self regard.

Metta is the most fulfilling emotional state that we can know. It’s the fulfilment of the emotional development of every being. It’s our inherent potential. To wish another well is to wish that they also be in a state of experiencing Metta.

Metta is the answer to almost every problem the world faces today. Money won’t do it. Technology won’t do it. Metta will.

That last point is so simple, yet is is so true. All the world problems could be solved right now with a little loving kindness. Too often politics and the media go out of their way to reinforce the differences between people. Metta shows how similar we all are, and not just human beings all animals, all of creation.

Have a go at the meditation of loving kindness on the Palouse site and enjoy the other great links, knowledge and facilities offered there.

Here is a link to a full metta loving kindness meditation…
https://palousemindfulness.com/meditations/lovingkindness.html

Be happy and share your Metta

Take care

Sean x

Ed and I have just come back from a conference and exhibition in Amsterdam, ‘Fully Charged Live 2022’. This had everything from electric cars to electric cargo bikes that became a boats and also a caravanette. We tried pedal assist bikes, GoCycle, and Ed test drove the electric equivalent of a motorbike. They had iconic electric conversions and even motor homes. All in all it was an education in what you can do using pure electric power. The potential of adding a little pedal assist on some vehicles made simple journeys and even local deliveries perfectly possible. I was blown away. We came back buzzing and full of ideas.

The event was held in Amsterdam that I had only ever driven around on my way to somewhere else. Ed had been there for a stag do years earlier so for both of us this was the first time that we had actually really been and and looked at the city.

It had a profound effect on us both.

A city is a dense collection or people living and working together, yet all cities feel very different. Many cities are busy and often frantic places. People are trying to get where they need to be and as quickly as possible and other people just get in the way. This can lead to short tempers and aggressive behaviours and even violence. The intolerance of other people and other road users intensifies at different times of the day, the rush hours, and tensions mount. We were both struck by how easily, calmly and peacefully the city of Amsterdam went about it’s business. People had time for each other, showed a respect and awareness of others that was quite profound. 

You will doubtless have heard about the many bicycles that fill the streets of Amsterdam, it is true. To my psychologist observer eye the bicycles changed the way people interacted. To have many more bikes than cars meant that the cars had to give way for the bikes. This was a change for me as in the UK the bike is often seen as a hindrance to the progress of the car. In Amsterdam this went one stage further as the bikes gave way to the pedestrians. No form of transport is dominant. Cars, bikes and people flow together the achieve the needs of the day. 

This sense of cooperation and attention created a sense of calm across the city that is a rare experience. Within that calm is a sense of safety. It feels like people are looking out for each other and there is very little I, me, my and ‘pay me attention and get out of my way I am coming through’.

Getting the Eurostar back to London we stepped out at St Pancreas onto the Euston Road and both felt the uptight aggression that we know as city life which is so completely unlike Amsterdam.

I came away from the experience feeling that the big difference between the atmosphere of Amsterdam and London was the bike. The bikes slowed and calmed the streets and initiated the flow with both pedestrians and car drivers. This spreads into the everyday interactions between people in general communication. There is a sign suggesting that the car is really a guest invited into the pedestrian space. In a system where the car driver is seen as top of the pile and that the bike riders and pedestrians need to work around them it is impossible to get the balance of equality between different members of society.

From now on I shall use my bike more and try to understand how my local community can better flow together in greater social harmony.

Take care and enjoy your flow

Sean x

I was working with someone this week who told me that we should do a podcast on humour…”for Gods sake why is everyone so miserable?”

There is a time in the madness of the world when I guess all that you can do is laugh. At this time it can be easy to feel that there is nothing good happening in the world. We have covid and the ongoing effects of covid, real wars and not just rumours of wars, the ongoing effects of Brexit, the ongoing antics of Trump and the ego stretching of Putin, what seems to be a collapsing NHS and Boris in number 10. This has to be the time to make a joke and have a laugh I think.

When did you last have a belly laugh?

