New Years Resolution’s 2025

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“What is not started today is never finished tomorrow.”

According to JW von Goethe if you never start what needs to be one you will never finish if. An evident truth that we often avoid through distraction and displacement.

Happy Covid New Year

However your Christmas has been and however it has been affected you we are now into the New Year. The past is behind us and it is time to move on. It maybe that this is the year that we accept Global warming as a part of our annual life and that we get used to the idea of changing our use of fuel for both transport and house heating. Accepting that there will always be the naysayers and conspiracy theorists who will refuse to believe in global warming hopefully people will comply and hopefully climate change can be held at bay.

Alongside that we have wars and rumours of wars for 2025. Assuming that Russia Ukraine and Israel Palestine remain contained we have prediction by Nostradamus of a main European war in 2025. However…

…let’s move forward positively

What we feed grows and what we starve dies – Let’s feed the positive.

So, looking forward what will you resolve to do, make different or achieve in this magical year of 2025?

New Years resolutions require of us. that we let go of all the emotional baggage that we are carrying from last year that has weighed us down to enable us to move forward into the new year and our new achievements. So, let’s agree to put is all down now and leave it in the past.

Once you decide on your resolutions your goals will become within your reach. In fact deciding what you know where you want to go and what you wish to achieve is the difficult bit. It is crucial to get hoping in the first place. The easiest bit is achieving them. It is a simple process. It just requires commitment and action on your behalf. The following steps might help you on your way…

1: Have clear goals – be sure about what it is that you specifically want to achieve. This is so important. Many people fail to achieve what the want because they are not clear at the outset. This is what we would call ‘the image’.

2: Write it down – when you write something down you are reinforcing your intention to achieve it in your conscious mind. Repetition is very powerful. Every habit that you have ever developed, both positive and negative, are the result of repetition of thoughts and actions.

3: Focus on one thing at a time – don’t allow yourself to become confused and overloaded, or distracted. Many people do not achieve what they really want because they try to do too much at the same time. This dilutes your attention, ability and energy and make you less effective.

4: Pick your tasks logically – make a plan and stick to it. A wonderful phrase is ‘fail to plan and you plan to fail’. It does not take long at all to look at what needs to be done, what steps need to be taken. The steps are your plan. The time that it will take to take the steps is your time line. Once you have an image, a plan and a time line it is time to begin.

5: Ensure that your actions serve you well – Ask your self “What can I do right now that will bring me one step closer to my desired goal?” as often in the day as you can. To effect real and lasting change it needs to be something that you are focussed on.

Everything that you do in a day can take you nearer to your goal. Remember… what you feed grows and what you starve dies.

The more you feed your ideas and images the more successful they will become.

6: Educate yourself – Make sure you develop the knowledge and skills required to complete your goal. On your journey you will become aware of your deficits in skills and knowledge. There will be things that you will need to know. Do not be afraid to ask for help and assistance. There is little point in reinventing the wheel when other people have
been through exactly the same process before you. We can learn from others mistakes.

7: Keep it simple – start with simple tasks, worry about the difficult ones once you have got going. Pace yourself and be kind to your self. If your time line slips don’t beat yourself up just adjust your plan and your time line.

8: Ask advice from and listen to other people – Anything else that you need to know can be learned on the way. Keep talking and keep sharing. Most importantly listen to feed back. Feedback is a priceless gift, use it well.

Start now – don’t leave it until tomorrow

Review and adjust – check if you are making progress? If not review what you are doing and adapt it, change it and move on.

Be persistent and consistent – until the goal is completed. Things are only ever achieved through persistent and consistent action.

Any one can achieve anything if the approach it in the right way and remain persistent and consistent in their efforts.

Happy New Year and enjoy your achievements,
Sean. x

It’s Christmas time to see the light and the love

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When the scientist predicted the idea of global warming they suggested ‘warm wet winters and cool dry summers’, they were right there. As people are dealing with the floods  from the various storms this year, including Storm Bert, the sand bags are out and people have fortifying their defences. Yet at the same time there are people nearer the equator are digging ever deeper wells in order to find more water and trying to put out forrest fires. It this odd? Has the world has gone mad? Or, is this the reality of global warming.

