Archive for category: Blog

You spend years developing your family. Your kids have good bits and bad bits. There are times when you could happily strangle them all and times when you love their bones. Then when you have learned to live with the madness that is called family hey, they go and leave home. The fact that they have been leaving their junk all around the house, just like a tree wedding leaves in autumn, means nothing, you just want them back. The bird has flown and the nest is empty. Suddenly your role have changed, or maybe even come to an end. This is the time when the answer to the question ‘who are you?’ suddenly changes.

The rites of passage

The sense of the changing role of self happens to us all though it is more so for women. When a woman marries she changes her name and as she normally takes the part as of head of the house, often without the man even realising it, she has changed her role. Then the first child comes along and another set of changes begin and each time the answer to that question ‘who am I?’ changes. As the last child is born, as the last child goes to school, as the last child leaves school, as the last child moves on to university, as the last child leaves home. Each stage presents us with a different sense of who we are. For full-time mums the impact of these changes are much greater.  

We live in an odd world. As primates we would be living in extended family groups. When change happened there would have been a natural stress management from the various relatives supporting each other. Even when your own children had grown up there would be new young ones coming through. In our odd little nuclear units of mum, dad and the kids aloneness and isolation can become common place as evidenced in the general rise of depression, stress and anxiety in western society.

Some of our stress comes from the fact that we do not really understand how to act in this new family situation. There is a confusing shift in the roles that we now play. When you have been a full on parent and your child goes off to uni what contact do we now have with our distanced child? Questions arise..

• Who contacts who?
• How often do I phone, text, skype?
• Do I wait for them to contact me?
• Do I offer the money, resources or wait until I am asked?
• What do I do with their room?
• Do I keep it as a shrine, redecorate it, let other people stay in it….?

What about the family dynamic?

One child moving out can upset the dynamic of the entire family. In some cases this can create feelings of bereavement and loss. Some families will even go though a period of mourning. Siblings may become withdrawn or upset. It may effect their performance at school. I am not being dramatic I am simply stating that changes effect us all.

Often both parent and child do not fully comprehend the importance of the family unit until it is no longer there. ‘We don’t know what we’ve got ‘til it’s gone’.

But hold on, we always knew that this would happen, that this day would come it was just that we have chosen to ignore it. Maybe pretend that it will never happen. The awake mindful parent is preparing them self, the family and the child for their departure. Talking obviously helps but it’s the practical issues and skills that effect a child most. These might include…

• How to manage money
• Knowing how to budget and pay bills
• Making a shopping list
• Basic cookery skills
• How to use a washing machine 
• The art of ironing

The rules of engagement

Agreeing all the rules of contact and money and doing their washing should all have been discussed prior to the event. As long as they know that they can get you when they need to they will be okay. So what about you?

So who are you now?

If you have been a full on parent the chances are that you have lost the sense of who you are, what your own real needs are and what it is that you want to do with your life from now onwards.

Many couples caught up in the rush and business of raising a family lose contact with each other. Often in the silence of the empty nest two people stare across the void at each other thinking ‘Who are you?’ For it may have been along time since they really had any ‘us’ time. For many this is the chance to get back in touch. Talking, sharing and date nights can help. The question ‘who am I’ extends to ‘who are we’ and ‘where are we going from here?’

I guess that after all empty nest syndrome, just like bereavement is not an illness it is a process and the better prepared for it the better we process it when the time comes.

My resource for the podcast was to look at John Bowlby’s attachment theory. Our ability to deal with endings is dependent on what happened to us when we were young and how we learned to attach and detach in our relationships. What we learned as children is played out in adulthood. The good news is that even if you do not like your current attachment styles you can re learn and re frame them so that they can serve you better.

The biggest gift that we can give our children is independence and confidence and to do that we have to learn to let go and allow them to live and make mistakes.

Take care and be happy

Sean x

Someone once said to me that “Networking” is what fishermen did when the weather was bad. They would repair their nets so that when the weather improved they could be out there catching fish with good tackle. Thinking about it when we go networking we are preparing for when we can do our work, same thing really.

We all network. We have all always networked, creating friends, family and society. This is how we have survived throughout evolution. Getting to know other people to our mutual advantage has kept us safe, warm, fed and clothed. If you think about it a family is a network of individuals working together but is also a business, a school or a hospital. We might even consider the same to be true of a village, town or a city. If we really got our act together we might even consider all of humanity or even all of creation as one huge network. 

