Archive for category: Blog

Just as Christmas gives us the opportunity to look at what was in the past throughout the previous year, to assess it, to keep the experiences that we do want and to discard those experiences that we do not want, New Year allows us to look forward and create the year that we do want. Christmas is the time of ending as the darkness ends and the light begins. New Year is a time of beginnings. That does carry the proviso that there is a difficulty of moving into a new future, into a New Year if we are stuck back in the past. You might need to refer to the previous blog ‘don’t look back in anger’ which is all about letting go of the past.

Thoughts become things
What we think about we bring about. That is as true of everyday as it is of every year. The reality is that you will be writing your script for the year ahead right now. Your success or failure in your endeavours starts with you right now, deciding what will be happening.

An Idea
If you were to project forward to New Years Eve 2018. It is a party held in your honour. Someone has called the gathered throng to silence as they begin to read a speech. The contents of the speech is all about your achievements and successes throughout 2018. How does it sound. Is the substance “well not a lot was achieved due to a lack of energy and will power?” Or would it be “well you wouldn’t believe what has been achieved over the last twelve months?” In reality, what will be in that speech is the mindful choices you are making right now.

This is your choice. Same old same old. Next year you feel all the sense of a year wasted. Or the decision to make this year special, to allow yourself to do, achieve and be as successful as you need to be to make yourself happy. If by the end of next year you are smiling you will have cracked it.

If you haven’t completed the task set out in the ten steps of the Live In The Present book then you might need to go and get a copy and get to it. Understanding the natural laws of human consciousness, letting go, allowing, gratitude, abundance and so on, are the seeds of success. You can, with persistence and consistence, create your life and the best version of you that you desire. You just need to be prepared to do a little work.

This blog is short and simple because the message is short and simple.

The things that you think about you will bring about
You are the author of all that you experience
You are the author of your life
What you feed will grow and what you starve will die
You will never be effected by events but by how you respond to those events
You have choice all day and every day
The choice for happiness is called mindfulness
The choice for unhappiness is called mindlessness

Most importantly you are not alone. There are always people around who will help you overcome your obstacles and create your fulfilment.

There is so much that you can do
Attend a mindfulness course, get a mindful coach, go into therapy, learn to meditate, read everything that you can, listen to positive mindful teachers, Ted talks and audio books.

Gove yourself the value and the time that you deserve to become who you truly are.

Happy New Year

Sean x

When George Harrison sang “here comes the sun” it was all about the end of winter and the joy that comes as things becomes both brighter and warmer in the spring and summer. But, can we have too much of a good thing?

With a global climate that is getting increasingly hotter we might indeed end with too much of a good thing. The question of the day, indeed a question of vital importance to us all, is “is global warming real”? What do you think?

As far back as 1824 scientist were registering their concern about the effects of fossil fuels and the effects that carbon dioxide was having and would have on planet Earth. Scientific research increased during the1970s and 80s. Most scientists are now predicting that our use of fossil fuels will lead to a warming of the surface of the planet and create global warming that could, in the end, become devastating for the planet and for all of human kind and every other living being on the planet. Well, most people seem to agree except for apparent “experts” such as Donal Trump, that well known scientists and climate expert, shouting them down calling them ‘gloom mongers’.

The one thing that was promised to Britain with global warming and a warmer earth, was cool dry summers and warm wet winters. My experience is that is what we now have. The scorching summers of the 60s and 70s have disappeared as did the British holiday makers as they chased the sun on various package deals to Spain. The cold winters with real Christmas Day snow, often several feet thick, has become an occasional sprinkling of white.

The fact that it is getting warmer would seem to to be beyond dispute. The question is why? Donald Trump is re-energising the US coal industry suggesting that global warming is nothing to do with human intervention and simply one of the many cycles on Earth’s planetary activity.

As I understand it we are carbon based organisms living in a carbon based world. Where we are all subject to the carbon cycle. Carbon is used to construct living matter and then broken down and released back into the atmosphere to be recycled into new growth.

Everything is on fire

When the pages of an old book are turning yellow they are, actually burning but very slowly. The pages are slowly turning back into carbon, this is the carbon cycle. The carbon was captured in the trees that created the wood pulp that made the paper. Fire is a catalyst that increases the rate of the carbon cycle that is going on any way. Fire releases carbon and energy, in the form of heat, into the atmosphere.

The carbon based system that we live in stores carbon into the growth of vegetation or carbon is held in the natural storage of the seas. This has been, throughout creation, a natural process of living and dying. Example plants and trees, that need CO2 to grow, soak it up and turn it into vegetation that is either eaten by animals and turned back CO2 when the animals die, or as leaves fall to the ground carbon is released as the leaves rot down to provide nutrients for further vegetation growth.