The cycles of mother nature may have nothing to do with global warming and the role that mankind has played in warming the planet, who knows?, but there is something odd is happening.

But Christmas is Christmas and the solstice is the solstice.

It is time to see the growing light of the lengthening days and shortening nights. Following the darkness of winter, that has its depth at the winter solstice and the longest night, comes the lightening, as the days draw out.  This sense of the light coming to dispel the darkness has been ever present in the psychological cycle of the year.  The festivals of Solstice, (Yuletide), originally the three days around midwinters day, December 21st, was gradually superseded by Christmas or ‘Christmastide”.  In some parts of the pagan world the festival of ‘Yule’ lasted for twelve days which became the twelve days of ‘Christmastide’.

For many of us Christmas is magical time for our children who’s excitement and expectation is wonderfully infectious.  The tree full of lights sparkle in the darkness and many streets seem so bright that they must be visible from the moon. We love the light in the dark. It is like fireworks that give the burst of light against the darkness of the sky.

Symbolically, the magic of these festivals, at this time of year, is in the realisation of the coming of the light back to the world. Psychologically this is the development of awareness and understanding, as the light dispels the darkness, or symbolically, good dispels evil.  The symbol of the star shining over Bethlehem, as the light shining in the dark, is the same as the Chinese symbol Yin and Yang or the Hindu symbol of Hatha, both showing the relationship between the duality of consciousness and unconsciousness symbolised by the Sun and the Moon. Consciousness is the light (Sun) that illuminates the darkness of unconsciousness (Moon). 

Christmas is, at its best, a time of light, of increasing awareness, of love and joy, of acceptance, and giving.  The gifts given to Jesus were represented in pagan ‘Yuletide’ by the gifts given by the farmers, and the people at the Yule feast, often these were animals that were sacrificed to God as an expression of gratitude for the coming of the light of the New Year. I have never been a lover of dark cold winters, and to know that the darkness is behind me and that ahead is the lighter warmer time of spring and the heat of summer becomes the light at the end of a tunnel.

Perhaps, individually we all have life issues that need to be resolved or worked through. The resolution of these is our journey from our darkness towards our light. Our emotional winter leads to our spring that in time will become the fullness of summer. This time of the year is my symbolic emotional and spiritual ending and rebirth in the new beginning that will become the new year.

We all deserve a new beginning. We all have the right and the power to make our lives good and right.

Enjoy the lightness and love of your festivities, be happy and merry and consciously let past go and allow yourself to move forward.

Have a wonderful Yuletide and a meaningful Christmastide

See you in the New Year

Sean x

Giving and Receiving Is Not Just For Christmas

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Christmas will soon be here and we begin to talk about giving and receiving. ‘It is the season to be Jolly’. Why do we wait until Christmas to be jolly and to enjoy giving gifts or enjoy receiving them? This happiness that we expect at Christmas should be with all of us all the time, every day of the year.

The law of attraction states that we need to give in order to receive. This law is identifying that to receive requires a space for things to flow into. If, for example you give money to charity, you create a space in your financial energy that allows more energy, or money, to flow to you. Science tells us that the universe abhors a vacuum, whenever one occurs energy will flow into to fill the empty space and create a balance in the energy. What we experience as wind is nothing other that air moving form areas of high pressure to balance an area of low pressure, it is the low pressure that creates the wind flow, it is the partial vacuum that air flows into. It would seem that in everything the universe prefers a balance of energy, this is true in all systems.

Are you a giver or a taker?

It is often said that people are one or the other, givers or takers, and that is often the way that it is. In my occupational health role in organisations I see the ‘minimalists’ who will take all that they can while doing as little as possible and the ‘maximalists’ who will do all that they can to ensure that the job gets done and that the customer’s or service users needs are met. In society it is those that are doers, givers that are proactive and are carrying those that do little or nothing and are the ‘done to’. The takers who are inactive in life are carried by the givers. 

