Archive for year: 2024

I enjoy Easter, the indulgence, the family meal and the egg hunt. Though Easter means much more to me than that. For me is is a time of newness and renewal. I had a strong Christian childhood and the passion of Christ dominated this time of year. The amount of people aligned to the Christian faith is currently in decline. 

In the 2001 census 71% of the British population claim to be Christian though as little as 5% attended a Church each week and around 15% attend once a month.

“Almost 80 per cent of children do not know the true meaning of Easter, with a quarter thinking it is to celebrate the Easter bunny’s birthday, a poll has found.”

I even heard of a child who thought Easter was the celebration of the invention of chocolate and, in many ways I guess it is. Children will indulge in an average of more than two-and-a-half kilograms of chocolate over the Easter holiday – taking in nearly 13,000 calories and 650 grams of fat, a survey found and that is a lot of weight on. That is also true for adults as the indulgence begins.

A poll, by mystery shopping company Retail Active, found a typical 200g Easter egg has 990 calories and 50 grams of fat, with youngsters aged 10-14 eating an average of 13 eggs, many of those first thing on Easter Sunday.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/easter/7544878/Easter-2010-Children-gorge-on-2.5kg-of-chocolate.html

So ok, what are we doing here? Where does it all come from?

Before the Christians hijacked the Pagan Anglo Saxon festival of ‘Eostre’  spring time was all about renewal. Some sources suggest Eostre originated in Greece where Eos was a God. In the Germanic cultures the festival at this time of year was known as ‘Ostara’.

http://www.englatheod.org/eostre.htm

The image of the Bunny and the Egg are both representative of the newness of life and the celebration of spring and the new life to come. The Christian story of Jesus and his rebirth from the tomb is representative of the same concept, accepting the Christian message of Jesus suggests that he died to save us all, which is also the idea of new life and renewal.

We seem to currently be in a time of strife on planet Earth. At all levels socially, economically, politically, environmentally, we are facing, potentially, huge changes and in many ways life may never be the same again. As I keep saying whatever happens…

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

Whoever you are and whatever you believe, be you Christian, Jew, Muslim, Hindu, Jain, Buddhist, Agnostic, Atheist, Humanist, Spiritualist or none of these, enjoy the spring. Look out the window and see the green shoots of spring and the new life to come, be happy and enjoy the summer ahead. Life is to be lived and enjoyed.

Take care and remember to live in the present and look after your self and each other.

Sean x

Social media is full of conspiracy theories. Currently those about Katherine Princess of Wales are rife. There is great interest, in certain groups, as to whether the stories about her abdominal surgery and public appearance and photograph are real or fake. The thing that interests Ed and I is why is it so important? What is it about gossip and rumour that we all get so hooked up in?

In evolutionary psychology it is suggested that the development of language and the depth of language across the world was developed by women. The men were out either hunting or fighting or the like. Such activities require simple language to convey action such as ‘forward’, ‘back’ or ‘go that way’ and so on. While the men were out the women were back at the home, or the cave, and were conversing in a more nuanced way. There conversation were about what was going on between the different groups in the tribe on the basis of ‘us’ and ‘them’. The women needed to know what was going on. It is assumed that this talking, sharing or gossiping required and greater depth of language that was more descriptive than the make simple commands to action. It is also likely that the process of gossiping and considering rumours kept groups or even whole tribes safe. The women knew what was going on or at least what was suspected was to be going on and could pay attention to and respond to it.

Historically when a pregnant lady went for her ‘lying in’ as she was in or coming up to labour she would invite a group of women to accompany her and help her through the experience. The profession of midwife came from this sort of process. However, so did gossip. The women invited to the lying in were known as the ‘gossips’ and attending a labour was known as ‘gossiping’. It was one of the few instances when women were able to be truly alone together without the men and could say and discuss whatever they wanted or needed to. It was from this that the word gossip moved from the simple title given to the participants of this lying in to the concept of people sharing things behind someone’s back. 

The people most effected by this gossip were the men who were excluded from the birthing event and therefore the women were able to talk about them without feeling restrained or the men knowing. Eventually the word gossip was taken to describe this talking behind someone’s back and was seen by men as an exclusively female thing. If you listen to the podcast you will hear Ed admitting to gossiping with his friends. The reality is that all people, men and women, gossip. That is they talk about other people without that person knowing what is being said about them. It is maybe good to mention at this point that gossip, in the sense of what is spoken about someone without their knowledge, behind their back, may not be negative. It could be true or false, positive or negative. People might be talking about someone’s good points and their good qualities. 

So why do we gossip? The assumption by evolutionary psychology is that creating a small gossiping group was a way of bonding the group together. The gossip would normally concern people outside of this small group who would be open to criticism. Yet, we can also be a part of the group and still be the subject of gossip by the group when we are not there. Have you ever walked into a room and suddenly it goes quiet and the question in your mind is ‘what were you all talking about before I came in?’ With the advent of social media the scope for gossip becomes huge and extends beyond a small group in a tribe to include a global or international community.

Is gossip a good thing? 