Coal is the fossilised deposit of the forests of the past. As they died and were buried they were compressed into what we now call coal. The coal, just like the forest is full of carbon. This is what is released into the atmosphere when we burn it.

The natural process of growth and decay, birth and death, of carbon storage and release, has been in balance on the planet throughout time. Then the humans arrived and it all changed.

If the carbon released into the atmosphere is greater than the planets ability to store it the system goes out of balance. The atmosphere of the earth, apart from providing the oxygen that we all breath filters out the effects of the sun. The CO2 creates a blanket in the atmosphere that increases the heat at ground level.

We are having three main effects, I can see, that are contributing to global warming. The first is this issues of putting more and more CO2 into the atmosphere. The second is deforestation that has removed the planets ability to store carbon in vegetation. It is said that the forests are the lungs of the world. Right now the world if suffocating. The third effect is methane.

Methane
Described as the ‘Greenhouse gas’ is said to be more dangerous than CO2, though once in the atmosphere methane does react with oxygen to create even more CO2. The majority of methane in the atmosphere is said to come from ruminants. That is, animals that ferment vegetation as food in their gut and then both fart and burp methane. It is estimated that the 1.5 billion cows and bulls currently on farms account for 18% of all harmful greenhouse gases. That is more than the entire negative CO2 effect of the entire US economy.

So, number one we have deforested the planet. That would has been burned. And two, the land that has been cleared of tress is now used to raise cattle for human food consumption. Both actions become a recipe for a warmer planet. I have not even included the effects of burning oils and gas and the love affair that we have with the motor car. As I write this I am on the plane about top head off to Qatar. The plane is half full and I do not have a clue how much fuel it will take to get us all there, I do not know what my own carbon footprint is in the journey.

There are things that we can all do to reduce our individual effect on the carbon cycle and collectively reduce global warming. Now, many people will say ‘what is the point of me doing anything, I am only one person, I can’t have much of an effect?’ And yet a lot of people doing the same thing can have a big effect.

The two biggest things that we can do immediately that will have a huge effect on global warming. The first is use less fuel. Walk rather than taking the car and cycle to work and the shops if you can. If you are going to drive try and go electric as a bike or a car. The second is stop eating meat, especially beef, and stop consuming all dairy products. Becoming veggie or, if you can, vegan has an enormous effect of your carbon footprint. The last things is recycle all that you can and where possible by things that are not packaging that requires recycling in the first place. Only time will tell what effect we are really having on the climate. The trouble is that by the time that we realise it, it might just be too late.

I am veggie considering becoming vegan and currently looking at electric bikes. I am thinking that if I cycle, with a bit of electric support, I could reduce my carbon footprint without being sweaty at my destination and at the same time get fit. Sounds like a win, win.

Take care and check your footprint

Sean x

A listener messaged in asking Ed and I to talk about how to cope with the effects of children leaving the home and in this case going off to university.

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 has 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 on the part 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 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 case 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 its 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 their self, the family and the child for their departure. Talking obviously helps but it is the practical issues and skills that effect a child most. These might include…

Using 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 now.

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 will have been along time since they really had ‘us’ time and 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 over 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 a 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 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

A listener emailed asking for a podcast on why do we have funerals? He told a story how both his wife’s Mum and Dad died last year and they wanted their ashes scattered on a particular beach on their wedding anniversary.

“We scattered their ashes together in a trench we dug in the sand as the tide came in. We wrote their initials by the trench and then drank a toast to them as the waves washed it all away. It was more moving than I was expecting and very apt. In a moment the initials, the trench and their ashes were all gone – with one wave. Just like everything we have built in our lives, and our lives themselves, end in an instant, never to be seen again.”

Our listener was very moved by his experience and was left with the question ‘Why do we have funerals?’ Who are we doing it for? Is it for the person who has died or is it for us?

I would say that although a funeral may represent the wishes of the person who has died and as they are the only person who will not be at the ceremony, I think that funerals are about the needs of the living.

In acknowledging that I intend to buy my own funeral but on the basis that my family can adapt and change whatever they want to meet their needs. My own needs will already have been met, in fact are already met, and in all honesty once I have finished with my body I do not really mind what happens to it. Be it donated to science, buried or burnt, it will be recycled once I am done with it, the only people that my remains will effect is my family. I think it would be supremely unfair of me to tell them what their needs are.

So, if I am right and the funeral is really for the living then why do we do what we do? In most societies the ritual of funeral is dictated by what we believe happens after death. For both humanists and atheists the religiosity is not there and the event can be treated materialistically. In these ceremonies I find there is more grieving than in those that believe that life continues after death.