The ability to to give unconditionally to others is often the basis of happiness. We know that the act of giving benefits the giver through the production of happy hormones in the brain. It also can make the receiver feel good for the very same reason. Just like all universal energies the system only works when the energy of giving and energy of receiving is in balance. I am not implying that there need to be the takers so that the givers can give, I am suggesting that we should each have within us a balance of both giving and taking. That means that the givers need to learn to receive and the takers need to learn to give.

What can I do for you?

President John F Kennedy talking to the German people when they were rebuilding their country after the second world war famously said “Don’t ask what can my country do for me, ask what can I do for my country”. He was restating this universal principle that equates to the idea that if were all to give then all of our needs will be met.

The magic of giving  

When we belong to any group, workplace or family and so on, if we all give, that is, look after each others needs, then everyone’s needs are met. If, on the other hand, we all sit back and expect our needs to be met by the rest of the group then no one’s need will ever be met. This is true on all levels, in all situations, all of the time. 

When we learn to give we realise that there is enough of everything for everybody. There is enough food, enough water, enough money, enough love and so on, all we need to do is to learn give to each other. This is hard for most human beings, especially at times of uncertainty, when fear of deprivation and loss and lack of things effects many people. That in turn can lead to greed and hoarding, ownership and meanness.

The crazy thing is that if we all learned to give we could have heaven on earth right now!

The magic of receiving

Well if the law of vacuums and the natural balance of energies is true then it is not enough to simply be able to give we also need to be able to receive.  For some receiving can be difficult. How do you cope when people buy you presents? Perhaps it is Christmas or your birthday how do you feel about getting gifts? Are you able to open them in front of the giver and feel comfortable? Being able to receive a gift in itself is a gift and a skill.

Love is all there is

When it comes right down to it all that we ever give is love. It may be in the form of charity as money to the poor, needy or homeless, as food or water aid or disaster relief. We may volunteer our time or resources. We may give gifts for birthdays, Christmas, weddings and so on. We might see these as material giving but behind each act of giving is an act of loving. All we ever give is love, love is all there is.

Many people that are able to live in privileged positions in our society are often those that have been the takers. Often they have gained their wealth by taking it from others. Sometimes they have gained their power by taking power away from others. I have no problem with people leading rich lives, we should all be living rich lives. Money, like all universal energies works best when it simply flows around the system. There is enough for everyone if we share it and do not hoard it.

Enjoy your giving and learning to receive, remember that in order to receive well you need to give well.

Take care and remember that giving and receiving is not just for Christmas it is for everyday all year.

Sean x

Hygge

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Hygge is a Danish concept that is defined as a quality of cosiness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being. This it would seem would be be the natural desire of all people. The perfect relationship between couple and in families embodies these very things. Yet, despite our best efforts, it is for many of us, so hard to attain. Divorce rates, of those that bother to marry, are high. You will have heard me going on about…

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

The would be no wars, conflicts would be easily resolved and happiness would the dominant emotion. Sadly as individuals we have become narcissistically obsessed with our own importance and expectation that others should do and be what we want and expect of them. Often we fear that they can be themselves and become offended that they might have opinions different to our own. Recently we visited Copenhagen and experienced Hygge first hand. People were friendly, happy and genuinely interested in people other than themself.

I have spent my life trying to support and help other people, often to my own detriment only to be belittled and diminished for not following the herd beliefs of the groups, workplace, institute, trust or even family.

What it comes down to is people’s levels of awareness and awake-ness from a consciousness point of view. The majority of human beings are in a deep asleep level of self awareness and have little or no understanding or empathy for other people even those that they are close to. There are some in a dream state of awareness living in their own dream about life and what it involves. Even less people are in the waking state and are beginning to become aware of the reality of the people around them. These are the seeds or empathy that is the precursor of Hygge. Then there are a very few who are actually awake. Many of the awakes people are the givers that seek to help others. Sadly those that are not yet awake are the takers and they take advantage of the givers. It is easy for the givers to feel used by the takers.