Over all I would say ‘yes’ but with some caveats. The first being that you need to be aware of is the source. A good source provides us with real and true information. A dodgy source can create negative and untrue conspiracy theories that may cause greater levels of disquiet, conflict and strife.

Gossip can also be an informal stress management. 

If in the workplace we have a colleague or a manager who’s behaviour is difficult, but because of their position we feel unable to challenge their behaviour, then gossiping with colleagues can be active informal stress management. This enables us to let off steam, to off load and deal with the stress and frustration that we are experiencing.  

Yes, it would always be better if we could talk to the manager/colleague directly and give them feedback about their behaviour. This would give them the opportunity to change and that would be a good thing for the entire organisation. Being honest to someone’s face about their behaviour is feedback and doing it behind their back is gossip. It would seem obvious that the feedback route is the more positive but not always possible in which case the informal stress management of gossip does have a valid and useful role. Often it is the positive ethos of the organisation that encourages feedback and a negative ethos that creates gossip.

A couple of years ago during my cardiac illness and hospitalisation Rie and I were the subject of gossip both positive and negative. The problem for those gossipers sharing negatively was that the people that they gossiped to came to us and told us what had been shared about us. This is the one big problem with gossip. It only works as a stress release and informal stress management function when it is kept within the gossiping group. As soon as it leaks out of the group it can become destructive and can even wreck families, relationships, organisation and even governments. 

Social media can be an even greater problem in this regard. We had what was termed The ‘Wagatha Christie’ trial all based around who said what on social media which eventually led to a very public court case. Both in workplaces and in family relationship I am dealing with more and more cases to do with damage caused by what has been said or implied on social media. 

In an online world that has become so immediate it is important that we learn to be more aware of what we are saying and what we are sharing both verbally and on social media. I would include all forms of trolling and accusations or innuendo in this as well. These posts can be the start of an untrue trail of gossip or lies that is shared and then re-shared until it is believed to be the truth and then lives can be completely ruined.

My resource for this podcast is that you re-visit the first three steps of the live in the present course and consider how you see yourself and other people and decide if you need to adjust your behaviour. Remember:

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

It may also be a useful exercise to review and examine your own current relationships both personal and professional. Which of these relationships are conditional? Do you have to act in certain ways for them to be maintained? Such as agreeing with the other person’s views? That may mean that you may need to be seen to agree with gossip about people that you know to be untrue? However, you may need to agree anyway in order to maintain the relationship. In so doing the rumour mill is powered up and the information that you have shared is then shared again and again until it grows into a conspiracy that is then believed as being the truth. 

Perhaps the only counter that we have for negative gossip is to call it out. Now on X you are able to post ‘community notes’ that …

… “aim to create a better informed world by empowering people on X to collaboratively add context to potentially misleading posts. Contributors can leave notes on any post and if enough contributors from different points of view rate that note as helpful, the note will be publicly shown on a post” …

I guess that we could all respond in the same way to posts on any app that we know to be incorrect. We do have a choice as to how much we are controlled by gossip if we call it out.

Going back to where we started I don’t really see what right we have to know anything about Kate’s abdominal surgery or need to know why she was playing Photoshop with her own photograph. And, in the unlikely event that she was using a body double this would say more about us than her! Why would she need to use a body double, not that I think she did, other than to avoid the negative speculation of a negatively gossiping public and press.

Let’s all just play and live nicely.

Take care

Sean x

Nanny Pam has just come back from Dubai having had a wonderful time. Now every one is talking about going there. The idea of needing to get away would suggest that where we are is never really good enough. I get it that the act of taking a break, of doing something different, is stimulating and often relaxing but the question got me thinking about do we appreciate where we are and what we have? Are we able to enjoy the space that we live in.

I am reminded of the amount of time when Rie and I have been driving around europe and have been spellbound by views and vistas. Yet there are many time when we have noted that we have views like this where we live. There is a beach on an island in the Florida Quays that people go to every evening to watch and marvel at the sunset. It was a lovely sunset. But, when I watch the sun going down over Hilbre Island and the Welsh coast I am stunned on a daily basis.

We live on a peninsula named Wirral. It is known as the insular peninsula mainly because people, once they arrive, never leave. I know many people people born on the Wirral that have never travelled anywhere else, not even for holiday. I note that those that do manage to leave often return after a few years as though they have been drawn back by some invisible elastic umbilicus that will not them truly leave.

Wirral sticks out into the sea with estuaries either side. There is the river Mersey between Wirral and Liverpool and the river Dee between Wirral and Wales. Both estuaries empty into the sea so that the top end of Wirral there are beaches, and all the fun of the holiday trade. There seems to be a balance here of industry, residential and holiday occupation and accommodation.

Where do you live?

How well do you know your own area? What do you know about it’s history? Maybe it is a good time to get to know where you live?

I have lived all over the world and only came to Wirral with work and stayed because of Rie, and now I cant think of a better place to live. Like most of the British I feel that the weather could be warmer and that the sun could shine some more but taken over all I live in heaven. In ten minutes I can stroll down to the beach. In twenty minutes I can be in the centre of Liverpool. In twenty five minutes I can be in Chester and in forty minutes into the mountains of Wales. The motorway system that runs through the middle of Wirral connects us to the rest of the UK and through to Europe.