We know that all of nature functions on the basis of symbiotic mutuality. All the bugs in our gut help us survive by digesting our food. We are helping them survive and reproduce as well by providing the ideal environment. The bee collects the honey to feed its young and in so doing pollinates the plant as does the humming bird with the flower. Even predator and prey live in a mutually cooperative balance. If the prey are over predated then predators all die out. Equally if the predators all died out the prey would run riot and destroy the environment that supports them. The systems in which all of creation exists are a maintained in symbiotic balance of mutuality.

Networking, in the modern sense, is actually no different. However some people forget the mutuality bit. When we consciously seek to network to promote ourself, our business or an idea we are seeking a mutual symbiosis which other people or organisations that will help us achieve what it is that we are wanting to do. Most people enter the networking scenario with the attitude of ‘what can I get?’ In reality networks only ever truly work when the attitude is one of ‘what can I give?’ If everyone in a network gives, it doesn’t matter if it is a family business or a country, then everyone’s needs will be met. If everyone in the network takes then in the end no-one’s needs will be met.

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

The failure of all systems comes about when there is more taking than giving. This is true in nature, biology, physics, chemistry, electricity, psychology and so on. All systems comply with the same laws.

The natural form of a network is where we all give and we all receive. In face to face networks this can be easier to achieve. When networks operate online this can be a little more difficult. Anyone who has attempted to develop networks through FaceBook and other social media will appreciate this. What people tend to towards online is influencing or building a tribe of followers who will give them more of what they want. What they are giving is either product information or life style advice.

What is your network?

Who is in your group, your family, your team, your network? What do you give to your network? What do you get from your network? Do you need to give more? How could you change it to get more of what you need?

Be happy and keep networking

Sean x

I have a fascination with people. I am continually intrigued by the way that we think, feel and act and as I observe the world around me and my fellow human beings I often ask ‘why’? Why are they saying that or doing that? Where does that feeling come from and what does it mean?

As I observe behaviour I see one fundamental difference in people that is to do with what I like to call ‘awakeness’. Some people are really awake and aware. They are engaged and actively involved in life. They have a drive to experience and learn and continue to develop as a person. Over all it seems that this has nothing to do with age. Strangely I see people in their middle age at 40 to 50 who have old minds, brains and ideas and I see people at 80 and 90 who are as bright as buttons still engaged and learning.

Now, I would say that answer to the above question is ‘yes’. I believe that people that are intelligent live longer but I also believe that intelligence can be learned. I accept that we all have a genetic predisposition to develop in certain ways but for all of us this is only a starting point. Our brain and our mind is no different to a muscle in our body. If you exercise a muscle it grows bigger and stronger. Exactly the same is true of your brain and your mind. The more you exercise it the more it grows and develops. The majority of intelligence is learned. I am sure that the nature nurture debate will roll on but in neuropsychology we know that the brain has plasticity and will grow change and develop if we exercise it.

If we practice playing a piano our brain will develop in ways that accommodate this. The same is true of every skill and habit that we have developed throughout life. In most cases what we call intelligence is simply one of the habits that we taught our brain. The ability to think clearly, to discriminate and to analyse are skills that can be learned. Those people that do have a flexibility in both their thinking and their feeling. Strangest of all is that those people also seem to maintain physical flexibility as well.

I see this every time I go to the University of the Third Age, the organisation for life long learning. When I give talks the average age is 80 the younger ones are in their 70s and the older ones in their 90s. I am forever astounded at the flexibility of their minds but also the flexibility of their bodies.

With what are now beginning to understand about the gut brain and the heart brain it is becoming clearer that both the brain and body run together, they work together. Flexibility of mind and body seems to naturally go together.

I suspect that the greatest effect on longevity, alongside medicine, is the printing press, education and books. We know that reading develops the brain but so much more…

Research shows that reading not only helps with fluid intelligence, but with reading comprehension and emotional intelligence as well. You make smarter decisions about yourself and those around you. Reading does in fact make us more intelligent. 

Ref: bigthink.com

…reading gives muscle to your memory. While the brain isn’t actually a muscle, it can still benefit from a good workout. Furthermore, it’s surprising just how reading can make you healthier.

I am suggesting that you might like to check out this article. One of the issues it talks about is how Alzheimer’s can be held off through the simple act of reading. Which was the main theme of international book week this year.

Be happy and grab a good book

Take care

Sean x

In virtually all forms of symbolism water represents emotion and creativity especially in the magic of dreams and visions. When we dream of water it is an expression of inner emotions being processed. The dreams may be hard, easy or simply interesting or mystifying. Each dream is an expression of what is going on inside us. Often the dream is a symbolic message in which we are attempting to resolve our inner conflicted feelings.