To be truly Hygge in our society and our relationships we need to learn to give expecting nothing in return. This is the true value of love. Often in awakeness we cannot explain things to asleep people because they just can’t see it. In the end it is easier too…

…allow the mad people to be mad but not join in.

Often awake people feel a deep sense of aloneness and with gather in communities of like minded people that live away from the asleep people.

However we can all develop Hygge and follow the Danish example and bring more hygge into our daily life by putting our own ego on one side and just being nice to and with other people rather than expecting that they do and act the way that we want them too. In the end love is all that there si the alternative is a fractured society and world built on self obsessed division and self interest.

So who can you be nice to and help today?

Take care and be happy,

Sean X

Remembrance

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Remembrance Day is a powerful time of year for me. It was on that day, a while ago now, when Mike, my father in law dew his last breath. I looked at my watch and it was 2.33 in the afternoon. So, now, every November 11th at 2.33 I raise a glass of and wish him well. He was, I assume still is, a lovely soul. I am not sure that we ever get over those feelings of loss. We may come to terms with them and perhaps with time the volume of the emotional disturbance is lessened.

With Mike we had some notice. He was ill and had been ill for sometime. We knew that his ending was coming and, as much as we could, we prepared for it. With some losses it does not matter however much you prepare you are still in that awful state of loss and grief. How difficult must it when there is no notice and there is only a sudden loss.

I watch the service at the Cenotaph and other memorials and try to imagine what it must be like as service man or woman and to go out in the morning with your friends and comrades not knowing who you will be coming home with or indeed if you yourself will be coming home.

Death is an inevitable consequence of life though we expect to go at a appropriate time. When someone is older we say “Well they had a good life” or “They had a good innings.” When life is cut short prematurely through illness, accident, assault or in service the shock is great and is harder to process. I guess this is the power of Rememberance. We powerfully revisit it every year on November 11th. Yet we all have remembrance days through out the year. As is the nature of things the older we get the more people die so the remembrance days grow in number and each anniversary may get easier over time but they rarely go away.

I lost a little boy on my birthday in 1983. I would like to say that I have processed that loss and that it is easier. It is not. The angle of my memory has changed over time but each year I spend forty eight hours tracking my watch remembering what was happening on that day. Once those forty eight hours are over I hunker down and get on with life for another year until it comes back to me again.

What this experience, and working many people experiencing similar things has taught is the importance of remembering and not trying to forget or blank things out. Every loss that we experience is an active part of who we are and of our individual learning. Loss is not a bad thing it more just another part in this mystery that we call life.

If there is life after death we will all meet again in any case. If that is true death never really happens. All that happens is that our body stops working and energy that was us be that spirit or souls or whatever carries on. I guess we will never truly know until we get there.

I do experience that every November 11th at 2.33 when I raise my glass to Mike I can smell his roll your own tobacco. I would think that I am bonkers but other people smell it as well. I suspect that is Mike just dropping by to say ‘Hi’ as we tune into him. So “I’ll see you up stairs later Mike.”

Take care and enjoy your remembrances perhaps even celebrate them

Sean x

It’s Good To Smell!

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Our sense of smell is probably our most underrated and misunderstood of all of our senses. We have tended to lose the importance of our sense of smell because we have devalued it and hijacked it with chemical additives.

Just think of how a dog interacts! The first thing that a dog does when it meets a stranger or a friend is to smell them. The dogs sense of smell will tell them so much about the state of being and the wellbeing of the individual they are interacting with. A dogs sense of smell is so powerful that they can now be used to diagnose cancers and identify the location of tumours in the human body.

Actually many nurses and medical workers report being able to smell illness and disease and even on process of dying. They can also smell wellness.

When was that we decided that the human body should not smell like a human body but should smell like a bunch of flowers? At some point in our evolution we decided that smells we describe as perfumes were preferable to the natural smell of being who we are.