Once religiosity is in the ceremony there are often issues of ‘the after life’ and that can lead to issues of judgement. Was the person a good person or a bad person? Are they heading for the pearly gates or the fiery furnace? And, when the belief is in re-incarnation there can be the celebration of life, or lives, to come.

Where do we come from and where are we going to?
This question seems to dominate our funeral attitudes. It seems strange to me that the first part of this question, where do we come from, does not hold fear and distress. When a child is born we all clap and smile but we don’t question if there was a pre-life. The second part of the question does for many create fear and apprehension and we do have a concern as to where we are going and we do then question is there an after life.

So what do we do with our dead bodies?
Some believe that cremation (ashes to ashes) is the appropriate way to dispose of a body while other believe that the body should remain intact and be allowed to decay naturally into the ground (dust to dust).

Cultures that worship the ancestors may collect bones and keep all the bones of many generations in the same building or cave that becomes a focal point of spiritual observance. To obtain the bones some cultures would put the dead, respectfully, on the rocks allowing the birds to pick them clean. While other cultures seek to preserve the body for the after life through mummification.

Whatever happens to the body, and I may be wrong here, it does not effect the person who once inhabited it. So, what we do with the remains is for the benefit of those that are alive not the dead.

My resource of the week is a death file. I have seen so many situations where the necessary information was never shared before someone’s death so that after the event people were hunting for the necessary information. I will ensure that my family have all that ready for them, including a paid for funeral which, as I said they can adapt to fit their needs. I would suggest that, whatever age you are now, you consider doing the same. None of us know the time of our ending just as none of us know where we are going.

Take care, be happy and live whatever life remains for you with a smile

Sean x

Imagine there is a party or a gathering of some sort. One person is sat in the corner quietly talking with everyone, greeting people and asking them how they are. Into the scene steps a second person. They come through door dressed flamboyantly, their greeting loud and they automatically demand and get everyone’s attention. Which of these two people is the most confident?

Now. In most cases we might assume that the confident person is loud and flamboyant and yet in most cases the one who needs and/or demands attention is usually the one with the least confidence. They are looking to other people to validate them and tell them that they are ok. The person who sits quietly connecting with people in a none demanding way is the one with the confidence. They do not need other people to reinforce their value or worth because they know themselves quite well.

Often the world is the opposite way to what it seems. People that make the most noise and seek recognition are usually those with the least confidence, while those that do not need the validation of others are usually the most confident. Actors, musicians, and politicians all stand in front of thousand of people needing their approval.

A good example is Donald Trump who lacks the confidence to accept negative feedback or criticism though he can appear to demonstrate confidence with the tweets that he pours out. Yet, his behaviour is that of someone who has little confidence and little self esteem. He can bully and shout and get angry, none of which are qualities of confidence, they are all qualities of emotional and personal weakness.

When this weak position of Trump is set against an equally unconfident leader in North Korea who seems to believe that the game of ‘my rocket is bigger than yours’ is a serious form of communication, we are right back in the school yard with a couple of unconfident kids trying to get attention. Scary stuff.

As I write this the latest news flash is that North Korea has just suffered a terrible nuclear incident. It would appear that at least two hundred people are dead and that a cloud of nuclear fallout, similar to that which followed the Chernobyl accident, is about to be dropped on the world. While it might become true that had the North Koreans not been playing chicken with their nuclear weapons this would never have happened, the confident response would be one of concern, help and compassion. The unconfident response will be to act like they are all getting what they deserve. I am watching for Donald Trumps response to the accident with interest.

In my own world of psychology and self development, through mindfulness, meditation, yoga, Tai Chi and so on, I have seen many, many teachers lose their self confidence to simply be a teacher and become a guru. Again, those that take on the mantle of Guru are those with the least confidence. The confident teachers, and thankfully there are many thousands of them, do not need fame or fortune to support, help and enable others. They simply just do it.

When I walk into a room I don’t want to be ignored but I don’t want to be flattered. I am happy to just be me.

Where are you? Are you happy and confident with who you are or do you need other people to reassure and tell you that you are okay? Do you seek the approval of others or do you have the confidence that goes with self esteem and self worth?

Plato said ‘Know they self’ and these words appeared above the temple to the God Apollo in Delphi. Aristotle said that to know yourself was the first stage of wisdom. Mindfulness is the best way that I know that you can follow to get to know yourself. Strangely in the process of getting to know yourself you also get to know others.

Be mindful, be happy and have the confidence to go to the bathroom mirror, look yourself in the eyes and say ‘who loves you baby’. To do that just for you, with no audience is a huge confidence boost.

Take care

Sean x