If in the dream the water is calm, deep and peaceful then so are our emotions. If we find ourself being tossed around on a turbulent and rough sea we are processing deep and troubled emotion. Should we be lost at sea in a rudderless boat then we are lost and directionless in life. If the well has run dry or the rivers are empty and the land is cracked, we are in an emotional drought and have run out of all feelings and are left barren and our life has become meaningless. If we find our self drowning in the water we are being overwhelmed by the emotions that we are having to deal with in our life.

We also have images of water as the bringer of life. In the symbol of Aquarius water is being poured on the ground. This is not being thrown away it is feeding the ground allowing the plants to grow, develop and bear fruit. This is an act of creation. In Genesis in the Bible  God said… 

…“Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters.” Thus God made the firmament, and divided the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament; and it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven.

Water is a magic symbol for many reasons mainly because it has so many unique qualities. The first is that it comes about by the mixing of two gases together, oxygen and hydrogen. This combination forms H2O that has three forms, water as liquid, ice as a solid and steam as a gas. 

There is the astronomical aspect as the tides are formed by the moon pulling the body of water around the earth. The tides become higher when the elliptical orbit of the moon brings it closer to the earth and increases the gravitational effect.

Water has another magical property in that it cannot be compressed. If you fire a small ball of water at speed it will react like a bullet and even go right through a steel plate. This why water can be so painful when we belly flop when diving.

Water is also the symbols of cleansing. Pontius Pilot washes his hands to symbolise that he is washing away his responsibility for the fate of Jesus. The priest will either  dunk you in water or wash your forehead to wash away your sins. In Shakespeare Lady Macbeth attempts to wash away the ‘damned spot’ of her guilt that she sees on her hands.

Water can be pure emotion. Bad weather and rain can drive us indoors to huddle by the fire and cosy up. We, in Britain, live with rain but we love to moan about it. As they say…

…there is never bad weather only the wrong cloths.

When we look at the emotions of life that may be our hurts, losses and fears we can either huddle away from them or we can embrace them and learn to live with them in a very real sense.

Life is not about waiting for the storm to pass

It is about learning to dance in the rain. 

And if you get good at it you might just be able to boogie in a thunderstorm, jive in a hail storm and fly in a tornado.

Stay happy and don’t worry about getting wet.

Take care

Sean x

This week Ed and I had been talking about our working days and comparing the differences. This ended with him suggesting that we do this weeks podcast as a ‘day in the life’, so we have started with me as the Psychotherapist, next session we should do a day in the life of Ed.

So, what does my day look like? Well, I normally spontaneously wake around 5am and normally I am up and at it unless it is a weekend or a day off. I might wake and then decide to go back to sleep if I do not need to get up. Early rising is a habit that goes back to living in ashrams and communities when I was younger, the habit just stuck. One of us would be up early to run the 6am yoga and meditation session followed by breakfast. This means that on days when I work in the hospital I am in by 6.30 and normally see my first patient at 7am.

Because I see people from all around the world, using online media, I have to be aware of differing time zones. If I am off to Dunedin in New Zealand they can be 12 hours ahead. So I may be sitting in the dark at 9 or 10pm in the UK talking to someone sitting on their deck drinking a squeezed orange in the morning sun. New York is seven hours behind so that I am having lunch as they are getting out of bed and Qatar is currently two hours ahead, three in our winter, whereas further round the Gulf it can be another hour ahead. As staff in the Gulf begin their working day at 7am local time I may need to be online by 4am uk time just as they are arriving at work. That can make for a long day if I then have to be in New Zealand for 10pm uk time.

I have been covering England, Scotland, Wales, Southern Ireland, Brussels, New Zealand, Australia, Odessa, USA, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Iraq and Iran. Half of my working life is now spent on online.

In the day that we looked at I did an early until late with a few meditation breaks in between. I was up at 4 am, meditation, had a shower and then saw four people online in the Middle East. Meditation, breakfast then three people face to face in the UK. Next off to New York for an hour, a seminar in the Middle East followed by a home visit to a disabled client. Tea, Meditation, then on line to Middle East and one face to face, meditation and the day was done.

Not all my days are that long or that intense, many are lighter and easier. Psychotherapy is rather like the emergency room. If someone showed up in The emergency room (ER) needing to be stitched up they would never be told, ‘okay, come back next week and we will sort you out’. It is the same with emotional and psychological issues. When someone needs to be seen they need to be seen now. Often people with emotional issues go onto a long waiting list, and very often they will also be medicated to suppress their symptoms. In my work and my life, whenever possible, I will attempt to see someone when they need to be seen rather than let them languish on a waiting list. People tell me that I mad and that I work too hard. I survived my problems in life because other people were prepared to go that extra mile for me and not simply write me off. I try and repay their kindness to me by helping others…

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

Take care, be happy and look after each other…

Sean x