I was brought up in world that was in the great transition from natural to chemical. The television was full of adverts about bad breath as we were all encouraged to have the “Colgate ring of confidence” with minty toothpaste and avoid “B.O.” (body odour) with roll on deodorant. I am not suggesting that we should not be clean but we do not need to smell like a chemical factory or a pretend garden.

Along with toothpaste and underarm deodorant came odour eaters to overcome the natural smell of out feet and fem fresh to overcome come the natural smell of the vagina. Some marketing manager convinced us that a vagina that smelled like a bunch of flowers would be sexier that a vagina that smelled like a vagina. Actually research shows that the pheromones given off by an aroused vagina especially when the woman is about to ovulate has the effect on the males around her of increasing their levels of testosterone their sperm production. This is all very natural and as it should be. We can smell sexual arousal in people that we are with. Yet our experience of the smell of often below our awareness so that we are effected by it but are not sure why we are affected. It could be that we are in a lift with a woman ovulating or a man feeling horny and we step out of the lift feeling a level of arousal but having no awareness of why.

I had the benefit of living for many years in a ashram where the classic deodorants and additional additive smells were not used. People were not dirty. They washed everyday and were clean. However, they smelled of themselves and not of manufactured chemicals.

It is estimated at 7 to 10% of our everyday communication is in pheromones. We smell fear, arousal, anxiety, anger etc in our everyday communication unless of course they are masked by perfumes and deodorants. In covid when people moved to communication online the pheromone effects was lost and the effectiveness of our communication was therefore diminished.

This diminished value of our smell effects every area of our lives. There came a point when we stooped using our sense of smell to determine the freshness of food in favour of the ‘best before’ date. It is now estimated that, because of this, over 30% of perfectly edible food is binned unnecessarily.

I have a suggestion to our listeners. How about we all try the experiment of not using these chemical substances for a week and we note what we experience, what other people experience and whether we feel any different. And when you do it give us the feed back and we can see what happened.

Take care

Sean x

Anger can be a useful emotion

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We have just seen the attempted assassination of Donald Trump followed by an appeal by President Biden for the population to come together and accept disagreement with out seeing it as a threat. It is okay to disagree with other people. It does not need to lead to violence, war and death. 

We often see anger as a negative force. Though it can be a very creative and useful force. When our anger is stuck out the front of us it is in the way. It becomes a battering ram that bashes into other people and becomes destructive. When it is behind us it can be used as a power pack that positively can be a dynamic force that drives us forward and gets things done.

Preparing this podcast I was thinking a lot about how anger can effect each of us. Anger is really just another emotion, it is an energy. However anger is either a productive energy or a destructive energy. Anger can be described with other words such a passion, determination, assertion, drive, irritation, exasperation, vexation, indignation, displeasure, chagrin, aggravation and so on. Though in the extreme anger can sometimes it can tip over into aggression or even violence. 

When we have an anger response to a situation or event we are usually just reacting. Generally reactions are mindless. When we respond rather than react we think about what we are doing before we do it. 

Reactions are mindless where as responses are mindful. 

When we are mindful we realise that it is not what happens to us but it is how we deal with it that makes the difference. It will make it either good or bad. Simply it is the way that we see it. As Epicticus put it…

…we are not in the least effected by events, 

we are effected by our response to those events…

Each day throughout life we are surrounded by difficult news and experiences. As I write this there are huge flood and deaths across Europe. For many people there will be a reaction to these events that will be anger. The same is true for Covid and it’s effects. The world can sometimes seem to be a troubled place. I guess that we could say that the world is always a troubled place but somehow it can seem to be getting a bit worse. Anger and angry reactions seem to be all around us.