Humour

This is a natural human emotion that is shared by all peoples in all parts of the world. Humour if often and emotional release typified by the fact that as a response to laughter our brain secretes happy hormones that will make us feel good. In many situations humour has a stress management function which allows for the release of tension. In some areas that are particularly stressful such as operating theatres, accident and emergency departments and ambulance or police response teams the humour may become very dark. If this humour is heard by people outside of the ‘group’ it may well be experienced as offensive, yet it’s function for those within the group is vital, it enables them to function.

Laughter as therapy

Laughter is therapeutic it can make the intolerable tolerable and it can defuse the unjustifiable. When we are mindful we live in the moment, in the present, not allowing ourselves to be distracted by the depressive past or the anxious future. When we laugh we laugh in the moment not the past and not the future. To laugh is to be mindful and to laugh with others is joyful.

Laughter may be the best medicine

Laughter will reduce the levels of stress hormone in our body. It enhances and increases the immune cells and the immune response, developing powerful infection fighting antibodies. It improves our resistance to disease and stress related illness. Laughter also has a direct effect on the brain as it releases more endorphins that increase our sense of happiness and wellbeing. These endorphins can also have an effect our experience of pain and lessen its effect. Laughter is a very powerful medicine.

 

Stress reduction

Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis, described humour as a release of tension and psychic energy. This would suggest that we can laugh at, or find funny, what is going on in our head and not necessarily what is going on around us. We might see someone simply walking down the street and laughing at something going on in their head. When I worked in psychiatry I would often see a patient chuckling away in the corner and just letting it out, managing their stress.

Infectious laughter

Laughter workshops are weird. You arrive not feeling at all funny. You might even be feeling a bit miserable. You meet a group of people, complete strangers and the course leader begins to laugh. At first it seem ridiculous. Then you have a go. Just a little laugh. Suddenly you are off laughing so that the tears are rolling down your face. Not sure what you are laughing at or why you are laughing. Just to look into the eyes of a fellow participant who is laughing is enough to set you off again. Laughter is infectious.

The comedy club

It can be the same when you go to a comedy show. In research, if the blood of people entering the show is taken and the levels of stress hormone and happy hormone measured and recorded and then same is done when they leave we find that after the show peoples stress hormone and decreased and the happy hormones have increased.

In her book ‘The Secret’ Rhonda Byrne describes a lady who was given a terminal diagnosis. She went home and watched every video that she could that would make her laugh. She claims that she laughed her way back to full health. I am unsure or the veracity  of this claim though I am sure it would have improved her chances of survival and recovery.

Humour in unexpected places

Some of the funniest times I have had have been in hospices, often with people who were dying. In these situations humour and laughter is a tremendous stress reliever. I have also been at a funeral when a relative became hysterical with laughter which was infectious to some but greatly offensive to others. She was simply relieving her stress in that situation. And humour shared in a disaster situation has often saved the day. Once we see that laughter and tears are both ways of dealing with stress and releasing tension it can make a bit more sense.

Finally, laughter is a good thing and we should do more of it. To be able to laugh, lovingly, at yourself and your fellow human beings is a gift. However in your humour be kind and  mindful and try not to offend others. 

Take care and be happy and keep laughing

Sean x

This week I am revisited the effects of smiling because it is happening for real right in-front of my eyes. I have a series of team building exercises to do as people who are finally returning to the workplace after the Covid distanced working. That means people are, in most cases, looking each other directly in the eyes and smiling. It is quite a magical thing to watch as people reaffirm their relationships as friends and colleagues after such a long time apart.

A few years ago I had been listening to a TED talk, while on a plane, that was concerned with the neurolinguistic pathways between the brain the muscles of the face. I love research generally but when it matches the Ayurvedic theories that I studied in my early training it does make me smile. How is it the the Rishis (scientific researchers) thousands of years ago knew things that we can only now verify with brain scanners and nerve tests? The ancient Ayurvedic science of Mudra explains how the structure of our body expresses who we are and the nature of our personality. It also explains the emotional and cognitive relationship between stance, expression and gesture.  

The research behind the Ted talk explained that when you are in a good frame of mind your brain responds by releasing positive endorphins. This process initiates a neural muscular response that results in you smiling. The muscles in your face around your mouth and eyes respond automatically. When you see someone walking down the road smiling you know that their brain is full of positive endorphins. Smiling is common to all human beings of all races in every country across the world. Smiling is a universal response saying that things are okay.