Once I became interested in the Wirral and began to look around it I found places that are gems. There are areas of richness and poverty, areas of beauty and the not so beautiful. I discovered that Paul Hollywood’s dad has a bakers not far away, that Lillie Savage was brought up here and Wirral has been home to Ian Astbury, Ian Botham, Fiona Bruce, Ellis Costello, Daniel Craig, Chris Farrell, Austin Healey, Paul Hollywood, Eric Idle, Paul O’Grady, John Peel, Patricia Routledge, Harold Wilson, the list goes on forever. And there was a Viking parliament in a place called Thingwall apparently a corruption on Ing meaning assembly and Voll meaning field- Amazing.

Anyway, I digress. My advice to you is to get to know where you are. Don’t become blind to what is around you and certainly enjoy your holidays in foreign parts but maybe begin to understand why people from other parts of the world might like to come to where you live for their annual holiday.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

Well this week it is Valentine’s again, the day of love, how is it for you? we often have talked about mood boosts and love, feeing loved, being loved and sharing love they are right at the top of positive mood, self esteem, raised energy and wellbeing. The magic is in ‘feeling’ loved. Someone may love you desperately but unless they love you in a way that works for you the you simply will not feel it.

In eastern approaches to personality, psychology and the person the various and individual drives of both giving and receiving love are seen to be described as personality types often termed the chakra types. When we share love or use the word love we all mean different things. What do you actually mean when you say love? To use the word ‘love’ in say, “I love you” or “I’d love a cream bun” have very different meanings.

How do you know that you are loved? 

What do you want your partner, or lover to mean when they say “I love you”? 

Is love for you a simple one stranded thing or is it multi-faceted?

How many strands does it have?

What are they?

It is so strange that someone can love you truly, madly, deeply but unless it is expressed in just the right way so that you are able to receive it then you will simply not feel it, you will not feel loved.

I sit down with many couples in relationship therapy and commonly at some point in their past they both shared their love for each other. The problem, that only came to light later, was that they did not understand what each other meant when they used the word love. They both felt that their partner meant the same as they did. Later they discovered that they were wrong.

Love, like beauty, is in the eye of the beholder.

It is not being loved that is important

It is feeling loved that counts

Example: A common problem

Woman: “I feel unloved and hurt when you fail to put a X on the end of a text”

Man: “That just feels like you are trying to control my emotions. I only put an ‘X’ there when I am really feeling it. It is meaningless if I always put it there because in the end it just means nothing.”

Therapist: “How about if it is important to your partner to see an ‘X’ and if you do love her and care about her would the act of simply adding an ‘X’ be something that you know would make her feel happy and good. Is it therefore not worth doing?”

Sometimes showing your partner that they are loved isn’t egocentrically based around your need to be honest it is about ensuring that the person that you love feels it. To go out of your way, to put yourself out, to get something or do something that you know will make your partner happy is an expression of love.

If your response to the above is something like, “Well, my needs are as important as their’s and if I need not to put a ‘X’ at the end of a text and they love me then they will respect that”, then you are either emotionally immature or need to be in another relationship.

Once you get into relationships it often happens that love becomes a demand and not an act of giving. Success in relationships come from both people giving it is and that both feeling that they receive it. If both people expect love without giving then neither of their needs will be met.

Who is right?  

If it becomes a battle it ceases to be love and becomes acts of possession. Think about your relationship and how you both share your love.

Do you need to be told that you are loved? 

Do you tell your partner?

Do you feel that by saying it too often that you will wear it out and that it becomes meaningless?

Do you feel that by saying you are re-affirming your connection and positive feeling?

Do you do things, that may seem silly or meaningless to you, because you know that it will make your partner happy?

Do you feel that you should only act in love when you feel the love?

In relationships we sometimes need to fake it to make it. Maybe your partner has really cheesed you off for some reason but you still arrange their birthday party and rise above the difficulties. If your partner loves you in the same way they will do the same for you. It is to do with whether or not your love is conditional and demanding or unconditional and giving. In a world where there really is no right or wrong, where there is only a consequence to your action, you need to take responsibility for who you are, for what you do and how you show your love.

I guess I should add that if you pour your love, time and energy into someone who does not love you back is like standing in an ice cold shower tearing up twenty pound notes. Not to be recommended.

Suggestion:

How about you ask your partner “How do you know that I love you?”. Or you could get more direct and ask them if there are things that they would like you to do so that they would feel more loved.

There are  two sides of this coin. You might also share with them that when they do certain things they make you feel loved, unless you tell them already.

Think about this for a while. How do you express your love? Not just for your partner but to the other people close to you. Do your parents, brothers, sisters children, friends, community, country, humanity feel your love? 

Love is the magic glue that holds the whole world together just as hate forces it apart. It may be expressed as the law of attraction, as gravity, in the relationship between particles and atoms, it might be in the caring for the sick and needy or it might simply be in a bunch of flowers.

However you share you love, I hope that Valentines Day confirmed the love that others have for you.

Take care

Sean X