For me the reality of Brexit is coming to pass and I don’t like that and it could get more difficult yet. We have destabilisation across the globe and I don’t like that. Then we have North Korea off again producing missiles and winding up the anger of the USA, I don’t like that. Putin…I could go on. It seems like there might be quite a lot to let go of over in the coming months and years

Difficult events in the world can bring back a lot of really big negative reactions with many people. Thinking about this took me back to the Manchester bombing in 2017. At that time I had two families that were caught up in the incident. Luckily none of them were physically hurt though they had all seen people who were killed and they were showing high levels of post traumatic stress disorder PTSD. That scar of these events will remain with many people for such a long time. Yet after this event, amongst all the potential for hatred and retribution there came the love and forgiveness of a collective acceptance and forgiveness in concert of those refusing to be cowed by the terrorism. In a deeply emotional experience Oasis sang…

…don’t look back in anger…  

There are no words more appropriate to this event and to our lives.  

We all look back on life, we have a choice of looking at it positively or negatively. We have a mindful choice, do we ruminate and feed the negative events of life with our anger and allow the negativities to grow in our mind and our emotions? There is another option in life that is to feed the positive events of life with our love, ruminate on those and allow them to grow positively in our mind and our emotions.

Just after I started doing this podcast and blog there has been the shooting of a journalist in the Netherlands. On top of that is the apparent growing knife crime here in the UK with several people being killed each week. Every news broadcast tells us things to be angry about. If we are to move on from our anger about any events whatever they are we need to let them go. In general this is termed forgiveness and that idea makes many people feel angry. “Why should I forgive those people after what the did?”

Forgiveness and letting go

We need to let go of whatever is holding us back, of those things that keep us stuck in the past. These negative emotional attachments to unresolved events limit our ability to move forward, they stunt our creativity and weigh us down. To let go, to forgo, to forgive allows us to move forward unencumbered into the rest of our lives. 

Just as in the Step One, from the Live In The Present course and book, we need to let go of all our negative attachments right back to the moment of our birth. Holding onto negative past is a choice, though we may not realise it. In mindfulness we can choose to be different, to let go and enjoy this wonderful thing called life. If you haven’t already done so then visit step one on the website and complete the exercise focussing on any negativity that you are holding and let it go. That mindful journey begins right here, right now. the option is to let go of your negative emotions and attachments and embrace your positive future.

Whatever your faith, religion, ethnicity, nationality, orientation, or beliefs enjoy this moment. As we move into this strange post Brexit, post Covid world we all need to be as positive as we can possibly be with each other. We will be tested and we will need to let go of negative anger and look after each other.

Take care and have a fabulous life and look after each other.

Sean X

Truth & Lies

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“Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable”

George Orwell

George Orwell, author of Animal Farm, described a political landscape that I am starting to see developing all around me. I see laws and rules being created only then to see them not being  followed or totally ignored by those people who created them in the first place. The obvious was the fiasco of Dominic Cummings and the Barnard Castle affair and the Part Gate nonsense.

‘All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others’

In the Orwell story the pigs are the political leaders of the farm community, a bit unfair to pigs but I get her point. The leaders start off by staying that all the animals on the farm are equal. Over time, as the leaders fail to uphold the very rules that they had created they decided to change it slightly. So now, ‘some’, being them, were more equal than others.

Today I have been listening to a business person who is incandescent with rage with our leaders. This is because the restriction rules, that have not ever applied to any of them, are now to be further extended. This is now seen as their intention all along and that they are all a ‘bunch of lying bleep bleeps’. This person who I have previously seen as a mild mannered person is now on the edge of direct action and sounding almost mutinous. Then they quoted Harv Eker at me. Harv Eker is the author of the millionaire mind which is both a course and a book enabling people to reach their desired potential.

‘No one ever changed the world by watching X Factor’

Harv Eker,  famously said this quote. In reality I suspect that no one ever did anything while watching X Factor. Marx once said that religion was the opiate of the people, the thing that kept them quiet and in their place. I suspect that religion has now been overtaken by the various forms of media that fill our lives and often have the effect of stopping us doing things and being creative.