Smiling has a powerful social function in that it tells others that we are friendly and not aggressive or that we are not going to kill them it confirms that we accept them into the group. As a social signal smiling bonds groups on two levels. The first is cognitive recognition that things are alright and the second is the collective out pouring of positive endorphins in the group brain and the corresponding warm emotional feelings that are produced.

When I smile your brain creates positive endorphins and you smile. 

How weird is that?

Smiling it would seem has been with us throughout evolution as both an expression of inner feeling and as a social signal of group bonding.

The importance here is in the realisation of the synchronicity between brain and face muscles. The relationships is based in that when the brain produces positive hormones the muscles of the face smile. What we now know is that if the muscles of the face force a smile the brain responds by releasing positive endorphins which can make us feel better. 

Some time you need to fake it to make it

Even if you are feeling really down, sad and blue and your face looks sad. When you force a smile the nerves and  muscles in your face send a message to your brain telling it that things are good or at least getting better. Your brain then begins to responds by initiating the secretion of happy endorphins. I love the brain though its responses can be limited. For example your brain is unable to tell the difference between whether something is actually happening or if you are only imagining it or, in this case, forcing it.

One physical aspect of a smile, that is so important, are the eyes and the forehead. When someone only smiles with their mouth and not their eyes and forehead it is not a real smile and often looks and feels insincere. For a smile to be real and have the required effect the eyes are open wide producing laughter lines in the corners.

Enter Botox 

Consider this relationship between the muscles of the face and the endorphins in the brain. The way it works is as though they are either end of a tube, you can’t have one without the other. Positive brain smiley muscles, smiley muscles positive brain.

Now, what happens if the brain wants to smile but the muscles of the face are damaged or paralysed? The system breaks down. As much as the brain wants to create a smile the feedback from the muscles is that there is no smile to be had. When people use Botox they are paralysing their muscles so that there is limited feedback between the muscles and the brain either way. Positive endorphins in the brain cannot create a smile and a responsive smile in the muscles to a good event cannot tell the brain that there is something going on to make it worth releasing some positive endorphins.

So now we have Botox induced depression. 

Botox can become an addiction. As with any other addictive type behaviour. The problem is that addiction tends to increase as the effectiveness of the substance diminishes. With Botox the drive is towards creating more positive endorphins, the just person wants to feel good about who they. So perhaps, someone is feeling a bit down about how they look and decide to have some Botox to make them feel better. The drive to feel better is the common emotion behind all addictions. 

Because of the muscular paralysis there can be no positive feedback to the brain, the desired effect of the Botox fails to be achieved. There can be no feedback between the muscles of the face and the brain. In fact it can end up having the reverse effect making the person may feel worse not better. They have invested time and money in this procedure to improve the way that they feel and see themselves and their mood in general and now they feel worse.

The standard response in addictive behaviour to such a situation is to use more of the addictive substance because that is what we belief will make us feel better. This is called chasing the dragon in opium dens. The reality is that the more of the addictive substance we use the less is its effect and more we need, or think that we need. This is why all addiction get worse over time. With botox the more that is used the more the problem increases. If the Botox is the very thing that is stopping the positive feedback between muscle and brain we now have what is now viewed as Botox induced depression.

Simply smiling in the mirror could be more effective than using Botox

For me the self induced disfigurement of Botox, fillers, lifts, piercings and tattoos is a huge sadness. The human form has a natural beauty that emanates the positive feelings and attitudes from deep within us. To mask this natural beauty with what is seen as adornments and enhancement is so sad and represents yet another behaviour that we use to avoid facing who we are, and actually sorting our problems out, in the drive to make shortcuts to our happiness. But, then as someone who has never been able to get my head around why people need to wear makeup I must own to being out of step with modern social thinking, I have an anachronistic point of view. 

Perhaps the reality is that when we feel good we look good and simply attempting to make us look good may not make us feel good at all.

Whoever you are and however you choose to present yourself ensure that the end result is increasing your own happiness not making your feel worse.

Take care

Sean X