How many hours do we spend each week doing nothing other that being intoxicated by the media on our phones, tablets and televisions?  Often we watch other people, that the media present to us as icons of success, many of us watch and wish that we were  famous or as rich as them. Yet when we are watching them on the media we are not doing the things that would give us the very things that we desire. If religion once served to keep us, the people, quiet acquiescent and in order then has television and the media now have taken the place of religion as the social drug that numbs the senses of the public so that most of us do very little and just accept our lot?  

The business person that I was talking to was saying that most people have become an apathetic bunch of yes people who now just do what we are told and never question anything. Least of all the team of politicians left or right. Are we just changing one version of apathy for another?

In a very real way the world is changing. The climate is changing. Economically and politically things are changing. With another new variant of Covid things continue to changing.

The only constant thing in life is change 

Heraclitus

The universe that we inhabit is subject to constant the change. We can call it evolution or decay but nothing ever stays the same. However, most change is gradual. Occasionally change is sudden abrupt and intense.

The person who has been sharing their frustrations with me is talking about a need to actively do something about the situation. This quite shocked me because they would be seen as a pillar of the community and a part of the constant unchanging landscape of life supporting the status quo come what may. If they are getting in the mood for rebellion, then, I see society in trouble and at a much deeper level that people can imagine. Then he begins to talk about Nigel Farage as a potential saviour and I see the free world slipping further to the right and a potentially fascist mindset. 

We seem to be at a point where there is big change coming. The problem is that it only works when change happens creatively and productively and we move forward together. When change happens without a coherent plan and is imposed on us it can be destructive, devastating and difficult.

Maybe it is not quite the time to man (person)  the barricades but it might not be that far off.  As I keep saying…

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

If we don’t we maybe in a third world war. Whatever happens the issue will always be the same. We all need to survive this thing called ‘life’. Success at any level of life takes commitment and time and consistent and persistent action. If we can fine the time to be persistently and consistently kind and we might just make it. Fingers crossed.

Take care

Sean x

Your Brain Can Be Fooled

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How do we know what we are belong told is true?

How do we know if what we believe is real?

We are all told things from the day we are born about life, other people, history and events. Politicians, teachers, religious leaders, advertisers, propagandists, to the covid doom sayers and conspiracy theorists and even our loved ones all want us to share their point of view and to believe what they tell us.

Currently with wars and the climate changing we are facing so many decisions both individually and collectively that will effect the future of planet Earth. How do we know any of it is real? The story below, that I was told many years ago, makes me think about how easy it is for us to believe what we want to hear and not question it’s reality.

The Story Of Two Men

Two men, both seriously ill, occupied the same hospital room.

One man was allowed to sit up in his bed for an hour each afternoon to help drain the fluid from his lungs.

His bed was next to the room’s only window

The other man had to spend all his time flat on his back.

The men talked for hours on end.

They spoke of their wives and families, their homes, their jobs, their involvement in the military service, where they had been on vacation..

Every afternoon, when the man in the bed by the window could sit up, he would pass the time by describing to his roommate all the things he could see outside the window.

The man in the other bed began to live for those one hour periods where his world would be broadened and enlivened by all the activity and colour of the world outside.

The window overlooked a park with a lovely lake.

Ducks and swans played on the water while children sailed their model boats.. Young lovers walked arm in arm amidst flowers of every colour and a fine view of the city skyline could be seen in the distance.

As the man by the window described all this in exquisite details, the man on the other side of the room would close his eyes and imagine this picturesque scene.

One warm afternoon, the man by the window described a parade passing by.

Although the other man could not hear the band – he could see it in his mind’s eye as the gentleman by the window portrayed it with descriptive words.

Days, weeks and months passed.

One morning, the day nurse arrived to bring water for their baths only to find the lifeless body of the man by the window, who had died peacefully in his sleep.

She was saddened and called the hospital attendants to take the body away.

As soon as it seemed appropriate, the other man asked if he could be moved next to the window. The nurse was happy to make the switch, and after making sure he was comfortable, she left him alone. Slowly, painfully, he propped himself up on one elbow to take his first look at the real world outside.He strained to slowly turn to look out the window besides the bed. It faced a blank wall.

The man asked the nurse what could have compelled his deceased roommate who had described such wonderful things outside this window.

The nurse responded that the man was blind and could not even see the wall. She said, ‘Perhaps he just wanted to encourage you.’

The bottom line is that you don’t have to believe what you are told. Keep an open mind and consider what is it the is behind the words? Why are they being said? Don’t believe everything that you are told unless you have some evidential truth to go on.

Positive discrimination is a powerful skill.

And, by the way, it is okay to enjoy fantasy and fiction. It can be fun.

Take care

Sean x

 

Nature and Mental Health 

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This week we are revisiting our relationship with nature and the effect that it has on our mental health and wellbeing. Finally the rain seems to have stopped and we are enjoying some sunshine. I was reminded of when I was looking out of the window of my apartment in Doha Qatar when I was working at Sidra Hospital.  Below me the City was a busy place and I could see at least a thousand houses. Each house full of people, thousands of people. The roads full, sometimes gridlocked, as all these people rushed from somewhere to somewhere else. All in a frenzied dash that is, for many human beings throughout the world, normal everyday life. I was struck by the overwhelming concept of ‘just how many of us human beings are there living on this planet?’

Ed and I were talking about nature, being in nature and living with nature. He had just arranged a family cycling day which attracted over 300 people who took their cycles on private tracks through a private estate. The families were riding through the woods in touch with nature. Also that day it rained, heavy reason, so a lot of what the day was in a mud bath. This just added to the fun and the sense of being free and in the woods with nature.

It can be hard in a desert, that is distinctly beige, to feel connected to nature. I am used to the European landscapes of rolling green hills and mellow fruitfulness. The sandy colours seem so flat. I also realise that people living in hot countries do not go out side very much. If I walked from here to the store, exactly one kilometre, which would be no big deal in the UK but in 45 degrees at 6pm with 80% humidity it can feel quite a task.

Talking to Ed and looking out of the window now makes me realise how easy it is to lose touch with nature. We seem to have become pretty clever at creating artificial environments to be in. In the Middle East we go from the air conditioned apartment to the air conditioned car. On work days we then go from the air conditioned car to air conditioned office. At the weekends we go from the air conditioned car to the air conditioned shopping mall and all the time we hardly touch nature at all.

This is also becoming true in Europe. We have created our artificial living environments with double glazing and central heating. In one part of the world we have created a way of living where we go inside to get out of the heat while in another part of the world we go inside to get away from the cold. Either way we have ceased to live with nature. And when we do go out we sit in our cars a bubble outside of the nature around us.

I am struck by the idea that should the electricity fail so that we could no long cool or heat our living spaces or run our EVs we would all shortly die out. I suspect that we have become so removed from nature that we would no longer know how to live and survive without the technology that surrounds us.

Technology is really great. It created the iPad that I am typing this on and the recording facilities that we record the podcast on. It will also have created whatever device you read this or listen to the podcast on but, without electricity all of this, all of our lives and our well being would come to an immediate end. With global warming if we all retreated to the woods and lit fires to survive we would just make the situation worse. I agree that we need to get back to nature but we need to get back on her terms not ours. My fear is that we have become to disassociated from nature that we no longer really understand what our relationship should be. The only people left on the planet who would understand this are the Amazonian Indians and other hunter gatherers that live in and with nature very day. Sadly these poor souls, who may have the key to our survival, are being displaced and having their environment degraded and destroyed by the mad rush to clear what is left of the rain forests. 

I have a feeling that decisions about our future on this planet will, if they have not already, be taken out of our hands. Mother Nature is a nice girl unless you cross and then she gets her own back. The loss of the dinosaurs or any of the other mass extinctions that have happened throughout the life of this planet are Mother Nature simply re-establishing a balance. It just might the same thing is about to happen again.

So my message to all of humanity is, do what you can to stop the destruction and enjoy it while you can.

Take care

Sean x